The Story of the Meyer Family, Spanning Over Two Centuries
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The story of the Meyer family, spanning over two centuries. 1 TABLE OF CONTENTS I INTRODUCTION 4 JEWS IN GERMANY 5 JEWISH GENEALOGY AND LAST NAMES 9 THE TOWNS 10 THE MEYER HERXHEIMER CLAN 14 II 14 THE HERXHEIMER SIBLINGS 17 JULIUS’ BRANCH I 19 JULIUS’ BRANCH II 26 GUSTAV’S BRANCH 32 EMIL’S BRANCH 34 MATHILDE’S BRANCH 41 LUDWIG’S BRANCH I 44 LUDWIG’S BRANCH II 45 AMELIE’S BRANCH 62 III APPENDIX 63 Kätchen Meyer: Portrait of a Life told by Alice Meyer 64 Karl Meyer’s recording 92 Ilse Meyer's interview 98 Daniel Offer's paper 102 2 TECHNICAL NOTE As you have probably noticed already, this is a digital book meant to be reviewed on any platform, Macintosh, Windows or Unix, the format used: PDF is totally multiplatform so you can pretty much view the document and transfer it to any computer. If you rather read it in a more traditional fashion, all you have to do is hit the Print button on your computer, and you got a paper copy! Feel free to print as may copies as you want. The more people than learn about our interesting history, the more we will have fulfilled our objective. We will periodically be updating the book, so if you feel like making a contribution either in text, historical infor- mation, photos, etc. please let us know. Contact us at: [email protected] ©Pablo Meyer 2005. VERSION 2.1 3 I IntroductionINTRODUCTION Good old Tevye from Anatevka used to sing: Tradition, Meyer’s biography of her mother-in-law Kätchen, to Karl tradition... Meyer’s own recording, to Ilse’s recent interview. These are G incredible stories that describe the trials and tribulations of A hundred years ago, it was hard to imagine relatives who a family trying to cope with great adversity with a depth that hadn’t had the chance to meet, considering that people usu- goes far beyond a trivia of names and dates. This is the real ally lived, and later died, not very far from where they were essence of this book. born, where their parents where born and even where their grandparents where born. The idea of presenting this book in a digital form was sug- gested by my father Pedro; this way it can be easily updated Today, well today it is quite a different story, we are lucky and distributed. Feel free to print it and copy it. After all, the if we have a chance to get together with our closest relatives whole point is to have the unique opportunity to show our at least a few times a year. children part of their past, their roots ant their heritage. I realized how many of us, descendents of the Meyer How ironic that we are using sophisticated technology family, haven’t even had the chance to meet face to face, of our times to present our past... Today we live in a global even though there is a long history and tradition that tie village where no one is more than just a mouse click away. us up: almost two centuries –from the first recorded Meyer Lets keep developing this Meyer Family Tree with the hopes ancestor–. that in 50 years our grandchildren can have a picture of today as interesting and insightful as Alice’s Meyer letter to her The whole idea of doing this project started in 1998 when mother-in-law, written almost 70 years ago: nothing better I received a warm letter from cousins Roger and Conny Meyer, to understand the past to understand the present. inviting all the Meyer clan to get together and celebrate Ilse’s birthday in Israel, and to do a Meyer family tree. This cer- Lastly, on reading of the history of German Jews and do- tainly triggered my curiosity, and the more I started to learn ing this project I have come to understand so much more of about the family, the more involved I became in doing this my grandparents Ernesto and Liesel Meyer, who came from project; bare in mind that my definition of a Meyer reunion Mannheim to Mexico and had to go though the pain and was a casual get-together with my father –at one point, the struggles as so many other relatives did. I wish to dedicate only Meyer members in Mexico–. All of a sudden I have this work to their loving memory. met, –either in person or by mail– most of the family which encompasses dozens of living members. We as a family are quite fortunate to have documents, Pablo Meyer, pictures and texts which describe in great detail the German Jewish way of life and of course, the Meyer way of life, going Mexico City, 2005 back more than a century. Some of these wonderful stories are included in a complete form in the Appendix, from Alice 4 JewsJEWS in IN Germany GERMANY The first Jews to come to Germany, set foot in these lands The eighteenth century brought new ideas, enlight- many centuries ago, probably around the times of Christ, dur- enment and change. They had to do with the belief in ing the Roman Empire and possibly even before. More often man´s right as a citizen rather than as a mere subject, and Tthan not they were subject to harsh discrimination. There Jews were not immune to these changes. More Jews started were good times and bad ones, periods of calm followed by to break out of their narrow confines and more Christians long stretches of persecution or, worst yet, bloody massacres tolerated receiving them in their society. In Berlin as well that decimated them and drove them out. as in other cities, Jews started to get involved in universities Since the Middle Ages, life for Jews in Germany was so and scholarly groups. As more Jews moved into the cities dangerous and difficult that their numbers had dwindled to the process of Jewish assimilation into the broader German insignificance by the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. environment got started. During this time, Napoleon not only extended his sway The expelling of Jews from Spain in 1492, (the year over many German principalities but brought with him ideas Columbus discovered America) was a very important pe- and innovations derived from the French Revolution of 1789. riod which forced the Jewish Spanish population to flee to He enlisted the rulers of Bavaria, Wuerttemberg and others the south, –establishing within the Arab Empire–, and to as his allies, and he promoted the rulers to Kings. He also the north, establishing in northern Europe, particularly the promoted a major consolidation so that the new Kingdoms Rhineland, Poland and Russia. of Bavaria and Wuerttemberg, as well as the Grandduchy of Baden were larger than their non royal predecessors. There The modern history of Jews in Germany though, started were startling changes in borders as a result of the so called in 1671, after the end of the Thirty Years War, when the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss of 1803, the end of the Holy first of the Hohenzollerns, Frederick William of Branden- Roman Empire (of which Voltaire said that it was neither burg, known as the Great Elector, issued his Carta Magna Holy nor Roman nor an Empire). for Jews and invited fifty families to come from Austria to As the century drew to a close, a series of legal reforms, his realm. which first took effect in France and Austria, were applied in several German states. In 1812 a milestone was reached Frederick William of Brandenburg was certainly not when Prussia abolished the Jew Laws, granting Jews citi- motivated by any affinity or love for Jews, but he was a zenship rights as well as duties such as obligation to military practical man and he needed help to rebuilt his country after service. the devastating war. Together with Jews, he brought along other groups like the Protestants from Palatinate, Wallons, It was in the nineteenth century when the German Salzburgers and thousands of refugees from Bohemia. Jewry really started to assimilate with such speed that it has For the first hundred years or so, –except for a few who often been called “one of the most spectacular social leaps served as bankers and financiers– Jews were quite restricted in European history”. from mainstream Germans, their condition was governed Over the span of just a few generations, German Jews by the Jew Laws, a set of special restrictive and exploitative shed their medieval constraints and entered the modern life, rules with special taxes that served as a source of profit for very much taking advantage of it, achieving extraordinary many German princes and rules. It is important to remember levels of success not seen in Jews anywhere else in Europe. that Germany as a single state didn’t exist until two centuries By 1860, there were already twice as many Jewish than later, but it was rather a land of scattered and shifting jurisdic- non-Jewish private banks in Berlin. Throughout Germany tions among bishoprics, dukedoms, and empires. these private bankers had an amazing surge, names like Rothchild and Warburg to name a few. Jewish capital and There where however, some lucky ones who as court’s entrepreneurship developed railroads and started some of Jews were exempt from these laws; they play an important the largest industrial enterprises in the country: electrical, part in the economy as tax collectors, diplomats, financiers chemical, coal mining fields, as well as heavy industry. and bankers. 5 The Unification of Germany, 1815-1871. Germany in 1834.