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The third episode in our blog series “Memories from the Life of Walter Frankenstein”

“Her and no one else,” said Walter Frankenstein the first time he saw his future wife Leonie Rosner in the courtyard of the Auerbach Jewish Orphanage. Leonie was from Leipzig and in Berlin she had begun training at the Jewish Seminar for Nursery School Teachers.

Leonie Frankenstein with her son Peter-Uri sitting in a meadow, Brzeźno in Gorzów County (German: Briesenhorst), May 1944; Jewish Museum Berlin, gift of Leonie and Walter Frankenstein

After it was closed, she came to the Auerbach Jewish Orphanage as an apprentice. Soon after her arrival, Leonie’s room quickly became the place where apprentices living in the orphanage met. Seventeen-year-old Walter grew closer to Leonie (three years his senior) over conversations about religion, Judaism, emigration to Palestine, and daily life. In fall 1941, after the director threatened to fire Leonie over her behavior toward a student, the young couple decided to leave “Auerbach”. Walter and Leonie subletted a room with the Mendel family in Prenzlauer Berg. Soon after that they decided to get married. They had heard that married couples would be spared deportation. Under-aged Walter had to get his mother’s permission for the wedding, which took place on February 10, 1942.

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Christmas and Hanukkah have quite a lot in common: Candles are lit at both festivals to brighten up the dark season; both festivals fall on the 25th day of a month – Christmas on 25 December and Hanukkah on 25 Kislew, the ninth month of the Jewish calendar; and both are still traditional, family celebrations which have become festivals of consumerism.

The staff of the Jewish Museum Berlin didn’t want to choose between latkes and gingerbread and celebrated the “greatest superholiday known to mankind”:

Character Seth Cohen on the television series The O.C.

Chrismukkah!

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Gifts are not traditionally given on Hanukkah. Nevertheless, a small industry has started to develop Hanukkah products. No wonder that some objects in our collection are blue-white-plushy – and “made in China” …

Judah Maccabee rag doll JUDAH MACCABEE / The Hanukkah Hero!;  Jewish Museum Berlin, photo: Jens Ziehe

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