Dr Monja Stahlberger
In the quiet reading room at the Center for Jewish History (CJH) in New York, away from the hustle and bustle of the city, among carefully preserved letters, photographs, and personal accounts, the stories of German-Jewish families are hidden away. During my trip to the Leo Baeck Institute (LBI) New York, I was fortunate enough to not only visit the reading room but also see the 70th anniversary exhibition that reflects this long tradition of preserving and sharing emigrant stories and cultural memory.
More Than Just Names and Dates
Family history research at the LBI extends far beyond constructing basic genealogical trees. The collections reveal a rich tapestry of lived experiences, cultural contexts, and historical circumstances that shaped individual lives over centuries of German-Jewish history, ranging from early modern accounts to survivors’ stories from the Second World War.
Herbert Strauss’s memoir In the Eye of the Storm highlights the complexities of family history. As Strauss writes in his preface, he waited “fifty years before I would write this autobiographical account,” seeking to avoid “self-stylization” while connecting his family’s experiences to “the course of Nazi persecution and to the Jewish community’s response to it.” His work demonstrates how personal narratives gain significance when contextualized within broader historical frameworks.
Archives as Memory Keepers
For many families, archives like the LBI serve as crucial repositories of memory. Strauss himself acknowledges this role when writing about those lost: “Their deaths were so senseless and abysmal a destruction of their lives and the order they lived in that this offers little relief for our grim memories. Still, they might have believed in a symbolic immortality such as granted by stone or printer’s ink.” This “symbolic immortality” is precisely what the LBI helps preserve through the extensive collections of personal papers, photographs, and memoirs.
During my visit, I saw a few people in the reading room who were researching their own family histories, trying to discover more of their heritage and culture. Speaking with the archivists, they said that many families come here not in the search for answers but rather to uncover more details about their personal histories and how they are connected to those of others and to wider communities.
Rootedness and Displacement
Many family histories in the archives reveal a tension between rootedness and displacement that often seemed to characterise German-Jewish experiences. Strauss notes that for his family, “Long residence in a village or town meant rooted identity. Migration was for the birds, not for the Strausses.” This sentiment highlights how deeply many were connected to their German homeland before persecution severed these ties. It also encapsulates a key question in my research: How did German-Jewish identity and notions of belonging change over time and in different generations?
Complex Identities
The family histories preserved at the LBI reveal complex identities that challenge the idea of national belonging and raise questions about forms of religious and cultural identities. The Descendants of Simon Leppmann of Peiskretscham Silesia exemplifies this complexity: “This is the story of a family with deep Jewish roots, but it is not just a Jewish story. From the late nineteenth century onward, many of the people in the story did not maintain the practices of the Jewish faith. They never wholly denied their Jewish roots, nor would the circumstances of the world around them allow them to.”
Family histories such as the Leppmann’s reveal that German-Jewish identity transcends religion, rooted deeply in notions of belonging and heritage. John Leppman’s journey of discovery in compiling the family’s history highlights the intricate ways Jewish roots were maintained through generations of diaspora: “The Leppmann family story starts with a Jewish baker in the southeasterly reaches of Germany. The baker’s descendants emerged to a cosmopolitan professional world. They migrated to five of the six inhabited continents of the world, to great cities, to small towns, to rural places. They have embraced many religious, philosophical, and cultural identities.” Their narrative exemplifies how Jewish heritage persists even as families disperse and transform across continents and cultures.
Continuing the Work
Today, as researchers, we can use the collections of the LBI worldwide to build upon these narratives, filling gaps in family histories and contextualizing personal experiences within the broader landscape of German-Jewish life. Whether through academic research or personal genealogical quests, the archives provide the resources to uncover stories that might otherwise be lost to time.
This piece was inspired by my recent experience exploring the LBI archives and the examples of life-writing found in the collections, including Herbert Strauss’s memoir In the Eye of the Storm and the family history Descendants of Simon Leppmann of Peiskretscham Silesia.
Bibliography:
Helen and Eva Hesse Family Collection; AR 25327; Leo Baeck Institute. https://archives.cjh.org/repositories/5/resources/13961
Leppman, John A., Descendants of Simon Leppmann of Peiskretscham (Pyskovice), Silesia: With Supplemental Material on Kiefer, Feigenblatt, and Landau Families (private printing, 2019)
Strauss, Herbert Arthur, In the Eye of the Storm: Growing up Jewish in Germany, 1918–1943: A Memoir (typescript, 1995)
