Elsa (nee Schwarzschild) Ostertag - And back.
As little as was knew about Ernst, we didn’t know much more about Elsa. It was thought that she had come from a well-off, and highly cultured, family which turns out to be true. She had a round face with a big smile and friendly warm eyes that you can see in almost all of the photos of her. She is remembered as being very proper. She was always addressed as, “Granda Oster.” Elsa was likely born in Stuttgart, Germany, lived in Canstatt as an adult with Ernst, and then they settled in Johnson City (Binghamton) New York where Harry, their second born son, first started out here in the states. By 1951 when she applied for a Social Security number, she was already living in Syracuse where she remained until her death in 1975 at 88 years old. Elsa didn’t speak English very well, so it was tough to communicate with her. I believe the last time anyone in the Harry Oster immediate family saw Elsa was when Michael, Enid and Jessica drove through New York in 1972.
Elsa’s family line back, was a complete brick wall for me for a long time. As I’ll get to later in this post, Elsa descends from a large family that came from a small town called Richen which is about five Kilometers north of Eppingen. I have, in the past, come across the people who I now know to be Elsa’s siblings, parents, grandparents and even great grandparents, but I missed the connection until recently. Debbie and I were in the cemetery in Eppingen where at least three generations of the family are interred, but I didn’t realize they were there. I guess we’ll have to back.
Enid (Oster) Locketz, Elsa, and Jessica (Locketz) Schwartz in 1972
Esla (Schwarzschild) Oster and and Great Granddaughter, Jessica (Locketz) Schwartz, 1972
Photos from a visit to Des Moines for Elsa presumably to meet her first grandchild, Enid Oster, probably during the summer of 1947. The other woman in the photo on the left is Mamie (Rubenstein) Jacobs.
(L-R) Enid (Oster) Locketz, Elsa (Schwarzschild) Oster, Helaine (Oster) Damsky ~ 1955
(L-R) Elsa (Schwarzschild) Oster Enid (Oster) Locketz ~ 1955
Elsa and ??
(L-R) The Four Grandmothers at Enid and Michael’s wedding on 9/3/1967, Sarah (Bolnick, Lessman) Rubinger, (Bride) Enid (Oster) Locketz, Mamie (Rubenstein) Jacobs, Elizabeth (Rochlin) Locketz, Elsa (Schwarzschild) Oster.
As we know, Ernst died in 1943. When Harry returned from the war in 1946, he and Phyllis married and settled in Des Moines. I have always wondered why Elsa remained in New York, presumably with no family, for 32 years until her own demise in 1975. I initially thought that perhaps it was because of her other son, Bernard Oster, my grandfather’s brother, Elsa and Ernst’s first born. But by October 16th, 1940 when he filled out his WWII registration card, he was already living in New York City, 200 miles away. Closer than Des Moines, but Elsa and Bernard likely didn’t see each other much.
Bernard Oster’s WWII Registration
Bernard listed himself as self employed. It is thought that he was a hat maker in New York. Perhaps his business name was “Bert Of Paris.” The contents are long gone, but Phyllis re-used the envelope for photos.
Bernard did in fact first emigrate to Paris before coming to the US. He listed Rose Kaufman as his contact in the Old Country. That was his second cousin on the Ostertag side. Throughout the immigration story of the Osters, there are a number of examples of the family being in contact with, and supported by, extended family and distant relatives. In this case, Bernard, or Bert of Paris, made it to safe haven in New York, but his host in Paris, Rose Kaufman, and her son Gabriel, perished in Aushwitz.
The 1950 census confirms this same address for Bernard in New York. He is also listed there as “unable to work.” Bernard’s story in the family pretty much ends there. Years later, Harry would have to make the trip to New York to settle Bernard’s affairs after he was allegedly found to have drowned in the river. Perhaps proximity to Bernard did contribute to Elsa remaining in New York. But while not specifically in Johnson City, or Syracuse, I believe Elsa had a significant network of extended family and friends from Germany in New York.
It was the Schwarzschilds who got the Ostertags out of Germany.
Harry Oster, Hans Daniel Ostertag, was the first in the immediate family (Ernst/Elsa/Bernard/Harry) to leave Cannstatt. In order to do so, Harry had to have a number of things in place, including a sponsor in the USA guaranteeing that he would not become a burden on the state. Harry kept, all his life, the affidavit made on his behalf by Jerome Mendelson, who in 1937 is confirmed in this affidavit to have had a net worth of more than five millions dollars.
It says here that the petitioner’s wife is a cousin of Han’s mother. This is a very distant relation that is not clear. Jerome’s wife was Jennie Hyman who was born in Chicago in 1880. Jennie’s parents were Sigmund and Caroline (nee Schwarzschild) Hyman. Caroline was born in Germany and immigrated to the US in 1865. That was 12 years before Elsa was born. So Jennie (Hyman) Mendelson described here as a cousin to Elsa, is possibly her second cousin…but maybe even more distant that. They likely had never met before and maybe never did afterwards. As it turns out, Elsa had a bother and a sister who would also come to New York and they, too, would each list Jerome Mendelson on their ship manifests as the relative in the US.
Jerome Mendelson died in 1940 of a heart attack on a business trip to California. He was the second husband of Jennie Hyman (recall that Jennie is the relation…her mother’s maiden name was Schwarzschild). Jennie was first married to Norman Mendelson, Jerome’s brother. Norman died in 1911 and Jennie married his brother Jerome in 1913. Jerome was the President of B.T. Babbitt Company, which manufactured household cleaners, including Bab-O cleaners. I believe Jerome, and maybe the whole family, is a story of untold heroes. If he sponsored Harry, and Elsa’s siblings, because his wife was a 2nd or 3rd cousin, my guess is that he sponsored many more than just them.
It was in fact the name Jerome Mendelson on Elsa’s siblings’ ship manifests that served as secondary evidence that they were indeed the people I was looking for. But I only really found them because of a living person today in Stuttgart who hopped on his bike and went looking for evidence of our past. It will take a minute to explain.
When Ernst and Elsa came to the US, arriving on November 10th, 1939, they had listed on the ship’s manifest that the person in the old country was “Siegfried Schwarzschild,” Elsa’s brother.
We found him early on in my research and Susan Weinberg pretty quickly established that he had died in Aushwitz. From his wife Josephine (Einstein) Schwarzschild’s petition for naturalization in California, we also learned that they married in 1909 and did not have any children. At the time of the petition, November 24, 1939 in San Francisco, you can also see that she didn’t know where he was. I’ve wondered if she ever got confirmation of his murder. Or if she knew that his three siblings had regrouped on the East Coast here in the US. Josephine lived until 1980 in San Francisco near her sister.
And that was where the trail ended for a long time.
I was on Facebook one day in the Fall of 2022 and I can’t even tell you what I searched for, but I came across a German Facebook page that had pictures of stölpersteins (stumbling stones…memorials to those murdered in the Holocaust embedded in the pavement) in Stuttgart. I started clicking around got to an index of all the stölpersteins in the area and Siegfried’s name was there, but no photo or bio. Usually when they dedicate a stone, they research and create a biography of the person and I hoped that this was the case here too. So I reached out to the person on Facebook, Vincenzo, and we started messaging back and forth (thanks to Google Translate!). He got right on it for me. He found out that a file had been made, but for some reason hadn’t been put online (it still isn’t). But he got me a scan of it (below). And this was the key that unlocked Elsa Schwarzschild’s family tree.
But even before he got me the biography, he jumped on his bike and found the stölperstein and polished it.
The monument is embedded in the sidewalk in front of the last house that Siegfried occupied with Josephine, Klopstockstraße 34 A.
This is the program with Siegfried’s bio and photo that was compiled for the dedication ceremony for the plaque.
Translation:
Siegfried Schwarzschild, also named Sem after the oldest son of the biblical Noah, was a 'Westler' (as in from the West). He was born on March 11th 1877 in Stuttgart-West. His father was the merchant Daniel Schwarzschild, who owned a store dealing in metals, mining and metalurgic products as well as selling fruits wholesale. The company was founded in 1882 with an address in Ludwigstr. 83A. His mother was Sofie, nee Dampf. Siegfried had 3 siblings, Heinrich, Gertrud and Elsa.
Since he grew up in the West part of Stuttgart, it's assumed he went to Elementary school @ the Johannesschule by the Feuersee as the Schwabschule didn't exist at the time. Even though nothing is known about the rest of his education it's a fact that he became a merchant just like his father and brother. At the time of his father's death in 1907 he lived in Paris as a merchant. And after his mother retired in 1908 he ran his father's company together with his brother Heinrich. Due to the difficult economic times, the Daniel Schwarzschild company stopped operation in 1929. It took until 1935 to find a buyer for the houses that were part of the company assets, so it took until then to dissolve the company completely.
In the (19)20ies Siegfried Schwarzschild had started/developed a second source of income. It is also possible that his father's former "Obstgrosshandlung" (fruit wholesale) was run as a seperate business. In any case, he is now also listed as "persoenlich haftender Gesellschafter der Firma Vereinigte Gemuese-und Obstgroßhandlung Ludwig Steiger u. Co". (personally liable share holder of the Company "Vereinigte Gemüse -... Ludwig Steiger) (fruit and vegetable wholesale) based in the Hospitalstr. 22. In 1930, after that company was restructured, Siegfried Schwarzschild founded a "Mostobstgroßhandlung" (cider fruit wholesale) according to an entry in the addressbook of Stuttgart. The office was located on the third floor (which is the second in the US) at Königsstr. 43A.
On August 5th 1909 he and Josephine Einstein, who was 7 years younger, married in Stuttgart. They moved into an apartment in the house located on Johannesstr. 55. They were denied the happiness of having children. His brother Heinrich lived with his family at Johannesstr. 64. After the Daniel Schwarzschild Company was mostly dissolved, both brothers moved to the outskirts of town, Heinrich to Zeppelinstr. 21B and Siegfried in 1932 to Klopstockstr. 34A, at the corner of Steinenhausenstraße.
With the persecution of the Jews becoming more and more dangerous/drastic, Siegfried's siblings sought a safe heaven in the US and emigrated. He couldn't make that decision for himself. He was afraid, that even with his language skills in English and French, he'd unable to make a living in the US. He was also convinced the Nazis would only reign shortly. This would turn out a grave error in judgement.
There had to have been long and possibly intense discussions on the second floor of the house on Klopstockst. 34A. In the end, Josefine Schwarzschild left Germany without her husband and emigrated to the US in April 1939 on the advice of her relatives. Josefine Stone, as she now called herself, found a job as a nurse. She lived in San Francisco, in modest / poor conditions, but at least she lived. The last years of her life were spend in a Jewish retirement/nursing home, a real nursing home, where she was well cared for until she died in 1980 at the old age of 96 years.
Maybe there was a secondary reason Siegfried Schwarzschild decided to stay in Stuttgart. According to the reparation files in the state archives in Ludwigsburg, confirmed by the Israelite cultural community, Siegfried Schwarzschild semi-offically ran a very successful travel agency out of his offices at Königsstr. 43A for the Jewish Emigration office together with two employees. At that point in time, the fellow Jewish citizens were mostly excluded (ran off/denied) from regular business. It is therefore inconceivable that in 1939 Siegfried Schwarzschild still ran his Mostobstgroßhandlung (wholesale cider fruit company), even though it was still listed in the Stuttgart addressbook. He supposedly was able to run the travel agency until April 1941 at which point the option for Jews to emigrate came to an end and was completely forbidden about a half year later. There are a lot of open questions for which there will never be an answer.
At the end of 1939 Siegfried Schwarzschild was forced to vacate his apartment at Klopstockstr. 34 A by the city of Stuttgart since the house was not owned by Jews. He found another, much smaller place to live at Militärstr. 35 (today's Breitscheidstraße). He had to leave that home as well and moved in as a subtenant with the Lissberger family at Kasernenstr. 13 (today's Leuschnerstraße). This is where in 1938 the Israelitic community paper was produced, in the back the orthodox comunity had their prayer rooms.
With every move Siegfried Schwarzschilds belongings became less, partly to necessity since he had less and less storage options / room. His financial cushion / buffer was robbed by the NS Regime through compulsory levies. And, of course, he had to wear the Jewish Star (Judenstern). In 1942 he was forcibly moved to Tigerfeld (County Reutlingen), where the former office of the Zwiefalten Monastery was converted into a jewish nursing home. Soon after, on August 22/23 1942, he is deported to Theresienstadt. And because at 65 years of age he isn't dying soon enough, on May 16th 1944 he is sent on his final trip to Ausschwitz, where his trail is lost.
After the war, Siegfried Schwarzschild is declared deceased as of May 31st 1944.
Siegfried had no descendants. I don’t know who petitioned to have this plaque made or where they got the got the biographical information. But it single-handedly puts a family of four siblings, along with their parents, grandparents and Great Grandparents back together again for posterity.
From here we know that Elsa was the youngest of four children born to Daniel and Sofie (nee Dampf) Schwarzschild.
Siegfried 1877-1944 (murdered in Aushwitz). His wife Josephine died at 96 in San Francisco, no known descendants.
Heinrich (Henry) Schwarzschild 1880-1955, married Anna Rosenfelder (1890-1968), he is interred in New Have, CT. No known descendants.
Gertrude 1884-1971, married Julius Metgzer (1877-1933…he is interred in Stuttgart) and they had three children, Lotte Metzger (1911-2008, lived in Israel), Elsee Metzger (1909-1988), Eric Julius Metzger (1920-2010). All three children, who were Harry’s first cousins, had descendants. (Eric, Harry Oster’s first cousin: In his obit it says, “He was a first Lieutenant in the U.S. military intelligence during WWII.” I checked and he is indeed listed in the index of names in the back of Bruce Henderson’s, “Sons and Soldiers.” I wonder if Harry and Eric crossed paths during the war. Even though Eric was five years younger than Harry, they most certainly had known each other in Stuttgart.)
Elsa (1887-1975) (At the time of this writing, February 2023, Elsa’s direct descendants include two granddaughters, four great grandchildren and seven great-great grandchildren. )
Left to right are three of the four Schwarzschild siblings. Gertrude (Passport photo) in the mid 1930’s, Elsa in roughly 1947, and Siegfried in the 1920s/30s (from the German National Archive). There are no known photos of Heinrich/Henry.
1920 Phone Directory. Daniel Schwarzschild Company: “In metals, mine and metallurgical products, fruit wholesale. Participation Heinrich and Sem. called Siegfried Schwarzschild. Ludwigstr. 83. eg. 4493.” Siegfried is highlighted, but the listing includes the business, Heinrich, Siegfried and their mother Sophie (nee Dampf) at the bottom.
Google Earth photo of the Daniel Schwarzschild Company building located at Ludwigstraße 83. The red balloon marks the location as it stands today.
Current street view of the building at 83 Ludwigstrasse that housed the Daniel Schwarzschild Company and other companies held by the family.
The pamphlet for Seigfried’s stölperstein mentions his work as a travel agent. The letter below, which Harry Oster kept the rest of his life, is a letter of recommendation that Uncle Siegfried gave to Harry to take with him to the United States. The letter was written on November 1, 1937. Harry arrived in New York on December 21st, the following month. You can see along the lefthand side of the letter which travel lines Siegfried brokered. Harry arrived on the Aquitania which was owned by Cunard White Star. Likely Siegfried procured the passage for him. And probably for all the others too. As I wrote above…I think the Schwarzschilds got the Ostertags out of Germany. Siegfried inside the country arranging the travel while the Mendelson connection in New York either financed it or vouched for them.
“Mr. Hans Ostertag, born on December 4th, 1915. worked for several months in our office as a correspondent and receptionist.
Mr. Ostertag has good organizational skills and quick perception. He carried out all the the worked assigned to him to our complete satisfaction.
We wish him all the best for his future life in the United States of America and every success in his endeavors.”
43 Konigstrasse is the building to the left and according to the bio for Seigfried, he operated his travel agency from the second floor which may have ended up being a ghetto house. The location is the same, the building may not be. This spot is halfway between the Ernst Pick Company Store and the home that Ernst and Elsa Schwarzschild lived in. The empty lot is where the synagogue stood until Kristalnacht in 1938.
Elsa, the youngest of the four siblings, died last in 1975. Josephine, her sister in law, died later, but we have no indication they were in touch.
Harry purchased a yartzeit plaque in his mother’s memory. It says here Elsa bat Daniel, Elsa, the daughter of Daniel.
Harry knew his grandfather’s name was Daniel, so even if he had never been told, I am sure he knew he was named for him…Hans Daniel Ostertag. Harry’s grandfather Daniel Schwarzschild, the creator of the Daniel Schwarzschild Company in 1882, was born in Richen, Germany which is about five kilometers north of Eppingen where the cemetery in which several generations of the family are interred is located, approximately 58 miles from Stuttgart.
Daniel Schwarzschild (Harry’s maternal grandfather 1845-1907) was the son of Marx and Henriette (nee Henle) Schwarzschild. Daniel was one of at least nine children born to Marx and Henriette. Five appear to have died soon after birth. One lived to 16 years. Three lived to adulthood including Daniel. His older Sister Mina appears to have married and has descendants. His older brother Samual appears to have married, but has no descendants.
Marx (Daniel’s father, Harry’s great-grandfather) lived and died in Richen 1810-1881. Marx was one of eight whole or half siblings (his father was married twice and had three children with his first wife whose name is not known) all of whom appear to have lived to adulthood and perhaps have descendants. All of this indicates that the family was quite large. The Schwarzschild line continues back quite far. Marx’s parents were Samuel Haium Schwarzschild (1761-1836) and Minkel "Mina" Hirsch (1775-1823). For Reference, Samuel and Minkel would be Elsa’s Great Grandparents.
And we have names for even one more generation back. The family has deep roots in Richen and the surrounding area. From the town’s archives in Richen, the archivist put this bio together for Samuel and Minkel (Elsa’s Great Grandparents):
“Samuel Hajum Schwarzschild was born around 1762, his father was Moses Chaim. According to the laws of Baden Samuel Hajum had to accept the family name Schwarzschild in 1809 (he inherited the family name). His wife was Minkele (or Münkele / Minbele) nee Hirsch from Ladenburg (a bit north of Heidelberg). She was born around 1774 and died Jan. 28th 1823 (a bit more than 200 years ago). They had 6 children. Marx had been the fifth child. He was born Feb 25th 1810 in Richen and died Feb. 14th 1881. His wife was Henriette Henle from Steinbach (today this village is part of Michelstadt/Odenwald). They had 9 children.”
Marx died and was interred in Eppingen in 1881. At least Daniel, if not others of his siblings, had already settled in the bigger city of Stuttgart when their father Marx died. Siegfried (Daniel’s first born) was born in 1877 in Stuttgart (according to the stölperstein bio) and The Daniel Schwarzschild Company was founded there in 1882. So it makes sense that Henriette went to live near her children at that time.
“Marx’s brother Joseph Schwarzschild (born July 28th 1813 in Richen) and his wife Karoline (nee Wolfsbruck) had four children – all of them born in Richen. The family emigrated in 1857 to the USA (appears to have become Swartchild in Chicago…this is a different Caroline Schwarzschild from the Mendelson connection who also emigrated to Chicago). They owned a house next to the Synagogue in Richen (Ittlinger Str.). When Joseph died, his two sons Daniel and Nathan inherited the house. Daniel, the older one, was married but they had no children. So he passed his share of the house to his nephew Daniel who was a son of Marx Schwarzschild.”
Who knows what became of the house? As noted above, by 1877, Daniel and Sophie were already living in Stuttgart. His uncle Joseph died in Chicago on September 4, 1883 at the age of 72. He was a jeweler and is interred at Waldheim Cemetery. Could this have been the historic family home in Richen that Joseph, Marx and the other siblings grew up in?
Richen was a small farming village so it is hard to imagine that the population of Jews was very large. I saw somewhere that the Jewish population numbered in the hundreds not thousands. There are many Schwarzschilds who I have not been able to connect directly to our line, but as we saw with the Jerome Mendelson connection, the Schwarzschild network was quite large and went back into at least the 1700s.
Once source I have found, lists Schwarzchilds from Richen whose exact connection evades me, but with similar patrynomic naming conventions….the trading of names back and forth between generations of Moses, Samual, Marx, Daniel and so on. If we link to them, the earliest ancestor I’ve seen is four more generations back in the 1630s in Richen. If we are able to connect with that line upon further research, Samuel (1690-January 3, 1758) is noted as, “Samuel, a son of Gerson. He was born in Ittlingen, "fairly wealthy," had two single sons and a married daughter as well as a maid.”
So the sense that Elsa came from a large, prestigious, and perhaps wealthy family, holds true.
Marx Schwarzschild (✡ Feb. 14th 1881), father of Daniel, Grandfather of Elsa (Interred in Eppingen).
Samual Haium Schwarzschild, 1761-Sep 19, 1836 (Interred in Eppingen).
Father of Marx,
Grandfather of Daniel,
Great Grandfather of Elsa,
GreatX2 Grandfather of Harry,
GreatX3 Grandfather of Enid and Helaine
Greatx4 Grandfather of Jessica, David, Hillary and Molly
Greatx5 Grandfather of Emma, Adina, Payton, Flynn and Archie
