Lilienthal family papers
Extent and Medium
boxes
2
Creator(s)
- Lilienthal family
Biographical History
Julius and Isabella Lilienthal of Mönchengladbach (formerly München-Gladbach) had four children: Ernst (Ernest) Lilienthal, Meta Lilienthal Kaufmann, Carl Lilienthal, and Anna Lilienthal Aschaffenburg. Ernest (1884-1964) was the first to immigrate to the United States, arrived in New York in 1911, established a successful printing company, Art Color, and a short-lived upscale New York magazine, Park East. He relocated to Plainfield, New Jersey, and married Meta Stern Lilienthal. His sister Meta Lilienthal Kaufmann married Otto Kaufmann, a banker from Mainz. The Kaufmanns lived in Constantinople through World War I and then in Cologne. Their daughter Dorothea immigrated to the United States in 1934 and married Gabriel Almond, and Otto and Meta followed in 1938, settling in Plainfield near Ernest. Their sister Anna also immigrated around 1938. Ernst and Meta’s brother Carl managed the family fabric business established by Anna’s husband, Bruel & Co., in Mönchengladbach until it was expropriated by the Nazi government in 1938. He was arrested following Kristallnacht and fled to England with his mother Isabella in early 1939. Isabella immigrated to the United States in 1939 and lived with Ernst. Carl tried to immigrate via Cuba and then directly but was blocked by policy changes and America’s entry into the war. He survived in England and never joined his family in the United States.
Archival History
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Acquisition
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Susyn Almond
Funding Note: The cataloging of this collection has been supported by a grant from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany.
Susyn Almond donated the Lilienthal family collection to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2015.
Scope and Content
The Lilienthal family papers consist of biographical materials, correspondence, subject files, and business records documenting the Lilienthal family from Mönchengladbach, the aryanization of their fabric business, their immigration to the United States, and the printing company and magazine Ernest Lilienthal established in New York.
System of Arrangement
The Lilienthal family papers are arranged as five series: I. Biographical materials, 1913-approximately 2013, II. Correspondence, 1917-1959, III. Subject files, 1934-1964, IV. Art Color records, 1909-1957, V. Park East Magazine records, 1949-1961
People
- Lilienthal family
Subjects
- New York (N.Y.)
- Mönchengladbach (Germany)
- Jewish refugees--New Jersey--Plainfield.
- United States--Emigration and immigration--20th century.
- Jewish businesspeople--New York (State)--New York.
- Germany--Emigration and immigration--20th century.
- Plainfield (N.J.)
- Aryanization--Germany--Mönchengladbach.
- Jewish refugees--England.
- Jewish merchants--Germany--Mönchengladbach.
- Jews--Germany--Mönchengladbach.
Genre
- Document