Gumpert family correspondence

Walter Gumpert was born in Germany to a Jewish couple, Isidor and Gertrud Kohls Gumpert. His father Isidor was born on July 18, 1869, in Ratzebuhr, Germany (now Okonek, Poland), to Baer (Bernhard) and Cecilie Kohls Gumpert. Isidor, a widower, was a grain farmer and businessman. In January 1933, Hitler came to power and, by summer, Germany was ruled by a Nazi dictatorship. As anti-Semitism increased, Walter and his wife Erna Bathk decided to leave Germany. On April 19, 1936, Walter and Erna sailed on the SS Eubee to Rio De Janeiro, Brazil. On May 21, they arrived in Montevideo, Uruguay, where they settled. Walter’s father Isidor was imprisoned in Sachsenhausen concentration camp and assigned prisoner number 10371. On November 29, 1938, Isidor was released from Sachsenhausen along with several other Jewish men. Three weeks previously, thousands of Jewish men were arrested during the Kristallnacht pogrom on November 9 and 10. On June 20, 1942, Walter and Erna had a daughter, Ruth. Isidor lived in Berlin and sent Walter telegrams through the Red Cross on June 6, July 15, October 14, and December 23, 1942. In 1944, Walter was contacted by the German government and told that Isidor could be released for 300 dollars. Walter did not hear from his father after 1942. The family believed that Isidor was deported to Theresienstadt ghetto-labor camp, then to Auschwitz concentration camp, where he was killed in 1943. Most of Walter’s extended family perished in the Holocaust.

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Ruth Gumpert

The papers were donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2013 by Ruth Gumpert.