O pinion
My German-Jewish Grandmother’s Childhood Autograph Book
Survived the Holocaust. It Is One of the Few That Did
BY STEVE NORTH
IN 1916, in the picturesque
German village of Heinebach,
a 14-year-old girl named
Elisabeth Schmidtkunz penned
a sweet message in her class-
mate Jenny Katz’s autograph
book. “Jenny! Get to know people,”
wrote Elisabeth. “People are
changeable. Some who call you
a friend today, might talk about
you tomorrow! With love from
your classmate, Elisabeth.”
One hundred and five years
later, Elisabeth’s 84-year-old
daughter Johanna was aston-
ished to read her mother’s
words for the first time. “It was
a very special joy and surprise
for me,” she said in German.

“The sight of that page touched
me very much.”
Jenny Katz Bachenheimer
was my grandmother. Jenny’s
autograph book, known in
German as a “Poesiealbum,”
accompanied the family when
my mother and grandparents
escaped the Nazis in the 1930s,
ending up in New York City.

Half a century later, as she
was moving out of her apart-
ment in the then-heavily
German-Jewish neighborhood
of Washington Heights, Oma
(Grandma) Jenny handed me
the Poesiealbum. She died in
1998, at the age of 95, and this
teenage memento has always
intrigued me, filled as it is
with nearly two dozen pages
of clever notes, poems, colorful
stickers and intricate designs
16 NOVEMBER 18, 2021
from friends and relatives, all
long gone.

And now, thanks to two
German scholars who have
spent years researching the
custom of “Poesiealbums,” my
curiosity has been rewarded
with their insights into what
they say is one of the rare such
albums by a German Jewish girl
to have survived the Holocaust.

Earlier this year, in a
Facebook group dedicated to
the German-Jewish commu-
nity, I noticed a post by Dr.

Stefan Walter, whose doctoral
thesis focused on the tradition
of “Poesiealbums.” “Autograph
books from German Jews are
very rare, due to the Holocaust,
and little explored,” he wrote.

“I’ve created a collection of
Poesiealbums for research
and teaching purposes, and
no albums of Jewish women
are yet included. I’m looking
for owners of these kinds
of books.”
As a longtime chronicler of
my family’s history, I couldn’t
resist. Stefan and his life partner
Katrin Henzel both work at the
Carl von Ossietzky University
in the city of Oldenburg, and
we made a deal: They would
interview me about Oma
Jenny’s life and translate the
pages, and I would interview
them for this story.

The couple, both in their 40s,
provided some Poesiealbum
background. “This tradition
began in the 16th century,” said
Katrin, a lecturer at the univer-
sity. “It started originally with
adult students and scholars,
who would travel around.

They would ask professors
and important people in the
towns they visited to inscribe
something as a souvenir.”
In the 1800s, she continued,
“It changed into a tradition for
young girls, first by Protestants,
and later picked up by Catholic
and Jewish students.”
Katrin and Stefan analyze
how the content and attitudes of
the messages evolve over time;
they’ve perused Poesiealbums
compiled during the Nazi
era, and post-war, pre-unifi-
cation entries from East and
West Germany.

But Oma Jenny’s album
was their first from a Jewish
girl. “It’s very valuable for us,”
said Stefan. Katrin added, “In
normal times, people hand
books and souvenirs down to
the next generation. But the
Holocaust interrupted that
tradition in Germany. That’s
why this is such a treasure, not
just for you and your family,
but for scientific reasons.

This is a rare gift that you
have here.”
Most of the entries in my
grandmother’s album are
signed with the date, followed
by “1916, Kriegsjahr,” the “year
of war” — that is, World War I.

There are religious admoni-
tions: Jenny’s father Baruch,
the unofficial leader of the
Heinebach Jewish commu-
nity, implored Jenny to “often
pray to God with a believing
mind. Bring praise and thanks
to Him for the kindness with
which He has guided you. Pray
often when you are lacking
comfort; it gives strength to
the weak. And be willing to
do good.”
Uncle Abraham Nussbaum
urged her to “always hope and
wait. Remember God’s word,
which is our only shelter that
protects and preserves.”
Most of the messages are
more typical of the light-
hearted rhymes then-popular
with teenage girls. Jenny’s
friend Lotte Speier wrote, “As
many thorns on a rose, As
many fleas on an old buck,
As much hair on a poodle, So
many years you should stay
healthy.” Another pal, Berta
Sommer, wrote, “Live happily
and healthy until three cherries
weigh one pound!”
JEWISH EXPONENT
There was a darker,
perhaps prescient suggestion
from Jenny’s beloved cousin
Wilhelmine Goldschmidt:
“When you’re in a murky
place, And you think you must
despair, Think of the words
of Kaiser Friedrich, ‘Learn to
suffer without complaining’.”
Another favorite cousin, Selma
Nussbaum, wrote, “Be like the
violet that blooms in secret. Be
pious and good, even if nobody
is looking at you!”
To my delight, however,
there is one final entry written
at the end of 1933, when the
family’s financial life had
collapsed due to the Nazi
boycott of Jewish businesses,
and at a time when they were
under frequent physical attack
by gangs of Hitler Youth in
Heinebach. In the midst of the growing
horror, my grandfather wrote
a poem to his wife Jenny,
whom he married in 1928. Opa
Siegfried died suddenly when
I was a toddler, and although
I knew he was deeply loved by
many, nobody ever mentioned
he was a romantic. But there
were these verses from him —
a complete revelation to me:
Gentle as the dawn,
Awakened in young spring,
And on the flower beds,
The delicate rose laughs.

So you walk with blessing,
And always cheerfully,
On the paths full of flowers,
Of your long life.

After receiving the trans-
lations of the pages, I noticed
that at least eight of the writers,
including Elisabeth, had
clearly non-Jewish names. It
was heartwarming to discover
that my strictly Orthodox
grandmother had close gentile
friends, and it occurred to
me that descendants of those
women might still live in
the village.

I asked a non-Jewish former
neighbor, whose parents and
grandparents had been partic-
ularly close to and protective
of the Bachenheimers, if she
knew any of the families.

Irmgard Häger, who has
graciously hosted my family
on our visits to Heinebach
in recent years, was happy to
help, especially after seeing
the precious keepsake herself.

“I was delighted to read these
poetic thoughts in old German
script from these young girls,”
she wrote to me several months
ago. “I know from my parents
that everyone loved your Oma
Jenny, and you can feel that in
the lines.”
Oma Jenny’s
friend Elisabeth, Irmgard told me,
was born in 1902, as was my
grandmother. Elisabeth died
in 1984. In 2021, Irmgard
showed Elisabeth’s daughter
Johanna Dippel her mom’s
handwritten thoughts, at her
home just blocks away from
where they were inscribed.

After expressing her joy and
surprise at this unexpected
missive from the past, Johanna
e-mailed me, saying “My
mother must have loved Jenny
very much; she expressed it
by decorating the page. The
verse she quoted also contains
a great truth. I’m very happy
that my mother was able to
express her feelings in this way,
at such a young age.”
On the sides and corners
of her page, Elisabeth added a
bit more, writing “Live happy,
think of me!” and, “Forget
me not.” Thanks to Jenny’s
Poesiealbum, now part of the
digital collection of a German
university, we remember them
both, today and forever. l
Steve North is a longtime broadcast
and print journalist, and a former
interviewer for Steven Spielberg’s
USC Shoah Foundation.

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