The Löwendorf family from Löwendorf
The origins of Löwendorf family lay in Bavaria (presumably Brennberg-Frankenberg). The ancestor Samuel Salomon married according to family tradition a woman from a respectable family from Paderborn and lived with her first in Bavaria, where the three older sons, Nathan, Wolf Salomon and Salomon, were born. Around 1760 he decided to move to the small village Löwendorf, and here the fourth son Bendix Salomon (Schlome) was born. About any daughters nothing is known.
While the third son Salomon (1760–1825) in 1808 took the bourgeois name Frankenberg after his birthplace and thus founded the widespread family Frankenberg, the other three sons decided on behalf of their current residence to take the name Löwendorf. The eldest son Nathan (1757–1827) and the youngest son Bendix Salomon (Schlome) (* 1769) were apparently unmarried, and so Salomon Samuel’s son Wolf Salomon Löwendorf (* 1758), was the progenitor of Löwendorf family.
This Wolf Salomon had six daughters with his wife Pess Joshua (* 1779), who came from Haselig near Fürth, of which only the name, birth and individual death data are certain, and sons Nathan and Salomon, who founded their families in Löwendorf and nearby Vörden. Wolf Salomon Löwendorf was probably a ragpicker, because even the two sons earned the family income in the following decades in the region by collecting rags at the time for the production of paper rag (rags).
The branch of the family of Nathan Löwendorf (1801–1860)
Wolf Solomon’s son Nathan Löwendorf (1801–860) was a ragpicker in Löwendorf. Business was probably pretty good, so that, according to reports, he could buy a house in Vörden in order to build it anew in Löwendorf, which is preserved as it originally stood today – restored and remodeled.
Nathan Löwendorf was married to Fanny Kriesheim / Kriegsheim (✡ 1843), from Kemnade and after her death in 1844 made his second marriage to Dorette Frankenstein (1808–1874) from Echte. With his two wives he had nine children. However, in seven of them, only the names, birth and in some cases the death dates are known. Only about the families and descendants of the daughter Rosalie (Rosa) and the son Wolf, are there more details.
Nathan’s daughter Rosalie / Rosa (1846–1911) in 1868 married the merchant Hartwig Stein (1839–1904) and lived with him in Brakel. The couple had ten children, of whom at least three died as children, and another died in Brakel. Only Nathan’s son William (1880–1930) who married Sophie Nathan seems to have permanently remained as a butcher in Brakel. He was, just like his mother, buried in the Jewish cemetery in Brakel.
Wolf Löwendorf and his descendants
Nathan’s son Wolf Löwendorf (1827–1892) in 1858 married Betty Holstein (1824–1911), a native of Amelunxen and went with her from Löwendorf to Vörden, where he certainly joined in the rag trade of his uncle Salomon (see below). The couple had five children, of which one daughter died after one day.
About Wolf Löwendorfs youngest daughter Jettchen (* 1863) is only known that in 1896 she married Emil Baumgarten (* 1866), born in Verden, and first lived in Gütersloh with him. More information, for example, is missing about possible descendants.
Wolf Löwendorf’s daughter Fanny and her children
In 1887 Wolf Löwendorf’s daughter Fanny (* 1857) married Ovenhäuser merchant Levy Uhlmann (1849–1927), his second marriage. One son from the first marriage died at 14 years, and four children were born in Ovenhausen of which two later were married with their cousins, two daughters of Fanny’s brother Nathan. [1]
Wilhelm (Willy) Uhlmann (1892–1964) married his cousin Erna Löwendorf (1898–1993) and lived with her in Bielefeld. The two escaped deportation and emigrated in 1936 to the United States, where their son Leonard (1939–2011) was born.
Fanny Löwendorf’s eldest son Norbert Uhlmann (* 1890) further developed the housewares business family in Ovenhausen. With his cousin Helene Löwendorf (* 1900) he had no children, and so in 1932 they adopted Ilse, born Berghausen, in Paderborn in 1931. Together, they were deported to Riga on 12.13.1941 and deported from there in August 1944 together to Auschwitz and murdered.
Deported to Riga on the same transport were also Norbert’s brother Gustav Uhlmann (1894–1953), who was living in Höxter, his wife Johanna Katz (1895–1944), who came from Nentershausen, and his son Walter (* 1927). By late summer 1944, the father was able to protect his family as a member of the Jewish camp police in Riga. However, he was seconded in 1944 to Libau, so that his wife and his son were transported to Stutthof and perished there. He was transported across the Baltic to Fuhlsbüttel, from there had to make a four-day march to Kiel-Hassee and through negotiations of the Red Cross finally reached freedom in Sweden, from whence he emigrated to the United States after the war.
Also Grete Uhlmann (* 1897), the only daughter of Fanny, was a victim of the Holocaust. She lived in Düsseldorf, but regularly visited her family in Ovenhausen and took part in village festivals there. Her occupation is unknown. She also probably used her contacts in Düsseldorf to arrange for her brother’s children as holiday guests. She was deported on 11.10.1941 to the ghetto from Minsk and was lost.
Wolf Löwendorf’s son Dietrich and his children
Wolf Löwendorf’s elder son Dietrich (Jedidja) (1859–943) lived with his wife Berta / Bertha Eisenstein (1867–1938) in Winnigstedt. He owned Lämmerhirt in Mattierzoll, a wholesale company for grain, feed and fertilizers and from the inheritance of his wife, a beet juice factory. For the so-called “Jewish property tax” after the Kristallnacht pogrom in 1938 his fortune was set at 285,000 RM. But when he wanted to sell his business to emigrate to Palestine, the district in Wolfenbüttel prevented the sale, since its “assets [would be] unlawfully deprived of foreign exchange controls.” Dietrich Löwendorf renounced in favor of his sons on the possible departure to Palestine. When the sale was approved in 1942, it was too late.
Dietrich Löwendorf’s daughter Paula (* 1896) had emigrated with her husband, the banker’s son John Levy, and their two children in 1934 to Palestine, and at the beginning of 1938 her brother Walter (1892–1962) also went to Palestine. Their father after the death of his wife lived with him and his wife Mathilde Neuberg (* 1896) and their children Peter (* 1921) and Gabriele (* 1923) in Brunswick. Dietrich Löwendorf then had to move to a “Jewish house” and was deported to Theresienstadt on 3.16.1943. There he came to his end on 4.30.1943.
Wolf Löwendorff’s son Nathan and his children
Wolf Löwensdorf’s younger son Nathan (1861–1920) advanced his father’s business in Vörden. In 1896 he married Sara Abt (1866–1910) from Bebra and in 1913 married again to Sara Stern (1858–1935), a native of Dortmund. Six children were born of the first marriage, one of which, a son, died as an infant.
The daughters Helene (* 1900) and Erna (1898–1993) married their cousins Norbert (* 1890) and Willy Uhlmann (1892–1964), two sons of Fanny Löwendorf Uhlmann. The fate of these families has already been reported above.
Alma Löwendorf (* 1906) who married Max Flatow (* 1914) in Detmold was deported on 03.31.1942 with her husband and his parents to Warsaw. Her sister Frieda Löwendorf (1896–1944) married in 1929 Heinrich Bacharach (* 1889), who originated from Seligenstadt and took over his parents’ grocery store in Vörden. They had no children. They were deported to Riga on 12.13.1941. Of Frieda Bacharach it is known that she was killed on 04.15.1944 in Riga-Kaiserwald.
The family branch of Salomon Löwendorf (1804–1861)
Salomon Löwendorf (1804–1861) is the second son of Wolf Salomon Löwendorf about whom considerable information on his children and descendants are known. Like his father, he was a ragpicker and lived with his wife Violet Israelsohn who was born in Vörden (1811-1865) in her hometown Vörden, where he certainly went into the business of her parents. In the upstairs of the house was also the prayer room of the small Jewish community. They had six children, of whom four died as children or young people. Especially the eldest son Benjamin, but also his brother Nathan have left their mark.
Benjamin Löwendorf and his descendants
In 1865 Benjamin Löwendorf (1838-1920) married Edel (Etkal, Adelheid) Schlesinger (1839–1890), who was born in Albaxen, and lived with her first in Vörden where nine children were born, two of whom died as infants. Around 1880, the family moved to Steinheim, and Benjamin Löwendorf operated in Market Street in the city center a used appliance store with an emphasis on (cast iron) oven doors. He also acted for Steinheimer Jews as a butcher.
The children were brought up strictly. So Benjamin Löwendorf sent his son, Solomon, for example, to America with only $15 of the $25 that an American business friend from Akron, Ohio, had sent him, to become an apprentice, because $25 seemed to the father too much, and he kept the rest. And when Solomon Löwendorf 1909 with his wife and his son Chester from America came for a visit to Steinheim, Benjamin threatened Chester, not yet seven years old, with the whip when he heard him speak English with his parents.
So Solomon Löwendorf (1866–1950), the only son of Benjamin, went in 1883 as a 17 year old on the trip to America and arrived first in Akron becoming an apprentice. In 1894 he returned for the first time back to a visit to Steinheim. Perhaps here also links to the family Desenberg in Löwendorf were established, whose daughter Fanny had emigrated in 1868 to the United States and had there married Henry Stern.
Around 1900 Salomon Löwendorf, now Sol(omon) Lowendorf, moved from Akron to Niles [Ohio] and opened a haberdashery shop, which he converted into a men’s clothing store in 1907 and gradually developed. In 1901 he married Clara Stern (1875-1973), born in America, a daughter of the aforementioned Fanny birthname Desenberg, and the following year their only son Chester was born.
An account of the life of surgeon Dr. Chester Lowendorf (1902–1980), his wife Bess Malkoff (1909–2003) and their three children Maxine (* 1940), Henry (* 1942) and Lisa (* 1950) would share the present story from a memorial writing to his 100th birthday [2]. However, it appears that he visited Europe with his family in 1959 and on the trip to Germany also came to Löwendorf, Vörden and Steinheim, where his ancestors had lived, which Chester’s son Henry Lowendorf repeated with his wife in 2011.
Solomon’s sister Sophie Löwendorf (1878–1941), younger by 11 years, returned with her brother to the United States. She married Joseph Patz (1878–1954), also born in Germany, and lived with him in Pittsburgh where the three children Milton (1899-1962), Esther (1906-2001) and Sidney (1911-1970) were born. This family also remembers their origins in East Westphalia, and so Sophie’s grandson Stuart Patz (born 1943) with his wife in 2011 went on a trip also to the homes and graves of Löwendorf family in Löwendorf, Vörden and Steinheim.
The other daughters of Benjamin Löwendorf remained provisionally in Germany, where three of them were victims of the Holocaust in the Third Reich. The sisters Fanny (* 1868) and Elise (* 1872) lived unmarried in Steinheim and earned their livelihood after the death of their parents with needlework. They tried in vain to emigrate to America and were deported on 7.31.1942 together to Theresienstadt and then deported on 09.23.1942 to Treblinka to be murdered.
Their sister Jenny (1870–1943) remained after the death of her husband, the businessman Josef Rosenthal, in Hamm, from where she was also sent on 7.29.1942 to Theresienstadt and then on 01.20.1943 to Treblinka and murdered there. The fate of her married daughter Edith Meer is unknown, in contrast to son Leo.
This Leo Rosenthal (1908–1938) was a bookseller. He belonged to the KPD [Kommunist Partei Deutschlands] and went in 1935 on behalf of the Central Committee to Moscow with his wife Margarithe Franck (1911–1983) whom he married in 1931 and who was followed in 1937 by a daughter Ruth (* 1933). In the same year the daughter Dolores (* 1937) was born. Leo Rosenthal who worked in Moscow as a proofreader in a printing house, was arrested on 3.23.1938 for alleged espionage and shot after a trial on 8.16.1938. He was rehabilitated only in 1960. His wife, who had been threatened with deportation to Nazi Germany with her daughters worked in 1941 in a sanatorium in Osh (Kyrgyzstan). In 1946 she returned to Germany, where she then belonged to the SED and worked as an interpreter, most recently in the GDR Ministry of the Interior.
So while three daughters of Benjamin Löwendorf were murdered in the camps of the Third Reich, their other two sisters still living in Germany were able to emigrate with the help of their brother Solomon from the Third Reich to the USA. His sister Lena / Lina (* 1879) was married in Hamm to Günther. As a widow, she followed her previously emigrated children William (* ca. 1915) and Elisa (* ca. 1917) at the end of 1937 to the United States. The following year, 1938, sister Rosa (* 1867) who lived in Hildesheim, whose husband Julius Blumenthal had died, along with her daughter Erna (* 1900) and Erna’s husband Max Weinmann (* ca. 1890) emigrated to the USA, where Rosa’s son Walter (* 1901) had preceded them in 1936. They lived in 1940 in Pittsburgh, along with Rosa’s sisters Lena and Sophie.
Nathan Löwendorf and his descendants
Locating sources to Benjamin Löwendorf’s youngest brother Nathan (* 1849) is difficult, probably because the altered spelling of the name Löwendorff by the children creates confusion. However, you can probably assume that it is in fact the same Nathan Löwendorf the younger son Salomon Löwendorf recorded later in Dortmund. Because a commemorative sheet at Yad Vashem listed a Nathan Löwendorf as the father of a daughter Hedwig, and also because Nathan’s son Norbert was considered as a “cousin” in the memories of the family of Chester Lowendorf living in America the assignment can appear quite safe. Also a butcher Nathan Löwendorf is listed in the Dortmunder address books.
The eldest son Max Löwendorff (* 1886), a leather merchant was married to Gertrud Helene Wolff (* 1891) from Hagen and lived with her in Dortmund, from whence the two later moved to Cologne. From there, the couple was deported on 04.22.1941 together with Max’s married and presumably widowed sister Hedwig Nerreter (1891–1943) to the Lodz ghetto, where they were cooped up in the Kreuzstr. 7, Apartment 5. Hedwig Nerreter was killed on 01.31.1943. Place and date of death of Max and Gertrud Löwendorff are unknown.
Her daughter Doris Löwendorff (1924–1944) fell victim to the Holocaust. The parents sent her in 1939 to sister Gertrude Löwendorff who previously emigrated to Amersfoort, the Netherlands; However, she was deported from the Westerbork camp on 03.03.1944 to Auschwitz and murdered. Her younger brother Werner Bruno (* 1927) survived in hiding in the Netherlands. He went after the war to England, where he called himself Lowe and became naturalized in 1951. There he married his wife Sonia Lesser, who survived him probably.
Siegfried (* 1888) and Norbert Löwendorff (1911–1969), the other two sons of Nathan Löwendorff survived the deportation and went after their return from the concentration camp in the Netherlands, where they had probably already emigrated before the war. On Norbert is evidence that he was naturalized in 1951 in Amsterdam. He married Cornelia (Kay) de Haaff (1913–1997), whose first husband Ivo Martijn Spitz was murdered in Auschwitz where she was subjected to medical experiments. “Cousin” Chester Lowendorf from theUSA visited the two in the 1950s in Holland, and in 1961 they made a return visit to the US.
[1] The family Uhlmann see the relevant posts in: (eds.) Stefan Baumeier / Heinrich Stiewe: The forgotten neighbor. Jews in the countryside in eastern Westphalia. Bielefeld: Verlag of Regional History, 2006
[2] Memories of Chester Stern Lowendorf. On the 100th Anniversary of His Birth. [Privat Print] 2002.
Fritz Ostkämper, 5.8.2015, translation: Henry Lowendorf
e-mail: ostkaemper@jacob-pins.de