The Reichenbach Family

I carry my grandfather’s name. I never met him.

For most of my life, Dolf was a name that belonged to me.

Then I found a letter he wrote in 1938, from St. Moritz, to his mother, Margarete.

He was writing from outside Germany. He was writing about what that was worth.

Outside, one is a person again.

It was the first time I heard his voice. The letter opened an archive.

The objects do not offer a complete story. They offer fragments. A passport. A deed. Lists. Photographs. Objects from the family store.

Some records describe what was owned. Others mark the moment it was taken.

A 1938 deed names my great-uncle Fritz as Jewish, under the law used to take his property.

A transport list carries three names — Kurt, Paula and Hans — on a train to Warsaw.

The record ends at arrival. What happened after? We still do not know for sure.

Dolf survived. He came to America and began again.

He returned to Germany once, in the 1970s, with my father. He did not want to see the town.

He asked to go to one place only — his father’s grave — and there he said the mourner’s prayer, silently.

Years later, my father and I stood at those same graves.

They did not answer the questions we still have. They made the absences visible.

This archive does not complete the story. Explore what we’ve found — and what’s still missing — on our website.