26 November 1938 · Carlton Hotel, St. Moritz
The Reichenbachs of Halberstadt and Wernigerode
A son writes to his mother to tell her she is still a person. Four days earlier, his cousin Fritz was murdered at Buchenwald. The family had sold clothes in the Harz for nearly a century. This archive follows what they built, what was taken, and who lived.
Remembering Paul J. Reichenbach · 1952 – 2026
He built Jewish life with teenagers, at camp and in Israel.
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The Reichenbach Family
Halberstadt, Germany
Two minutes. The letter, the shops, the names that stop in 1942, and the family that returned to write in Halberstadt’s Golden Book.
Two handwritten sheets, kept by the family
Dolf’s letter opened the archive.
“Es ist draussen auch schön ohne Geld, man ist wieder Mensch, bedenke das immer.”“It’s also nice outside without money, one is a person again, always keep that in mind.” English translation by Rabbi Dr. Esther Jilovsky
The surviving sheets became the starting point for the photographs, testimony and records gathered here. The English remains Rabbi Jilovsky’s translation of Dolf’s words.
Explore the family and the archive
43 lives · 375 public records · 9 series
One object