Journey of Hope and Despair: Volume I. Rise and Fall

By Xlibris US

These two volumes chronicle the life of a liberal Jew who came of age in Germany during the relatively enlightened period of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Rudolf Moos obtained his education in Ulm and, after working in his familys leather business, went in hope to seek his fortune in Berlin. He founded Salamander, the largest shoe business in Germany, which is still active today. He was a German patriot, who served his country in World War I and received a War Merit Cross (Kriegsverdienstkreuz) for his endeavors.

Rudolf Moos lived in Germany in growing despair through the political upheaval and hyperinflation in the aftermath of World War I. He was related to and enjoyed a friendship with Albert Einstein when they both lived in Berlin in the 1920s and early 1930s. Rudolf Moos then experienced the rise of the Nazis and the ever-growing restrictions placed on him and members of his extended family. Anti-Jewish sentiment in Germany rose sharply during 1933, which effectively ended his active life in business and community affairs and give him unsought free time to set out the story of his life. He and his wife were eventually permitted to leave Germany and immigrate to England, where he continued to work on his memoirs during the turmoil of World War II.

Volume I of Rudolf Moos memoirs, Rise and Fall, describes the poisoned atmosphere existing for the Jews in the Germany of the late 1930s, sets out his experiences of humiliation and arrest, the breath of freedom on leaving his Homeland, and his arrival in England as a penniless alien. Chapter 1 focuses on Rudolf Moos origins and his fathers family and leather manufacturing company, which initiated trade with East India in the 1880s. It describes the background of Rudolf Moos mother, who was a member of the Einstein family, and provides details about the lives of Rafael and Rupert Einstein, her father and grandfather.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Mar 18, 2010
• ISBN: 9781450035392

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Copyright © 2010 by Rudolf Moos.

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Figure 1. Rudolf Moos’ Bookplate

This bookplate depicts key aspects of Rudolf Moos’s life and endeavor. The house in Ulm where Rudolf Moos grew up is shown at the top left and the spire of the Cathedral in Ulm is drawn in the center. Rudolf Moos’ summer house or Villa at the Moosgarten in Potsdam is at the top right. The Salamander and Puma stand for the two main brands of shoes Rudolf Moos developed. The bookplate was designed by Emilie Veit, Rudolf Moos’ niece.

Dedication

In memory of members of the extended Moos family who perished in the Holocaust and in hope for future generations.

Forward

My grandfather, Rudolf Moos, was born on November 25, 1866 in Buchau, Germany and died October 9, 1951 in Birmingham, England. He began writing his memoirs early in 1934 while living in Berlin, Germany. Anti-Jewish sentiment in Germany rose sharply during 1933, effectively ending my grandfather’s active life in business and community affairs and giving him unsought free time to devote to setting out the story of his life. My grandfather wrote the first part of these memoirs while living in Berlin and desperately trying to obtain the necessary affidavits so that he and his wife Gertrude (Trude) would be permitted to leave Germany and immigrate to Birmingham, England to live with their daughter Hilde and her husband Teddy Salinger.

My grandfather continued to work on his memoirs after eventually being allowed to leave Germany and settle in England in July 1939. He pursued this effort throughout the turmoil of World War II and wrote the last entry in June 1944. He had brought the first part of the memoirs with him to Birmingham and, thus, his daughter Hilde (my aunt) had a complete copy, which came to 1,787 typed pages. During my visit to Birmingham after Hilde died I had an opportunity to take the memoirs with me, but I declined thinking that I did not want to get caught up in old family history. However, after some consideration, I changed my mind and the copy was mailed to me.

My grandfather wrote these memoirs in German, his native language. After brushing up on my German, I painfully translated a large portion of the text. When I decided that I needed help to complete this seemingly never-ending task, I was fortunate to secure the able assistance of Alina Lawrence, a native German who, as chance would have it, was born and raised in Potsdam not far from my grandfather’s summer villa, and of Kate McQueen, who was a graduate student in the German Department at Stanford University. I also wish to thank Sybille Fuessel, who translated more than 50 pages my grandfather wrote by hand in old German script when his ancient typewriter temporarily broke down. Coincidentally, Sybille and her husband Reinhold are now living in my grandfather’s refurbished summer house in Potsdam, along with their son Fabian and his family.

I have divided the memoirs into two parts, labeled Rise and Fall and Social Networks. Volume I covers my grandfather’s education and coming of age, the development of Salamander, his shoe business; and the years of travail during and following World War I. Volume II covers my grandfather’s extended networks, including his summer villa, and his children, brothers and sisters, and extended family members. I hope these memoirs will help my children and grandchildren better understand and appreciate one branch of their family tree.

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Rudolf Hugo Moos

Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1.

Chapter 2.

Chapter 3.

Chapter 4.

Chapter 5.

Chapter 6.

Chapter 7.

Chapter 8.

Chapter 9.

Chapter 10.

Chapter 11.

Chapter 12.

Prologue

As I begin to write my memoirs now in 1934, the 68th year of my life, I am embarking on a task that I had decided to undertake many years ago. I have never had the free time or motivation I needed to organize my thoughts. I was always beset by urgent business or personal matters. I cannot remember even one day, since I moved to Berlin in February 1892, when I did not have something important that had to be done or something I should have done. For many years I always had unfinished tasks and, at the end of the day, I knew that I could not do everything that needed to be done.

Boycott and Denunciation of Jews

The boycott of Jews that began in Germany on April 1, 1933 freed me from many tasks I would willingly have done. All of a sudden, I was barred from a number of important positions. My work as an expert adjudicator for the Regional Court, as a member of several committees of the Commercial Business Commission, as a member of the Association of German Shoe Merchants, and as an expert in the shoe business—all these positions of honor disappeared overnight. The government of the German Reich declared that Jews were no longer wanted in these positions and were forbidden in many of them.

Abandoned by our Colleagues

The most difficult circumstances we Jews had to endure, and our worst disappointment, was that our German friends entirely abandoned us. There was a complete and terrifying lack of support from our former colleagues. Again and again we asked ourselves why people did not stand up to counter the worst complaints about the Jews. Someone should have stood up and supported us and cried out that what was being said about the Jews was wrong, that the Jews had a more positive side, and that no group of people loved the German Fatherland more and was more concerned with the common welfare.

Many upstanding and learned men should have raised their voices in protest; however, this rarely happened. In March and April 1933, leaders who should have cried out and protested were cowardly and silent; they allowed the outrageous deeds against Jews to proceed. One source of the deep seated hatred of the Jews stems from the terrible myths promulgated about the Wise Elders of Zion, a supposed cabal of seven elderly Jewish men who presumably were trying to control the world for the benefit of the Jews.

Hitler described these myths in his book Mein Kampf. When he wrote the book Hitler was an unknown soldier and perhaps could believe in the fantasy that political events were controlled by a small number of unknown and hidden individuals. Just the thought of these ideas seems ghastly. The horrendous myth that is being spread far and wide is that, in some unknown place, seven old Jews are planning the future of the world to benefit the Jews. The myth is that these seven Jews want to rule the world and control all of the stock markets.

In the new edition of his book, Mein Kampf, Hitler continues to espouse the fairy tale of the seven wise Jews who secretly conspire to rule the world. This shows how little he really knows about the world even though, as Chancellor of the Reich, he should understand world politics. Moreover, the fact that our government ministers do not dissuade Hitler from making the most disgraceful statements about Jews shows how cowardly they are. Do Hitler and the government ministers actually believe in the seven wise men of Zion? When our leaders promulgate these terrible myths, what should ordinary citizens think?

Poisoned Atmosphere

One day Grete Bahr, who was the maid for my cousins Karl and Adele Heinrichsdorff, was the focus of a conflict in the house. The workers who had come to get the house ready for a new tenant immediately told Grete: Do not say anything or we will report you. As the wife of a postal official, you are not allowed to work for Jews. This is what is happening everywhere. Everybody is looking for evidence to prove that someone was a socialist or communist before 1933, or that the person had said derogatory things about the Nazis.

This type of denunciation is an outcome of the new system that has awakened the worst instincts of the citizens and used them against the Jews. Nobody trusts anybody else. People on buses or trains sit silently with a grim facial expression. Nobody dares to begin a conversation with anyone else. One does not know whether one’s fellow passenger is an informer or a Jew. One is not allowed to have a relationship with a Jew; otherwise one could lose one’s job so it is best to be very careful.

There was a newspaper story yesterday about a recruit who was sentenced to six months in jail because he had not broken off his relationship with a Jewish woman with whom he had had two children! The only reason the sentence was so mild was that the court decided that the relationship had begun before the new rules came into effect; that is, before 1933. It is very difficult for a German of Jewish faith to read about this type of judgment without becoming furious. I myself, who was a lay judge in the Commercial Court for many years, would never have considered it remotely possible that a German judge could let himself be swayed by such ridiculous nonsense. I would have expected that high government officials and all officialdom would have joined together in unanimous opposition.

Forced Resignations

A year ago I was selected to be Deputy Chair of the Examination Commission for apprentice shoe merchants for the Chamber of Commerce in Berlin. But recently I received two letters that resulted in the termination of my position on the Examination Commission. First, I received a letter from the Chamber of Commerce on April 25, 1933.

Due to the changed political circumstances, we request that you resign your position as a regular committee member and Deputy Chair of the Board of Examiners for individuals who wish to enter the shoe trade. We also ask you to return the appointment form we sent you on December 12, 1932.

I replied on May 4, 1933: Although it was caused by the repeated admonitions of the German Minister of Commerce, I would humbly like to know what legal requirements led you to write your preceding letter requesting my resignation. Faithfully yours, Rudolf Moos, who, as a good German, always emphasized his Jewish heritage with pride.

I did not receive a reply and did not expect one. The way we Jews are treated is beyond belief and it is shameful and despicable. You bewitched fools! It is almost impossible to believe how individuals who typically do the right thing have lost all shame and are dead set against all Jews for the flimsiest of reasons!

A Memento for my Heirs

In addition to these general circumstances, another important event motivated me to begin to write my memoirs. On his return from Italy on April 10th (1934), my son Heinrich told me that his wife Herta was expecting a child. I have yearned for grandchildren for many years and this news gave me renewed hope. Perhaps I will have several heirs, and among these offspring of my own flesh and blood, there may be one who, like I, is interested in the past and will enjoy learning about how his forbears lived. I am writing these lines for this unknown heir. He shall know how we lived and suffered, how much we loved our German homeland, and how terribly we suffered as the foundation of our existence and our life was poisoned and stolen from us.

In fact, our friend Hugo Ehrlich, Herta’s father, died on August 9, 1934. He still had a loyal and dedicated clientele from his medical practice in Posen, and, until the end, he was convinced that the craziness of the Nazis would end by itself. He thought they would destroy themselves because, in the long run, one could not govern a big country like Germany with such injustice and idiocy. He did not live to see the birth of his first and only grandchild, for whom he longed as much as I did. The infant Rudolf Hugo Moos was born four weeks after his grandfather’s death, on September 10, 1934.

When I wrote the first part of these memoirs I was still living in Germany and Hitler had become Chancellor of the Reich and dictator of Germany. The circumstances of the Jews in Germany quickly deteriorated. On a daily basis, we had to bear more and more insults. In his newspaper Der Sturmer Julius Streicher, the mayor of Nurnberg, highlighted gruesome reports of the Jews’ alleged disgraceful activities, especially their alleged sexuality and sexual dissipation. Newspapers that print anything not entirely consistent with government policy are immediately forbidden, which is proof the government itself is sponsoring all this anti-Jewish propaganda.

Stories in the newspapers emphasize that Jews have always been nomads who are egocentric, think only of themselves, and have a common goal to rule the world. I know only one homeland; it is Germany. I know only one mother tongue: German. I am attached to Germany and to the German land and soil with all my heart and soul. When the German people call me a nomad, they are thinking of the time of Abraham 4,000 years ago and have forgotten that, at that time, their ancestors also did not have a secure homeland in Germany.

Emigration to Birmingham—August 1939

I am sitting now in a little house at 36 Underwood Road in Birmingham, England. This is a big change in my circumstances since I wrote the last entry in my memoirs on August 7, 1936. The terrible oppression with which the Hitler regime treated all people of Jewish origin has become much worse. Perhaps I will have time later to go into more detail about how a system was set up that slowly promulgated one new policy after another in order to restrict Jews more and more stringently. In the long run, it was simply impossible to bear these harassments. The only possible resolution was that we had to leave the country!

Escalating Restrictions and Barriers

But how should one get out and where could one go? The Nazis confiscated our passports to prevent us from traveling to other countries. And almost all other countries were closed to Jewish immigration. Since 1933, the most important topic of conversation among Jews focused on emigration. Whichever way we turned, there were problems, and one of the biggest problems was how to finance emigration.

The prospective emigrant first had to pay the German government a certain amount, a so called Reichsfluchtsteuer (tax on fleeing the German empire), which amounted to 25% of the person’s overall assets. But this was not a person’s actual assets at the time, but rather assets from an earlier time before the government confiscated most of the Jews’ assets so that only a small part remained. All Jewish businesses were Aryanized; that is, they were forcibly handed over to ethnically pure Germans.

All Jewish craftsmen were forbidden to practice their trade and there were heavy penalties for any violation. The same was true for doctors and lawyers. With special permission Jewish doctors were allowed to practice, but they were only allowed to treat Jewish patients. When her maid got sick, Dr. Rosenthal, who was a friend of ours, was not allowed to care for her, so the maid had to go to an Aryan doctor. Dr. Rosenthal would have been severely punished if she had given her maid medical advice.

These incidents illustrate how badly the Germans treated Jewish people and how they tried to make their lives a living hell. Attorneys suffered a similar fate. A few were still allowed to practice, but not as attorneys. The Germans stripped them of that title show everybody how inferior the Jews were. Moreover, they could only consult with other Jews and had to reject all other clients.

The large Jewish companies, including department stores and factories, were forcibly Aryanized (taken over by ethnic Germans). The Veit factory in Goeppingen, which was owned by my nephew Karl Veit, was allocated less raw wool than its competitors. In addition, they were told that this amount would be further reduced in the future. Because one could no longer buy wool on the free market, but rather had to get an allocation from a central planning committee, it was easy to see that the Veit factory would go bankrupt due to lack of supplies.

My nephew Karl Veit had no choice but to sell the factory to Aryan Germans as long as it was still functioning. But even this sale was subject to government approval. It was not the sale itself that had to be approved, but rather the price, which had to be approved by several bureaucracies. It was a very nasty situation and there were many bribes and threats. All honorable Germans had to put their heads in the sand in order not to react against this terribly litany of greed, infamy, bribery, and outright robbery by German government officials and merchants. Germany’s moral fiber had never sunk as low as at this time, when people vied with each other to confiscate all Jewish assets and to get as much of them as they could for themselves.

Humiliation and Arrest

The peak of this bribery occurred when a government official was murdered by a foreign Jew in Paris. Goering used this occasion to declare that all German Jews were accomplices in this criminal act and to demand payment of 2 billion Reichsmark from the community of German Jews to the German government. It was calculated that this fine would amount to about 25% of all Jewish assets.

I do not know how much money was collected nor what was done with it. The government also conjured up new sadistic rules that made these payments even more difficult. My share of the payment was 42,200 Reichsmark, but I was not allowed to just sell any stocks and bonds I wanted to raise the money. Oh, no! If the Jews had sold certain of their stocks and bonds it could have caused a stock market crash, and this had to be avoided at all costs.

The idea was to rob the Jews, but this robbery should not have any undesirable effects for the robbers. The Jews were told that they could only sell certain stocks and bonds, and that this could only be done in a specific order as approved by the government. So we had to get permission from the Reichsbank and constantly had to provide assurances under oath that these were the only stocks or bonds that we had left. These visits to get permission were terribly degrading, as the bank officials treated us like criminals.

We were treated like dogs not only at the Reichsbank, but also at all other official offices. There were a few officials who behaved in a courteous and honorable manner, and one could tell that they wanted to follow the old Prussian traditions of impartiality and honesty. But most officials treated us in an abhorrent, repugnant manner. I personally experienced the greatest indignity; for example, when young clerks treated me like with disdain and contempt. I still get very angry and upset today when I think back about these matters.

We had a great deal of trouble arranging to leave the country and there were many delays. In May 1938, the Gestapo arrested me as an alleged enemy of the State and I was imprisoned for 10 days at Alexanderplatz. It was a hard time for my dear wife who suffered in this situation much more than I did. Then, on April 27, 1939, I had surgery in the Trautenstrasse hospital to break up a bladder stone. On May 21, 1939, my brother in law Fritz Heinrichsdorff died in the same hospital of an unknown disease. It was not until July 24, 1939, that my wife Tru and I finally received a passport so that we could leave the country.

Breath of Freedom

On Thursday, August 3rd, the packers came to pack our things and the customs officials were there to deal with customs regulations and other necessary formalities. This cost us more than 15,000 Reichsmark; they tried to rip us off whenever they could. Finally, on Saturday, August 5, 1939, we were finally able to board the train. Our maid Marta Bensel, and our friends Dr. Rosenthal and Margarete Wolff, accompanied us to the train station. In the evening we had our last encounter with a German customs officer, which was quite peaceful to our surprise. Then, finally, we reached the Netherlands and experienced our first hour of freedom; we could breathe easily again without fear of being arrested.

What a sad fate! I loved Germany from the bottom of my heart, but was able to breathe freely only after I had left German soil. What a criminal this Hitler is. He harasses peaceful people so much that they hate their own government and cannot wish for anything except that the regime will quickly fall apart. It is sad to see these scoundrels leading Germany.

Now I have been in England with my wife Trude for more than 2 months. We live in a little house at 36 Underwood Road, which we had visited 2 years ago. Our daughter Hilde and our son in law Gerhard (Teddy) Salinger try as hard as they can to make the rest of our lives as pleasant as possible. They gave us the nicest room in the house and do everything they can to provide us what we need and make us feel at home.

One of our other sons, Heinrich, is also staying in the house at the moment; he is currently a transient immigrant and is waiting until he gets permission to go to the United States. His wife Herta works as a maid and administrative assistant in London at the office of Dr. Borkon, who is a dentist. She comes home only on Saturday afternoon and then returns to work on Sunday afternoon.

Our only grandson, Rudolf Hugo, who is now 5 years old, also lives with us. He had been evacuated from Birmingham to the countryside due to the danger of the war and bombing. But last week he became sick and therefore was brought back to us. Just now he is playing cheerfully on the street with the other children.

Penniless Aliens

When we packed everything in Berlin in early August, our first priority was to take as little as we could so that we would not overburden the limited space in the little house in Birmingham. There is very little room for us in the house, which is filled to the brim with the Salinger’s own things and with Heinrich’s things. Because Teddy cannot afford a car, the garage is filled with suitcases and boxes. Furthermore, we were told that we could only bring items into England that had been in our possession for at least one year. There was a high tariff on all other goods, but how could such a tariff be paid? The two of us were allowed to take only 10RM (ReichMark) out of Germany as travel money. All gold and silver, which might have been exchanged for cash, was confiscated. All this was part of the cruelties we had to bear.

How could we support ourselves in a foreign country? England only let us in if we agreed not to take a job in which we could earn a living, while Germany would not let us out unless we left all our belongings there. Officials in the two countries agreed to policies that together were impossible to abide by. Of course, everyone was trying to figure out how to break these rules in order to survive.

I had planned to bring my books and all the letters I had amassed over the years to England. I had gotten several new boxes for this purpose and filled them with this material. But when I packed, I thought about how this might upset Hilde and Teddy, who had told us over and over again to minimize our luggage. In addition, we needed to consider the freight costs, since we had to pay the costs from the harbor at Hull to Birmingham in British currency, and only Hilde and Teddy had the funds for this.

Thus, at the last moment, I decided to leave all these boxes behind in Germany. Our maid Marta was supposed to bring them to the Moosgarten where they would be stored with other items, but for how long? I had no hope that I would ever return to Germany. I thought that perhaps some family member might go back in a few years or decades. However, there was an imminent danger that the Moosgarten would be taken away from me. For many years already, the Nazi’s program included expropriation of Jewish property. So I had to anticipate that this was a quite likely possibility. My papers would be lost forever. But I had no choice. I could not take my books and letters with me, but I also did not want to destroy them. So I left them to their fate.

Our fate in England has become much worse now that the war (World War II) has begun. We are considered enemy aliens in England, even though we were oppressed by the Nazi regime. The newspapers are full of warnings about the 5th colony, i.e., aliens who are supposed to be spies for Germany. We German Jews are suspected of knowingly or unknowingly giving Germany some kind of information that might be of use to it.

A number of Jewish immigrants have been interned; several thousand were sent to the Isle of Man. One hears of more arrests on a daily basis. We have a 10:30 pm curfew and are forbidden to listen to the radio. We need to get permission from the police to travel and have to submit to whatever new rules are promulgated by the officials. The former lecturer, Alice Bernstein, Herta’s aunt, was arrested. She is as harmless as a lamb.

Furthermore, our niece, Marie Gutmann, her husband the former notary Dr. Alfred Gutmann, and their 17-year-old son Armin were interned. Richard Gerson (Teddy Salinger’s sister Lotte’s husband) asked for permission to use his extensive knowledge about nutrition and food for British companies, but he was turned down without an explanation. Unfortunately, the British officials have no idea about how to make good use of patriotic and talented people.

All in all, almost nothing could be worse than the current situation in which I, as an old man almost 73 years of age was forced to leave his homeland and move to a foreign country without any means of support. Trude and I share an uncertain destiny, poverty, a ban on working to earn money, and dependence on our children, which bothers me the most. I am completely unaccustomed to all of these things and yet I have to endure them.

Likewise, I had to endure the loss of my writings, given that there was no room for them in Birmingham. I cannot remember many of the details of specific situations. I was able to take some of my appointment books with me to remind me of what happened on a particular day. However, I was not able to take my more detailed papers and letters, which would have reminded me about precisely what had happened. I can only rely on a dim memory of events, which I will have to report as best I can. It will be like someone who is telling some friends anecdotes from his life on a long winter night. I will try to tell my life story in a coherent way, as best as I can remember.

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Figure P1.

Rudolf Moos at age 73 (1939)

Figure P2.

Gertrud (Trude) Moos at age 63 (1939)

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Figure P3.

Rudolf Moos’ German Passport (1939)

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Figure P4.

Gertrud (Trude) Moos’ German Passport (1939)

Chapter 1.

Origins

My Father’s Family

My grandfather Abraham Moos was born in Buchau on April 10, 1799 and died in Buchau on April 19, 1868. My grandmother Veronika (Fanny) Moos (nee Weil) was born in Oberdorf on November 20, 1803 and died in Ulm on February 27, 1885. My grandfather’s parents were Bernhard Moos and Magdalena (Madele) Moos (nee Kohn) and my grandmother’s parents were Heinrich Weil and Basilika (Aron) Hechinger (Figure 1.1).

Grandfather Abraham Moos

Grandfather Abraham was a leather merchant. He traveled all week with his horse drawn cart and came home Friday night in order to spend Saturday with his family. Several times a year, he went to Neuenburg and other places where tanners plied their trade to buy leather, which he brought back to Buchau in his cart. Grandfather visited the markets in Riedlingen, Saulgau, Pfullendorf, and all the nearby towns, and he had very loyal customers. Later on, when I worked for my father at A. Moos & Sons, I met quite a few leather merchants and shoemakers who had been my grandfather’s loyal customers.

Grandfather Abraham was able to earn a reasonably good living and to save some money, perhaps a few thousand Gulden. His brother Josef (Uncle Jausle) started his own business on a rather larger scale, but the 1840s were very unsettled and Jausle got into serious financial difficulties. He needed credit and asked his brother Abraham to be his guarantor. And then, when a catastrophe befell Jausle, Abraham had to back him up financially, which wiped out Abraham’s entire savings. My father told us that Abraham was terribly upset and full of despair because of this catastrophe, and that he wanted to leave Germany and go to America.

This financial collapse had a profound effect on the family for many years. Grandmother never forgave her husband for the fact that, due to his careless decision, the family came into financial ruin. And my father said to us again and again, Never make a financial guarantee; it is better to just give the money, because then at least one knows the exact amount one is giving.

Many years later uncle Isidor got into an argument with some friends in Buchau, and one of the men said that he was not the type of person who did not pay his debts in full. This statement made Isidor so angry that he never forgave this man’s allusion about our family’s unfortunate financial mishap. Isidor never spoke to him again. It was a man named Dreifuss from one of the many families in Buchau to which we were related by marriage. Grandfather’s financial circumstances improved only after my father came home from Elberfeld and opened an independent wholesale business under the name: A. Moos and Sons. Grandfather Abraham died in Buchau in 1868 (Figure 1.2).

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Figure 1.1. Rudolf Moos’ Father’s Family Tree

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Figure 1.2. Abraham Moos’ Gravestone in Buchau

Grandmother Fanny (Weil) Moos

Grandmother Fanny would give us dried plums, pears, or apple schnitzel; sometimes we also got nuts and, when we went to the market with her, she gave us a coin to buy a snack. However, we immediately used the money to buy something like a water gun or blowpipe. But our fun never lasted very long. Just as we began squirting water at the passers by or shooting them with peas, my mother or an aunt would come by and confiscate our ill-begotten toys.

Grandmother Fanny was very religious. She kept kosher, never ate ham, fasted on Yom Kippur, and went to Synagogue every Friday night and on Saturday. She had her special place in the gallery and we sometimes visited her there. After the service on Friday evening, we usually all gathered at my grandmother’s home. Synagogue and services were not so important for us young children and so we often left early; our parents came after some time and finally our grandmother came last walking very slowly from the Synagogue back home to Langestrasse. Her small home was then filled with more than 15 people; three sets of parents and many children.

My grandmother had moved to Ulm in 1870, where she lived in Langestrasse with her daughter Sophie Kuhn, in a house in which the Veit Kuhn Company was also located. She died on February 27, 1885, a few days before Purim. My sisters Jette and Berta and my cousin Rosa had planned and carefully rehearsed an Italian dance and several short plays for the Purim festival. The costumes were ready and everyone was looking forward to the performance, but the festivities were cancelled due to grandmother’s death.

Father Heinrich Moos

My father Heinrich Moos was born on August 10, 1834 in Buchau. When he was 14 years old in 1848 he began his education in Karlsruhe. As was the custom in those days, my father lived in his teacher’s house. My father was revolted by eating beef fat, even though the fat was thought to be the best part of the meat. The mistress of the house meant well and wanted to please the young student, so she always included a big piece of fat on his plate along with the meat. My father later told us how he stuffed the fat into his trouser pocket when the housewife was not looking and then breathed a sigh of relief.

My father was plagued by homesickness and, after only a few weeks, his father came and brought him back to Buchau. My father told us another story about his schooling. At the time, one could only enter a sales profession after proving one’s competence by passing an exam. Buchau was part of the province of Reidlingen and, therefore, the exam was given in Reidlingen. The Head of the exam board owned a linen and clothing store. A few weeks before the exam, grandfather drove to Riedlingen with his two sons and bought fabric to make clothes for his sons from the owner of this store. And then my father took the exam from this store owner, and he passed!

My father also loved to tell us the following story. There was a tradition in Buchau to set up a Pfingstbaum (a tree-like structure for celebration of Pentecost) with all kinds of decorations. Someone challenged all the young boys to climb to the top of the tree. The older and stronger boys went first and pushed the smaller boys away. But the task was not that easy and nobody was able to make it to the top. Then it was my father’s turn. He was 12 years old and was one of the shortest and apparently also one of the weakest. However, to everyone’s surprise, he made it to the top and got a penny as his reward. He was always good at climbing trees.

The Moos and Einstein families knew each very well in the small town of Buchau, and there were several intermarriages. My father married my mother Karoline (nee Einstein) on June 12, 1862 (Figure 1.3). My father was not satisfied with his father’s small business and wanted to expand it. He told us that Grandfather Abraham worked tirelessly to please his customers. When a peasant or shoemaker wanted to buy a tanned skin for resoling shoes, the buyer would look over different pieces of leather and haggle with Abraham for hours about the price. My father wanted to develop a bigger and more prosperous leather business.

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Figure 1.3. Karoline (nee Einstein) and

Heinrich Moos on their wedding day (June 1862)

Uncle Isaac Moos

On February 19, 1881, mother and Aunt Mina went to a concert and when they came home they told us how nice it was. We were pleased to hear how much our mothers had enjoyed themselves. The next morning, our maid woke me up looking very sad and asked me whether I had heard that Mr. Moos had died that night. I could not comprehend this news, did she mean my father? No, she said, not my father, but Uncle Isaac, my father’s brother. And then our mother came out of her bedroom and told us what had happened.

At the Laemmle, the inn in which the book club held its regular meetings, the men were playing cards as they did every evening. Uncle Isaac was playing cards with four other men when he suddenly got up and fell to the ground, dead, without speaking a word or making any sound. One can image that the other men were in total shock. All attempts at medical treatment were useless. My father and his other brother Isidor, who were nearby, had to watch Isaac die.

They brought Isaac’s body home and told my aunt Mina, who had just returned from the concert, and they awakened the children, Rosa, Hugo, and August, to tell them. The entire house was filled with deep sadness and I was totally devastated. We had always depicted a death in the plays we made up at home, and usually it was a sudden death, but now that it had really happened it was quite different. I felt especially bad for my young cousins, Rosa, Hugo, and August.

Many people came to the funeral and we even received a letter of consolation from a general in Stuttgart who used to live across the street. In fact, we had never spoken to this officer, but he had observed our family life from his window and thus could empathize with our sadness. Many friends and relatives came from Buchau for the burial. Rabbi Weimann reminded us of the old patriarch Abraham and how he died and his son Isaac was called by God. At that point, we all had to cry.

Isaac’s death had a huge impact on the firm A. Moos & Sons, even though he had not founded the firm or been a salesman for it. My father had done all that. But Isaac had learned everything there was to know about the leather business. When Isaac was still quite young, Grandfather Abraham took him on business trips to visit customers, so he personally knew all the shoemakers and farmers in the nearby communities. He visited the markets at Riedlingen, Pfullendorf, and others, and everyone knew him and thought of him as an energetic and ambitious young man.

The economic boom in Germany in the 1860’s helped the family business grow, as did our move to Ulm. Business was booming and our clientele was growing; the company conducted business in all areas of Oberschwaben and Bavaria south of Nuernberg. However, a change from the support for free trade to protectionism then caused an economic downturn, which led to much more competition. Formerly, traveling salespeople had been warmly welcomed, but now they were greeted with some grumbling. It turned out that the only way to keep customers was to offer them a continuing line of credit.

These negative developments coincided with Isaac’s death. The revenue and profit of the firm began to decline. Isaac’s oldest son Martin, who had always been the head pupil in his class, went to business school in Stuttgart and joined the business as an apprentice. He was only 18 ½ years old when his father died and he was supposed to take over his father’s role in the business. Martin dedicated himself to this task. He represented his mother, who became a partner in the business but did not actually work in it. Martin was very smart and industrious, and he knew how to treat his father’s old customers in a friendly manner so as to maintain their business.

A few weeks after the funeral an old business friend, Drescher from Saulgau, came to our store to shop. We always invited him to stay for lunch so that he could take his time deciding on the specific merchandise he wanted to buy. Drescher had always been a special friend of Isaac’s and had eaten lunch with him. When my mother told him about Isaac’s death he started crying and said that he could not believe that Isaac had to die so young. He said it was such a shame and then asked, why did not the little one die instead?

My mother was appalled and said that would not be all right with me, because the little one is my husband. Drescher was very embarrassed. He apologized many times and said that he had thought she was Isaac’s wife. However, we children could understand his comment. We knew he had had a close relationship with Isaac, so we could not blame him for thinking that he would rather have Isaac alive than his brother.

Uncle Isidor Moos

In 1870, my father’s older brother, Uncle Isidor, moved in downstairs. His wedding had been set for the middle of June 1870, but the war broke out and the family was very worried that he would be drafted. In Wurttemberg at that time there was no general duty or draft to serve in the military. Anyone who did not want to serve could get a release simply by finding a substitute. Our father often told us that it was hard for Isidor to find a substitute.

We children always listened to this story with mixed emotions, as we thought it was somehow immoral to pay a substitute rather than to fulfill one’s duty to serve the Fatherland. We were somewhat appeased by the fact that Isidor’s substitute returned home healthy from the war. My parents thought that our patriotic opinions were strange. In general, Jews hated military service, in part because it forced them to break all their dietary and religious principles. Many Jews left the country so that they would not have to serve in the military.

I still have a clear memory of uncle Isidor’s wedding in Kappel. I was allowed onto the roof of the building with the other children and from there was able to see the Federsee for the first time. The bride, Aunt Louise, was the daughter of Mathilde Neuburger, who lived in the house next to ours in Hofgartenstrasse and who I visited often and called aunt Madele.

Uncle Isidor’s wedding took place in July 1870, just as the war with France broke out. The Neuburger family was financially well off at that time and had deposited the funds for the bride’s dowry in exchange notes in a reputable bank in Frankfurt. This was the custom among cautious families at that time. In small towns like ours, these exchange notes were considered the safest way to keep one’s capital.

These notes could be exchanged for cash at any time; moreover, they earned a good rate of interest. However, in June 1870 the banks and stock market shut down all of a sudden. Nobody knew what would happen. It was not so long ago that Wurttemberg had been at war with Prussia and many people who were still alive had personally experienced the Napoleonic wars between 1813 and 1815. Everybody wanted to hoard their money, so the Neuburgers could not sell their exchange notes and raise cash for the dowry.

However, my very cautious father had previously given the bank instructions about cashing the funds for the dowry expected on the wedding day. The banks hesitated about executing previous orders, so there were several days during which there was considerable worry about who would bear the expected loss in the transaction—the Neuburger or the Moos family. Fortunately, the economic outlook improved and the expected payments could