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.
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.
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”.
