Rosenbaum family papers

Eva Abraham-Podietz (born Eva Rosenbaum) was born on May 22, 1927 to Ernst and Else (Jacobus) Rosenbaum in Hamburg, Germany. Her father worked in the import-export business. She had one brother, Heinz-Peter Rosenbuam born in 1924. During the summer of 1938 Eva's father moved to England and made preparations for the family to join him. Heinz-Peter followed him in September 1938, after being sponsored by Mrs. Marder, a British woman who provided sponsorship to a number of German Jewish refugee children. On December 12, 1938 Eva left for England on the second Kindertransport. After arriving in Harwich, Eva was taken to a temporary shelter at the nearby Dovercourt Bay holiday camp. A few weeks later Eva was sent to live with a foster family in Nottingham, where she worked as a nanny for their two-year-old daughter. Neither Eva nor her brother, who was living with another family in Nottingham, could join their father because he did not possess the means to house and support them. Eva's mother arrived in England in August 1939. Afterwards, her parents found an apartment in London and Eva moved in with them. A few weeks later, she and her new classmates were evacuated to Northampton, where she stayed with a series of foster families over the next three years. In the fall of 1942 Eva returned to London, where she matriculated and received training as a teacher and social worker. After the war, Eva worked for the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee assisting Jewish displaced persons in Germany and Brazil. The Rosenbaum family papers consist of correspondence and documents related to the attempts of Ernst Rosenbaum, who immigrated to England in 1936, to bring his family, one by one, from Germany in 1938-1939. Includes correspondence with family members and immigration officials, testimony regarding Kristallnacht, and a preprinted postcard sent from Theresienstadt (Terezin) in 1944 sent to one of the Rosenbaum's cousins. Also includes an autograph album with entries mainly dating 1906-1908 but also an entry written by Eva Rosenbaum prior to joining her father in England. Includes information regarding Ernst Rosenbaum's problems establishing a business in England, and the difficulties Jewish refugees encountered in England during World War II.