Berthold Rosenthal Family Collection. 1875-1957 bulk: 1912-1984

Abstract

The Berthold Rosenthal Collection documents the life of Berthold Rosenthal and his family, starting in 1940, the year of Berthold and Johanna Rosenthal’s immigration to the U.S. The papers of this collection are largely comprised of personal correspondence between the part of the family living in the U.S. (Berthold, his wife Johanna and their two daughters) and Berthold’s son, Ernst, who lived on a Kibbutz in Palestine/Israel. The letters are predominantly a mixture of information on familial happenings, such as marriages and the birth of children as well as of intense discussions on political events which frequently affected the parents’ lives in the U.S. and Ernst’s life in Israel directly. In addition, the collection contains articles on Berthold Rosenthal’s biography and works as well as family trees.Berthold Rosenthal was born on January 17, 1875 in Liedolsheim bei Karlsruhe, the son of Emanuel Rosenthal, a cattle dealer and Babette née Weil. In 1914 he married Johanna née Benzian. In the following years they had three children: Ernst, Ruth, and Lotte.1889-1891 Rosenthal attended preparatory school in Tauberbischofsheim. For the following three years he studied towards his teaching degree (Baden-Würtemberg). After receiving his teaching degree in Karlsruhe, he taught Jewish religion classes before moving on to a ‘Gymnasium’ in Mannheim. From 1914-1916 Rosenthal served in World War I. He was released from service because of an eye injury. He resumed teaching in Mannheim, where he continued until forced to leave in 1933. In addition to teaching, he wrote for the Jewish magazine Die neue Volksschulwarte. He was also involved in Jewish charity organizations and collected information on Jews in Baden; in 1927 his work Heimatgeschichte der badischen Juden was published. This work would become very important in the future, since it contained much information on Jews in Baden lost under the National Socialist regime. After he lost his teaching position in 1933, he conducted research and contributed articles to the Germania Judaica, a work focusing on the history of Jews in Germany. [In 1934 the Germania Judaica was stopped from being published by the German government, but was eventually published by the Leo Baeck Institute in 1968.]In September 1940 Berthold Rosenthal and his wife Johanna escaped to the United States via Portugal. They arrived in New York and were greeted by Berthold Rosenthal’s two daughters and younger siblings, who had left Germany earlier. His eldest son Ernst went to live in Palestine on a kibbutz. Berthold Rosenthal lived for eight years in New York, staying with his daughters and working in an export business owned by a relative. Eventually, Berthold Rosenthal moved to Omaha, Nebraska, where he died on December 16, 1957.Ruth FeistMemoirs of Berthold Rosenthal have been removed to the Memoir CollectionSee also the Berthold Rosenthal Collection, AR 637digitize