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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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Home About the Book

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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PREVIOUS

Nassau Jewish Community March 16, 2023, 7.00pm The Island House, Nassau, The Bahamas Moment Magazine – Zoominar May 5, 2020, 4.30pm The Emanuel Synagogue April 30, 2020, 7.00pm POSTPONED DUE TO COVID-19 160 Mohegan Drive West Hartford, CT 06117 Windsor School March 19, 2020,  8.00pm  POSTPONED DUE TO COVID-19 Albany Campus, Nassau, The Bahamas Hadassah December 5, 2019, 11.30 am The Country Club at Mirasol 11600 Mirasol Way Palm Beach Gardens, FL 33418 Temple Emanuel October 27, 2019,  5.00pm Women of Reform Judaism 10101 Connecticut Ave, Kensington, MD 20895 RJ Julia Bookstore July 9, 2019  7.00pm 768 Boston Post Road, Madison, CT 06443 Wiener Library June 12, 2019, 6:30 pm Fashion – Metropolis – Berlin: 1836-1939 29 Russell Square, London WC1B 5DP
  • Corpus Christi College, Oxford University
    Ging Wong Seminar.
    February 26, 2019
    Merton Street, Oxford, OX1 4JF
    Private event.
September 30, 2018, 2:00 pm
Brandeis Alumni Association
3830 Seminary Road, Alexandria, VA 22304

Congregation Beth Shalom April 15, 2018, 9:00 am JUF Brunch and Yom Hashoah Service Congregation Beth Shalom, 772 W. 5th Avenue, Naperville, IL 60563

Office of Equal Employment Opportunity, National Labor Relations Board April 10, 2018 Holocaust Remembrance Program, Washington, DC Private event.

Institut für Zeitgeschichte (IfZ), Munich, Germany March 23, 2018 Advanced training program PROVENIENZFORSCHUNG for employees of public collections in museums, freelance provenance researchers, employees of museum associations and art dealers.

Temple Sinai, Authors’ Roundtable February 24, 2018, 9:00 am – 1:30 pm
Dina joins authors Morra Aarons-Mele, Hiding in the Bathroom: An Introvert’s Roadmap to Getting Out There (When You’d Rather Stay Home); Anna Solomon: Leaving Lucy Pear; and Alexandra Zapruder: Twenty-Six Seconds: A Personal History of the Zapruder Film. Moderated by Lynn Sweet, award-winning journalist and Washington Bureau Chief for the Chicago Sun-Times. Click here for registration and details.
3100 Military Road NW, Washington, DC 20015

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Order the Revised and Updated Paperback

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Translated into Mandarin and on sale in China Titled 失窃的遗产

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The Publisher

Stolen Legacy is published by the American Bar Association and distributed by Ingram.

Book Details

Paperback: 328 pages   |   Language: English
ISBN: 978-1634254274
Includes book club discussion questions.

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