Berliners reconnect with Jewish history through homes

Marie Rolshoven of Berlin began an initiative called Denk Mal Am Ort, meaning “Think about it at the site”, to remember Jewish people who once lived in her building and were persecuted by the Nazis.

Rolshoven and others invite descendants of former residents to the apartments their ancestors occupied, fostering a connection to the past through physical space.

In 2018, 92-year-old Joel Ludwig Katzenellenbogen returned to the building where he lived as a child with his family before they fled Germany in 1939, recognizing his brother’s former bedroom. The project has expanded to eight cities, reaching people like Claudia Samter, who traced her aunt’s history to Rolshoven’s apartment, as her aunt was unable to escape Berlin.

Adam Ethan Klein from Switzerland also used the initiative to research his family’s history, discovering a letter detailing his great-grandfather’s removal from the list of licensed attorneys in 1933. Klein’s research led him and his family to Stuttgart, where they encountered Thomas Koch, a local researcher who had been investigating the previous occupants of their ancestral home.

Koch shared information about the Hirschheimer family, who once lived in the building and were forced to pay substantial taxes before emigrating, and revealed that they were Adam’s great-great-grandparents. Rolshoven believes remembering these stories is crucial, especially as fewer eyewitnesses remain to share their experiences.