Stefi Geisel papers
Extent and Medium
oversize folders
box
3
1
Creator(s)
- Stefi Geisel
Biographical History
Stefi Siegel was born on December 25, 1919, in Mosbach-Baden, Germany. Her father, Siegfried, was born in Mosbach in 1884, and her mother, Friedericke (Friedel) Moritz was born on November 19, 1887, in Mainz. The family had lived in the area since the 1400s and strictly observed orthodox Jewish practices. Her father was a merchant specializing in leather goods and shoes. The family, as well as her grandmother, had apartments above the store, which had been established by Siegfried’s great-grandfather. Stefi had a brother, Walter, born on January 18, 1923. Hitler was appointed Chancellor in 1933 and many anti-Jewish policies were enacted. With the encouragement of the principal, Stefi stayed in the public school as long as possible, but by 1935, she could no longer attend. She briefly went to a Jewish home school in Frankfurt, then traveled to Amsterdam to live with an aunt for 6 months, then to Hamburg, then back to Frankfurt, seeking to learn a trade and find employment. Between 1936-1938, her father sold his business and the building and the family moved to an apartment on the third floor. Her parents were determined to get Stefi out of the country and contacted distant relatives in the United States. Stefi left the United States in September 1938 on the USS Statendam, having received an affidavit of financial sponsorship from a stranger, a farmer in Missouri. After she arrived, she went to stay with the relatives in Chicago. Walter was sent to Holland on a work permit to learn a trade, with the plan to emigrate to Palestine. Her father was arrested during the November 1938 Kristallnacht pogrom and sent to Dachau, but released. He obtained an entry number from the US Consulate that made it possible to obtain a permit to leave Germany and Siegfried and Friedel left for England where Freidel had cousins. After war was declared between Great Britain and Germany in September 1939, Siegfried was imprisoned as an enemy alien on the Isle of Man, but was released after review. Stefi met Gustav Geisel, also an émigré from Nazi Germany, in Chicago because of a chance meeting of their parents in London while all were waiting for passage to the US. They married in January 1942. Stefi remained with her cousins while he served in the US Army until 1946. Her parents arrived in 1943 from England. In 1946, they learned that Walter had been deported from Holland after the German occupation in spring 1940. He had been sent to Buchenwald concentration camp, and then Bergen Belsen, where he died of typhus in March 1945. The Siegels lost many other family members during the Holocaust. Stefi and Gustav had two sons. Her father passed away, age 69, in 1953 in New York. Her mother died August 27, 1982, age 93, in New Jersey. Her husband, Gustav, passed away June 1, 1997, age 86.
Archival History
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Acquisition
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Stefi Geisel
Funding Note: The cataloging of this collection has been supported by a grant from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany.
Funding Note: The accessibility of this collection was made possible by the generous donors to our crowdfunded Save Their Stories campaign.
Stefi Geisel donated the Stefi Geisel papers to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2005.
Scope and Content
The Stefi Geisel papers consist of biographical materials, correspondence, photographic materials, printed materials, and writings documenting the lives of the Siegel and Geisel families in Germany before the war, Stefi and Gus Geisel’s immigration to the United States, and Walter Siegel’s experiences in the Netherlands before his deportation and death at Bergen Belsen. Biographical materials consist of yahrzeit calendars for Hedwig and Martin Moritz and Siegfried Siegel, death announcements for Hedwig Moritz and Walter Siegel, Gustav Geisel’s 1933 driver’s license, a birth certificate and tax document for Stefi Geisel, Friedel and Siegfried Siegel’s marriage certificate and English certificates of identity, Siegfried’s visa quota number, fragments of a record documenting Siegfried’s imprisonment in Dachau following Kristallnacht, and certificates of good conduct for Walter. Correspondence consists primarily of letters from Walter Siegel in Haarlem and Rotterdam to his parents and his sister in London and Chicago. This series also includes Red Cross messages to Walter from his parents and his sister, letters documenting his family’s efforts find him after the war, and a scrapbook containing congratulations he and his family received on the occasion of Walter’s Bar Mitzvah. Photographic materials include two photograph albums and loose photographs of Stefi Geisel and her Siegel and Moritz family and friends in Mosbach, Mainz, Hamburg, London, and Chicago and Gus Geisel and his family and friends in Rheinbach, Berlin, and vacation sites. Family members depicted include Stefi’s parents, grandfather Martin Moritz, grandmothers Hedwig Moritz and Clara Siegel, aunts Erna Moritz and Rina Bachrach, and cousins Judith and Margot Moritz and Clare Bachrach, as well as Gus’s parents and brother Albert Geisel. Printed materials include a 1945 program for a Jewish religious service celebrating the Allied victory and a 1956 issue of K.C. Blätter, the magazine of Gustav Geisel’s fraternity. Writings consist of Eduard Geisel’s Franco-Prussian War diary describing his mobilization and movements with the 11th Company, 2nd Rhine Infantry Regiment, Nr 28; Gustav Geisel’s travel diary written aboard the Queen Mary on his way to America; a poem celebrating the marriage of Siegfried and Friedel Siegel; and poems and songs celebrating Walter Siegel’s Bar Mitzvah.
System of Arrangement
The Stefi Geisel papers are arranged as five series: I. Biographical materials, 1933-1953, II. Correspondence, 1936-1950, III. Photographic materials, approximately 1879-1945 (bulk 1919-1945), IV. Printed materials, 1945, 1956, V. Writings, 1914-1936
People
- Stefi Geisel
Subjects
- Franco-Prussian War, 1870-1871--Jewish participation--Diaries.
- Jewish refugees--Netherlands--Correspondence.
- Jews, German--United States--Emigration and immigration--Diaries.
- Rheinbach (Germany)
- Mosbach (Baden-Württemberg, Germany)
- Netherlands.
- Jews--Germany--Mosbach (Baden-Württemberg)
- Jews--Germany--Rheinbach.
Genre
- Correspondence.
- Photographs.
- Document
- Diaries.