Sources and discoveries
The research began with Dolf Reichenbach’s 1938 letter. Photographs, family memories, civil registers and institutional collections have since helped identify people, trace the family’s businesses and reconstruct lives disrupted by persecution and exile.
Research in progress
The collection is still growing. These are some of the questions guiding our research.
How did the Halberstadt shops and family property pass out of Jewish ownership under Nazi persecution? Located archival files may clarify the transactions, but they have not yet been examined.
Explore the shop historyPaul’s 1935 letter places earlier generations in Gröbzig. We are looking for records that can test his account and establish the family’s earlier history.
Read Paul’s letterCivil registers, directories and cemetery inscriptions help distinguish people with similar names. The relationships between several Reichenbach households remain unresolved.
Explore the family treeBurial-society and communal records may reveal more about the family’s place in the Jewish community. They have not yet supplied verified burial entries for the earliest generations.
Explore the community sourcesDocuments and discoveries
Commercial-register extracts name Martin Reichenbach in a hat business in Cologne and Dortmund. They document the 1914 takeover of the Dortmund operation by a GmbH, the move of its seat to Cologne in 1932, and the closure of the Dortmund branch in December 1933. Closing that branch does not establish that the entire company was dissolved.
The extracts do not establish Martin’s parents or any relationship to the Reichenbach clothing businesses in Halberstadt and Wernigerode. The businesses are treated separately here.
Sources: Landesarchiv NRW, Gerichte Rep. 0316 Nr. 625, Dortmund HRB V 548 and Cologne HRB 7483; Gerichte Rep. 0031 Nr. 68, Cologne HRA 222. These are selected extracts, not complete files. The supplied scans are restricted to private use and are not reproduced here.
Researching dispossession
The Magdeburg department of the Landesarchiv Sachsen-Anhalt reports that it holds documents concerning the Reichenbach family: the department store’s “Aryanization” and sale, property sales, and confiscation of private assets.
The records were created by:
The files may clarify the dates, parties, valuations and terms of these transactions. “Aryanization” was the transfer of Jewish-owned property to non-Jewish ownership under Nazi persecution.
Historical context: US Holocaust Memorial Museum
The historical files have not yet been examined by the family archive. Their contents must be checked before they can support new conclusions.
Source: Landesarchiv Sachsen-Anhalt, Magdeburg department, description of its holdings.
Research update · 10 September 2026
The 1934 Frankfurt address book lists Julius Jacob as Privat. at Savigny-Straße 22 I, with telephone 73695—the number previously recorded at Schubertstraße 13. This extends his documented chronology by one year. His fate after mid-1934 remains unknown; absence from later directories does not establish death or emigration.
Original address-book page · 1934 · part I, p. 304
The Halberstadt register notice for HR A 934 names Moritz Reichenbach as proprietor of M. Reichenbach and gives his wife Mathilde née Löwenthal procuration, a commercial power of attorney. This identifies the Quedlinburg cemetery household with the gut-casings firm. A 1929 entry ends Mathilde’s procuration and grants it to Meta Reichenbach; Meta’s relationship to the household remains unproved.
The later proprietor Kurt is documented as a business successor. No located record names his parents. Neither the succession nor the shared surname establishes a family connection to the Jacob–Adolf–Paul clothing line.
Newly inspected Cologne directories identify an earlier proprietor of the hat business J. Reichenbach at Breitestraße 2 in 1895 and name him alongside Mart. Reichenbach in 1901. His given name is not yet securely read; the archive keeps the firm’s initial J. unexpanded.
A Cologne registration notice dated 29 July 1867 also names a proprietor of J. Reichenbach under register number 1638. No inspected record explicitly connects that number to the later HR A 222. The notice’s date is a registration date, not an established founding date.
Martin’s parents and any family relationship to the Halberstadt–Wernigerode clothing house remain unproved. The archive treats the Cologne business separately and adds no family-tree connection.
The findings above are based on examination of the original pages linked here. Uncertain identifications and family relationships are noted alongside each finding.
Community records
The National Library of Israel catalogues five Halberstadt burial-society files: founding rules, statutes, duties and administrative papers. These are not catalogued as burial registers. The draft rules in D-Ha11-946 are not yet available in a verified digitization.
A check of the individual catalogue records on 8 September shows that these are rules, society duties and administrative papers, rather than files catalogued as burial registers. Their individual dates extend beyond the subseries date range. They have not supplied verified burial entries for Jacob, Helene, Adolf or Jette Therese Frank; those searches remain open.
The 1907 duties booklet, printed page 16, refers to a grave marker bearing a name or number corresponding to the society’s books. The society’s books may offer further information, but their survival and contents remain unknown.
Related cemetery records and photographs may offer further clues. No Reichenbach entry in the burial-society files has yet been verified by this archive.
Sources: the five National Library of Israel catalogue records linked above and the 1907 duties booklet. These sources have not established new family identifications.
In her account of a 2019 meeting of former Jewish Halberstadt residents, Jutta Dick writes that Willy Friedländer, Ernest Fried’s father, worked first for Messing-Kupfer Hirsch and later for the Reichenbach clothing house. Dick’s account does not give his dates of employment or specify which Reichenbach business employed him. No family relationship has been established.
Jutta Dick, “Jüdische Halberstädter in New York City,” DIALOG 84 (3/2019), p. 5
Open questions
Visitors can open documents, read translations, follow source links and share corrections or identifications. New findings and corrections are recorded here.
Publication method
Sources and family testimony are cited separately. Where they conflict, the disagreement is explained. Personal details about living relatives are protected, and image editing and AI-assisted work are disclosed.
Research page reviewed 16 October 2026.
Persecution and deportation
The camp histories bring together records of individual relatives, with links to Arolsen Archives and other sources. Kurt, Paula and Hans are last documented on their arrival in Warsaw; their subsequent fates remain unknown.
Reading the family record
Object records include sources, translations and reuse terms.
Include the object number or page address with your question. To consult an original held elsewhere, follow the institutional link on its object page.
Contact the archiveHelp identify a person, add a photograph or correct a record. Please include the source of the information and any restrictions on its use.
Contact the archiveDocuments and discoveries
Explore records that have helped identify relatives, trace migration and understand the family’s businesses.
The notice identifies Anna’s husband Julius, their son Adolf, the Frankfurt home at Schubertstraße 13 and burial at the new Israelite cemetery. It names Paul Reichenbach and wife, Oberbaurat Max Reichenbach and wife, Else Sernau née Reichenbach and Ernst Reichenbach among the mourners. The relationships are stated collectively, placing Anna in this close family generation without naming her parents.
Hallesche Zeitung · 17 January 1909 · PDF page 11The newspaper publishes marriage banns for merchant Siegfried Sernau of Halle and Else Reichenbach of Halberstadt. Else’s married surname in the 1931 notice makes it very likely that the marriage followed. Her parents and possible identification with the remembered Liesl remain unknown.
FamilySearch index · Halberstadt civil register no. 912The entry records Jacob Paul Reichenbach’s birth in Halberstadt on 20 October 1876, naming Adolf Reichenbach and Goldine Marcuse as his parents. The archive already publishes a full English reading from the family research copy; FamilySearch supplies an independently accessible viewing path to the same civil-register evidence.
FamilySearch index · Halberstadt civil register no. 655The indexed civil entry records Max Reichenbach’s birth in Halberstadt on 15 July 1882, naming Adolf Reichenbach and Goldine Marcuse as his parents. This establishes him as a documented sibling of Jacob Paul.
Bundesarchiv Gedenkbuch · de1138559The record matches Max by exact name, birth date and Halberstadt birthplace. It records Berlin-Zehlendorf residence, imprisonment in Sachsenhausen until 15 December 1938, death in Berlin on 18 January 1940 and the fate note Freitod.
Online-OFB Juden im Deutschen Reich · ID I192474This entry records a Moritz Reichenbach born about 1828, a Posamentier in Ballenstedt, who married Minna Helft in Halberstadt in 1857. The different wife, daughter, occupation and dates point to a household other than that of the Quedlinburg merchant Moritz/Moshe HaLevi.
FamilySearch index · Halberstadt civil death register no. 359The entry records Ludwig’s death on 7 May 1920 and names Jakob Reichenbach and Helene Heinemann as his parents, independently establishing his place in the documented sibling line.
FamilySearch index · Massachusetts declaration and linked federal recordsPassenger records document their 1937 and 1938 New York arrivals; Dolf’s 1938 declaration and 1940 Alien Registration Form trace the process toward citizenship. His family-held Certificate of Naturalization now documents its completion in Boston on 15 May 1944.
FamilySearch index · Massachusetts declaration and passenger recordsRuth’s 1936 declaration and 1936–37 passenger records document her American record trail. Later death and Social Security indexes match Ruth R. Spiegel to Ruth Rothschild by an exact birth-date agreement and report a death on 26 November 1987; the Spiegel marriage and civil death certificate remain unfound.
Stiftung Gedenkstätten Buchenwald und Mittelbau-Dora · Totenbuch person 511The official register records Fritz Reichenbach, born 14 March 1884 in Wernigerode, as dead at Buchenwald on 22 November 1938. It does not display a prisoner number or establish a medical cause of death.
Original list · 14 April 1942The list supplies their birth details and last Halberstadt addresses. It corrects Hans Wollenberg’s birth date to 3 June 1907 and identifies Eisenach as his birthplace.
Yad Vashem · item 6719646 · frame 2This second list places Kurt at Dominikanerstraße 23 and Paula and Hans together at Westendorf 15. It confirms their birth dates and forced addresses but says nothing about what happened to them after Warsaw.
Arolsen Archives · DocID 12669406The card records his last address at Normannenstraße 2 in Nikolassee and his death on 27 November 1942, without stating cause or custody.
Berend Lehmann MuseumThe former Jewish school and community building became forced collective housing. Paula and Hans were registered there when they were forced from Halberstadt.
Stolpersteine in BerlinThe house history places Ernst and Rosalie, Jeanette and Martha Reichenbach at one persecuted Berlin address; its conflicting 1940 date for Ernst remains recorded as a source error or unresolved discrepancy.
Research still open
These leads remain separate from the documented family account until stronger records establish the connection.
A 1931 death notice names Anna Jacob, née Reichenbach, her husband Julius, their son Adolf and their Frankfurt address. It also names Paul, Max, Else Sernau née Reichenbach and Ernst among the mourners. A 1909 notice pairs Else with Siegfried Sernau in marriage banns; her married surname in 1931 makes it very likely that they married. Anna and Paul each named a son Adolf, which family memory understands as a tribute to their much-loved father. Else may be the “Liesl” remembered by the family, but no record confirms it. It also remains uncertain whether the 1931 Adolf was the later Adolph who raised Herbert and Vernon with Marga in New York.
Contact the archivePaul wrote in 1935 that the family had lived in Gröbzig at the beginning of the eighteenth century. That sentence remains the source for the origin claim. Samples from LASA files Nr. 100, 101a and 106 produced no Reichenbach entry, so they neither prove nor disprove what Paul remembered.
Civil records name Helene Heinemann as the mother of documented Reichenbach children. No record yet found proves her own parents, and the archive does not fill that line from an unsourced tree.
Records name Mennigen & Co. as successor to Paul Reichenbach’s business. The purchase contract, price and complete postwar history have not been found.
Read beyond this website
Consult the original publications and the collections that hold related records.
A near-contemporary overview of the community’s history, institutions and population through 1903.
Website use authorized · DAV · PDFThe complete section report contains Paul’s tour entry and formal membership record.
No restrictions on access or use · USHMMRG-50.030.0510: a Halberstadt-born witness describes family and religious life, persecution, Kindertransport and survival.
Open access · CC BY-NC-ND 4.0Scholarship on Jewish Halberstadt and its contested memory in the postwar city.
Reusable images · licenses by fileThe open photographic collection containing the four Reichenbach memorial stones.
Public catalog · image rights by itemSearchable records for photographs, address history and Werner Hartmann’s research dossiers.
Oral history in context
Lillyan Rosenberg’s oral history describes another Jewish family and business in Halberstadt. No relationship to the Reichenbach family has been established.