The Elkan and Seligmann family journeys to America

The direct Elkan line begins here with a named connection between generations. A photographed spread in Siegfried’s military papers identifies his father as Moses Elkan and his mother as Marianne, born Fraenkel. The family has also identified Moses and Marianne in a surviving portrait. These are different kinds of evidence, one documentary and one remembered, which together give names and faces to Kurt’s grandparents. They do not yet supply a complete account of the older couple’s lives.

Siegfried and Louise built their household in Nürnberg. Their civil marriage certificate records 4 November 1920; the printed wedding celebration followed on 7 November. Kurt’s later identity papers give his birth as 31 July 1921 in Nürnberg. The family identifies Siegfried and Louise as the parents of both Kurt and Bruno. By the autumn of 1935, all four names appeared together on applications for support toward permanent residence in the United States. The household was being described on paper in preparation for a life elsewhere.

Arthur Seligmann and Else Kaumheimer married in Gaustadt on 10 November 1927. The surviving two-page copy was certified on 23 May 1939 and records the additional names Israel and Sara; it does not establish their use at the wedding itself.

The album preserves another kind of family evidence: handwritten names and relationship notes. These call David Lowenfels Louise’s father and Clothilde Lowenfels her mother, and name Kurt and Bruno as their grandchildren. Other notes use Clotilde Springer or the spelling David Lowenfeld. The writers and dates of these annotations are unknown; the name-only Lowenfeld note remains unmerged, and no portrait is paired with a reverse solely because their filenames are adjacent.

Two people in America put their support into sworn statements. Amalia Rosenau signed on 28 October 1935, Nathan Rosenau on 29 October. Their separate affidavits name Siegfried, Louise, Kurt and Bruno as applicants for permanent residence. Kurt appears as a fourteen-year-old student. Louise is called a niece of each deponent, although the precise family connection still needs to be traced. The affidavits show relatives undertaking a practical responsibility for the prospective immigrants. They are the beginning of a documented application sequence, rather than a record of a completed passage.

Kurt’s passport identifies him more formally as Kurt Max Elkan, a commercial apprentice from Nürnberg. The passport was issued on 21 November 1935. His American quota immigration visa was issued at Stuttgart on 17 January 1936. A police endorsement dated 4 February adds another administrative step, including an indication of urgency and a correction whose full meaning is unresolved. These small entries bring the departure period into focus: papers issued, permission obtained, a final official intervention shortly before the next surviving record places him across the Atlantic.

That next record is unusually precise. Kurt’s immigrant identification card records admission at New York from the Manhattan on 10 February 1936. He was fourteen. The card supplies a named person, a port, a vessel and a day. It gives the family story a firm American starting point, but it identifies only Kurt. A passenger list is still needed before assigning the same ship or arrival date to Siegfried, Louise or Bruno.

Siegfried’s own civilian passport preserves a parallel sequence. It was issued on 21 November 1935, and his named American quota visa was issued in Stuttgart on 17 January 1936. The passport carries urgency and correction entries dated 4 February, followed by a currency-purchase stamp marked Hamburg on 9 February. These are his personal preparations, close in time to Kurt’s. They make Siegfried an active subject of the emigration record without borrowing his son’s admission card to fill the missing last stage. None of these photographed passport pages establishes Siegfried’s own American landing.

Inge later remembered that Kurt’s family had come from Germany in 1936. Louise’s much later death record reported forty-one years of residence in New York City, broadly consistent with that family account. Together these sources support the larger outline of the family’s move while leaving the individual crossings partly open. Preserving that distinction gives each person a history of their own, even where the surviving papers are fuller for one member of the household than for the others.

Arthur Seligman’s route began under a different category. On 15 October 1938, the American consulate in Munich issued him a temporary visitor visa. By 7 November, Else and Max were writing to him in Rotterdam. Their letter records a failed attempt to transfer eighty Reichsmarks toward his Atlantic ticket: the company could no longer accept the payment once he was abroad. Else explained the difficulty, left the additional payment for him to arrange, and asked him to send little Inge a card. Amid the practical details, she acknowledged that their separation would last longer than they had expected.

Arthur’s own retained letter of 4 March 1941 states that he entered the United States on 23 November 1938. A National Refugee Service card gives that same date in its U.S. arrival field. A contemporary Immigration and Naturalization Service notice, also dated 23 November, addressed his surety, Siegfried Kaumheimer, and required Arthur to depart by 10 December. Its departure fields are blank. Arthur later wrote that an extension had been granted. The papers record an initial deadline and his account of a permitted extension; they do not record a departure in December.

Else remained responsible for matters on the other side of the ocean. From New York, Arthur signed a power of attorney on 27 December 1938 authorizing her to represent him in matters requiring his signature. That document belongs beside the affectionate November letter. Together they show how separation divided the household’s work: Arthur was seeking a foothold in America, while Else still had family and practical affairs to manage in Germany. The authorization itself does not tell us which transactions she completed.

A separate page dated 24 May 1939 places Arthur at 562 West 148th Street in New York and names Else at Moltkestrasse 1 in Memmingen. It sets out authority for her to represent him in German property matters, including dealings with the foreign-exchange office and Reichsbank. The photographed page has no visible execution block and does not show which of these powers, if any, she used.

Inge’s earlier papers carry the birth names Ingeborg Ruth: a certified register copy records her birth in Memmingen on 5 September 1928, with a later margin recording the added name Sara. A Memmingen tax-office certificate dated 20 June 1939 names the schoolgirl Ingeborg Ruth Sara Seligmann and raises no tax objection to exporting her removal goods. That clearance was an administrative step; it does not establish her departure date or prove that the goods travelled.

On 18 July 1939, Else wrote to Arthur from Munich about buying things still needed for the child’s departure. She hoped to obtain a packing permit and expected an official to check the list. The child’s name is tentatively read as Inge. Josef’s separate greeting mentioned a forty-pound shortfall for an England guarantee; whose case it concerned is not established. The postcard captures a journey while it was still being assembled: purchases, permissions, money and the question of when departure would actually become possible.

The family identifies a small departure portrait as Inge’s Kindertransport photograph. Its confirmed reverse reads 1 August 1939, Memmingen, and “Leaving for England”; the associated tag carries 3 August. In her 1996 interview, Inge remembered leaving on 3 August, saying goodbye to her grandmother, seeing Uncle Max at Cologne, and parting from her mother at Aachen before joining the other children. She was ten. The two written August dates remain separate, and the farewell scenes belong to her later recollection. Neither needs to be altered to make the other fit.

By 14 August, Arthur had news that his daughter was safe in London. His letter begins with the hope of finding a message from her and ends with a postscript: Else’s letter announcing Inge’s safe arrival has just come. Between those moments, he tries to continue being her father across the distance. He asks her to study, attend to her clothes and cleanliness, and consult Mrs Shaw. He credits Mr and Mrs Shaw with having “rescued you from hell on earth,” and thanks Uncle Alfred and Aunt Regie for their care.

Arthur also asks Inge to write only to her parents while she is alone in London, so that they can forward her letters and save postage. He hopes Else will soon join her and reminds her that her mother has endured much. He gives her the priestly blessing and tells her to keep the letter. Instructions about underwear, school and postage sit alongside rescue and separation. They make this one page a particularly direct record of what the new arrangement demanded from a child and from the parents who could no longer be with her.

Arthur’s presence in New York did not complete his immigration story. In March 1941 he was requesting proof of alien registration for a planned journey to Cuba, where he intended to apply for an American immigration visa. A further obstacle followed. In April, the German consulate refused to extend his passport, stating that he had lost German citizenship and citing an official publication of May 1940. The consulate’s letter records its decision and stated reason; the publication it cited has not yet been independently checked.

On 22 April Arthur swore an affidavit of identity and nationality, explicitly stating his purpose of going to Cuba for a United States immigration visa. A Cuban transit visa followed on 7 May. A Cuban transit-passenger card dated 17 May names the S.S. Monterey and New York as the port of origin. Arthur signed it; the nationality field reads “Ninguna,” or “none.” The next endorsement records an American quota immigration visa issued in Havana on 2 June 1941. A Department of Justice reply of 14 June acknowledges his letter of 10 June reporting entry into the United States as an immigrant. This second stage took place years after the visitor journey. His exact return landing still needs a passenger or admission record.

Else reached England separately from Inge. The precise journey remains unsettled: a Rotterdam telegram of 28 August 1939 says “ELZE YESTERDAY TO INGE,” while Inge later remembered her mother arriving just before war began. These sources do not yet supply one resolved arrival date. Inge remembered her mother arriving with one small suitcase and said that what mattered was being together. The reunion in England changed their daily lives, but Arthur was still across the Atlantic, and a second family reunion remained ahead.

In a postcard probably written in September 1940, Else told Arthur that she cooked every day for ten people. Inge later remembered her mother supporting them as a cook and recalled several English placements, schooling, friends and nights interrupted by air raids. The dated papers supply some fixed points within that remembered sequence. Inge’s Home Office certificate of 25 November 1941 gives 35 Spenser Road, Bedford. Else’s certificate of 25 June 1942 describes her occupation as domestic and gives 84 George Street. Those addresses belong to different people on different dates; the documents do not by themselves map every move or prove continuous shared residence.

On 11 November 1941, Else counted three years of separation from Arthur and hoped that most of it was behind them. The following January brought another delay. The State Department told Arthur that Else and Ingeborg’s visa cases had to be reexamined under the wartime regulations for people classified as enemy aliens. On 13 May 1942 it reported renewed advisory approval to the American consul in London. The letters show progress and reversal in the same process: a family's wish to reunite repeatedly returned to official consideration.

The next decisive dates appear on their own documents. Else and Ingeborg Ruth received separate American immigration visas in London on 14 October 1942. Their papers also carry separate embarkation stamps for Liverpool on 22 October. A Cunard White Star circular preserved with the travel papers instructed passengers to report at Liverpool with their baggage that morning, carry their documents on their persons, and keep sailing information confidential. The circular supplies the practical conditions of departure; the named endorsements provide the personal evidence that Else and Inge embarked.

Inge later remembered a voyage of about three weeks and arrival at Hoboken on 11 November 1942. A family annotation on a photograph of the T.S.S. El Nil gives the same arrival date and identifies it as the ship on which she and her mother came. These preserve the family’s account of the crossing, still awaiting comparison with an arrival manifest. Her interview then carries the story into New York: an aunt collected them and took them to Arthur’s newsstand on Forty-second Street. Inge remembered that her father did not recognize her at first, until he saw Else. The scene is hers to tell, recorded more than fifty years later.

Contemporary letters confirm that the long-awaited arrival had become news. On 14 November, friends in Bedford sent congratulations to Mrs Seligman and Ruth. On 18 November, Stella Mather wrote from 84 George Street that their cable had arrived on the fourteenth. She had told friends and the school, remembered their courage through repeated disappointments, and discussed the square trunk left behind. The official departure stamps, the family's remembered reunion and these English congratulations each preserve a different part of the same crossing. By mid-November, the people who had helped sustain their English life knew that the separated household was together again.

Rosa Seligmann, Arthur’s mother and Inge’s grandmother, followed a later and profoundly different route. A Theresienstadt identity card was issued to her on 3 July 1944. In a letter of December 1945 she recalled a transport in July 1942. The card’s issue date must therefore remain distinct from her account of deportation. On 4 June 1945, writing from Theresienstadt, she finally sent a sign of life to her “dearest trio.” She described hunger and the fear of further transports. She also asked whether her children were reunited and imagined little Inge grown into a young woman. Their 1942 reunion had not yet become certain news to her.

The first postwar documents trace intentions and locations in careful steps. A repatriation form signed at Terezín on 15 June 1945 names Fellheim as Rosa’s desired destination. A Munich processing certificate dated 25 June places her in Munich by that day. These papers do not supply the exact departure from Theresienstadt or every stage between. Through the following months, her letters record the work of reconnection: family news, parcels, affidavits and plans for joining Arthur, Else and Inge. Survival had made a future possible, but reunion still required many more months of arrangements.

In April 1946, preparations included a return to familiar places. Rosa’s letter of 9 April describes a weekend journey to Pfaffenhausen and Memmingen, visits to former neighbors, and a visit to David’s grave to say goodbye. She also faced a problem of weight. Cartons, a small rug and the suitcases themselves competed with her own possessions within what she understood to be a thirty-kilogram allowance. She asked her children what she should leave behind. The letter shows emigration at the scale of individual objects, each useful to someone, each making the proposed journey harder to pack.

On 25 April she and Mrs Hesselberger waited three and a half hours at the consulate without being seen. Rosa still hoped to reach her family during the summer. This time the next papers show the plan advancing: an identity certificate dated 29 April records her intention to immigrate, and the American consulate in Munich issued her visa on 2 May. A National Council of Jewish Women receipt of 13 May records transportation arrangements, naming Rosa in Munich and Arthur as the payor in New York. His help now appears as a dated transaction in the journey his mother was preparing to make.

A telegram of 17 May from the Marine Perch, signed Pauline Hesselberger, belongs to this departure period, but its compressed wording does not conclusively establish Rosa’s own sailing or landing. A later acknowledgment of Rosa’s naturalization application gives a New York mailing address in December 1946; its unlabeled May notation is an arrival lead, not a verified landing date. Inge’s later memories complete the human outline: taking her grandmother to English classes, seeing her shop, and remembering her happiness in America. The family's reunion is supported, even while the precise arrival record remains to be found.

Kurt’s and Inge’s paths came together after the war. Inge remembered meeting him through a childhood friend in 1947, near the time of her high-school graduation. She recalled that he had served four years in the United States Army in the Pacific and had become an American citizen in Brisbane. The family separately identifies a photograph as marking his citizenship day, although the exact date and the photograph’s location remain unverified. These later recollections extend the story of the fourteen-year-old whose immigrant card survives, without replacing the service and naturalization records still needed.

Their marriage certificate supplies another firm date: 18 January 1948. In a wedding photograph, the family identifies Kurt and Inge together with Siegfried and Louise and with Arthur and Else. The two parental households, whose departure papers describe such different routes, now appear in one family group. An undated letter from Inge’s parents to the honeymooning couple preserves the ordinary pleasure on the other side of those years of separation. “Your ears must be ringing,” the English rendering reads, “we talk about you so much.” The letters that had once carried plans for reunion could now carry news and affection after a wedding.