personal data


Löwenthal Maier

Surname
Löwenthal
First Name
Maier
Date of Birth
03-24-1873
Place of birth
Bad Kissingen
Other family members

Parents: Hermann Löwenthal and Fanny née Frank
Siblings: HannchenRicka, Wilhelm, Nanny m. BodenheimerIsidor
Spouse: Clothilde m. Ehrmann
Children: Irene m. AppelFannyBertha

Address

Promenadestraße 3 (now 5)

Profession
Cattle dealer - representative, Mattress manufacturing business owner
Emigration/Deportation

August 1938 emigrated to the USA

Date of death
01-09-1951
Place of death
New York

biography


Maier Löwenthal was born in Bad Kissingen on March 24, 1873 as the son of Hermann and Fanny Löwenthal, née Frank. His father Hermann played a central role in his hometown as the Chairman of the Jewish Cultural Community of many years. 

Since 1883, Maier Löwenthal attended Kissingen Realschule which he graduated from successfully in July 1891. He lived with his parents in Maxstrasse 3 and Promenadestrasse, respectively. First, he became a livestock dealer and later the owner of a business that produced mattresses. In July 1903, he married Clothilde Ehrmann from Darmstadt. One year later, their first daughter Irene was born in Darmstadt. Soon the family moved to Bad Kissingen where in 1906 and 1908, their two daughters Fanny and Bertha were born. 

After their father Hermann’s death, his sons Maier and Isidor donated a new Thora Scroll for the New Synagogue in Maxstrasse in memory of their father, which was solemnly handed over to the Jewish Community of Bad Kissingen in a “beautiful and impressive service” on September 1, 1909. 

Maier Löwenthal also committed himself to the Jewish Community; since 1904 he was a member of the “Israelite Charity Club” and acted as their cashier. In addition, he was an active member of the Bad Kissingen section of “Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold” (Empire Banner Black-Red-Gold). This military association had the aim of defending the Weimar Democracy against its enemies on the Left and the Right. Maier Löwenthal was also highly esteemed with his many non-Jewish acquaintances. 

When in the Nazi Era the mattress factory, which had been successful before, got into more and more troubles, Maier Löwenthal sold his business at the beginning of 1937 and worked for a travelling salesman for some time.During the Nazi era, the mattress factory, which had been successful up to then, got into more and more troubles, and when Löwenthal was no longer able to pay the increased repayment rates of the Bad Kissingen district and city savings bank, the Sparkasse ran the foreclosure auction of Löwenthal's property in December 1937. Löwenthal received nothing from the sales price of RM 25,200 - which was far below the value of the property. He worked as a sales representative for some time to support the family.  On August 11, 1938, he left Bad Kissingen with his wife and his daughter Fanny in order to emigrate to America. Before setting out, they visited their oldest daughter Irene, m. Appel who had emigrated to the Netherlands who had already emigrated to the Netherlands in 1933 for some days. From there, Maier Löwenthal wrote from there to a close acquaintance in Bad Kissingen: “We are staying here with our daughter where we like it very much… The only problem is that we can’t speak the language. But as we are with company all the time, this can also be endured more easily. On the first days, we were very tired and exhausted but now we are strolling around a lot. We are going to stay here for eight days more, then we move on to Paris to set out to the New World afterwards… It is so wonderful with our dear children and we have seen such a lot of beautiful things. Amsterdam is an absolutely marvellous city. It’s only a pity that the last hours are waning so quickly.” (letter/ private property, August 20, 1938). Those were to be the last days together with their daughter Irene. In 1943, Irene Appel was deported from the Netherlands to Auschwitz/ OświęcimConcentration Camp and murdered there.

On August 30, 1938 Maier Löwenthal, his wife Clothilde and their daughter Fanny went on board the ship “Ile de France” in Le Havre and sailed to New York. Their daughter Bertha had already emigrated to the USA one year earlier. In September 1938, he wrote from there: “We have been her for eight days now and extremely like it. The voyage was wonderful, great weather the best of catering. We were on the ocean for six days. The impression of New York is really charming…”. (Letter from September 12, 1938). It is difficult to conceive how somebody who had just had to escape from his home country could describe such positive impressions.

In 1940, Maier Löwenthal lived with his wife Clothilde, the daughters Fanny and Bertha, his son-in-law Fritz and his grandson Harry in a shared apartment in Manhattan.

The family lived in modest circumstances and Maier Löwenthal worked as a simple worker until he was over 70: “I myself hadn’t expected to still have to work at my age, but what else can you do when you have been expelled from your property without a penny. I worked in several factories until I had a bad accident three years ago… Since then I haven’t been really healthy, and my age also plays a role. The Hitler years also affected us a lot” (letters from December 9, 1949 and January 12, 1950). In spite of his financially precarious situation he hadn’t lost his optimism and seemed to be enthusiastic about the living condtions in the USA: “America is a wonderful, free country. We should only have emigrated twenty years earlier. Then we would have been spared a lot of trouble and I would have been able to salvage a considerable fortune” (letter from March 23, 1947). 

Maier Löwenthal’s letters also show that all the time he was very interested in what happened in Bad Kissingen and how his former acquaintances were doing. His general judgement on the Germans was differentiated and in opposition to the flat “thesis of collective guilt”: “ It is sad to see how this beautiful and ambitious Germany was brought to the edge of an abyss by such a band of criminals; there is revenge for what they did to us Jews. But what is regrettable is the fact that the decent people also had to suffer from it.” (letter from April 14, 1948)… “That it had to come to this is certainly not everybody’s fault, even though a great number of them was blind” (letter from June 15, 1948)… “Presumably, it may take long for wealth and order to return, but the decent and industrious person will reconstruct his existence anyway” (letter from July 25, 1948).

In December 1948, Maier Löwenthal submitted a claim to the restitution authorities for the restitution of his house in Promendestrasse. He did not live to see the outcome of the almost three-year trial himself. His widow Clothilde Löwenthal received the property back in March 1951 after a settlement with the interim owner in return for a payment of 10,000 DM.

Maier Löwenthal increasingly suffered from heart problems in the last years of his life and died in New York on January 9, 1951 at the age of 77.


References


Korrespondenz Meier und Clothilde Löwenthal mit einem Bad Kissinger Bekannten, Briefe in Privatbesitz
US Holocaust Memorial Museum/Holocaust Survivors…externer Link
Schülerakte Jack-Steinberger-Gymnasium
H.-J. Beck, Kissingen war unsere Heimat, p.693f, edition 2017
Datenbank Familysearch, New York, New York Passenger and Crew Lists, 1909, 1925-1957externer Link
Datenbank Familysearch, New York, Southern District, U.S District Court Naturalization Records, 1824-1946externer Link
Datenbank Familysearch, US Census 1940externer Link
StAWü WB IV A 2803

Photo credits




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