personal data


Goldner Irma

Surname
Goldner
Birth Name
Schiff
First Name
Irma
Date of Birth
06-20-1896
Place of birth
Oberthulba
Other family members

Parents: Julius Schiff and Rika née Forchheimer
Siblings: Felix
Spouse: Ludwig Goldner
Children: Clementine and Lothar (later Justin)

Address

Maxstraße 4 (now 9)

Profession
Cook apprentice
Emigration/Deportation

December 1937 emigrated to the USA

Date of death
04-03-1971
Place of death
Los Angeles

biography


Irma Goldner, née Schiff lived in Bad Kissingen only for a short time. She was born in Oberthulba on June 20, 1896 as the daughter of Julius Schiff and his wife Rika, née Forchheimer. The widely branched Jewish Schiff family had been living in the village for generations. 

In May 1914, Irma Schiff moved to Bad Kissingen into Maxstrasse 4 and was employed as a trainee cook in Hotel Herzfeld for several months. In August that year she moved back into her home village. 

In January 1925, she married the butcher, farmer and cattle dealer Ludwig Goldner who was born in Zeitlofs and moved into his home village with him. There, her daughter Clementine was born in 1928, her son Lothar in 1931.

During the Nazi era, the situation for the family became increasingly threatening. Irma's daughter Clementine remembers "that the Nazi thugs in Zeitlofs threw my grandfather Ludwig into jail on trumped up charges.  He was beaten up and after his release, he was looking for any way to get his family out of Germany.  When he received a letter from a distant relative in the United States offering to sponsor his family and others. We went to our relatives (in Oberthulba) and I remember my parents begging them to come with us, but they wanted to remain; they felt that if they were quiet and remained in the background, ‚this would all blow over‘. We never heard from them after we left Germany.  My parents made many attempts to find them after the war and what happened to them, but could find out nothing.  It was only after my parents’ deaths that we learned of their deaths at concentration camps from the records at Yad Vashem, Israel.”

Felix Schiff, who ran a manufactured goods business in Oberthulba and was chairman of the Jewish community at the beginning of the 1930s, was deported to Krasniczyn with his wife Caroline née Goldner, a sister of Ludwig, and their two children. Ludwig's older sister Elsa m. Bravmann and her husband were also deported with the same deportation train and murdered. And Ernestine Goldner - Leopold Goldner's second wife - who temporarily lived with her stepdaughter in Oberthulba, was deported and died in Theresienstadt.

Irma and her family also had a very close relationship with her: "Ernestine lived with Irma and Ludwig in Zeitlofs and often took care of Clementine, as Irma was busy caring for her son Lothar who was a young child, working on the family farm, and cooking and bringing lunch to the field workers.  Ernestine sewed Clemmie’s clothes and entertained her, and Clemmie loved her dearly.  She said “leaving my “Oma” behind in Germany was very painful and I missed her greatly.” (Information Carol Hoffman, Clementine’s daughter).

Irma's father Julius had died before the Nazi era in 1930, and her mother Rifka died in July 1941, the year before the deportations from Main Franconia began.

After escaping in December 1937, Irma Goldner and her family first lived in Milwaukee / Wisconsin, where Ludwig continued to work as a butcher and was known as an terrific cook. He had already worked as a cook in the German Army in WWI. Irma was a housewife, a skilled embroider, and a doting mother.  She worked as a maid in Milwaukee.  Both children Clementine and Lothar - who now called himself Justin - graduated from college and earned graduate degrees. 

In the 1950s, Irma Goldner and her husband moved to California, where she died in Los Angeles in April 1971 at the age of 74. Her husband had already died in November 1962.

Today Irma's grandchildren and great grandchildren live in the United States. Many of them visited Zeitlofs and a few of them also went to Oberthulba, where Irma had lived with her family before 1937, and many had their German citizenship restored.


Irma-in-Germany---Top-row,-far-right
Irma Goldner née Schiff (top row far right) with her friends from Oberthulba

Hochzeit-Irma-und-Ludwig-Goldner,-1924
wedding photo Irma and Ludwig Goldner with relationship, January 1924: front row at the right beside couple Ludwig's stepmother Ernestine, left beside Irma her mother Rifka Schiff; top row at the left Irma's brother Felix with spouse Caroline née Goldner
Irma,-Ludwig,-Clementine-and-Jay-Goldner
Family Goldner (from the left): Irma, her husband Ludwig, the children Clementine and Lothar (Justin)

Goldner-home-in-Zeitlofs-1937
Home in Zeitlofs, where Irma and her family lived, her children Clementine und Lothar in foreground, 1937 before their escape to the USA

Clementine-as-a-child
Clementine, born 1928
Jay-Goldner-as-a-child
Lothar (who called himself Justin in the USA) , born 1931

Ludwig,-Irma,-Clem-and-Lothar-at-Clems-wedding-1956
Family Goldner at Clementine's wedding, 1956
Ludwig-and-Irma.1956
Irma and Ludwig, 1956


References


Meldeunterlagen der Stadt Bad Kissingen
Informationen Anita Wirth, Standesamt Oberthulba, 19.03.2019
Datenbank Ancestry, Familienstammbaumexterner Link
Datenbank Ancestry, New York, Passagierlisten, 1820-1957externer Link
Datenbank Ancestry, Petition of naturalizationexterner Link
Datenbank Ancestry, Petition of naturalization Ludwig Goldnerexterner Link
Datenbank Ancestry, Sterbeindex Kalifornien, 1940 - 1997, Eintrag Ludwig Goldnerexterner Link
Datenbank Ancestry, Sterbeindex Kalifornien 1940- 1997, Eintrag Irma Goldnerexterner Link
Detaillierte Hinweise zum Stammbaum der Familie Goldner finden sich auf:
Datenbank Ancestry, Greenberg Family Tree externer Linkund Datenbank Genicom, Irma Goldner (Schiff)externer Link
Meldeunterlagen der Gemeinde Zeitlofs, Schreiben von Frau Hundhammer, 16.09.2019
Informationen Jill Goldner, Mail 24.03.2021
Informationen Carol Hoffman, Mail 30.03.2021

Photo credits


© Jill Goldner and Carolin Hoffman



Back