“Will to survive in dark times”
By Thomas Schwämmlein
January 26, 2026
According to the 1935 Nuremberg Laws, Leopold Köstner from Sonneberg should not have lived to see his 23rd birthday.
On May 10, 1942, a train left Weimar station bound for Lublin. Among the freight cars crammed with Jewish Germans was Leopold Rudolf Köstner (1920-1999) from Sonneberg. That the then 22-year-old would live to see his 23rd birthday was unimaginable. On the contrary, the deportation trains from Thuringia, as well as from other parts of the German Reich, had only one destination – death. That people like Köstner survived, in his case for decades, was perhaps the greatest defeat of the National Socialists, who persecuted people with the delusion of genocide, people they believed had no right to life. His life stands as a symbol for the millions who are commemorated on January 27, the Day of Remembrance for the Victims of National Socialist Rule.
The Canadian historian Sharon Meen researched the biographies of the Thuringians deported in 1942, including that of Leopold Rudolf Köstner, although many questions remain unanswered. He was born on November 3, 1920, in Coburg. His parents were Regine Steinfeld and Josef Goldberg, both Jewish. A marriage certificate issued in 1945 listed Regine Steinfeld as “single.” The stigma of illegitimate birth was problematic at that time. This may have been one of the reasons he was adopted by Michael and Elisabeth Köstner in Sonneberg.
The childless couple lived on Coburger Straße, where they rented an apartment from blacksmith Robert Braun. As registration forms in the Sonneberg city archives show, the two married in 1907 and had lived on Coburger Straße since 1918. Michael Köstner (1875-1941) had moved to Sonneberg from Nordhalben in Bavaria. Elisabeth Köstner (1866-1950), née Schaller, came from Schney near Lichtenfels. They were working-class people who adopted the boy to give him a family.
Raised Protestant
Whether there was any relationship between the biological and adoptive parents remains unknown. What is certain is that Leopold was raised Lutheran by the Köstners, and even later, he himself referred to the two Sonneberg residents as his parents. Michael Köstner appears in the address books as a factory worker but likely ran a small shoe repair shop.
There was never any doubt about his origins, and Köstner always considered himself a Protestant Christian and a resident of Sonneberg. His heritage had likely never been questioned by him, since he had parents – the Köstner family. It was only when the Nuremberg Race Laws of 1935 made biological lineage the deciding factor in whether someone could participate in society that he was unable to provide proof of his lineage. He experienced ostracism in his hometown. He had long been on one of the many “blacklists.” After the November Pogrom of 1938, he was deported to the Buchenwald concentration camp near Weimar along with the two merchants Karl Gramowsky and Bernhard Grünspan. Released after a few weeks, he returned to Sonneberg. He harbored no illusions about the situation.
“He probably applied for emigration at that time, stating Spain as his destination and declaring that he spoke Spanish,” Sharon Meen discovered in the Arolsen archive. In his emigration application, he also stated that he was a worker in the toy industry that had made Sonneberg famous.
In 1942, three Jews still lived in Sonneberg, one of whom was Köstner. On May 10, 1942, he was deported via Weimar to the Belzyce Ghetto, a transport intended as a “labor resettlement” and thus meant for younger people. Meen’s research on Köstner proved difficult. What is certain is that he survived the deportation on May 10, 1942, from Weimar to the Lublin/Belzyce Ghetto. Köstner arrived in Lublin on May 12, 1942, and was registered in the Majdan Tatarski Ghetto, which had been established in the second half of April 1942 in the Majdan Tatarski working-class district on the southeastern outskirts of Lublin. “Only Jews classified as fit for work and possessing a J-ID card were allowed to settle in the ghetto; initially, several thousand Jews who had survived the liquidation of the Podzamcze ghetto were transferred to Majdan Tatarski,” the historian explains.
Liberated in Majdanek
The man from Sonneberg was registered with J-ID card number 3452 in the “List of Persons with J-ID Cards Living in the Majdan Tatarski Ghetto (1942).” Living conditions were barbaric, constantly accompanied by further deportations to the extermination camps. On November 9, 1942, the last “resettlement” took place: Two hundred people were murdered on the grounds of the ghetto, and the survivors were taken to the Majdanek concentration camp. Leopold Köstner was among those deported to the Majdanek concentration camp. “In his post-war registration file as a displaced person, both inside and outside camps, Majdanek, Lublin, is listed as his last concentration camp,” Meen said. He was among the few who survived the liberation of this camp.
Like other former prisoners, he was now a Displaced Person (DP), one of those civilians without a home within the territory of the German Reich. A return to Sonneberg? Uncertain. His adoptive father had already died in 1941. Had he returned to Sonneberg in the summer of 1945, he would not have found his mother there either. According to the city archives, it was retrospectively noted on the registration form in May 1945 that she had moved to Untere Marktstraße. Elisabeth Köstner died in 1950. Meen was able to trace Leopold Köstner further in Munich. On July 21, 1945, he married Anastasia Ilasch (1922-2010) in the Protestant church in Munich-Laim. The two may have met in Sonneberg in the 1940s. Ilasch, the daughter of a Catholic farmer from Poland, was a forced laborer at the Siemens-Schuckert factory near Sonneberg. She worked there as an assembler. While both were connected to Sonneberg, Leopold Köstner acted similarly to how he had learned from his adoptive parents in Sonneberg. In 1946, the young couple adopted a little girl, Traudl (later Trudy). Two biological children followed later. Two years later, on March 12, 1948, the family left Germany and Europe and emigrated to the United States. “They traveled based on President Harry Truman’s directive of December 22, 1945, that in the 1946 immigration quotas, victims of Nazi persecution who were in the American occupation zones at the time of the order should be given priority,” explains Meen.
The emigration appears as a turning point in his biography, as the Sonneberg native now always appears with his middle name, Rudolf, and the German Köstner became the more easily understood English Koestner. Since Rudolf couldn’t speak a word of English, just as he hadn’t spoken Spanish before, the young couple faced several challenges. Even on his marriage certificate, Rudolf had listed his occupation as “commercial employee,” whereas years earlier he had always listed it as “worker in the toy industry.” In any case, the young couple refused to give up. He earned his living in the winter with a bread delivery truck and in the summer with an ice cream truck.
Success with Toys
“To earn more money for his family, he sold plush toys designed and sewn by his wife,” writes historian Meen. This led to an almost unbelievable success story: “When he displayed his cuddly toys on the fender of his ice cream truck, he sold more teddy bears than ice cream bars on the Bear Mountain Bridge in New York.” In 1954, the family moved to Newark, Connecticut. Trudy Toys became one of the largest sellers of stuffed animals in the United States. Trudy Toys products frequently appear at online auctions, though they are not part of the German Toy Museum’s collection. The young Leopold and Rudolf Köstner were certainly aware of the self-image of Germany as the former world toy capital.
He repeatedly stated later that he was a worker in the toy industry and that the town was known for this sector. It’s possible that Köstner’s mother, Elisabeth, did piecework at home, and he saw that it was a viable way to earn a living. In 1961, Rudolf and Anastasia Köstner took a trip to Europe. It’s rather unlikely they visited Sonneberg. Besides Trudy, they also took their son, Rudolf Jr., born in 1957, with them on the trip. The Köstners sold their successful company in 1979. He died in Norwalk in 1999. In his obituary, Michael and Elisabeth Köstner were named as his parents. The funeral took place in the Lutheran church. Sharon Meen has extensively researched Köstner’s biography, which is also available online.
However, the historian would like to conduct further research. To date, there are no details about his biological or adoptive parents. Local historian Gaby Schuller from Coburg has taken over the research. Canadian historian Sharon Meen had suggested laying a Stolperstein (memorial plaque) for Leopold/Rudolf Koestner. The city administration told this newspaper that it is favorably disposed to the proposal.
Further Information
Deported from Thuringia
In May 1942, 508 Jews from 42 towns in Thuringia, including Sonneberg, were deported from Weimar to the Belzyc Ghetto. For many, this meant death; very few survived.
Website
Information about the Jews deported from Thuringia is available online. The website offers short biographies as well as further sources. The address is: https://insghettobelzyce.org
Further Research
Sharon Meen would like to continue her research on Leopold Köstner. Anyone with further information can contact her directly. Email address: s.meen79@gmail.com