Otto and Erna Stein family papers
Extent and Medium
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Creator(s)
- Erna Stein
- Otto Stein
Biographical History
Cloth merchant and business-owner Otto Stein (1890-1980) and Erna Stein (née Kramer, 1897-1967) lived in Neustadt an der Haardt with their daughter, Lotte Zinner (1924- ). Otto Stein had served in the German army during World War I and spent 33 months in a British POW camp. In May 1938 Zinner and her parents immigrated to the United States and settled in St. Louis. Otto Stein’s mother Klementine Bach died in Mannheim within a year of Kristallnacht. His brother, Wilhelm Stein, immigrated to the United States with his wife Flora in 1940, where they settled in Chicago. Erna Stein’s parents, Albert Kramer and Justine (Jenny) Kramer (née Selig) were both deported to Theresienstadt in 1942 where they died in 1942 and 1943 respectively. Lotte Stein was naturalized as an American citizen in 1945 and married Julius Zinner in 1947.
Cloth merchant and business-owner Otto Stein (1890-1980) and Erna Stein (née Kramer, 1897-1967) lived in Neustadt an der Haardt with their daughter, Lotte Zinner (1924- ). Otto Stein had served in the German army during World War I and spent 33 months in a British POW camp. In May 1938 Zinner and her parents immigrated to the United States and settled in St. Louis. Otto Stein’s mother Klementine Bach died in Mannheim within a year of Kristallnacht. His brother, Wilhelm Stein, immigrated to the United States with his wife Flora in 1940, where they settled in Chicago. Erna Stein’s parents, Albert Kramer and Justine (Jenny) Kramer (née Selig) were both deported to Theresienstadt in 1942 where they died in 1942 and 1943 respectively. Lotte Stein was naturalized as an American citizen in 1945 and married Julius Zinner in 1947.
Archival History
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Acquisition
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Lotte and David Zinner
Funding Note: The cataloging of this collection has been supported by a grant from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany.
The Otto and Erna Stein family papers were donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum by Lotte and David Zinner, Otto and Erna Stein’s daughter and grandson, in 2000.
Scope and Content
The Otto and Erna Stein family papers include biographical materials and correspondence documenting the Stein family, their immigration to the United States in 1938, and their relatives’ experiences under Nazi rule in Neustadt an der Haardt, Nieder-Olm, Wiesbaden, and Mannheim. Biographical materials include birth, marriage, and death certificates, death notices, International Tracing Service forms, Yad Vashem “Hall of Names” forms, passports, student and apprenticeship record, military papers, records from Otto Stein’s time as a Prisoner of War in England during World War I, identification cards, money transfer receipts, a certificate for Otto Stein’s Cross of Honor for World War I soldiers, visa applications, and a receipt for the family’s passage to America. Correspondence files primarily consist of letters to Lotte Zinner’s family in America from her mother’s parents, Albert and Justine Kramer, in Nieder-Olm and then Wiesbaden, from her paternal grandmother, Klementine Stein, in Neustadt an der Haardt and then Mannheim, and from her uncle and aunt, Wilhelm and Flora Stein, in Berlin-Neukölln, London, and then Chicago. These letters describe immigration efforts and life in Nazi Germany Additional correspondence files include postcards congratulating Justine Selig and her family upon her engagement in 1896 and letters from great uncle Ferdinand Bach in St. Louis in 1915 that later served as the basis for Otto and Erna Stein’s family search when they were ready to immigrate. The collection further includes a 1911 postcard to Otto Stein from his brother with a photograph of Wilhelm pasted to it, a 1925 letter enclosing a photograph of Lotte Zinner as a baby, correspondence describing family and friends’ efforts to emigrate, letters after the war describing the fates of family and friends, and correspondence between Lotte Zinner and the National Museum of American Jewish Military History about Zinner’s father and her family records.
System of Arrangement
The Otto and Erna Stein family papers are arranged as two series: Series 1: Biographical Materials, approximately 1889-2000 Series 2: Correspondence, 1896-2000 (bulk 1911-1947)
Conditions Governing Reproduction
Copyright Holder: David Zinner
People
- Otto Stein
- Erna Stein
Subjects
- Jews--Germany--History--1933-1945.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)
- Jewish families--Germany--Neustadt an der Haardt.
- Jews--Germany--Neustadt an der Haardt.
- Mannheim (Germany)
- Holocaust survivors.
- Jewish refugees--Missouri--Saint Louis.
- Wiesbaden (Germany)
- Holocaust victims' families.
- Nieder-Olm (Germany)
- Neustadt an der Haardt (Germany)
- World War, 1914-1918--Prisoners and prisons, German.
Genre
- Photographs.
- Document