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“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.”

—E. Randol Schoenberg
Attorney (“Woman in Gold”)

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About the Book

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.”

But the story is STILL not over.

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Author Archive

Q & A with Deborah Kalb

Written by Administrator on May 26, 2015. Posted in Media

Today Deborah Kalb posted her interview with me about Stolen Legacy online. She wanted to know what had made me decide to search for the long lost building behind the Berlin Wall. Also, how I had felt as I uncovered more and more information which suggested my grandmother had not, as everyone suspected, been telling me pure fairy stories. How had I managed to balance my role as a journalist at the same time as being personally and emotionally involved in the unfolding drama? All good questions, and I did my best to answer them. In a week’s time my book will be published and available for purchase! Deborah’s Q&A with me was also posted on Moment magazine’s website and you can read it here.

Book Expo America beckons

Written by Administrator on May 20, 2015. Posted in News

@ShopABA

As twitter followers know now, I will be at Book Expo America in New York Friday, May 29.

Looking forward to it. The Ankerwycke Books booth is #1428.

Drop by and say ‘hello.’

Letter from Berlin

Written by Administrator on May 14, 2015. Posted in News

Congrats Dina,

You have written a very important book.

The entire case of restitution is not yet closed.

I have done research on hundreds of former Berlin Jewish fashion firms, most of them didn’t get a thing after the war. Equally important: Berlin fashion companies – as well as insurance companies active during the time of 1933-45 deny the background of their wealth.

My new novel: Ehrenfried & Cohn (in German, see www.amazon.de) describes the process of the theft of Jewish real estate and firms by Nazis in great detail.

Your valuable publication Stolen Legacy contributes to understanding what actually happened.

Thanks, Dina.

Uwe Westphal
Berlin

Hermanns & Froitzheim

Written by Administrator on May 11, 2015. Posted in News

The Jewish Museum in Berlin currently has an exhibition about the popular hobby of collecting stamp-sized images used mainly for corporate and product advertising. The website explains that “before the First World War, millions of these stamps were in circulation, sparking a veritable ‘collecting mania’”. The photo illustrating the contents of the exhibition is of a toucan holding ties in its beak.

What people do not know is that Hermanns & Froitzheim rented office space in Krausenstrasse 17/18 – the building at the center of “Stolen Legacy”.