An Old Address Book

I discovered an old address book of my father’s after Mom died, so never had a chance to ask her if she knew how to interpret some of the entries.  On the other hand, it is SO rich in mysteries and information that I thought I needed to include it, and see what we can learn from it.

I’ve provided a scan of the address book as PDF in the new “Documents” section on the right hand side of this page, so I think you should be able to blow up the pages, if you would like to.  This post is an annotated version, with the individual scanned pages, and some comments/interpretations by me as to what they might contain….

I will warn you all in advance that this post is going to be long, and likely confusing.  This address book appears to be my father’s address book shortly after he came to the US (August, 1938).  It includes US addresses and some European addresses.  The European addresses seem to be war-time or just post-war.  My guess is that Daddy had a separate address book that contained the addresses of friends and relatives when he left Germany, but unfortunately we don’t seem to have that one.

Just as background, Moshe Lieb Hochbaum, my father’s grandfather, had two wives and 8 children. This same Moshe Lieb Hochbaum was also my mother’s great-grandfather, so for you Brauners, this is also part of your history. My count is that these 8 children had 41 children between them, so Daddy had a total of 40 siblings and first cousins. That’s a lot of mishpokhe.  Of those, the eight cousins who were Mom’s aunts and uncles were all in America by 1922, Daddy and Henry and Sam came over in 1938, and Rose Schaufeld and her family came over in 1939.  Some of the others (like Regina and her cousin Golda) went to Palestine and other places, but the vast majority of the cousins were in still in Europe when the war broke out, and most of them died in the camps.

The Yad Vashem memorial site in Israel has an online database of “pages of testimony,” where people can put the information they know about people who perished in the camps, and I have been (slowly) going through that to add that information to my family tree.  Of the eight children of Moshe Lieb, the five or six  who were still alive at the start of the war all died in the camps.  (Daddy’s father and Mom’s grandmother had both died earlier, which may have been a factor in the two families being willing to emigrate.)  Many of the next generation also were killed in the camps.  Some miraculously survived.  These include “the two Reginas” (Regina Rappaport and Regina Singer), Duftsha Schoenberg, Lena Mandelbaum and Morris Barber, and perhaps others.  Of the next generation, the only survivors I know of are Charlie and Tamar Landau (Bertl Hochbaum), a lovely lady who lives in Israel.  I may be missing others.

With that introduction, here we go:

“Dago” (pronounced  DAH-go) was Daddy’s nickname in Europe and to a lesser extent here also.  My mother never called him Dago, but many of the relatives and his two business partners (also named David) did.  The address listed here is in Washington Heights, and may be the first address he had in the US.

This is page 2.  There's a column labeled “Geburstag,”  which means  “Birthday,” and in fact, this little book has some information about birth dates and occasionally about birth places.

The first entry, Rosi Brauner, is our grandmother, Rose, along with her address on the Grand Concourse in the Bronx.   Note the second entry, which is for Mom, with her name misspelled.  26/11 1912 is her birthday in European format (November 26, 1912 in ours), and the penciled in address of 971 Madison Avenue is the address of the Carlyle Hotel, where Mom had her store.

There are entries for Fred Bihari (probably both home and work), who was Aunt Minnie’s husband. (Aunt Minnie was my mother’s aunt, and one of the Schorr sisters.) And there’s an entry for Uncle Sol.  I don’t know who Edna Bochner is.

And, of course, all the telephone numbers are in the old, pre-area code format, with two letters for the location and the other five for the number.  (Our Bayside phone number was BA 9-7363, for example.)

One of the fascinating things about this little book is the combination of European and American entries.  The first entry on this page, I think is for Lily (Leonie) Grun, who was living in Bratislava, Czechoslovakia, and was instrumental in getting Charlie to the States, as we have discussed in previous posts.

Next is Henry Goldberg, who along with his wife Anjou, was instrumental in helping Daddy and his brothers come to the States.  I don’t know what their relationship was, but note that Henry is also living in Washington Heights. 

Julius Goldberg is Aunt Selma’s father (Aunt Selma was my Uncle Sam’s wife).  I think Aunt Selma’s uncle was from Chrzanow. 

Tina Green was a cousin of Charlie’s on his father’s side.  I vaguely remember her from Charlie and Alice’s wedding when she was sitting at the same table with me and Regina and Esme.  Regina was plying Esme with champagne.

I have no idea who Elias Grubner was, but there are Grubners on our family tree.  One was my mother’s paternal great-grandmother (according to Debbie Weston’s family tree). 

Sam Goldblatt was my mother’s Aunt Esther Schorr’s huband.  He was a butcher, and I think the second address says “Paramount Meat.” 

There are a couple more addresses and phone numbers for Tina Green, including one at the Hotel Plaza (on 161 St?).  I’m not sure what that’s about.  Alice may be able to help.

The next three lines are information about David Grun (Charlie’s father), Marta (his mother) and Charlie (Chaim Hirsch).  David seems to have been born on the 27^th of October, 1900, and (I’m guessing) his full name was David Samuel Grun.  I thought he was born in Tescen, Czechoslovakia, but this seems to say he was born in Biala.  I think the second column was their address in Prague, probably after they moved from Beuthen.  I have no idea why the 1904 date for Marta’s birth was changed to 1905.  The last column seems to say, Marta geb. (born) Shoenberg.  There is also a “Registernnummer”  (registration number seems to be the translation).  I don’t know what that is about or who it was for. It may have been a registration number in Germany.  More questions than answers…….

Lazar (Eliezer) Hochbaum was a half-uncle of my father’s, and the grandfather of Tamar Landau in Israel.  He died in Auschwitz.

This page also has the birthdays of Daddy’s sister Erna (Ester), her husband Henry, and son, Chaim Hirsch, all of whom died in the Holocaust. [Chet, note the spelling of Hirsch.  I’m not sure which I should be using!]

My guess is that the address on the bottom is a forwarding address, but I don’t know where that is.  Notice that it is also X’ed out. 

And on this page, also is Regina’s address in Israel, which I can’t read, and her birth date.  I think the address may be Kibbutz Shamir (see my last post).

On this page we have Uncle Henry’s address in the army, in Mom’s handwriting, and then an address in Brooklyn, Sam’s address in the Bronx, and two Bergen-Belsen addresses, which is enough to make you stop breathing if you haven’t already. 

Berta Hochbaum (Tamar Landau) was Daddy’s first-cousin once removed and was indeed in Bergen-Belsen.  She survived the war as a teenager and moved to Palestine, where she and her husband (also a survivor) were active in the resistance to the British.  He, I believe, became an economic minister in the Israeli government.  They live in Jerusalem.  Her parents both died in concentration camps.

Sigfried Hochbaum was also a first-cousin once removed, and also seems to have survived the war and moved to Israel, but I don’t know anything about him.  His parents perished in Auschwitz.

The David Hochbaum here is Duftsha Schoenberg, and Regina Hochbaum is his sister, Regina Rappaport.

According to my family tree, Berek Hochbaum was a half-cousin of Daddy’s, Gusta his wife, and Monek their son.  I don’t know anything else about them, except that seems to be a USSR address (?) 

And, I assume that the phone numbers on the bottom are NYC numbers for Gina and Sam.

Binem Sonnenshein was the husband of an aunt of Daddy’s, and I think was Regina Singer’s father.  He and his wife and Regina Singer’s husband all died in the camps. Regina survived and lived with Regina and Lutsi Rappaport (both also survivors) for many years.

I don’t know anything about the next two entries, but notice that one of them is for Santiago, Chile.  Refugees were going wherever they could get in, and it was very tough to get in anywhere.  Daddy and his brothers wound up here, but if that hadn’t worked they were looking at Argentina and Australia.  Some of Charlie’s father’s family wound up in Australia; others in Shanghai.

Leonie Schwartz and Isidor Schwarz are Charlie’s aunt Lily Green and her husband.

I don’t know anything about Josef Gruen, who I assume was somehow related to Charlie’s father.

Totally overwhelmed? I’ll try something a little simpler next time………