Berthold Heinrich Goldschmidt was born on December 10, 1881 in Frankfurt am Main. His parents were Nathan Goldschmidt and Jeanette Josephine David, married on January 13, 1877 and living at Blumenstrasse 12. His older sister Henny was born on January 2, 1878.(1) They belonged to the so-called 'poorer' branch of a wealthy Frankfurt family Goldschmidt.
Clementine (Clemy) Bachmann was born on May 3, 1882 in Frankfurt am Main. Her parents were Julius Bachmann and Pauline Weismann. Clementine had two older brothers, Max and Leo Bachmann.
Berthold and Clementine married in their hometown on April 2, 1909. They lived at the address Freiligrathstrasse 46 and had two children Ilse, born December 1, 1910, and Kurt, born December 7, 1916.(2)
Berthold and Clementine lived in Frankfurt am Main until their emigration to the Netherlands in the fall of 1936. Berthold worked from 1904 as a successor in the internationally renowned wholesaler of diamonds and pearls N.M.Oppenheim in Frankfurt am Main. In 1922 he became agent of this company. In Frankfurt, Berthold and Clementine later lived in a large, very well-furnished house with a extensive art collection at Leerbachstrasse 90.(3)
When the situation for Jews in Germany became increasingly dangerous after Hitler declared in 1935 that Jews could no longer be German citizens Berthold and Clementine went in the fall of 1936 via Bucharest where their daughter Ilse lived, about her later more, to Amsterdam. They traveled over Bucharest also to leave jewels with Ilse.
The Bachmann family had a past with the city of Bucharest. Clementine's brothers Max and Leo also became stateless. Max and Leo had worked in Bucharest in previous years and obtained Romanian citizenship. After the arrival of German troops in Romania, they left Bucharest by plane with their families in January 1941 to arrive safely in Spain and the United States after many wanderings.
From September 6, 1937 until their arrest on March 12, 1943, Berthold and Clementine lived at Stadionkade 41-II in Amsterdam. Why they failed or did not chose to seek their salvation outside Europe is not clear. The business contacts in the Amsterdam diamond industry and trade and the presence of a large Jewish community may have played a role as well as the size of the property to be transported. Statelessness and Jewish registration were a major obstacle to travel.
On 29 May 1938, they were registered as Jewish at the German Consulate General in Amsterdam.
The very valuable furnishings of the house in Frankfurt had already been temporarily stored in Basel in October 1936 and was transported to Amsterdam in the summer of 1937. The estate covered about six tons, a truck full. The later refund documents in the context of the Wiedergutmachung describe the rich interior of the spacious modern apartment on the Stadionkade at the time of the arrest on 11 or 12 March 1943.(4) The forequisition list describes, among other things, a 17th century oak dining room and salon, a living room and study with furniture from the Queen Anne period and in the hall an oak cupboard with a worked door from the 16th century. The rooms contain many Persian and Turkish carpets, a Gobelin tapestry, 18th century watercolors, a Peter and Paul statue probably from the 14th century, Meissener, Dresden and Delft porcelain, a special painting by the important French portrait painter Rigaud: Duc d'Orleans. Upon arrest, this painting disappeared without a trace.(5) The looting of Jewish household goods and art possessions took place in the context of the so-called M (Möbel)-Aktion, the Nazi robbery organization of Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg. In addition to the looted estate, Berthold and Clementine had more than 100,000 DM in securities. Virtually nothing of this has been found. What remains is only a coffee table that was found at one of the neighbors, now it is at one of the cousins in the United Kingdom. Son Kurt suspects these neighbors of treason in 1943 but said about prosecution 'What good would it do?' And left it there.
A curious, (yet) uncheckable story lives on in the family. According to son Kurt, they had booked passage on a ship from Rotterdam to Portugal shortly before the arrest. That ship left a few days later than planned and they would have been captured by the Gestapo at exactly that interval.(6)
There are almost no signs of life from the years in Amsterdam. However, it is known that Berthold donated an expressionist painting by Peter August Böckstiegel, 'Meine Mutter und Tante König', to the Stedelijk Museum on February 3, 1940, three months before the German invasion on May 10.(7) 'Entartete' art that had to be hidden before the arrival of the Nazis.(8)
Another sign of life from this period is an advertisement in het Joodse Weekblad of July 17, 1942 asking for domestic help.
In addition to the address on the Stadionkade, their personal card also lists the address Vondelstraat 50-52 hs with the date of December 7, 1937. At the time, this was an office building. It is not clear what this was for.
Berthold and Clementine probably spent a few days in the Hollandsche Schouwburg after their arrest by the Gestapo on March 11 or 12, 1943 and pending transport. On March 12, the house was robbed. Already on March 13, 1943, they arrived at camp Westerbork, they were 'eingeliefert'. On March 17, together with at least 958 fellow sufferers, the transport followed to Camp Sobibor where they were murdered around March 20, aged 61 and 60 years respectively.
The Nazis have not succeeded in completely exterminating this family. On the contrary, thanks to their timely departure from Nazi Germany, the children thought it was good to get away and Berthold's older sister, Henny, also survived the war. Henny and her husband Gustav Fränkel (1864-1942) went in the thirties from Cronstettenstrasse 38 in Frankfurt am Main to Eindhoven. Henny Clara Sara Fränkel-Goldschmidt was freed from the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp near Celle. (9) She died on June 4, 1954 in Eindhoven and was like her husband buried there in the Jewish Cemetery.(10)
After studying physics in Frankfurt am Main, daughter Ilse married Herbert Bernhard Schultz (8.6.1908 - 4.2.1979) in London in 1935. Due to the Nürenberg laws, marrying aryans was banned in Germany in 1935. They emigrated to Bucharest that same year. Herbert worked there as a meteorologist. With the arrival of the People's Republic of Romania in 1947, they returned to Germany with their in Bucharest-born sons Klaus (1935) and Peter Berthold (1946). At that emigration, Ilse had a number of jewels from her father in her possession that she wanted to hide in a bread to bake and smuggle along when she left Bucharest. The communists did not allow to export valuables. In the end, she did not continue this for fear that the contraband would be discovered and cost them their lives. (11) They moved in with Herbert's mother Hedwig Franziska (Hete) Schultz in Neu-Is enburg. Herbert became a meteorologist with the US Air Force at the Rhein-Main air base. In 1948, the family emigrated to Davis, California. (12)
Son Kurt Goldschmidt (later Goldsmith) studied engineering at the university in England in the late 1930s and became an engineer in energy production. He regularly visited his parents in Amsterdam until the outbreak of the war and was interned as a German on the island of Wight at the beginning of the Second World War. After his release, he served in the English army in North Africa. He married Joan Ethel Cocksworth in 1944.(13) After the war he worked for the United Nations, among others.
1. The photos of Berthold, Clementine, Henny and Kurt are in the collection of Peter B.Schulz
2.Source FamilySearch (thanks to expert Frank Koeman)
3. Dr. Erich Köhler at the Wiedergutmachungsämter von Berlin, Cologne, 19 December 1963 (collection Peter B. Schultz)
4. Idem. The report with the list of seizen good was found in a folder of documents that were made by a friend (?) of Berthold and Clementine and was secured by lawyer P.G.Vos, Weteringschans 33 in Amsterdam. P.G.Vos was a pledgy for the heirs.
5. The painting was brought into Sotheby's in 2004 but was not sold. Owner was then multimillionaire Mr. Francesco Galesi. It is completely unclear what happened to this painting between 1943 and 2004. According to Peter Schultz the origin should be investigated at the time of sale to determine whether this is the real painting or a forgery. The relationship with the German Lost Art Foundation, which was been looking for this work in 2016, is also not clear.
6. Oral communication Kurt Goldsmith to Pete Schultz
7. Archive Stedelijk Museum, object number A 1653. Dates from ca. 1923. Nee also: The Stedelijk in the war, Exhibition Amsterdam 1951
8. This donation is described in the family history of Heinrich Ahlemeyer, the first part of which has been published: Heinrich W.Ahlemeyer, 'Das sollte doch eine Freude sein. Vom Glück der Familienforschung', Fischerhude 2024. This author wanted to investigate who the donor was for his study and this was the reason to give Berthold and Clementine more attention in the digital Jewish Monument. The painting is also refered to with the titles 'Market women' and 'Two farmers'
9. 'Free Netherlands' in Knickerbocker Weekly 1945 contains a name list, 23.7.1945
10. Children Ernst Julius Fränkel (1897-1965) and Paul Benedikt Fränkel (16.6.1900-31.3.2000)
11. Oral communication Kurt Goldsmith to Pete Schultz
12. He developed into a climatologist and became professor of Agricultural Engineering at the University of California. Son Klaus (1935-2000) studied Nucleair Physics and became a professor at Columbia University and the University of Massachusetts. Son Peter Berthold became professor of Entomology and director at State University, Virginia Tech.
13. They had three daughters: Pauline Veronica (17.6.1950), Hilary Janet (7.9.1953) and Susan Katherine (28.12.1959)