Werner and Vera Gamby Family Collection 1885-2013 1939-1945

The collection primarily focuses on the immigration of Werner and Vera Gamby from Hamburg to New York. In addition, it documents the immigration of Vera Gamby's parents and the attempted immigration and later deportation of Werner's mother, aunt, and other family members. The collection also contains documentation and research on family genealogy and photographs of family members. The collection includes correspondence, photographs and photo albums, official documents, family trees, and unpublished manuscripts by family members.Werner Max Gembicki was born on November 15, 1915, the son of Ludwig and Camilla (née Kemlinski) Gembicki. He had two older siblings, a sister, Lizzie and a brother, Siegfried. Werner attended the private Bertram School in Hamburg and acquired his Abitur in 1935 at the Gelehrtenschule des Johanneums. Although he had wished to study law and become a diplomat, that path was impossible for him once Jews were forbidden to attend university. He then found a position working for a Jewish import firm for leather and fur. During the 1930s he also met a young woman, Vera Cohn, while playing tennis.Vera Cohn was born on June 15, 1915 in Frankfurt am Main. She was the daughter of Raphael and Erna Cohn and had an identical twin sister, Ilse. Raphael Cohn had served in World War I and in 1934 received the Ehrenkreuz für Frontkämpfer. After the years of inflation the Cohns moved to Hamburg. Vera Cohn had wanted to study architecture, but after the ban on attending university she attended a secretarial school instead. On April 9, 1937 she and Werner married. On August 8, 1937 their son Peter was born.On Kristallnacht Werner was arrested while at work and spent the next six weeks in the concentration camp Sachsenhausen. After his realeas the Hamburg Jewish Community helped him to enter the Kitchener Camp for refugees in Kent, England, where he stayed from July 1939 through April 1940.On November 22, 1939 Vera Gamby and her son Peter along with her parents sailed from Rotterdam to join her sister and brother-in-law in New Rochelle, New York. Vera Gamby found a position in domestic work in a private household. In May 1940 Werner arrived in New York as well. In his first years in the United States Werner held various jobs, iuntil he eventually found a position in an import firm as a clerk in the marketing department.Camilla Gembicki and her sister Toni Kemlinski still remained in Hamburg. Werner's sister Lizzie had died in 1937, and his niece and nephew Herma and Gerd Schwab were also still in Hamburg. In 1941, Camilla, Toni, and the children were deported to Riga, Latvia, where they perished.In 1945 Werner and Vera received American citizenship and changed their surname to Gamby. During the 1940s they had two more children, Dorothy Lizzie and Monica Camilla. In 1968 the Gamby family moved to Mamaroneck, New York. Werner worked for decades in the textile import industry. He established his own firm, W. Gamby & Co. He died in 2014; Vera Gamby died in 2011.Finding aid available onlineProcesseddigitize