“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.”
SECRETS UNEARTHED IN NEW PAPERBACK EDITION OF STOLEN LEGACY: NAZI THEFT AND THE QUEST FOR JUSTICE AT KRAUSENSTRASSE 17/18, BERLIN
“An exceptional adventure in Holocaust literature. Dina Gold combines investigative journalism with a keen sense of history to uncover a story everyone should read.” — Marvin Kalb, Harvard professor emeritus, senior adviser to Pulitzer Center, former CBS network correspondent
Washington, DC, Nov. 28, 2016 — In 1990, shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Dina Gold marched into a German government ministry at Krausenstrasse 17/18 and declared, “I’ve come to
claim my family’s building.” And so began Gold’s legal struggle as recounted in STOLEN LEGACY: Nazi Theft and The Quest for Justice at Krausenstrasse 17/18, Berlin, the first book about the successful claim of a building seized by the Nazis.
At Brooklyn Law School conference dinner this evening talking about Stolen Legacy with college President, Dean and Professor of Law Nick Allard. Packed room all listening attentively to my every word! Very nice crowd. Loved meeting everyone and hearing their stories. Interesting questions too.
It was standing room only at Politics and Prose when I spoke about my book. Plenty of people were already in their seats when I turned up half an hour before my event was due to start. They listened attentively, laughed at all the right places when I read extracts from my book and asked interesting and perceptive questions. It was a very fine start to my book tour.
I nearly forgot to mention…lots of books were sold and I signed plenty of copies.
Lovely article by Jenni Frazer in today’s Guardian newspaper about the book. “Gran” refers to my grandmother, Nellie Wolff, who started this whole adventure by telling me stories all through my childhood of the wonderful life she once led in pre-war Berlin. And of course she told me many tales of the long lost building, stolen in 1937 by the Nazis.
A few days ago, while attending the American Bar Association’s annual conference in Chicago, Legal Talk Network reporter, Laurence Colletti, invited me to an interview. Jonathan Malysiak, my editor at Ankerwycke, the ABA’s newly launched imprint, as well as two of my fellow Ankewycke authors, David Lat and Ron Fierstein, were all there too. We talked about Ankerwycke, its remit, our respective books and our journeys as authors.
