Jenny Grünstein / W. & C. Edelstein

Gilles wrote:

Here is an article of the tragic death of some members of the Edelstein family from Luxembourg in the concentration camp Auschwitz during WWII. How is their relationship?

Kind regards, Gilles
 

Dear Gilles,

Many thanks for these replies. This is indeed all the same family, across three generations. To (try and) summarise their story:

Wolf 'Walter' Edelstein married Bertha Basche Stern in Berlin in 1890. Bertha is the great-great-aunt of a lady on whose behalf I am researching the family. They had three children: Charlotte, Kurt and Martha. When Walter opened his first department store, Warenhaus Walter Edelstein, in Danzig (as it was then) in 1903, the family moved to the city from Hamburg, where they had lived after moving from Berlin. There were eventually three branches of the store in and around the city, but unfortunately the company got into financial difficulties and ceased to exist in 1915.

Charlotte married Wilhelm 'Willy' Meyer in Danzig in 1910; he was killed fighting in France in October 1914. Kurt returned to Berlin and married Adele 'Edith' Labischin, and had two children: Inge (b. 1922) and Gert (b. 1923). Martha married Hermann Jacks, also in Danzig, in 1921. The couple moved to Stettin/Sczeczin and had daughter Marion (b. 1922) and son Heinz (b. 1931).

In 1925, Kurt and his family moved to Frankfurt am Main. Walter, Bertha and Charlotte joined them three years later. Then Kurt took a job/promotion at a department store in Mannheim in 1929, and relocated there with Edith and the children. In February 1932, all the Edelstein family in Frankfurt and Mannheim migrated to Luxembourg City, but the reasons are currently unclear; it could have been this new business opportunity, the increasingly unstable political situation in Germany, the rise of antisemitism, or perhaps all three. Martha and her family joined them in October 1933 as the Nazis were making business impossible for her husband. 

After the Germans invaded Luxembourg, Walter and Kurt were stripped of the shop they had taken over from Jenny Grünstein. Martha, Hermann and their children somehow managed to acquire visas to South America, and eventually settled in New York. The rest of the family, however, were forcibly relocated to the Fünfbrunnen/Cinqfontaines transit camp in October 1941. The Edelsteins were involved with the running of the camp; aged only 18, for example, Gert managed the kitchen, having completed a cook's apprenticeship in the late 1930s. Then, on 28 July 1942, they were all deported to Theresienstadt. Bertha died there about two months later. Between May-October 1944, Charlotte, Kurt, Edith, Inge and Gert were deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau. The older generation all appear to have been murdered upon arrival. Inge was sent to Stutthof, where she died in October 1944. Gert was transferred to a subcamp of Dachau and died there in April 1945, shortly before liberation.

Because of his age, Walter wasn't sent away from Theresienstadt and, remarkably, lived to see liberation in May 1945. After a brief spell in a Displaced Persons camp, he returned to Luxembourg, where he acquired a passport so he could travel to America and be reunited with Martha. He died in New York in August 1952.

From various archives and the former Nazi camp memorials, I have a lot of information about what happened to the Edelsteins in the Holocaust, but as you can imagine, it's very important to me to create a picture of their lives before the war, to honour their memory and keep their stories alive. I have discovered photographs of most of them in the Luxembourg National Archives, and also photos of the branches of Warenhaus Walter Edelstein from Danzig, for which I am very grateful!

Kind regards,

Imogen

jmo wrote:

Here is some information taken from old newspapers from  eluxemburgensia.lu/ , about Abraham Edelstein, tailor in Esch/Alzette / Luxembourg and his son David Edelstein: 

25.5.1927: Birth of David Edelstein, son of Abraham Edelstein, tailor (Schneidermeister), Esch/Alzette, 56 rue Dicks - Dicksstrasse Nr. 56 

 <=12.1925, 7.1926: EDELSTEIN, tailor (Schneidermeister), Esch/Alzette, 45 rue Edison - Edisonstrasse 45, Esch-Alzette


 Is there any family link between Walter Edelstein and Abraham Edelstein? 

If yes, is  Abraham Edelstein perhaps a (the) reason why Walter Edelstein and his son Kurt came to Luxembourg?

Kind regards,

Jean-Marie

Dear Jean-Marie,

Many thanks for your reply. I don't know if there was a family connection between the two, so I will have to look into this if I can!

Kind regards,

Imogen 

Here is some information taken from old newspapers from  eluxemburgensia.lu/ , about Abraham Edelstein, tailor in Esch/Alzette / Luxembourg and his son David Edelstein: 

25.5.1927: Birth of David Edelstein, son of Abraham Edelstein, tailor (Schneidermeister), Esch/Alzette, 56 rue Dicks - Dicksstrasse Nr. 56 

 <=12.1925, 7.1926: EDELSTEIN, tailor (Schneidermeister), Esch/Alzette, 45 rue Edison - Edisonstrasse 45, Esch-Alzette


 Is there any family link between Walter Edelstein and Abraham Edelstein? 

If yes, is  Abraham Edelstein perhaps a (the) reason why Walter Edelstein and his son Kurt came to Luxembourg?

Kind regards,

Jean-Marie

Here is an article of the tragic death of some members of the Edelstein family from Luxembourg in the concentration camp Auschwitz during WWII. How is their relationship?

Kind regards, Gilles