“This is a meticulous and finely written account of Dina Gold’s struggle to seek belated justice for her mother, with all the twists and turns one would expect from a fictional detective story — but it is all true.”
When Dina Gold was a little girl, her grandmother told her stories about the glamorous life she had led in pre-war Berlin and how she dreamed of one day reclaiming the grand building that had housed the family business.
Dina’s grandmother died in 1977, leaving behind no documents, not even an address, to help locate the property or prove its ownership. But when the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, Dina had not forgotten her grandmother’s tales and set out to find the truth.
In 1990, Dina marched into a German government ministry at Krausenstrasse 17/18, just two blocks from Checkpoint Charlie, and declared:
“I’ve come to claim my family’s building.”
And so began her legal struggle — to reclaim the building that had belonged to her family.
The six-story office block had been the headquarters of the H. Wolff fur company, one of the most successful Jewish fashion firms in Germany. Built by Dina’s great-grandfather in 1910, it was foreclosed on by the Victoria Insurance Company in 1937. Ownership was transferred to the Deutsche Reichsbahn, Hitler’s railways, that later transported millions of Jews to death camps.
Today the Victoria is part of ERGO, a leading German insurance company. Few are aware that the Victoria was once chaired by a lawyer with connections to the top of the Nazi party. The Victoria was also part of a consortium that insured SS-owned workshops using slave labor at Auschwitz and other concentration camps.
Dina has delved deep into archives across the world and made shocking discoveries. What she found has repercussions even in today’s Germany.
In a major victory, Dina persuaded the German government to put up a plaque in July 2016 acknowledging in both German and English the history of “The Wolff Building.”
“A determined struggle for justice” is the headline of a review in the February edition of the AJR Journal. The article goes on to say: … the book covers far more than simply a legal battle. It is also a well researched history of an interesting family.
The reviewer is kind enough to remark: Dina Gold is to be commended for her persistence and determination not only in fighting for the return of her family’s property but also in tracing the fate of her relations and exposing the misdeeds of apparently respectable organisations and individuals.
The audience was fascinated by our respective stories and one man came up to me at the end of my presentation and told me he was convinced his parents had bought a fur hat from the H. Wolff fur company!
In recognition of it being International Holocaust Remembrance Day, a review by Lori Lowenthal Marcus in the Jewish Press A few extracts as a taster of the entire article:
A granddaughter’s grit, her investigative journalist skills, serendipity, the Germans’ propensity for keeping records all combine to make a true historic adventure – a victory against the Nazis – in Dina Gold’s “Stolen Legacy.”
Dina Gold’s book, Stolen Legacy (Ankerwycke 2015), is a rare Holocaust story. Her family tale combines all the drama and heart-pounding fear of Jews on the run, of Jewish families scattered throughout the world, of loss and, remarkably, of final vindication.
Gold’s story is unique in being a true detective novel and a document-driven courtroom drama, set in the heart of the Nazi Empire.
Read the whole piece. Here are some choice extracts:
The theme of the story is Gold’s struggle to recover a large and valuable office building in the heart of Berlin that had belonged to her grandparents, then to the Third Reich, then to the German Democratic Republic (East Germany), and then to the government of a united Germany. But the theme frequently takes a backseat to tangents and local color. Stolen Legacy is also distinctive among Holocaust books in its unusually unpleasant cast of good guys. The author is perfectly honest in describing her flawed and schismatic family: wastrel philanderers and Communists in prewar Germany, irresponsible stiffnecks in Israel, snobs in postwar Britain. The fact that she manages never to sound disloyal to her family shows a certain finesse.
How did it turn out? I won’t spoil it for you. But if you’re interested in a good detective yarn lasting 150 years, Stolen Legacy won’t disappoint.
It is six weeks since I spoke at the JCC in Detroit. Today I received this email from someone I met at the event:
I was thrilled to read your book, both from the perspective of a journalist and lawyer and as the child of German Jews (on both sides). Your ability to weave together the story of your claim for restitution as well as the investigation of what happened to your family members in a manner that is both delicate and personal as well as passionate and adversarial was thrilling. My grandfather was a restitution lawyer for victims of the Holocaust in Detroit after the war, having had to flee a very successful career in Berlin as a lawyer and working in a paper box factory until retirement. He wasn’t alive to see us secure restitution of his business buildings near the Brandenberg Gate after the Berlin Wall came down, but the process was similar, though not nearly as harrowing as yours was — the stakes were much higher in your case! Thanks again for the gift of this book. It is a treasure.
Joanna Stark Abramson
I am sure I am not alone as an author to delight in receiving such positive feedback from a reader.
“A determined struggle for justice” is the headline of a review in the February edition of the AJR Journal. The article goes on to say: … the book covers far more than simply a legal battle. It is also a well researched history of an interesting family.
On International Holocaust Remembrance Day, I joined fellow author Lisa Leff in Providence, RI for a program entitled 
In recognition of it being International Holocaust Remembrance Day, a review by Lori Lowenthal Marcus in the 
What a lovely review by Josh Gelernter in 
It is six weeks since I spoke at the JCC in Detroit. Today I received this email from someone I met at the event:
