Prologue

 

It was in the morning in the summer of 1999 that we stood gazing over the grassy hills of the Schmieheim cemetery. Not waiting to find the gate that had been opened for us, we lumbered over a small stone wall carrying our cameras, binders full of records, heavy volumes of a recently published compilation on the cemetery as well as backpacks containing water and maps. The quilted pattern of trees was a welcome site since it limited the radiance of the July sun among the rows of gravestones.

 

Although the community of Jews who purchased the land and ran the cemetery had perished from the area over seventy-five years ago, the cemetery showed us they were not forgotten. Much to our surprise, the cemetery showed no obvious signs of neglect or disrespect. Quite the contrary, the gentle hills of the cemetery were extraordinarily beautiful and the land was well-maintained and cared for. Many of the stones beamed in rich shades of pink and purple limestone, which contrasted with the other colors of the landscape. The cemetery seemed surprisingly like a memorial to the lives of the Jewish families who lived in the small villages near Schmieheim to Jeff and me, my family and other descendants who visited that morning.

 

​

 

My thoughts and those of Jeff turned to our father. Dad had set this all in motion a quarter of a century earlier when he set about to discover a history that had never been shared with him. Instead there were often inaccurate fragments of our family history. Leonard Dreifuss, who passed on his pursuit of the family history to us, would have loved to make the trip. Prior to his death two years earlier, he once tested my mother’s reaction by stating that he wanted to travel to the Rhine plain near the Black Forest where, as he discovered, his grandfather Leopold left as a very young man of 18 in the late summer of 1868. My mother reproached him since his health at the time would not permit it and he knew it.

 

Despite missing the opportunity to share a trip to the home of our ancestors, he shared many of his genealogical joys with us. At weekly family get-togethers, he and my mother, who was also actively attending and organizing local Jewish genealogy meetings, would relate to us the latest discovery or disclose to us a “new” photograph of a great, great grandparent who now had a name and a face. He was proud when his grandchildren interviewed him and assembled photographs for school genealogy projects. At some point prior to what became an onset of health problems he actively sought our help in computerizing records and in accompanying him to the National Archives in Washington, DC where he loved to research the literature, view microfilms and write his correspondence to a network of collaborative researchers he was working with.

 

After his passing in 1997, the baton had been passed with some loss in stride but not in passion. Although we did possess the research experience, collaborative and other genealogical skills dad had refined over the years, we worked with a never before shared passion to hone our capabilities. We also introduced some of the advantages of our youth, sharing a modern computerized database, referencing the source of most data, and building a web site primarily to expand upon our collaborative efforts with others. It was not enough for us to just research the family from the comfort of home. We traveled to Germany and to small Pennsylvania towns and learned what we could. For the first time, cemeteries became extremely interesting.  With each passing year, more records were unearthed or indexed for the first time on the Internet that helped fill gaps in our knowledge.  To our surprise never-before known or little known ancestors began to share their lives with us in the same way that a good forensic scientist can unearth a criminal activity.

 

In the pages that follow, we try to share the interesting family history that was known first hand or obtained from the records left behind on our family. We also share with other interested readers many of the methods, tools and inferences used to determine the history.  It is our intent to emphasize accuracy, objectivity and verifiable data. When the data is less so or speculative, we have tried to indicate this as well. “Without it (accuracy), a family’s history would be fiction”.1

 

For our descendants and those of Isaac and Rosa Bernheim Dreifuss, our great, great grandparents we hope to tell a family history of the struggles which led to our very existence and that of our own children and grandchildren. For if certain events had not come to pass, our grandfather and three of his siblings would surely have perished in the holocaust. We also attempt to explain the methods with which we were able to reach out across time to reconnect with family of the present that were separated from us by those events.

 

For the genealogist, this book documents research of one branch of our family that has been researched over 35 years by three primary investigators. Of course, much of the time was spent investigating other branches of our families and those of our wives in the hope that we can share all of these stories with our descendants.

We have set forward to assemble an accurate family history beginning in the 18th century, beginning with the earliest records that were available to us and provide a history that naturally emerged from the historical records. Much discussion and debates have taken place between us over how best to do this. We hope we have chosen a style that works for our readers.

 

Peter Dreifuss

July 2014

 

 

                        _____________________________

                        1Genealogy Standards, Board for Certification of Genealogists, 2014