Emil & Bertha Forchheimer Family

Submitted by Janet Smith-Heimer (nee Forchheimer), granddaughter of Emil & Bertha Forchheimer, daughter of Peter Forchheimer​

 

The Emil & Bertha Forchheimer family lived in Coburg at 28 Bahnhofstrasse in the same large house as the Max & Helen Forchheimer family (divided into apartments). The house. pictured on the Max Forchheimer web page, was destroyed in WW II. Emil and Max were 1st cousins.

 

​Emil and Bertha were 1st cousins married to each other (their mothers were sisters). Bertha used to tell me that she had a first love who died in WW I, then there were few available Jewish men in her hometown, so she married Emil. Neither Emil or Bertha were born in Coburg, but moved there to raise their family. Emil was part of the N. Forchheimer furniture factory business in Coburg, founded by his uncle Nathan Forchheimer. 

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Emil & Bertha had 3 children: Peter (1924), Frank (1926), and Anne (1927). My father, Peter, had fond memories of his life in Coburg as a boy, and said that he did not understand what was happening to Jews, even after his public school banned him and he changed to a private school for Jews. His main memory of life before the Nazis was stealing bratwurst from a butcher that he believed was located near the Marktplatz.

 

Peter, as the oldest child, was sent away first to relatives in Texas in early 1938, at age 14. He was already in Texas before Kristallnacht. ​Emil was rounded up with the other adult men on Kristallnacht, and imprisoned in the city jail. We have a record of that period from Anne, who wrote an essay published by the Los Angeles Times. After that awful event, Anne and Frank, the younger two children, were sent to England on the Kindertransport, and Emil and Bertha eventually reunited with them in England. They all immigrated to Columbus, Ohio in the USA, sponsored by relatives living there. 

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​Emil lived in Columbus, Ohio until 1957, when he died at an early age. Bertha lived in Columbus, Ohio until 1983, when she moved to Ventura, CA to be near her daughter Anne. Bertha died at the age of 90, in 1986 in Ventura, CA. 

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I did not know my grandfather Emil because he died when I was a toddler, but I grew up in Columbus, Ohio knowing my grandmother Bertha very well.  She was a huge influence on me. Bertha was a well-read, self-educated woman who worked for a short period in her Ohio family business (see below), but I knew her mainly as the energetic, warm matriarch of our Ohio family.  She was a life-long liberal political thinker, and many in our family carry that tradition forward. She wore elegant clothes, traveled extensively, and stayed in luxury hotels. She was not interested in cooking or housework. This is why I do not have recipes or many food memories associated with Bertha (my other grandmother made up for that, however). Bertha and I were close, especially in my teens. We would sit on her sofa and discuss current events, books, and boys. She would also tell me stories of her childhood in Gotha. She wanted my sisters and me to be proper old-school European ladies, but she also knew how to adapt to changing social mores. 

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My father, Peter, had an interesting life after he immigrated. He went to high school in west Texas while living with relatives. He then enlisted in the US Army in 1943, and became a Ritchie Boy. These were German Jewish men who had escaped Nazi Germany to the USA, and were trained by the US Army to interrogate captured Nazi soldiers for war intelligence. There is an organized community of the children of these men in the US, a documentary, etc. Some of the Ritchie Boys requested that their Army tags did not reveal their religion as Jewish (although my dad's did), in case they were captured by Nazi soldiers. 

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After the war, my father rejoined his parents and siblings in Columbus, Ohio, and completed one quarter at Ohio State University. Then, Emil and his two sons began selling leather belts and wallets to retail outlets. This evolved quickly into the Forchheimer Toy Company, which  became a large wholesale distributor of toys to retailers in Ohio, Indiana, and surrounding parts of other states. After Emil died in 1956, my father became the CEO, with Frank as his partner. At its peak in 1967, my father employed over 120 salesmen, and owned a 120,000 square foot warehouse.  I spent my childhood Sundays helping my dad price sample toys in the large showroom. However, my dad did not believe in toys for his own children, so I had very few. My father sold his company in 1967, worked for the buyer for 2 more years, and retired in 1969 at age 45. He spent the next 42 years dabbling in the stock market and as an assisted suicide advocate. He taught me many things, but sadly, he had a difficult time adapting to more modern ways of living. 

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Peter married my mother Hannelore (nee Reinach) in Columbus, Ohio in 1949. She was also a German immigrant. Peter would often say the best thing he ever did was marry my mother. She was the child of a Jewish father who had converted to Lutheran, and a non-Jewish mother (my other grandparents), who have their own story involving remaining in Germany through the war and thereafter. My mother was a teen and young adult during the Nazi period, in Germany; she immigrated to the USA in 1947 and took the first name Marianne, which she believed sounded more American. As a child, I traveled by ocean liner with my mother and sisters to visit those maternal grandparents in Wuppertal, Germany, every alternate summer. I can speak and understand some German, because both of my parents spoke German to each other and to us. 

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My parents, Peter and Marianne Forchheimer, had 3 daughters: Evelyn, Janet (me), and Susan. These daughters in turn had 6 children, and now there are 9 great-grandchildren. Both Evelyn and Susan, their husbands, and almost all their descendants live within 15 minutes of each other in suburban Atlanta, GA.

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Because my father retired so young, my parents were able to move to Ventura, CA when Bertha was moved to assisted living near her daughter Anne in the same location. A few years after Bertha died, my parents relocated again, to suburban Atlanta, GA where my younger sister and her family had settled, and both of my parents lived the rest of their lives there. My father died at age 87 in 2011, and my mother lived healthily until age 97.5, passing away in early 2023. 

 

​​My story is different - I am not in Atlanta, GA. I attended college in Ohio, and became a city planner. I married my husband, also a city planner, in 1981. We moved to Berkeley, CA after our wedding, to attend graduate school, and have remained in the Bay Area ever since. We both added to our city planning careers by earning MBA's, and my husband also earned a PhD in City Planning. We both had great careers. I started and ran a consulting firm in affordable housing and urban redevelopment for over 30 years, and still do some part-time consulting. My husband was a full time professor for a few years, then joined the largest affordable housing development company in CA as an executive, and also taught as an Adjunct Professor at UC Berkeley for many years. We have had a fulfilling life, and I am so grateful that America gave my family the safety and stability to thrive.

 

We have 2 daughters: Alana and Laura Beth (named after Bertha), both of whom are married and live within an hour of us in the Bay Area. Both of my daughters understand the meaning of Tikkun Olam - Alana provides women's' health/medical services primarily to the immigrant community in Spanish, and Laura has spent 10 years as a 1st grade teacher in disadvantaged public schools. We now have 2 grandchildren: Ember and Levi. My husband and I retired in 2017 and now live in the beautiful Sonoma Wine Country. ​​Through my father's persecution, my daughters and I have reclaimed our German citizenship, and hope to do the same for our grandchildren.