Heinrich Kaphan

Heinrich Kaphan (born March 31, 1893 in Środa Wielkopolska , † July 17, 1981 in Rolândia ) was one of the few Jewish farmers in Pomerania . In 1936 he emigrated to Brazil with his wife Käte (* April 6, 1906; † June 6, 1995), a sister of Ernst Moritz Manasse, and was one of the pioneers of Rolândia.

Pomerania

Heinrich Kaphan was a soldier in the First World War and is said to have worked as a farmer in Romania during this war. Kaphan had received his training as a farmer from another Jewish farmer in Pomerania, Kurt Hirsch.

Around 1920 Heinrich Kaphan bought a property in Zabinek and shortly afterwards married Käte Manasse, the daughter of Georg Meyer Manasse (* July 24, 1870 in Dramburg - † 1935), a grain dealer from Drawsko Pomorskie , the former Dramburg. Five years later, the couple had to sell the house, and Heinrich Kaphan went to Kurt Hirsch's farm in Grabowo near Dramburg as administrator. He was soon able to take over this farm himself. The previously cited website suggests that Hirsch inherited his farm from Kaphan.

The lawyer and politician Erich Eyck had learned from friends in Berlin that the Kaphans were accommodating paying holiday guests on their “Emiliehof” estate. So around 1928, the then eight-year-old son of the Eycks, the later historian Frank Eyck (* July 13, 1921 in Berlin - † December 28, 2004 in Calgary), came to visit East Pomerania for the first time. Together with the three Kaphan children Klaus (he later called himself Claudio), Annemarie (married Johnson) and Marianne (married Sarcinella), he spent many holidays at the Emilienhof until the Kaphans emigrated. And his two older siblings, Irene (* 1911, married Reuter) and Eleanor (* October 4, 1913 - September 12, 2009, married Alexander), as well as their parents, were frequent guests there. Eyck's memories describe an idyll in the final phase of the Weimar Republic :

“Growing up in a big city, life on the farm and the work of an experienced farmer like Heinrich Kaphan, whom I admired very much, offered me an excellent balance. I made friends with many of the horses, did some rides, especially on ponies, did many bike rides in the surrounding countryside and went swimming in nearby lakes. In the evenings, Käte Kaphan, who combined all the skills of a farmer's wife with excellent training and great sensitivity, introduced us to German literature and read it. I still remember the vivid way in which she gave an account of the actions of Napoleon's Marshal Grouchy during the campaign that culminated in the Battle of Waterloo from Stefan Zweig's great moments of mankind . "

The close relations between the Kaphans and the Eycks were, as will be shown, of great importance to the Kaphans.

After the seizure of power by the Nazis on 30 January 1933 and the Kaphans happened soon what Manasseh Ernst Moritz in his work graveyard The Jewish has already been described: the increasing social isolation of the Jews in the village.

“I grew up with anti-Semitism. My maiden name was Manasseh. Manasse was suspicious enough as it was. I already experienced anti-Semitism in school. As it all came to a head, no one dared to associate with you anymore. Our neighbors also stopped coming, nobody came to see the Jew Kaphan! We used to socialize, but then it stopped. They were compromised when they invited the Jews. [..] As I said, I was born Manasseh, and there was a large note on our house, on my parents' house, 'The only one I hate is Jud Manasseh'. And we always had to pass this 'beautiful' sign when we went to school or in town. "

Since this situation became more and more unbearable not only for the Kaphan couple themselves, but above all for their children, who were also cut off from all social connections outside the family, the Kaphans decided to sell their farm and emigrate to Brazil. It is not clear when they made this decision. However, the intention to do so must have been known early on in her circle of friends, to which the Eycks living in Berlin belonged, because they brought the Kaphans together with another couple wishing to leave, the Frankfurt lawyer Max Hermann Maier and his wife Mathilde (called Titti , 1896–1997), with whom the Eycks were close friends. Max Hermann Maier reports on this fateful encounter:

“During a professional stay in Berlin towards the end of 1935, I discussed our own plans with older friends who lived in Berlin. I hoped they'd join in. For personal reasons, however, they could not make up their minds to do so. But they brought my wife and me into contact with the Jewish farmer Heinrich Kaphan from Emilienhof near Dramburg in Pomerania. His plans to emigrate to Brazil were well advanced. After a telephone call, the quickly determined Heinrich Kaphan came to Berlin the next day. So a single day in a person's life can become meaningful for a lifetime. For us it was that first day with Heinrich Kaphan. After getting to know each other, we immediately agreed to jointly acquire and develop settlement land in northern Paraná. As a result, I, the city dweller and lawyer, had won an expert partner for our property. Kaphan and his family emigrated to Rolandia in North Paraná in April 1936 before we did. "

The Kaphans, who at the beginning of the 1930s were still afraid of losing their farm due to the economic situation, were able to sell their Pomeranian goods at a reasonably acceptable price in 1935, despite official harassment. This was possible because of a special triangular deal between an English rural company that wanted to market farm plots to settlers in the Rolândia district, the German Reich , which was looking for markets for its heavy industrial goods, and future Jewish and non-Jewish settlers who were willing to travel. Max Hermann Maier describes how this business worked:

“With the mark sums paid by German emigrants to the English, they bought railroad equipment in Germany and brought it to Brazil. At that time, the Germans could not accommodate such railway material on the world market because German prices were much higher than those of other countries. However, the additional burden was at the expense of the land buyers. From a certain point on, they also had to pay taxes in favor of the Nazis to the Deutsche Golddiskontbank and had to pay the Reich flight tax when they emigrated if their assets were more than 50,000 marks or their income was more than 20,000 marks. After all, the Paraná land transfer was a little cheaper than the sale of "Jewish emigrant blocking marks" . When we emigrated in November 1938, we finally received only 6 percent of the face value in foreign currency for our blocked marks . We took part in the Paraná transfer with 25,000 marks and received "land letters" in return from the English, which could be exchanged for land in North Paraná, but also sold to other people to raise working capital. The price that the Landgesellschaft calculated for pure virgin forest land from 1936 to 1939 was 500 Brazilian milreis for the Alqueire of 24,200 square meters, the usual size benchmark for land. Five hundred milreis made up about one hundred German marks at that time. In this way the English created a basis for a new life in Brazil for us and a considerable number of Nazi displaced persons. "

On October 19, 1935, fourteen-year-old Frank Eyck left a farewell greeting in the guest book of the Emiliehof:

“I have been here often, and I have often had wonderful holidays at the Emilienhof. Well, when I have to think that this will be the last time that in the future someone else will own the Emilienhof, a stranger, that Uncle Heinrich and Aunt Kate will be separated from us by a journey of several weeks, I pause before the terrible fate which, through an arbitrary prescription, has transformed life. I wish Uncle Heinrich and Aunt Käte that they find a new home in Brazil, that they can lead a joyful - albeit difficult - life with their families, just as they did here in the first eleven years of their marriage. "

Käte Kaphan took this guest book to Brazil and kept it. Eyck found out about this on her 80th birthday.

Brazil

Eleanor Eyck, the daughter of Erich Eyck, who, like her brother, could remember many wonderful holiday stays at the Emilienhof of the Kaphans, had passed the Abitur in 1932 and then studied medicine in Berlin and Heidelberg. When she realized that she would not be able to continue her medical studies in Germany, she went to Paris in May 1933 first as an au pair with a Russian family and then as an au pair to London, where she after some time French teacher at a girls' school in Carlisle. There she received a letter from the Kapahns in 1935, who offered her to come to Brazil and teach their children there.

In June 1936 Eleanor Eyck reached the port of Santos in Brazil from Hamburg together with the Kaphans . They drove on to São Paulo , where they found accommodation in a pension run by a German refugee family. Heinrich and Käte Kaphan stayed a week before setting off for Rolândia. Eleanor and the children followed a week later. Their train journey took twenty-four hours before they reached Rolândia, the terminus of the railway line.

The Kaphans had meanwhile taken over a house from which Rudolf Isay's family , also friends of the Eyck family, had moved out to settle on their own land.

“The house was a square box with walls dividing it into four rooms and a kitchen. The windows were only shutters and no glass. Large boxes served as furniture next to the beds. A few meters away there was a bathhouse and toilets in a small hut, but no running water or electricity. [..] The only means of transport was the horse, rarely a horse-drawn cart. "

Eleanor Eyck began teaching in this house. The worktop of the open sewing machine and the dining table served as work tables, and a shelf for school books completed the furnishings. Initially the three children of the Kaphans were taught, to which the two children of the Isays soon joined. Later, on the Fazenda Jaù, Mathilde Maier taught the Hebrew and Jewish religion. A building known as a student home was also built here.

The Kaphans were one of the few families who settled in Rolândia and had practical agricultural experience.

“Very few of the emigrants who settled in the jungle were trained farmers before they arrived. B. the settlement partner of Max Hermann Maier, Heinrich Kaphan, and the later electoral consul of the Federal Republic of Germany, Hermann Miguel Bresslau. Geert Koch-Weser, the son of Erich Koch-Weser, was an outspoken agricultural expert . He was a trained farmer and had completed a degree in agricultural science with a doctorate from Professor Friedrich Aereboe . "

The Kaphans played a special role in the newly established settlement:

“[Heinrich] was able to adapt to the new conditions in a very admirable way and was always ready to give advice to less experienced settlers. Heinrich's help was invaluable, but Kate's influence was just as important. Her charm, friendliness, and wonderful sense of humor solved many emerging crises. What I remember best is her infectious laugh. "

Many years later, on January 10, 1993, in a letter to Frank Eyck, Käte Kaphan returned to talk about the special abilities of her husband, who had since passed away. She believes that these could only have developed against the backdrop of the terrible Jewish fate that forced her to flee to a far-off, alien world and build a new life. Without that, she believes, Heinrich's talents would have remained unknown. The actual farm area, which the Kaphans and the Maiers later cultivated and named "Fazenda Jaù", was eight miles away from the first base they had set up in Rolândia, and had yet to be cleared.

“Heinrich Kaphan had chosen his land in the jungle, about eight miles from Rolândia - in addition to his support and advice to other settlers. When distributing the land, the Company [the British Paraná Plantations Ltd.] made sure that each parcel had its own water resources. After three months of extremely hard work and all the dangers of cutting down trees and burning down the thicket, Heinrich had developed part of his jungle, supported by a hired local family with two sons and two daughters who helped in the house. Gradually, their land turned into a successful fazenda. The Kaphans and Maiers had moved into their new farmhouses, the first rice flourished, as well as coffee, cotton, corn and wheat, and now mainly orange trees. At times they engaged in mixed farming with chickens and cows. The Jaù, a stream that ran through their entire country, could soon be used to generate electricity and drive a mill. "

The support and advice given to other settlers by Heinrich Kaphan and his partner Max Hermann Maier, as indicated in the quote, can be seen in two concrete examples:

Hans Rosenthal (born August 27, 1919 in Wetzlar - † 1973 in Rolandîa) came to Rolandîa from the Groß Breesen teaching estate in 1938 . In 1939 he was followed from Berlin by his wife, Inge M. Rosenthal (1915–1999). After his arrival, Hans Rosenthal initially found accommodation on the “Fazenda Jaú” and was taken to school by “Heinrich Kaphan, the owner and only farmer by birth. Later, under Kaphan's direction, he took over administration in closer and further distance. ”The own fazenda, which Hans Rosenthal then built up, he called“ Fazenda Nova Breesen ”.
Unfortunately, Hans Rosenthal was the only Groß-Breesener who could come to Rolândia, although Maier and the Kaphans were experts in the emigration of Jewish youth to Brazil. In Groß-Breesen, many young Jewish people had received agricultural training in preparation for their new life. The settlement of this group of young Jews, however, has failed because of the German bureaucracy and the anti-Semitism of the Vargas regime, which denied them entry visas.

In 1939 Heinrich Kaphan was involved in the preparations for establishing another settlement in the state of Paraná. The Jewish Agricultural Settlement Corporation , the US branch of Juedische Landarbeit GmbH (JLA) , became aware of the state of Paraná while searching for settlement options for Jews persecuted in the German Reich . Heinrich Kaphan and Max Hermann Maier began preparations for a settler colony. However, due to difficulties with the Brazilian government, the project never came to fruition.

Käte Kaphan's mother, Clara Manasse (born Wohl, 1881–1967), moved from Dramburg to Berlin in 1936 after the death of her husband and was able to travel from here to her daughter in Brazil in 1940. Six of her siblings and three of her husband were murdered in extermination camps. Ernst Moritz Manasse's wife Marianne also temporarily turned the Kaphans' fazenda into a place of refuge. On her flight from Europe to the USA, she made a stopover here.

A look back at the 1990s

In the spring of 1990 Frank Eyck visited Käte Kaphan and Mathilde Maier in Rolândia. His first perception concerns the complete disappearance of the jungle. In the founding years, the settlers would have left parts of the primeval forest untouched. Over time, however, due to increased tax burdens, all memories of the former jungle have disappeared. Ruth Kaphan, the wife of Claudio and Kate's daughter-in-law, is therefore trying to give the original vegetation the opportunity to develop itself again on an area. Otherwise, however, the Fazenda Jaù is a magnificent property with lush vegetation and productive gardens. Like everyone else, she is connected to the public electricity grid and the former emigrants are well-respected farmers. But what once made the founding of Rolândia possible in the first place and offered those persecuted in Germany the chance to emigrate, was no longer important: the railway. Its rails, which had once been the main object of the triangular business, as a result of which Germans willing to emigrate were able to purchase land around Rolândia, were overgrown and deserted, they had replaced roads.

Social commitment was also part of everyday life for the Kaphans: Ruth, a trained teacher, now ran a school for women workers where they could learn to read and write, sewing and knitting. The workers' children and babies could also be brought to this class. She gave imaginative English lessons to a group of housewives that included everyday events or where the cooking of special dishes was followed by a feast to enjoy the meals they had just produced. And despite her old age, Käte Kaphan was still interested in what was happening in Brazil: the plight of the Brazilian economy, inflation and corruption. But the gaze remained painful, old scars cracked when she was reminded of the Jewish situation in the years 1933–1945. She could not bear pictures or books that confronted her with the events of the time.

photos

The following picture gives an impression of the first houses in Rolândia: PRIMEIRA CASA DE KLAUS KAPHAN E FAMÍLIA EM ROLÂNDIA 1936
Heinrich Kaphan in the field of his farm, Parana, Brazil, 1937

literature

Eleanor Alexander: A Year in the Brazilian Interior. An Eyewitness Report. In: Sibylle Quack: Between Sorrow and Strength. Women Refugees of the Nazi Period. German Historical Institute: Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (England) / New York, 1995, p. 159 ff. Sibylle Quack: Between Sorrow and Strength in WorldCat & Sibylle Quack: Between Sorrow and Strength in Google Books
Katherine Morris (Editor): Odyssey of Exile. Jewish Women Flee the Nazis for Brazil. Wayne State University Press, Detroit, 1996, ISBN 9780814325636 . In it also:
- Käte Kaphan: Immigration into the Brazilian Jungle.
Gudrun Fischer: “Our country spat us out.” Jewish women fleeing Nazi terror to Brazil , Olga Benario and Herbert Baum publishing house, Offenbach 1998, ISBN 3-932636-33-3 . This book, which almost exclusively contains interviews with women who fled to Rolândia, also contains interviews with Käte Kaphan and her daughter-in-law Ruth Kaphan, née Kronheim, who emigrated as a child with her parents to Chicago, where she, during her studies, Claudio Kaphan, her later husband, with whom she had come to Rolândia. Gudrun Fischer also grew up in Rolândia.
Simone Gigliotti: The Young Victims of the Nazi Regime. Migration, the Holocaust and Postwar Displacement. Bloomsbury Academic, London / New York, 2016, ISBN 9781472530752 & 9781472527110. Also as a Google Book: Simone Gigliotti: The Young Victims of the Nazi Regime .
Max Hermann Maier: A Frankfurt lawyer becomes a coffee planter in the Brazilian jungle. Report by an emigrant, 1938 - 1975 , Knecht, Frankfurt am Main 1975, ISBN 3-7820-0341-1 .
Sylvia Asmus and Brita Eckert: From John M. Spalek's suitcases: The bequests of Ernst Moritz Manasse and Philipp Fehl. In: Wulf Koepke and Jörg Thunecke (eds.): Preserving the Memory of Exile. Festschrift for John M. Spalek on the Occasion of his 80th Birthday. Edition Refugium, Nottingham (England) 2008, ISBN 0-9506476-1-6 , pp. 40-73.
Dieter Marc Schneider: Johannes Schauff (1902 - 1990). Migration and 'Stabilitas' in the age of totalitarianism. Oldenbourg, Munich 2001, ISBN 3-486-56558-3 .

Web links

Drawsko Pomorskie: Jewish Community before 1989
Bremer Freiheit in the middle of Brazil's jungle
Frank Eyck's memories of the Kaphanes This is the second chapter from the book: Frank Eyck - edited by Rosemarie Eyck: A Historian's Pilgrimage. Memoirs and Reflections , Detselig Enterprises, Calgary, 2010, ISBN 9781550593839 , which is now distributed by Vogelstein Press as a Kindle Edition on Amazon.

Remarks

↑ As the Grabowo page shows, this place name is widespread, and the traditional reference “near Dramburg” is only of limited use. But of all the West Pomeranian villages with the name Grabowo , the one at Stargard is likely to be the closest to Dramburg.
^ "Growing up in a big city, life on a farm and seeing the work of an experienced farmer like Heinrich Kaphan, whom l much admired, provided an excellent balance. I befriended many of the horses and did some riding, mainly on ponies, as well as a lot of cycling around the countryside and swimming in nearby lakes. In the evenings Käte Kaphan, who combined all the skills of a farmer's wife with an excellent education and great sensitivity, introduced and read German literature to us children. I still remember the vivid manner in which she recited an account of the actions of Napoleon's Marshal Grouchy in the campaign, which culminated in the battle of Waterloo, from Stefan Zweig's great moments of mankind. "

Individual evidence

↑ This and other information comes from the Drawsko Pomorskie: History website, unless other sources are named . Retrieved March 30, 2020 . .
↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e Eleanor Alexander: A Year in the Brazilian Interior. An Eyewitness Report.
^ University of Calgary: Frank Eyck Fund. Retrieved March 30, 2020 .
↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h ⁱ ^j ^k ^l Frank Eyck's memories of the Kaphanes ( Memento from April 17, 2017 in the Internet Archive ), (pp. 13-17)
↑ See the section on family background in the article on Ernst Moritz Manasse.
↑ Gudrun Fischer: “Our country spat us out” , pp. 70–71.
^ "Max Hermann Maier (born in Frankfurt am Main in 1891) was the son of Hermann Maier, director of the Frankfurt branch of the Deutsche Bank. He was a soldier in World War I. After the war he worked as a lawyer in Frankfurt am Main. In 1936 Maier became the legal advisor of the "Aid Association of German Jews" in Hesse and organized Jewish emigration. In 1938 he emigrated to Brazil. ”( Guide to the Max Hermann Maier Collection ). Max Hermann Maier died in Rolândia in 1976 .

↑ She was a doctor of botanist and author of the book All Gardens of My Life , Knecht Verlag, Frankfurt am Main, 1978, ISBN 978-3-7820-0410-7 . Mathilde Maier's passport , issued on August 15, 1938, is in the German National Library. It contains the Brazilian visa dated September 17, 1938, issued by the Brazilian consulate in Frankfurt am Main.

↑ Max Hermann Maier: A Frankfurt lawyer becomes a coffee planter in the jungle of Brazil , p. 12. Maier only speaks of "older friends who lived in Berlin" who had made contact with the Kaphans, but that they were the Eycks must have acted is hardly to be doubted. Frank Eyck described the Maiers as very close friends of his parents and spent his vacation with them in Frankfurt in 1928 while his parents were on a trip to the USA. (See Frank Eyck's memories of the Kaphanes under the web links)

^ Katherine Morris: Odyssey of exile: Jewish women flee the Nazis for Brazil. P. 174.

^ Max Hermann Maier: A Frankfurt lawyer becomes a coffee planter in the Brazilian jungle , pp. 13-14.

↑ For her life, see the biographical summary in the opening credits to: Eleanor Alexander: A Year in the Brazilian Interior. An Eyewitness Report. In: Sibylle Quack: Between Sorrow and Strength. Women Refugees of the Nazi Period. German Historical Institute: Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (England) / New York, 1995, p. 159 ff. Sibylle Quack: Between Sorrow and Strength in WorldCat & Sibylle Quack: Between Sorrow and Strength in Google Books : “Born in Berlin in 1913, Eleanor Alexander (née Eyck) was educated at the Auguste Viktoria Realgymasíum. After earning the Abitur in 1932, she attended medical schools in Berlin and Heidelberg before leavlng Germany for Paris in the spring of 1933. The following year she went to London as an au pair and eventually found a job teaching at a girls school. Her stay in Rolândia, Brazil - the focus of this eyewitness account - lasted from the spring of 1936 to the spring of 1937. From there she left for Cambridge, Massachusetts, to marry Paul Alexander. The couple spent the war years in Washington, DC, where two of their three children were born. The third child was born in Geneva, New York, where Professor Alexander was teaching at Hobart College. Later, he taught at Brandeis, Michigan, and Berkeley. He died in 1977. Eleanor Alexarıder returned to school in 1961, earníng a BA (1963) and an MA in French literature (1967) at Michigan. After teaching at the University of California Extension in Berkley from 1968 to 1983, she turned to writng book reviews and essays on French and German literature. Her memoirs, Stories of My Life, were published in 1986. “Eleanor Alexander died on September 12, 2009 in Peterborough, New Hampshire. ( Eleanor Alexander Eyck. Retrieved on March 30, 2020 . )

↑ ^a ^b Simone Gigliotti: The Young Victims of the Nazi Regime , no page number

↑ Dieter Marc Schneider: Johannes Schauff (1902 - 1990) , p. 82

↑ Harvey P. Newton Collection . In the 731-page collection, Inge M. Rosenthal's document can be found on pages 162–163 (pdf count). Further documents can be found in the Inge M. Rosenthal Collection .

^ The Jewish Agricultural Settlement Corporation (JASC)

↑ Sylvia Asmus and Brita Eckert: From John M. Spaleks Koffern , p. 44.

↑ Ruth Kaphan (born in August 1939 in Berlin) gives a very clear account of the difficulties encountered by a woman of the second Rolândia generation who was married into the settler community from outside in the book by Gudrun Fischer: “Unser Land spie uns aus” , pp. 87-98 .

personal data
SURNAME	Kaphan, Heinrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Jewish farmer, co-founder of Rolândia
DATE OF BIRTH	March 31, 1893
PLACE OF BIRTH	Środa Wielkopolska
DATE OF DEATH	17th July 1981
Place of death	Rolândia

[3] As the Grabowo page shows, this place name is widespread, and the traditional reference “near Dramburg” is only of limited use. But of all the West Pomeranian villages with the name Grabowo , the one at Stargard is likely to be the closest to Dramburg.

[6] "Growing up in a big city, life on a farm and seeing the work of an experienced farmer like Heinrich Kaphan, whom l much admired, provided an excellent balance. I befriended many of the horses and did some riding, mainly on ponies, as well as a lot of cycling around the countryside and swimming in nearby lakes. In the evenings Käte Kaphan, who combined all the skills of a farmer's wife with an excellent education and great sensitivity, introduced and read German literature to us children. I still remember the vivid manner in which she recited an account of the actions of Napoleon's Marshal Grouchy in the campaign, which culminated in the battle of Waterloo, from Stefan Zweig's great moments of mankind. "

[1] This and other information comes from the Drawsko Pomorskie: History website, unless other sources are named . Retrieved March 30, 2020 . .

[Eleanor_Alexander-2] Eleanor Alexander: A Year in the Brazilian Interior. An Eyewitness Report.

[4] University of Calgary: Frank Eyck Fund. Retrieved March 30, 2020 .

[Vogelstein-5] ↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h ⁱ ^j ^k ^l Frank Eyck's memories of the Kaphanes ( Memento from April 17, 2017 in the Internet Archive ), (pp. 13-17)

[7] See the section on family background in the article on Ernst Moritz Manasse.

[8] Gudrun Fischer: “Our country spat us out” , pp. 70–71.

[9] "Max Hermann Maier (born in Frankfurt am Main in 1891) was the son of Hermann Maier, director of the Frankfurt branch of the Deutsche Bank. He was a soldier in World War I. After the war he worked as a lawyer in Frankfurt am Main. In 1936 Maier became the legal advisor of the "Aid Association of German Jews" in Hesse and organized Jewish emigration. In 1938 he emigrated to Brazil. ”( Guide to the Max Hermann Maier Collection ). Max Hermann Maier died in Rolândia in 1976 .

[10] She was a doctor of botanist and author of the book All Gardens of My Life , Knecht Verlag, Frankfurt am Main, 1978, ISBN 978-3-7820-0410-7 . Mathilde Maier's passport , issued on August 15, 1938, is in the German National Library. It contains the Brazilian visa dated September 17, 1938, issued by the Brazilian consulate in Frankfurt am Main.

[11] Max Hermann Maier: A Frankfurt lawyer becomes a coffee planter in the jungle of Brazil , p. 12. Maier only speaks of "older friends who lived in Berlin" who had made contact with the Kaphans, but that they were the Eycks must have acted is hardly to be doubted. Frank Eyck described the Maiers as very close friends of his parents and spent his vacation with them in Frankfurt in 1928 while his parents were on a trip to the USA. (See Frank Eyck's memories of the Kaphanes under the web links)

[12] Katherine Morris: Odyssey of exile: Jewish women flee the Nazis for Brazil. P. 174.

[13] Max Hermann Maier: A Frankfurt lawyer becomes a coffee planter in the Brazilian jungle , pp. 13-14.

[14] For her life, see the biographical summary in the opening credits to: Eleanor Alexander: A Year in the Brazilian Interior. An Eyewitness Report. In: Sibylle Quack: Between Sorrow and Strength. Women Refugees of the Nazi Period. German Historical Institute: Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (England) / New York, 1995, p. 159 ff. Sibylle Quack: Between Sorrow and Strength in WorldCat & Sibylle Quack: Between Sorrow and Strength in Google Books : “Born in Berlin in 1913, Eleanor Alexander (née Eyck) was educated at the Auguste Viktoria Realgymasíum. After earning the Abitur in 1932, she attended medical schools in Berlin and Heidelberg before leavlng Germany for Paris in the spring of 1933. The following year she went to London as an au pair and eventually found a job teaching at a girls school. Her stay in Rolândia, Brazil - the focus of this eyewitness account - lasted from the spring of 1936 to the spring of 1937. From there she left for Cambridge, Massachusetts, to marry Paul Alexander. The couple spent the war years in Washington, DC, where two of their three children were born. The third child was born in Geneva, New York, where Professor Alexander was teaching at Hobart College. Later, he taught at Brandeis, Michigan, and Berkeley. He died in 1977. Eleanor Alexarıder returned to school in 1961, earníng a BA (1963) and an MA in French literature (1967) at Michigan. After teaching at the University of California Extension in Berkley from 1968 to 1983, she turned to writng book reviews and essays on French and German literature. Her memoirs, Stories of My Life, were published in 1986. “Eleanor Alexander died on September 12, 2009 in Peterborough, New Hampshire. ( Eleanor Alexander Eyck. Retrieved on March 30, 2020 . )

[Gigliotti-15] Simone Gigliotti: The Young Victims of the Nazi Regime , no page number

[16] Dieter Marc Schneider: Johannes Schauff (1902 - 1990) , p. 82

[17] Harvey P. Newton Collection . In the 731-page collection, Inge M. Rosenthal's document can be found on pages 162–163 (pdf count). Further documents can be found in the Inge M. Rosenthal Collection .

[18] The Jewish Agricultural Settlement Corporation (JASC)

[19] Sylvia Asmus and Brita Eckert: From John M. Spaleks Koffern , p. 44.

[20] Ruth Kaphan (born in August 1939 in Berlin) gives a very clear account of the difficulties encountered by a woman of the second Rolândia generation who was married into the settler community from outside in the book by Gudrun Fischer: “Unser Land spie uns aus” , pp. 87-98 .