Louis Rosenzweig Collection. 1885-2003 Bulk: 1920-1960

The Louis Rosenzweig Collection records the personal experiences and professional lives of Louis and Grete Rosenzweig and the family's efforts to attain restitution for their experiences in Germany. Among the papers in this collection are a substantial amount of restitution correspondence and documentation as well as papers that documented their lives in Germany, including their education, employment and professions, and Louis Rosenzweig's military service. Other papers focus on their immigration to the United States or on other family members.Photo; letter; documents on business career and army service (1918-1919); emigration to the United States; Addenda: Restitution files, immigration documents, school and educational notebooks and transcripts, World War I documents and medals, jewlery designsLouis Rosenzweig was born on August 18, 1885 in Kassel, Germany. He was the son of Traugott Rosenzweig, a chemist, and his wife Henriette Rosenzweig née Eisenberg. Louis Rosenzweig attended the Gymnasium in Kassel and in 1902 became apprenticed to a merchant. Later he worked as a clerk in factories and export firms in Kassel, Berlin and Paris. On May 1, 1911 he became manager of the Federstahl-Aktiengesellschaft in Kassel. In 1919 he married Grete Kaufmann, who was one of only a few women at the time trained in goldsmithing. The couple had two children, Ernst and Irmgard.Louis Rosenzweig worked as an independent public accountant from 1931-1933, attending to the affairs of Jewish immigrants. From 1931-1939 he also served as a member of the administration of the Jewish Community of Kassel and also assisted with overseeing the finances of the Jewish Orphanage of Kassel. On Kristallnacht he was arrested along with many other men in his community, but was released a few days later. In December 1938 he became an agent for the Cunard White Star Line. In 1940 Louis and Grete Rosenzweig immigrated to the United States via Italy, while their children had already been sent to England on kindertransports. After a brief sojourn in New York the family was reunited and resettled in the Midwest. In Eureka, Illinois Louis Rosenzweig worked as an accountant. He died in 1960 in New Haven, Connecticut.digitize