The Swiss Notebook

 The document for this week is this blue and white notebook.

As you can see, it’s in German. Initially I thought that Grandpa John (my paternal grandfather and Grandmargie’s husband) possibly bought it when he was in Vienna but it says that it was made in Zurich. While it’s still possible that he bought it in Vienna and used it before he escaped, it seems more likely that he bought it in Switzerland itself considering that Vienna was a much larger city than Zurich was. Secondly, another reason I think that Grandpa John wrote this while he was in Switzerland between 1938-1940 is because some of the dates are in the European style (as you’ll see in a moment). The first page looks like this:

 

My hypothesis is that these are all birth dates next to these names. The reason? Here is a picture of part of Margarethe “Grete” (Steinhaus) Kaiser’s (Grandpa John’s sister’s) birth record:

However, underneath Siegfried’s name, it says in German “Registr[ieren] alle 25. Nov. 1938” which means “all registered [on] 25 November 1938.” But why were they registered?

 

According to the Leo Beck Institute’s 1938 Project’s chronology webpage, on 12 November 1938, the Nazis instituted the “Order of Elimination of Jews from Economic Life” decree that declared that all Jews had to register their retail businesses so that they could be “Aryanized.” On 3 December of that same year, they had to register all of their real estate. There are two other potential registrations it could be: 

1. The registration of their financial assets; however, that was instituted back on 26 April 1938.

2. There was an order on 23 July 1938 stating that German Jews were required to register with the police by 31 December 1938 in order to receive special ID cards that would be used in dealing with government officials. I wasn't able to find out if this was true for Austrian Jews. However, since the Anschluss (mid-March 1938) meant they were subject to Nazi rule, there is at least a distinct possibility that this was also true for them.

2. 

In essence, due to the registration date listed on the document above, the two most probable registrations that it refers to is either the registration with the police or the registration of retail businesses.

 

Farther down the page are the names of Rebecca and Rosalia Rothenstein and Adolph Neumann. According to the English translation of Dear Federico: The story of a Jewish family by Lotti Goliger-Steinhaus (the wife of one of Grandpa John’s first cousins) (known as Caro Federico in Italian and Mein lieber Federico in German), it says:

 

We also learned from Hans [Grandpa John] that the Nazis had forced their way into his relatives’ house, ripped the diamond earrings from his aunt’s ears and then, after brutally beaten her and his uncle, they had dragged them off. Prior to the occupation of Austria, this uncle had been editor-in-chief of the ‘Wiener Tagblatt’.

        - Lotti Goliger-Steinhaus

 

Could this aunt and uncle that Lotti mentioned be Rebecca or Rosalia Rothenstein and/or Adolph Neumann? Could it be a couple from Grandpa John’s father’s side? I don’t know yet. More research will have to be done first.

 

Lastly, here are the two other pages in the notebook (plus an insert) that has writing on them. I have not been able to correctly identify any of these people: