The Family of Mayer & Babetta (née Stern) GOLDMANN

The history of the Goldmann family in Germany covers a span of at least one hundred and fifty (150) years. The first specific date for their presence in the state of Thüringen is 1799, when Mayer Goldmann was born in Marisfeld. When exactly the parents of Mayer Goldmann came to Thüringen (and from where), we do not know, nor do we know the names of his father and mother.

The Goldmann family was probably among the founding families of the Jewish community of Marisfeld as it took root in the middle to late 1700s. In 1826, when the number of Jewish households in the village was restricted to twenty-five (25), the Goldmann family was one of these so-called ‘protected’ families/Schutzjuden, along with the Bärs, the Frankenbergs, the Kahns, the Wertheimers, and the Walthers. These families, with a total number of 122 members, were allowed to remain in the village as long as they had working capital of at least 300 Reichstaler.

Mayer was a cattle dealer/Viehhandler. In August 1841, age 42, he married 29-year-old Babetta Stern from Schwarza, a village 15 km north of Marisfeld with a Jewish community of about 310. A year later, the first child of Mayer and Babette was born; sadly, the “little boy/ein Knäblein” lived but a day at most. Three more children — all sons — were born between 1850 and 1855 and they thrived. While difficult to decipher, the entry in the Family Register of the Marisfeld Matrikel suggests that Mayer and Babetta both died in 1887. A gravestone for Babetta in the Marisfeld Jewish cemetery has been identified and it is probable that Mayer is nearby, but erosion has worn away the inscription.

In the mid-1860s when Jews were able to move from villages such as Marisfeld to towns and cities such as Themar, Meiningen, and Suhl, Mayer and Babetta Goldmann chose to remain in Marisfeld. The eldest son, Philipp, also remained in Marisfeld; upon his marriage in 1876, he brought his bride, Sophie Goldschmidt, to Marisfeld and, between 1877 and 1885, they formed a family of two sons and two daughters.

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The sons of Mayer and Babetta started to leave Marisfeld in the 1870s/early 1880s. Restrictions on Jewish residency ceased with the 1871 Germany Constitution and larger urban centres beckoned. In contrast to most of the other Marisfeld Jews who went to Themar or Meiningen, the Goldmann brothers went to Suhl, about 20 km to the northeast. In 1880 Suhl was a small city of about 10,000 residents, of whom only 91 were Jewish. It was a time of opportunity.

Salomon and Isaak were the first to leave Marisfeld; they also married sisters: Jettchen (Henriette) and Minna Heilbrunn. In 1878, Isaak married Jettchen (Henriette) Heilbrunn; and two years later, Salomon married Minna Moses (née Heilbrunn. Minna was widowed at the time of her marriage to Salomon). Isaak and Jettchen Goldmann had three daughters — Clothilde, Bertha, and Henriette. Sadly, Henriette lived just over a month, dying in October 1889. Then Jettchen died in October 1889, presumably of complications related to the birth of Henriette. In 1885, Minna and Salomon had a daughter, Johanne.

Philipp Goldmann was the last of Mayer’s and Babetta’s sons to leave Marisfeld, moving in 1890 with Sophie and several children to Zella-Mehlis, a town of some 3,500 residents close to Suhl. In 1892, their last child, Paula, was born.

We have an outline of the lives of the Goldmann families in the first decades of the 1900s, and below is a brief summary of the information provided in German in the online documents, Jüdisches Leben in Suhl.

In February 1890, Isaak remarried; his new wife was Adele Hendle, who came from Fürth in Bavaria. Between 1891 and 1905, Adele and Isaak had five children: four sons and one daughter. in 1892, Bertha Goldmann, Jettchen’s daughter, died. Adele raised Clothilde as her own child.

Isaak Goldmann operated a coal and construction materials business at Bahnhofstraße 25. The family lived in an Art Nouveau house in Kaleystraße 6 (now Friedensstraße) 1905. They were patrons of the arts, particularly the work of Suhl artists such as Alexander Gerbil whose work they sponsored in several exhibitions.

Like other Jewish families, the young men of the Goldmann family fought and died for their country in World War I. Julius Goldmann, Isaak’s and Adele’s second son, fought on the western front, was wounded and died at the hospital in Frankfurt am Main on 14 May 1918.

By the mid-1920s, the city of Suhl had grown to about 16,000 residents, of whom 150 (0.93%) were Jews. In Zella-Mehlas where PhilippIn 1925, Isaak Goldmann died; Siegfried continued the business with his mother. He married Lilli Sander, a young woman born in Suhl, and in 1925, they had a son, Werner.

Mitte der 1920er-Jahre zählten zur jüdischen Gemeinde etwa 150 Personen (0,93 % von ca. 16.000 Einwohnern; 1932/33 waren es noch 120 Personen). Zur Suhler Gemeinde gehörten auch die in Heinrichs lebenden 10 jüdischen Personen sowie die in Zella-Mehlis lebenden 15 Personen. Den Synagogenvorstand bildeten damals (großenteils dieselben Personen auch noch 1932/33): Daniel Meyer, Daniel Nussbaum, O. Ottensoser. Zur Repräsentanz gehörten Julius Sommer, Isaac Nussbaum, Siegmund Sander, Isidor Sander, Simon Mannheim, Adolf Brylewski. Als Lehrer und Vorbeter war Abraham Levy tätig. Er unterrichtete im Religionsunterricht 12 Kinder. Unter den jüdischen Vereinen ist der gemeinsame Israelitische Frauenverein für Suhl, Zella-Mehlis und Heinrichs zu nennen (gegr. 1895, 1925/32 unter der Leitung von Meta Sander in Suhl mit 35 Mitgliedern). Seine Ziele waren die Unterstützung Hilfsbedürftiger und die Unterhaltung einer Nähestube. Dazu gab es eine Unterstützungskasse für durchreisende Arme.

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When the Nazis came to power in January 1933, we know of twenty-nine (29) Goldmanns who were living in Germany. {We do not know the whereabouts of Sophie Goldschmidt or her son, Moses Goldmann; or of Salomon and his wife Minna (née Heilbrunn). Between 1933 and 1941, twenty-three (23) family members were able to leave Germany and Europe, finding refuge in  England, Palestine, the United States, and as far afield as Shanghai. The last to leave was Werner Goldmann, son of Siegfried and Lilli (née Sander), who travelled overland to Lisbon and left for the United States in April 1941.

When the decisions were taken to deport the German Jews to ghettoes in occupied eastern Europe, seven Goldmanns were trapped in Germany. Jacob and his wife, Hedwig (née Levistein) were the first to be deported; they had left Zella-Mehlis in 1936, moving to Frankfurt am Main. On 20 October 1941, four days after the deportations of Jews from Germany’s major cities began — they were transported from Frankfurt a/Main to Litzmannstadt Ghetto in the city of Lodz in occupied Poland. A year later, Jacob was dead; Hedwig continued in the Ghetto until 1944 when she was murdered in the Chelmno Killing Centre.

On the 29th November 1941, Paula Strauss (née Goldmann) and her husband, Justin, were deported from Nürnberg into occupied Latvia. They were sent to an abandoned estate south of Riga called Jungfernhof. For most of those taken to Jungfernof, it is difficult to determine their date or exact place of death. Of the men, women, and children on the transport of 29 November 1941, only xxx survived; Paula and Justin were not among them.

In May 1942, Clothilde Goldmann and her sister-in-law, Lilly Goldmann (née Sander), were deported from Suhl to Belzyce Ghetto in the Lublin District of occupied Poland. Both were under sixty-five years of age and thus were on this first transport of Thüringen Jews. On 20 September 1942, their 80-year-old mother, Adele Goldmann (née Hendle), was on the second transport from Thüringen, that which took the Jews over 65 years of age to the so-called ‘retirement settlement’ of Theresienstadt. With her departure, the Goldmann family ceased to have a presence in Thüringen or in Germany. Adele Goldmann died just over a month later in Ghetto Theresienstadt.

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Twenty-three members of the family of Mayer and Babetta Goldmann of Marisfeld were able to leave Germany, living now in various parts of the world. In 1988, Beate Voremberg, daughter of Jakob and Hedwig Goldmann, returned to Zella-Mehlis, On 4 May 2016, Stolpersteine were laid for Jakob and Hedwig (née Levistein) Goldmann, and their daughter, Beate Voremberg (née Goldmann) in front of the house in which they had lived in Zella-Mehlis. Beate’s children attended the ceremony and met with the students at the Luther School in Zella-Mehlis who had developed a small exhibit about the Goldmann family. (See ,,Drei Stolpersteine für die jüdische Familie Goldmann.“)

Other family members are ensuring that the family story is captured with documents and images and posted in family trees through genealogical websites such as geni.com, MyHeritage, Ancestry.com, etc. For example, marriage certificates from Herleshausen in Hessen clarified that the two brothers, Salomon and Isaak Goldmann had married two sisters, Minna and Jettchen (Henriette) Helibrunn. The marriage certificate of Salomon and Minna also told us that for Minna Heilbrunn, the marriage to Salomon was her second marriage; her first husband, Moses Moses, had died in 1876. We also now know that Salomon’s and Minna’s daughter, Johanne, and her husband and two sons, were able to escape Nazi Germany in the late 1930s (whether before or after Kristallnacht is not yet clear) to join other German and Austrian Jews in Shanghai. Werner Goldmann, Siegfried’s and Lilli’s (née Sander) son, escaped via the Lisbon, Portugal route aided by the German-Jewish Children’s Aid (GJCA), “an organization, based in America, which acted as the receiving organization for unaccompanied (and some orphaned) Jewish children emigrating primarily from Germany to the United States. It was in charge of posting bonds for the refugee children, (thereby preventing their becoming public charges), obtaining visas, arranging their transfer to the USA and caring for them after arrival.” In November 1943, Werner returned to Germany as an American soldier, serving there until November 1946.

We thank the Goldmanns for sharing their family with us. All of this activity and research contributes to our knowledge of the Jewish families of “Themar und Umgebung” grows.  If anyone reading these pages has questions or comments, or additional information, please contact [email protected].

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Below is the Descendants” List for Mayer and Babetta (née Stern) Goldmann of Marisfeld.

  • Mayer GOLDMANN, b. 11 Aug 1799 Marisfeld, d. 1887
  • ∞ Babetta STERN, b. Apr 1812 Schwarza, d. 1887
  •      1. “ein Knäblein/little boy” GOLDMANN, b. 29 Aug 1849 Marisfeld, d. 30 Aug 1849 Marisfeld
  •      1. Phillip GOLDMANN, b. 08 Jan 1850 Marisfeld, m. 22 Aug 1876, d. 02 Oct 1909 Zella-
  •          Mehlis
  •      ∞ Sophie GOLDSCHMIDT, 14 Dec 1847
  •           2. Heinemann/Heinrich GOLDMANN, b. 21 Dec 1877 Marisfeld, d. 1951 Nahariya/Israel
  •          ∞ Frieda SCHÖN, d. 1944 Palestine
  •                3. Gertrud GOLDMANN, b. 18 Sep 1906 Nordheim, d. Mar 1959 Nahariya/Israel
  •                ∞ Alfred ROSENBLATT, b. 01 Apr 1903 Würzburg, d. Sept 1971, Nahariya/Israel
  •                     4. Berti ROSENBLATT, b. 1930, d. 1947
  •                     4. Pepi ROSENBLATT
  •           2. Githa GOLDMANN, b. 26 Apr 1879 Marisfeld, 1937 to USA
  •           ∞ Charles Wank, b. 09 Mar 1877 Jaroslaw/Poland, 1937 to USA
  •           2. Fanny GOLDMANN, b. 09 Mar 1881 Marisfeld, d. 03 Feb 1897 Zella-Mehlis
  •           2. Jakob GOLDMANN, b. 07 Mar 1883 Marisfeld, murdered 26 Aug 1942 Litzmannstadt
  •               Ghetto
  •           ∞ Hedwig LEVISTEIN, b. 01 Jun 1886 Stadtlengsfeld, murdered Jul 1944 Chelmhof
  •               Killing Centre/Occupied Poland
  •                3. Beate GOLDMANN, b. 6 Apr 1921 Erfurt, 1939/1940 to England/USA, m. 12 Oct
  •                   1947, d. 22 Nov 2010 Rockleigh/NJ
  •                ∞ Heinz/Henry VOREMBERG, b. 03 Jan 1922 Frankfurt a/Main, d. 27 Aug 2012
  •                    Rockleigh/NJ
  •           2. Moses GOLDMANN, b. 19 Mar 1885 Marisfeld
  •      1. Salomon GOLDMANN, b. 27 Oct 1852 Marisfeld, m. 12 Oct 1880
  •      ∞ Minna HEILBRUNN, b. 03 May 1848 Herleshausen
  •           2. Johanne GOLDMANN, b. abt 1885 Suhl, [1939?] to Shanghai, 1947 to USA, d. 15 Feb
  •              1952 Baltimore/MD
  •           ∞ Richard DAVID, 13 Oct 1889, Magdeburg, [1939?] to Shanghai, 1947 to USA, d. 14 Feb
  •              1970 Baltimore/MD
  •               3. DAVID
  •               3. Arnold Avraham DAVID, b. 01 Dec 1925 Berlin, ? to Shanghai, 1947 to USA, d. 11 Dec 1981
  •                Baltimore/MD
  •      1. Isaak GOLDMANN, b. 29 Jul 1855 Marisfeld, d. 22 Mar 1925 Suhl
  •       ∞ (1) 18 Nov 1878, Henriette Jettchen HEILBRUNN, b. 20 Jul 1852 Herleshausen, d. Dec 1889 Suhl
  •           2. Clothilda GOLDMANN, b. 02 Jan 1882 Suhl, murdered 1942 Lublin District/Occupied Poland
  •            (Ghetto Belzyce)
  •           2. Bertha GOLDMANN, b. 07 Apr 1888 Suhl, d. 23 Mar 1891 Suhl
  •           2. Henriette GOLDMANN, b. 03 Sep 1889 Suhl, d. 21 Oct 1889 Suhl
  •      ∞ (2) 19 Feb 1890 Adele HENDLE, b. 11 Apr 1863 Fürth, murdered 30 Sep 1942 Ghetto Theresienstadt
  •           2. Martin GOLDMANN, b. 04 Apr 1891 Suhl, m. 1919, d. 18 Dec 1975 USA
  •           ∞ Irma LUBLINSKI, b. 5 Sep 1894 Schweinfurt, d. 19 Jun 1982 USA
  •           2. Siegfried GOLDMANN, b. 03 May 1892 Suhl, d. 19 Apr 1957 USA
  •           ∞ Lilli SANDER, b. 14 Jan 1896 Suhl, murdered 5 Oct 1942 Lublin District/Occupied Poland
  •             (Ghetto Belzyce)
  •                3. Werner GOLDMANN, b. 06 Jun 1925 Suhl, Apr 1941 to NY, d. 18 Oct 1992 Falls Church/VA
  •           2. Julius GOLDMANN, b. 12 Jan 1896 Suhl, d. 14 May 1918 (WWI)
  •           2. Isabella/Bella GOLDMANN, b. 05 Nov 1903 Germany, d. Apr 2004 [England?]
  •           ∞ Hans E. MEYER, b. 31 Aug 1897 Burgdorf, d. 26 Sep 1978 [England)
  •                3. Peter MEYER, b. 19 Apr 1925 Frankfurt a/Main, d. 6 Sep 2012
  •           2. Fritz/Ze’ev GOLDMANN, b. 02 Apr 1905 Suhl, d. 26 Oct 2010 Jerusalem/Israel

We would like to thank the descendants of Mayer and Babette (née Stern) —In particular Mark L. Goldmann and David Voremberg — who have contributed to our knowledge of the Goldmann family.

Sources:
The sources used to document the individual entries in the Descendants’ List are available on the geni.com profiles that have been posted by Dr. Sharon Meen, in cooperation with other geni.com researchers.

At this time, sources about the Jewish community of Marisfeld and Suhl are available in German. These include:

  1. Hans Nothnagel/ Ewald Dähn: Juden in Suhl – ein geschichtlicher Überblick. Konstanz 1995. Hg. von Erhard Roy Wiehn, Konstanz
  2. Hans Nothnagel/ Hans Michael/ Annekathrin Peters: ,,Eine dokumentarische Nachlese zur Geschichte der Juden in Suhl.” In: Hans Nothnagel (Hg.) Juden in Südthüringen – geschützt und gejagt. Bd. 1 Suhl 1998 S.11-109.
  3. ,,Familie Goldmann, in “Jüdisches Leben in Suhl” – Kleine Suhler Reihe Nr. 25. Hrsg. von der Stadtverwaltung Suhl in Zusammenarbeit mit Holger Aderhold und Annette Wiedemann im September 2008, pp. 16-18