Correspondence card sent by Samuel Rothmann from Trzemeszno in 1873.
Translation of the correspondence from the back of the card:
Trzemeszno, October 2, 1873.
I regret to inform you that I did not order anything from your salesman and therefore I will not accept the box BB 3185 sent to me; its disposition remains in your hands.
I also said clearly to your salesman that the reason I will not buy from you is that everything is too expensive for me.
Rothmann
(translated by Krzysztof Tomala)
The oldest record in Trzemeszno’s city register referring to Samuel Rothmann that I have found dates back to 1859. On September 22, 1860, he married Amalie Grünbaum in Trzemeszno. The books contain records about the birth of their children: Ernestine (1862), Louis (1863), Jenie/Jeny (1865), Gustav (1866), Clara (1868), Albert (1870), Emma (1873), and Rosa (1876). He is always described as a merchant. He must have had a very good command of Hebrew as well as German, because it was he who was entrusted with copying the Book of Yizkor from the Trzemeszno synagogue burnt in 1885 (photo of the page of the Book with Rothmann's signature can be found HERE.
He is also mentioned as a member of the committee to rebuild that synagogue. Therefore, there is no doubt that he lived in Trzemeszno at least from 1859 to 1885. Heymann Arzt also mentions him in his memoir as the father of his friend Gustav, with whom he attended the junior high school in Trzemeszno and who went on to become a medical student in Berlin. Unfortunately, Gustav was deported from Nuremberg in the direction of the Riga camp on November 29, 1941, and most likely perished. His sister Clara, married name Munderstein, was deported from Berlin to the Terezin ghetto on August 7, 1942, and from there to the Treblinka camp on September 26, 1942. His other sister Rosa (married name Markus) was deported on November 1, 1941, from Berlin to the Lodz ghetto, and then on May 9, 1942, to the Kulmhof death camp (in Chelmno), where she died (photo 3).
Translated by Kasia Smialkowski
Sources:
Trzemeszno magistrate records 1843-1907, State Archive in Bydgoszcz, Inowroclaw Division
H. Arzt, Memoirs and Diary of Heymann Arzt, translated by F. Philippsborn, typescript, Burbank 1991.
Book of Yizkor, Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, ref. PL-413.
A. Heppner, I, Herzberg, Aus Vergangenheit und Gegenwart der Juden und der jued. Gemeinden in den Posener Landen; nach gedruckten und ungedruckten Quellen, Koźmin- Bydgoszcz 1909.
www.ushmm.org
www.bundesarchiv.de/gedenkbuch/
www.photos.yadvashem.org