Cohn and Siebenberg families papers

The collection documents the experiences of the Cohn family from Leipzig, Germany and the Siebenberg family of Offenbach am Main, Germany during the Holocaust. The collection includes biographical material of Heinrich and Klara Siebenberg and the Cohn family; immigration records of Erma and Georg Cohn and Georg’s brother Walter Cohn; wartime correspondence to Georg Cohn from his brothers Gerhard Werner and Walter; letters to Heinrich and Klara Siebenberg from Klara’s sister Ella Liepold, who was imprisoned in the Gurs concentration camp in France; restitution papers regarding Georg Cohn’s family business in Erfurt, Germany; and pre-war and wartime family photographs. Georg Helmuth Cohn (later George Cohn, 1903-1972) was born on 9 August 1903 to Hyman (1866-) and Johanna (née Weinstein, 1879-1920) Cohn in Leipzig, Germany. He had two brothers, Walter (1912-1962) and Gerhard Werner (1905-1940). Georg worked in a fur factory prior to the war. He was arrested in November 1938 and sent to the Buchenwald concentration camp. He was released in January 1939 and emigrated from Germany on the S.S. Orduna in May 1939 to Cuba. He then went to Panama briefly before securing an American visa and arriving in New York on 23 September 1939. He married Erma Siebenberg in 1942. They had two daughters, Jacqueline (1948-) and Vivian (1946-). Walter Cohn immigrated to Barranquilla, Columbia in 1938, and then to the United States in 1950. Gerhard Werner lived in Erfurt, Germany with Henriette (d. 1940) and Nathanel (1872-1940) Cohen, his aunt and uncle on his mother’s side who co-owned a women’s clothing factory. They were forced to sell the business in 1937, and by 1940 Gerhard, Henriette, and Nathanel had fled to Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Gerhard’s non-Jewish girlfriend, Minna Vollrath, turned them in to the Nazi’s, and they were murdered in May 1940. Erma Cohn (née Siebenberg, 1912-1981) was born on 27 February 1912 to Heinrich (1885-1972) and Klara (née Liepold, 1882-1961) Siebenberg in Offenbach am Main, Germany. She had three siblings, Ernest (1913-), Frederick (1917-), and Herta (1926-). Erna moved to Paris, France in the 1930s to work. Her parents and siblings emigrated from Bad Kreuznach, Germany to the United States in 1938, and she emigrated from Paris in 1939. They all settled in New York, and Erma worked as a seamstress. Ernest and Frederick both served in the United States Army. Klara’s sister, Ella Liepold (1879-1942), was sent to the Gurs and Drancy concentration camps in France, and then sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp where she perished in 1942.