Beaded hat with a floral pattern brought by a Jewish German refugee

Thea Löwenstein was born December 19, 1912 in Düsseldorf, Germany, to a Jewish couple, Emil and Erna Flechtheim Löwenstein. She had an older sister, Vera (1904-1948). Thea was an artist. On January 30, 1933, Adolf Hitler was appointed chancellor of Germany by President Paul von Hindenburg. Under Hitler, authorities quickly began suppressing the rights and personal freedoms of Jews, and boycotting their businesses. Thea married Frederick (Fred) L. Klestadt in 1935, and they honeymooned in Palestine, then returned to Düsseldorf. Fred was born in Düsseldorf on March 15, 1909 to Moritz and Rahel Aenne Lilienfeld Klestadt. He had a younger sister, Hilda (1913-1914). Fred was a well-educated man with a PhD. In September, the authorities instituted the Nuremberg Laws which made Jews second class citizens, revoking their political rights. These laws also defined a "Jew" as someone with three or four Jewish grandparents or who is practicing Jewish faith. The laws also banned marriage between Jews and non-Jews. Jews were also prohibited from working as lawyers, accountants, teachers and barred from civil service professions. Thea and Fred secured US visas and in October 1937, they left Germany. They arrived in New York on November 12, 1937. They moved to Cleveland Ohio in 1939. Fred worked as a traveling salesman. In 1955 the Klestadts adopted 14 year old Jula (Julie) Weinstock, a Jewish Polish girl whose parents were murdered in the Holocaust while hiding in a forest bunker near Lvov Poland in April 1944. Julie’s grandfather, afraid the childrens’ cries would alert the Germans took Julie and her infant sister to hide with a Christian woman. Later Julie’s sister was sent to a Catholic children’s home to keep her safe. She was taken away from the orphanage they never saw her sister again. After the war Julie’s grandfather sent her to America because young orphans received preferential treatment for US entry visas. Julie and her husband Larry have two children and live in Washington DC. Fred, aged 86, died on November 30, 1995 in Cleveland. Thea, aged 92, died on September 25, 2005 in Cleveland.

Jula Weinstock (later Julie Keefer) was born on April 19, 1941, in Lvov (Lwow), Poland (now L'viv, Ukraine) to Chaim (Herman) Hersh and Sala Rosenberg Weinstock. Her father was a tinsmith. Her mother was an opera singer, as well as a homemaker. Her maternal grandfather Aizik Eisen, who ran a wholesale fruit business, and other family members also lived in Lvov. At the time of Jula’s birth, the city was under the control of the Soviet Union which had invaded Poland in September 1939, a few weeks after Germany. Under the terms of the German-Soviet pact, Lvov became Soviet territory. In late June 1941, Germany invaded the Soviet Union, inciting pogroms by the local Ukrainian nationalists. Nearly 4000 Jews were massacred in early July, and another 2000 were murdered near the end of the month. In September, Jula and her family, and the other Jewish residents, were forcibly relocated to a ghetto closed in by a wooden fence. Aizik’s house was located in the area of the ghetto and Jula and her family moved into a barn behind it. In November 1941, Aizik was picked up during an action and taken to Jaktorow labor camp where he was beaten regularly and forced to work in a limestone quarry. He eventually escaped, but in May 1942 was rearrested and sent to Janowska slave labor camp where he was forced to work hauling heavy stones. In November, Aizik escaped the camp and made his way to a village where a man gave him clothes, food, a shovel and told him it was safest in Borszczowice forest. Jula’s younger sister Tola was born in the spring of 1943. One day in June 1943, Aizik appeared at their home to help Jula and her family escape the ghetto. A man name Mr. Borecki had told Aizik that the ghetto was to be burned and he determined to save his family. He took them to the forest where he had built a bunker with about thirty other Jewish escapees. Soon after they arrived, Aizik decided that Jula and her sister Tola had to be placed in hiding elsewhere because their crying was endangering the others. In December 1943, he arranged for Jula and Tola to live in Lvov with a former neighbor and family friend, Lucia Nowicka. Her husband had disappeared in 1939 and she lived with and worked for a Catholic family, the Swierczynski’s, whose home was next to that of the German governor of Lvov District. Aizik assumed the identity of Lucia’s husband, and Jula and Tola were introduced as Lucia’s nieces. Aizik continued to spend time with the group in the forest. One day he returned to Lvov to find that the Gestapo had arrested Lucia. Aizik found a hiding place for Tola in a Catholic children’s home under the name Antonina Nowicka. The Swierczynski family was able to get Lucia released. In April 1944, while Aizik was visiting the girls in Lvov, the Germans discovered the forest bunker and killed everyone inside. Around this time, Soviet troops were advancing on the region and Lvov was under frequent bombardment. After one explosion, the Germans evacuated the children’s home where Tola was hidden. Aizik and Jula were never able to locate Tola after that move. In June 1944, the Red Army liberated the region. The war ended when Germany surrendered on May 7, 1945. Aizik, Lucia, and Jula lived in displaced persons camps in Poland and Austria, including Wegscheid Displaced Persons Camp (Camp Taylor) in Linz, Austria. Aizik heard that young orphans received preferential treatment for US entry visas. He decided to send Jula to America, and in 1948, Jula, then 7, left alone for the United States. Aizik hoped to join her there. Jula, now called Julie, was placed in a series of orphanages. She endured taunting due to her German accent and was sometimes called a Nazi. She was sent by The Joint Distribution Committee to the Bellefaire Jewish Children's Orphanage in Cleveland, OH. After seven years in the US, Julie was adopted by Fred and Thea Klestadt, Jewish immigrants who had arrived from Dusseldorf, Germany, in 1937. Aizik and Lucia married and in March 1950 arrived in the US, and settled in New Jersey. Julie attended Oberlin College, and became a French teacher. She also earned degrees in psychology, special education, and administration. Julie and her husband Larry have two children and live in Washington DC.

The hat was donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum by Julie Keefer, the adopted daughter of Thea Klestadt.

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Julie Klestadt Keefer

Funding Note: The cataloging of this artifact has been supported by a grant from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany.