Erna Eichmann

(1903 Salzuflen -1978 Cape Town)

The book "Jüdische Sagen und Legenden" by Bernhard Kuttner (1904) contains several provenance references. Not only can the owner be identified, but it is also possible to reconstruct approximately how the book was taken.

There is a handwritten dedication on the flyleaf:

This book is given in appreciation

the pupil

Erna Eichmann

for constant diligence, good performance

and as an incentive for future

Further work.

Albert Wesel

Teacher of religion.

Schötmar Salzuflen, March 16, 1913.

Erna Eichmann was born in Salzuflen in 1903, the daughter of Bertha Eichmann, née Grünewald, and the factory owner Julius Eichmann. Together with her future husband Eitel Hamlet from Gütersloh and her parents, she emigrated to South Africa in February 1937. she died childless in Cape Town in 1978.

The dedicatee Albert Wesel is probably the cantor and teacher born in Breslau in 1880. Bad Salzuflen was evidently one of his professional stations. in 1939, he emigrated to Shanghai where he worked as a Hebrew teacher. he moved to the USA in 1947 and died there in 1964 - only a few kilometers away from the address to which we sent the book signed by him.

A label in the book suggests that Albert Wesel (?) acquired it in Berlin: C. Boas Nachf. Buchhandlung Berlin C. Neue Friedrichstr. 69, corner Klosterstr. 2/12

Erna Eichmann left the book behind when she fled to South Africa. We do not know exactly when it was confiscated. In 1942, however, it was incorporated into the so-called "Contemporary History Collection" at the Lippische Landesbibliothek together with many other looted books. This is indicated by the stamp, the entry number and possibly also a signature (J 5). To protect it from Allied air raids, the contemporary history collection was stored in a salt dome in 1944. Documents from 1954 show that the Lippische Landesbibliothek had handed over book collections to the Jewish Trust Corporation. Books from expropriated Jewish institutions are mentioned here, but we can assume that they also included books from private collections. Apparently, these were then distributed to the Jewish Westphalian communities that still existed or had been re-established. As the book was included in the estate of the Westphalian rabbi Emil Davidovic (since 1963), it seems possible that he took it from one of the community libraries. In some cases, we can assume that Davidovic knew the owners of books or their descendants. The question of whether he himself planned to return them must unfortunately remain unanswered.

Thanks

We would like to thank Mr. Arnold Beuke, M.A., city archivist from Bad Salzuflen, Ms. Mundt from the Federal Office for Central Services and Unresolved Property Issues and Anne Webber from the Commission for Looted Art in Europe for their support in identifying Erna Eichmann and searching for her heirs.

Selected sources

Registration cards of Erna Eichmann and her parents, Bad Salzuflen town archives

Pilzer Harald: Die Lippische Landesbibliothek als nationalsozialistische Weltanschauungsbücherei, in: Nationalsozialismus in Detmold, published by the City of Detmold, edited by Hermann Niebuhr, Bielefeld 1998, pp. 503-527.

Rülf, Moritz: Family tree of the Eichmann family. 1660-1931, Detmold [1931].

Ruppert, Egmar: Family Eichmann Detmold 1730-1875. Source documentation (initiated by Franz Meyer), Stadtarchiv Bad Salzuflen, Manuskripte Nr. 341, 2001.

Link to the copy in the database Looted Cultural Assets.

(Text: Ph. Zschommler)