The ReichenbachFamily Archive
Language

Daughter and emigrant

Ruth Helene Reichenbach

16 May 1909 — 26 November 1987 (index-correlated)

Paul and Margarete’s daughter, Dolf’s sister, and one of the family members who escaped.

Ruth’s Halberstadt birth record names Paul and Margarete as her parents. In 1930 she married Dr. Martin Pützrath; the marriage was dissolved in Berlin in 1932, and she resumed the name Reichenbach in January 1933.

She married Albert Rothschild at Halberstadt on 3 August 1933. Dolf’s surviving wedding booklet and the printed menu preserve an unusually intimate portrait of Ruth, Albert and the two families gathered around them. A 1935 mourning card later places Albert and Ruth among the signatories after Paul’s death.

Ruth and Albert Rothschild were already in the United States before Dolf and Margarete escaped there. A family account recalls that Albert’s friend Max wrote a letter in support of Dolf’s move.

A Massachusetts declaration of intention dated 10 November 1936 names Ruth Helene Reichenbach Rothschild, born 16 May 1909 in Halberstadt, and names Albert as her spouse. New York passenger records document arrivals under Ruth Rothschild in 1936 and 1937. Massachusetts death and Social Security indexes later identify Ruth R. Spiegel with the same birth date and a death on 26 November 1987 in Norwood, Massachusetts; this is strong index-level correlation, not a substitute for the still-missing Spiegel marriage record or civil death certificate.

Susan also remembers Ruth as an early Zionist involved in a political group she did not name. No organizational record has been found to confirm it.

Known household

Recorded connections

Sources

Records and testimony

  • Civil birth record
  • 1930 marriage record and divorce notation
  • Dolf’s printed wedding song and wedding-meal menu, 3 August 1933
  • 1935 mourning card
  • Massachusetts declaration of intention, 10 November 1936
  • 1936 and 1937 New York passenger records
  • Massachusetts Death Index
  • Social Security Death Index
  • Family memorandum
  • Susan Reichenbach Heyman oral history, 5 August 2026
  • Family chronology clarification, August 2026
FamilySearch — Ruth Rothschild, Massachusetts declaration of intention, 10 November 1936 FamilySearch — Ruth Rothschild, New York arrival, 1936 FamilySearch — Ruth Rothschild, New York arrival, 1937 FamilySearch — Ruth R. Spiegel, Massachusetts Death Index FamilySearch — Ruth R. Spiegel, Social Security Death Index

Evidence note

The collection documents Ruth’s first two marriages and her 1936–37 U.S. record trail. Two later indexes strongly correlate Ruth R. Spiegel by exact birth date and report her 1987 death, but records of the Spiegel marriage, any later divorce and the Massachusetts civil death certificate have not been located. Dolf’s wedding song identifies Albert’s father as Max Rothschild; this does not establish that he was the Max remembered as writing a later support letter, which has not been found.

All peopleFamily treeRelated documents

Halberstadt · 3 August 1933

A wedding remembered in Dolf’s verses

The booklet is affectionate family comedy, but beneath its rhymes it preserves Ruth’s childhood, her athletic life, the courtship in Schierke, Albert’s parents and the full wedding meal.

Ruth Reichenbach and Albert Rothschild wedding booklet — dedication and first verse
Couple
Ruth Reichenbach and Albert Rothschild
Date and place
3 August 1933 · Halberstadt
Writer and tune
Dolf Reichenbach · sung to “Das gibt’s nur einmal”
Albert’s parents
Father named as Max Rothschild; mother praised but not named
Wedding meal
Eight courses, with Henkell Trocken, Zeller Schwarze Katz and Oppenheimer Krötenbrunnen

The booklet is a primary family source written for an audience that knew its jokes. Its descriptions of character, courtship and kinship are contemporary testimony, not independent civil documentation. “Uncle Georg” is therefore presented as a probable identification, not a settled one.

Ruth and Albert’s wedding song — verses two through five
Ruth and Albert’s wedding song — closer view of verses two and three
Ruth and Albert’s wedding song — sixth verse
Ruth Reichenbach and Albert Rothschild
Menu from Ruth and Albert Rothschild’s wedding meal

Dolf calls Ruth a joy to her parents and a favorite of her aunts. He remembers a childhood mishap while she climbed through a fence on Lindenweg, watched by “Uncle Georg” and tended afterward by Fräulein Mieze. Julius is also named as someone who loved Ruth dearly, but the booklet does not explain who he was.

The next verse makes Ruth vivid as a young woman rather than only a name in civil records: diligent at school, loyal in friendship, a winner of tennis prizes, and enthusiastic about swimming, dancing and sport. It remembers repeated stays in Schierke, climbs on the Brocken and visits to Norderney on the North Sea.

The courtship verse places Ruth and Albert together again in Schierke during the preceding winter. Around New Year, Albert seeks a private conversation in the hotel reading room, while Paul interrupts with a joke about the mountain air being almost like Davos. Another verse remembers Albert’s visit to Halberstadt and Dolf being instructed to keep quiet about the visitor.

The sixth verse brings Albert’s parents into the family portrait. His mother is warmly included but left unnamed; his father is called Max and teased as a celebrated fisherman who could supply enormous trout. This is enough to add Max Rothschild to the family tree as Albert’s father, but not enough to identify him with the different Max remembered in the later emigration story.

The menu records a formal celebration: a fine appetizer with Henkell Trocken, mock-turtle soup, turbot with caviar sauce and Zeller Schwarze Katz, roast goose with mixed salads and Oppenheimer Krötenbrunnen, compotes, Swedish bombe, a cheese platter and mocha. The abundance matters historically. The family held this full Jewish wedding celebration in August 1933, four months after the Nazi regime’s nationwide boycott of Jewish businesses had announced the narrowing world around them.

“Uncle Georg” is most plausibly Georg Wollenberg, not Salomon Gustav Reichenbach. Georg Wollenberg married Paula Reichenbach, joined the family business, was described by Paul as a cousin by marriage and later registered Paul’s death. The identification remains provisional because the poem gives only the familiar name “Uncle Georg.”