Jack + Mozelle Katz 133 Lakeview Drive Leesburg, Fl 32788 352-589-4279 [email protected]

David Katzenberger (uncle Dave) was the only brother who survived th e Holocaust. Member of the "Maimonides Loge" since 1933. He had been deported to Th eresienstadt, [Bohemia] Czechoslovakia on the 10th of September 194 2 , but in February 1945 he was among 1200 Jews from that KZ who wer e transported by train to Switzerland , following a famous deal betwee n Himmler and The Swedish Red-Cross chairman Graaf Bernadotte (Himmle r hoped to succeed the F�uhrer and had negotiated with the Swedish coun t Folke Bernadotte to surrender Germany to the Western allies and wit h the West to continue the war against the Soviet Union). DK came t o Palestine in May 1946 , and met his son Lutz who had immigrated earl ier .He then lived in Hertzeliya with Lutz . ____________________________________________________ Transporte von Nurnberg: Deportation am 10.9.1942. Sammelpunkte ware n die judischen Altersheime Johannisstrasse 17, Knauerstrasse 27 und W ielandstrasse 6. Am Vormittag des Deportationstages wurden die Transpo rtteilnehmer, uberwiegend aeltere Menschen, mit Omnibussen und M?belwa gen zum Nurnberger Viehhof, "Fakalienverladungsstelle" Finkenstrasse 3 3, gebracht. Abfahrt des Zuges (sechs Gueter-, ein Rangier- und zwanzi g Personenwaggons; ein Gueterwaggon diente vermutlich dem Transport vo n Bettlagerigen) von Nurnberg-Rangierbahnhof 18.14 Uhr, ?ber Schnabelw aid und Hof nach Theresienstadt (Bahnhof Bauschowitz).

Insgesamt 1000 Deportierte, davon 533 aus Nurnberg, 26 uberlebende (2. 1, S. 448; 2.54, S. 69). - Gerhard Jochem's website RIJO ---------------------------------------------------------------------- -----------------------------------------------------------

On Nov 1997,Herbert Kolb wrote :"Your question about David Katzenberge r and me. I believe, that maybe my father introduced me to Mr. Katzenb erger, or I might have known him from Nuernberg. Anyway I know he wa s in the "shoestore" in Theresienstadt. There is one thing you have to know, and probably even heard about bef ore. The Nazis used Th. as a propaganda piece for a foreign commission. Thi s shoestore was just a small store window in which some shoes were shown . Nobody in Th. could have bought any of these shoes or any others he mi ght have there. These were shoes which the Nazis had taken in the first p lace out of the suitcases of people who came to Th. If these stolen shoes w ere halfway good they were send back to Germany for the Germans. Only th e bad ones might have been given to that store. Now as even than, nobody could buy these shoes as one needed a specia l certificate for which one had to wait sometimes very long, that on e did not have any shoe left and with this and a special "Kleiderkarte", whi ch all of us also had for propaganda perposes, and a couple of the absolu te worthless Ghettokronen one was permitted to pick up a pair of shoes. T his certainly when he was lucky that there were shoes which halfway fitte t him. As far as I remember I have one of these shoe permits, but I beli eve I had to get it in the central supply place. About the people who worked for him. I bellieve, he was the only on e in the "store". In one of the barracks were shoemakers working. They repa ired them and in case some were too good, again the Nazis shipped them to G ermany. The lousy ones after being fixed might have come to the shoest ore. Now about the trip to Switzerland. On February 5th, 1945 a train ful l of people, I believe 1500 really went to Switzerland. At that time I wa s not in Th. as I was shipped away to near Berlin and was lucky to be return ed to Th. only on February 11, 1945. But I heard about this train to Switzerland. It came like that. The SS-commander made the announcement , that anybody could volunteer to be on the list to be exchanged in Switzerland. As every word the Germans said was a lie, people were ver y scared, that this again was a trick and they would be shipped to Auschwitz. Only after they were assured and really a special train cam e,not cattlecars, they hoped this was true.." _____________________________________________________

"When DK had arrived inSwitzerland, he couldn't get a visum for Palest ine. Someone (BF?) wrote to King George and told him about the relatio nship of the Katzenbergers to Lord Mountbatten's wife (she was a cousin of b oth Claire and Blanca from Kassel). This provided the basis for the vi sum. " David Seldner _________________

* Lord Mountbatten married Edwina Ashley, whose grandfather , Sir Erne st Cassel, was a baptized Jew, son of Jacob Cassel and Amalia Rosenhei m.

Ida married Siegfried Sonnenberger.They moved from Massbach to Schwein furt, and so did Meta, Recha , and their mother Lina.

Kaete was born in K�oln.The Katzenbergers lived in Spichernstrasse. About 1912 , they moved to Nurenberg.They first lived at Bucherstrass e 19, and a few years later moved to the villa in Praterstrasse 23. Kaete went to school at the "H�ohere T�ochter Schule - Laben Wolf" , an d later attended the "Maedchen Real Gymnasium" (Findelgasse). When Kaete was 12 , she joined the "Blau-Weiss" Zionist youth-movemen t , in which - after several years- she also became a group-leader. Th ere she also met her future husband , Bernhard Freimann. Before her marriage,she went to Frankfurt to attend the "J�udische Haus haltungsschule" for one year. In 1928, Kaete and Bernhard got marrie d in Nurnberg. In 1934 , Kaete and her husband with two kids immigrated to Palestine , and settled in Jerusalem. In June 1938 , Kaete and Bernhard made a trip to Germany , together w ith Yehuda and Channan. They visited the Freimanns and the Katzenberge rs in Nurenberg for the last time.

Leo, Max and David Katzenberger were partners and owned the firm "Spri ngmann Schuhwarenhaus" (over 25 stores throughout Germany). The head-offices and warehouse in Nurnberg were at Splittlertorgrabe n 19 . The main store in Nuremberg was at Karolinenstrasse 36 . The Katzenberger residence was a villa at Praterstrasse 23. In this ho use lived Leo and his family, and also Max and his family. In March 1937 , Leo and Klara Katzenberger made a trip to Lebanon an d Palestine , to visit their Children and grandchildren. A few weeks l ater , they returned to Germany. After 1939 , Leo Katzenberger served as chairman and leader of the Je wish congregation in Nuremberg. In March 1942, he was sentenced to death by the Nurenberg Nazi Court , by way of perverting and maladministrating justice, under the Nazi R ace Laws. After being imprisoned since March 1941, he was executed, on June 3r d 1942, at the age of 69, in Munchen Stadelheim. On 28.5.1946 , the verdict of the Nbg Special Court against Leo Katzen berger was officially annulled. (Art. 9 "Gesetz Nr. 21 zur Wiedergutmachun g nationalsozialistischen Unrechts in der Strafrechtspflege " GVB1, S. 180). In 1998, the Council of Nurnberg unanimously decided to name a stree t after Leo Katzenberger as a memorial and symbol of recognition . I n November 2001, a memorial stone was unveiled by the mayor of Nurnber g, with the following inscription:" "In memoriam of Leo Katzenberger , head of Nuremberg's Jewish community, November 25, 1873 - June 3, 19 42, arrested and indicted because of the'Nuremberg racial laws' in a p ropaganda trial at Nuremberg Special Court, sentenced without guilt an d executed as a victim of the Nazis' racist 'justice'".

"Hilde told me similar stories about her parents. I think they had bee n in Palestine in 1936 and said that nothing would happen to them. The fami ly had plead them to buy land in Palestine. When they tried to get out o f Germany in 1939 (Hilde's mother went to Berlin for visas) it was too l ate." David Seldner Max was deported to Izbica on the 24th of March 1942 , together with h is wife . Exact date of death unknown.

Meta lived in Schweinfurt. She was very orthodox.

Recha inherited the Schweinfurt homestead. She nursed her mother Lin a till her death in 1933.They shared the same apartment, and were bot h very orthodox.

After her husband's death in 1933 (he was beaten to death by the SA) , Rosa moved to Bad Mergentheim, where she lead the family shoe-stor e till 1938 . Then she had to give up that store and move to Schweinfu rt.

Alex was a butcher.

Arie's father had a textile factory in Michalowa ,a small village nea r Bialystok. His mother died when he was nine.His father remarried a year later wit h Sara Efron. During his childhood , Arie learned in the Hebrew Gymnasium in Bialyst ok , and was active in the "Beitar" zionist youth movement. He had a bigger brother, Mordechai , who immigrated to Palestine and s erved as an officer in the British mandatory police, until in 1938 h e was murdered by Arabs in a bus near Lydda. In 1939, the Russians invaded Poland and came to Michalowa. A year lat er they confiscated the family-house and the factory. Arie's father died in 1940, and Arie moved to his Grandmother's hous e in the village. All that time, and until June 1941, he was permitte d to work in the factory , now owned by the Communists. On June 20 1941 , only two days before the German army arrived in hi s home-town , Arie was arrested by the Russians . Together with his st ep-mother Sara and 18 other Jews from Michalowa he was deported to a l abor-camp in Siberia.(All remaining Jews of Michalowa, including his G randmother and two aunts, were deported by the nazis and found their d eath in Treblinka). They traveled by train to Novosibirsk, and from there by ship up Nort h to Kargasok, and finally to a Kolchoz named Sosnovka, where Arie ha d to work hard in the fields in order to survive. In November 1941, a treaty was signed between Russia and the Polish go vernment in exile, thus Arie and his step-mother were permitted to lea ve to Kargasok, where he stayed till 1943 working as an accountant. In 1943 they moved again to inner Russia , where they stayed till Febr uary 1946. After the war was over, they went back to Poland by train, and found r efuge in Upper Silezia.From there Arie crossed the border illegally t o Chechoslovakia, to Vienna , and later to Linz, where he joined the " Bricha" organization. At the age of 32 , in Austria, Arie met and married Hanna.

Bill has been living in America for many years, but in 1929 he came t o visit his family in Poland, and there he married Luba Lasnick, a rem ote cousin of his. They went back to the States together.

Mirta made Aliyah to Israel. Here she got married (1995) , and in 1996 she and her husband moved t o Colombia.

Mordechai Lasnick was born in Bialystok , Poland , in 1913. Already a s a boy, he joined the Zionist movement "Beitar". In 1931 he had gradu ated the Hebrew Gymnasium "Tarbut" , and in 1934 he received an immigr ation visa from the Techniyon in Haifa , and immigrated to Palestine . After one year's study he moved to Jerusalem and became an officer i n the Mandatory Police Force. He served in Tel-Aviv first, then at th e Lydda Airport station. All that time, he has been a member of the ETZEL resistance , and supp lied vital information to its intelligence unit. On August 31st, 1938, he took an Arab bus from the Airport to the rail way station in Lydda. One of the Arab passengers shot and killed him . He was burried in the "Nachlat Yitshak" cemetery in Tel-Aviv.

Yehuda was the first of the Lasnick family to leave Michelova for th e USA. He did so in 1890, leaving behind his wife and children.