Hello my name is John Strop. Welcome to History Nebraska's brown-bag history lecture series. Lectures are held monthly on the third Thursday in the Oldfather family auditorium at the Nebraska History Museum in downtown Lincoln. Learn more about History Nebraska and our programs and services at history.nebraska.gov. If you are not a member of History Nebraska I encourage you to join. Your support allows us to provide programs like this brown-bag lecture series free for all Nebraskans. For a full list of membership benefits please visit our website.

A special thanks to the Nebraska State Historical Society foundation for the financial support which allows us to tape and broadcast these programs across the state. We'd also like to thank LNK TV a service of the city of Lincoln which produces these programs. If you would like to watch previous brown-bag lectures visit the history nebraska youtube page at youtube.com/HistoryNebraska. Look at playlists and there are over a hundred and seventy programs that are there.

Our topic today is Serendipities and the Coat: Why Museums Matter. We are going to tie together the horror of the Holocaust, the goodness of the neighbor, families in Lincoln, the chance happenings that brought this Brown Bag together, and most of all the coat. By the end you will be reminded that history is told in unusual ways and that museums matter. Museums really matter.

Our panel members today are Hanna Gradwohl, David Gradwohl, Mady Kenny and I. Let me introduce us in the order you will hear from us. John Strop - that is I — is a retired volunteer a retired teacher, counselor, principal, and professor. He volunteers for History Nebraska as a host at the visitor's desk and as the organizer of these brown bags. Mady Kenny was born and raised in New York City and yes she did play on fire escapes. She graduated from the College of Wooster in Ohio with a major in history after which she joined the Peace Corps working in an Ankora slum and then a Turkish village doing rural community development. After returning home she studied occupational therapy at Columbia University, subsequently working in various facilities for 37 years the last 21 at the American School for the Deaf. During that time she was raising her daughter and son as well as collaborating on developing two programs targeting the unique learning styles of individuals with special needs. Presently she is retired and spending time with four grandchildren, traveling to Nebraska to be with her friend Don, while volunteering with hospice, Meals on Wheels and her town's Human Services Department.

David Gradwohl was born in Lincoln and graduated from Lincoln High and NU, double majoring in anthropology and geology. He served in the Army in Germany and completed his PhD in anthropology at Harvard University. In 1962, he accepted a teaching and research position at Iowa State where he was the founding director of the Iowa State archeological laboratory. He took early retirement in 1994. They continued to live in Ames and he's working with graduate and undergraduate students pursuing various professional and personal research projects and writing and publishing some poetry.

Hanna Rosenberg Gradwohl was born in Coburg Germany near the town of Sonneberg where her family lived at the time. In 1937 she escaped the Nazi Third Reich were her parents with her parents and settled in Lincoln to which her maternal grandparents had emigrated from Halberstadt Germany the previous year. She graduated from Lincoln High School and subsequently NU with a BA in social work. Hanna married David in 1957 and they raised a son and two daughters. In Ames, Hanna was employed as a school social worker. After obtaining her master's degree from Iowa, she was a co-founding member of the Ames children's theatre and appointed to Ames first Fair Housing and Civil Rights Commission. She retired in 1994 and volunteers as a reader to the blind on the radio and also as a hospice worker. Hanna and David have six grandchildren all of them above average — as that Lake Wobegon just ask them.

To let you know about asking questions we will take them at the end. Please join me in welcoming Mady, Hanna and David.

This all started on Monday July 2nd about 3:00 in the afternoon. I was sitting at the visitor's desk and I answered the phone. The person tells me she lives in Connecticut had visited the museum earlier on April 30th and wants to learn more about the coat on display on second floor. I recalled she said, "I just can't get its story out of my mind." She asked if I could send a picture of the description inside the display case. Do you know that's officially called the object label. Thanks to Laura telling me that. I have to admit I had no idea what she was talking about. I had only seen the display in passing one night two years earlier. But fortunately Troy Park a History Nebraska staff member was overhearing my conversation. His gestures made it clear he could take me right to the item. So I got Mady's phone number and email and I admit mateys passion came through the phone to me so I wanted to help her.

Sure enough Troy took me right to the display. Troy wouldn't let me take a picture until he had used glass cleaner to clean the case. Then I got my photos. I went back to my computer and emailed this description as Mady had requested. Mady responded saying who could I write to or speak with who might have some information on when the coat was donated and any other information that might be available. I said I'd do some looking on Tuesday. By the way it did not occur to me that I must have actually been the one who welcomed Mady and Dawn on their Monday April 30th visit to the museum as I staff the visitors desk out there on Mondays. So I must have met them when they were first here.

So on Tuesday afternoon July 3rd I had some time so I started looking right off the bat I found three items on the Internet. I emailed references to them to Mady and boy did I hit the jackpot. In these documents I found the code owner's granddaughter's name. Hanna Gradwohl the granddaughters husband's named David Gradwohl, the place where they live Ames, Iowa, and then I realized I had met David gradual in person for the first time in my life on April 28th. This is from of this picture my wife took when she was taking pictures at the foundation meeting in Nebraska City and that's in the background of a picture that she took of someone else. And then I realized the best of all John Gradwohl was an NU law professor of mine. David's brother and he was the one who instilled in me a process to keep up on recent court cases that I relied on for my 25-year professorial career.

So David and I visited on the phone that Tuesday about suppertime I told him the story. He was touched and amazed he wanted to talk to Hanna we agreed to chat the next morning about 10:30. I let Mady know what had transpired. On Wednesday we talked. Before noon I had shared contact information for them to all talk and communicate with each other. By the way if the first contact was on Monday July 2nd, then we talked on Tuesday July 3rd, we talked again on Wednesday July the 4th. Somehow that seemed so fitting to me it was an independent story an Independence Day story about how small our world is.

Early Thursday morning I got a copy of this email,"Dear Hanna and David I am absolutely thrilled to meet you. Little did I realize that the phone call I made on Monday would lead to this connection especially so soon. I had hoped that within the next few months I would be able to find further information about the family of the person I read about during a serendipitous encounter with a museum exhibit. As I stood there reading, looking, and crying I wanted to reach out and touch the fabric. When I spoke with Jon yesterday he expect expressed the hope which I share that we could meet. Now let's turn to Mady Kenny and let her pick up the story.

I did not touch the coat. Anyway but just to let you know that for me finding Hanna's grandmother's coat it was like just amazing and meeting Hanna and David was the culmination of a journey that actually started back in the early 1950s.

I was sitting, and why my mother ever let me do this I'll never know, but I was sitting on our couch in new in our apartment in New York looking at a television play on the trials at Nürnberg and which they included for those of you in your 70s they were called newsreels documentation of the absolute horror that was found in the Holocaust and I remember the overwhelming horror of the human devastation that truly defies description and at the time I didn't realize the impact that that would have on me. Throughout my life I think look at it that it started then I have felt an emotional connection to that period of our world history with the people that suffered in the Holocaust, those who suffered and survived, and those who suffered and tried to help. Even as a child I must have been about 10 or 11 at the time my best friend in fifth grade was Jewish and I used to think about how I could have saved her should I have ever lived during that time should we have been there.

Anyway on Monday at April 30th of this year we found the quilt museum which was my initial target closed and so we came over here to the Museum of Nebraska history and as I went through it I was so impressed with them welcoming spirit of Nebraska and specifically Lincoln I had always felt a bit of a connection again a weird serendipitous connection my grandmother and her family emigrated to Dodge and that's where she was raised so I felt kind of maybe I could have a little bit of pride that I was a part of that welcoming spirit. I walked around and came upon the display of the black coat and I read beer labels I read everything so I stopped and read the just for no particular reason the information and I found myself as John said crying's, very emotional. Hanna's grandmother died in Treblinka the Polish concentration camp the day I was born and so it was like oh my lord here is this phenomenal connection that I didn't know about and here it was and I it really had obviously affected me. And it did not leave me I we left and I but for the next month every day I thought about it and I thought how could not me but how could I convince my daughter to look up on finding on the computer any information about the woman who had worn the coat. And so I decided to just call and I won't revisit because John who was very accurate about what occurred but I felt like this when he gave me that information it was the end of the connection the rest would be up to me and then all of a sudden the world exploded with Hanna and David becoming a part of my life. And so this journey began. And we drove when I came up to Nebraska the next time on July 17th we headed east to Ames, Iowa instead of West to North Platte Nebraska. And I was excited a lot of anticipation and eagerness but it was also tinged with what would these people think of this crazy lady who cried over a coat and was heading 150 miles east instead of west after landing in Omaha, so that's kind of how we got started.

So let's turn to David Gradwohl to pick up the story now in Ames, Iowa.

The thing that has amazed me about this story the number of Serendipity's that are involved. The fact that I had met John Strop at the meeting in Nebraska City when I was invited to be a member of the Foundation Board. I returned the call from John on July 3rd and given the context of the call I knew immediately before he mentioned that the specific artifact to which he was referring. That is he knew that I was married to Hanna and that Hanna's family had donated Holocaust period artifacts to the museum when Hanna's mother and aunt left Lincoln and moved to Ames to be closer to us.

So we add the phone conversation relating to the coat and the serendipitous contacts between John and me and my being married to Hanna which is a serendipity in and of itself which we can discuss later. And Mady's contact with John. My remark in this case talking to John was is this not a quintessential reason why museums matter.

I've worked in museums in fact I got my start in anthropology working here at the Nebraska State Historical Society Museum and being a member of Gus Kivett's archaeological crew. And I've worked in other museums part time and with colleagues team taught a class on the introduction to museums. So these issues are very important to me and Hanna and I are inveterate museum goers. Our idea of a groovy day is go to a museum early in the morning take a break and have lunch in their cafeteria and then continue on in the afternoon.

So on July 5th we had an agreement that Mady, Hanna and I would be in further contact. And then there was the serendipity that Mady could come out and visit with us in Ames — we weren't able to get over to Lincoln at the particular time she was — so she just flew in to the airport and got it met Don and drove directly to Ames.

Now let's turn to Hanna Gradwohl to tell us more of the story.

I was astounded that the coat had made such a strong impression on a woman from Connecticut and that she cared enough to call the history museum to find out more about this artifact. On July 6 I enjoyed my conversation with Mady and learning more about her intrigue with the coat. We sent her some additional articles pertaining to the Rosenbergs Holocaust experiences.

Mady mentioned she was coming to Nebraska sometime in the middle of July and wondered if we could meet to discuss this story further. Don had offered to host our meeting in Lincoln but the time frame did not work out with our schedules. Mady suggested she and Don would drive to Ames and meet with us at our home on the 17th and stay overnight to the 18th and we agreed that would work for us.

So now we're going to have Mady, or a our Hanna and David tell us more about and Mady more about the visit in Ames. So Hanna you go first

Well as you can see in the picture, we took some pictures at our house, the four of us met in our home. We got out albums and looked at some of the photos that my family had taken before they left Germany. I showed her the little photo album with the pictures. And we had a long discussion of the family's history in Germany before our having to leave and escaped from the Nazis and the disposition of the coat belonging to my paternal grandmother Hedwig Speier Rosenberg.

I was surprised and touched that Mady was so intrigued with the and it's story that she would fly back to Omaha meet Don and drive to Ames to meet with Hanna and me have dinner at our house and look at family albums. Many, many pictures and other documents that we had.

I not a particularly pushy individuals so as I'm reading this and listening to Hanna I'm thinking, "oh my lord the poor woman didn't have a chance I was gonna yeah I was getting to Ames I really didn't care and I look thinking oh my goodness I apologize for that. Anyway we spent a really an amazing evening going through the things that that Hanna and David had found of specifically about her family and sharing and and our thoughts and a lot of emotion for me went into it. Hanna and I continued to our conversation the next morning at breakfast and then I went back and got Don I said well we're going back to their house for another couple of hours. And we did and but meeting Hanna and David has been learning from them has brought me so much closer to having a real connection with what happened on September 29th, 1942 and it's just been an amazing journey.

So now let's turn to the heart of the matter, heart of the story, and have David and Hanna tell us much more rich detail about the coat and the families. They will tell us how the coat got to the history museum of they'll share the story behind the coat they'll share how Nebraska and Lincoln got connected to the story while naming specific Lincoln family names. Hanna why don't you go.

My paternal grandparents Bernhard — he was called Benno — Rosenberg and Hedwig Speier Rosenberg lived in Sonneberg Thuringia Germany in the late 19th century and up into the 1930s. And we have a picture of the store that that my grandparents ran. They were co-owners and managers of a department store which had been established in Sunna burg in the late 19th century. After Hitler came to power in 1933 anti-semitism propaganda and restrictive laws increased. There were boycotts of stores owned by Jews. Jews had to take names — men were called Israel and all women called Sarah — and wear armbands with the Star of David on the cloth that they wore. They could not eat in certain restaurants and my grandfather who really enjoyed fishing could not fish in certain lakes and streams. In the photograph on the screen now, it shows my grandparents with with me just before our emigration. And my grandparents also had hoped to emigrate. But at that point they made the decision to move to a bigger city where they were not one of the very few Jewish inhabitants. So they moved to Frankfurt. My grandparents and my uncle a great uncle Julius Speier sold their department store in Sonneberg and moved to a place where they thought they wouldn't stand out as much.

In the next photograph there are pictures of my that is the the store and my grandparents advertisement for the store. Meanwhile my maternal grandparents Käte Blüte Speier, Alfred Speier, and my aunt Eva Speier in 1936 decided that they would emigrate to the US with the assistance of my great uncle in Lincoln, Nebraska. The picture is on the ship. My aunt was 16 at the time and they they fled in December of 1936 and settled in Lincoln, Nebraska where my my grandfather's cousins lived. My grandfather had all owned a successful upscale upscale fabric store in Halberstadt. At the time there was little ready-to-wear and people would have a tailor or a dressmaker make the clothing and my grandfather had his fabric store where they could choose the fabric for suits and our dresses. My grandfather was served in the German army as a noncommissioned officer during the First World War. He received an Iron Cross. He was very patriotic. He had other medals for his distinguished service. But he heeded the American cousins admonition to get out of the Nazi Third Reich. The next picture I believe is of my my parents and me I at our house we have a photograph of my passport picture. The cousins who had supported my grandparents also provided affidavits for my family Ludwig Ernst Rosenberg, Ilse Speier Rosenberg, and me to escape Nazi Germany. We arrived in Lincoln in 1937 and at that time I was not yet two years old but my mother said she chased me around the deck of the ship in our crossing.

During this time in Frankfurt the anti-semitic laws became more and more oppressive as reflected in a letter that my grandfather Benno sent to me on my third birthday in December of 1938.

And so the letter reads, "Frankfurt 13 December 1938. My dear mushy line" - that was her pet name - "because of many worries about this and that I almost forgot your birthday and an Opa - a grandfather - should not be so forgetful despite all the troubles storming around us so dear mushy line first of all hearty kisses from Opa and Oma and call and from us all hearty congratulations with the wish from all that you may remain healthy and grow to be a joy, first of all to your parents and grandparents. We can't make large gifts this time but some little packages are in route from which you can choose to eat. There is also something nice for mommy because uncle Jacob has others for Ludwig and Ilse along with him we had to sell our beautiful car for practically nothing and also give up my driver's license — this was part of the edicts from Hitler — now we will receive the identification card — meaning Israel and Sarah — What more will happen heaven only knows our emigration is also not easy because we cannot get the money together. Oma we can't bake stollen — the special Christmas sweet bread — at this time because she has an owie on her right hand and therefore you left to forego this pleasure. Also she won't be able to write for a long time but is getting much better. What we hear otherwise is nothing good. But we must remain strong in order to endure everything. This letter is circumspect because it goes through the censors. How happy I am that you are out and can live as free persons whether we can achieve this lies in God's hand. Now celebrate your birthday especially well and when you go to bed at night pray especially for us. Please stay well with all your dear ones and receive again heartfelt little kisses from your opa.

Ultimately in August of 1942 Benno and Hedwig received deportation in orders to be transported outside of Germany for quote resettlement along with other Jews of Frankfurt.

We have a copy of two sets of deportation orders how they got into the collection of letters some 1,500 letters and other documents that Hanna's mother saved were not sure we think they were sent by a friend and when we first found them and read them our blood turned to ice. This was a migration orders sent on the 24th of August 1942 - Benno, Hedwig, and Julius in Frankfurt am Main and essentially these were deportation orders to the Theresienstadt concentration camp in Czechoslovakia and it was sent by the Frankfurt branch of the Reich organization of Jews. This was the Nazi front organization designed for Jews to do Hitler's dirty work. And I summarize the main points.

Report to Jewish old-age home at Reich Neugraben Strasse 1820 on Friday 28 August 1942 between 2:00 and 6:00 p.m. you will migrate to a new destination outside the borders of Germany. Bring no more than 50 Reichsmarks. All other financial assets are frozen and confiscated. Bring a suitcase no larger than 60 by 54 by 12 centimeters. This would be like an overnight bag. Bring food for one day. Bring a bowl, cup, and spoon but no knives. Put jewelry and valuables in a packet to be returned later. Bring one pillow, one sheet, and one blanket. You have an opportunity to buy an apartment at the final destination point. Keys to the apartment to be deposited at the old-age home. And finally the apartments must be left in clean condition.

Then Benno and Hedwig were sent to initially Theresienstadt in the Czech in Czechoslovakia on September 2nd 1942. On September 29th they were sent on to Treblinka an extermination camp in Poland and were murdered there. Before Hedwig was deported she gave the Persian lamb coat to a Christian neighbor for safekeeping. The neighbor buried the code to hide it from the Nazis during World War Two. After the war she found my dad Ludwig's address in Lincoln and sent the coat to him. Ilse my mother had the coat cleaned and repaired and wore it for many years. In 1996 when my mother and aunt moved from Lincoln to Ames they donated many Holocaust era artifacts including the Persian lamb coat to the Nebraska State Historical Society. In 2011 Tina Koeppe then exhibits Services Coordinator for the Museum published an online blog about Hedwig's coat. Subsequently in planning for the opening of the renovated Museum Tina selected the code as one of the hundred and fifty artifacts to tell the sesquicentennial story of Nebraska's history and statehood. The coat is full length has cuffed sleeves and has a silky fabric lining it's style represents the height of 1930s fashion.

I think we've shared quite a story who would have guessed that the phone call from Connecticut on July the second would have led to learning the story told in this brown bag. You know I know that many of you are related and family and such and you know this story or you know for other reasons more about the Holocaust. I don't know how many other people here — I've never had any personal connection to the Holocaust. I've never known I've known anyone that gave me a personal connection to the Holocaust. I this has been amazing.

Now how about each of you three taking a minute or so to offer your final thoughts then we'll start taking your questions David you go first.

Well I am amazed at all the serendipity's involved in the story and its historical contexts of the Persian lamb coat. Hanna and I met in 1937 when she was not yet two years old and I was not yet four. You can see us in the picture to the left. Hanna's his father took a picture of us and I'm sure somebody said David put your arm around Hanna. I'm I'm sure at four years old I wouldn't have do that, although she didn't speak English, but she was a really good-looking chick you know. We happened to meet because Hanna's grandfather's first cousin Albert Speier was married to my first cousin Henrietta Gold Speier.

Let me explain starting with my great-grandfather David Mayer after whom I was named David Meyer and his wife Henrietta Rosenbaum Mayer had 11 children. The word David in Hebrew means beloved and I think he must have been very beloved and very loving. One of them was Solomon Gabriel Mayer father of my mother Elaine Mayer who married my father the attorney Bernard Sam Gradwohl. Well one of my grandfather Mayer sisters was named Pauline Mayer she married William Gold and they had three children. Nathan Gold who ultimately ran Gold's department store in Lincoln. Nathan had two sisters Helen Gold who married Joe Simon and they had two sons Robert and Walter. After Joe Simon died Helen married Joe's brother younger brother Harry Simon. And I think it's just because she liked him not because of the the Jewish law that says you're supposed to marry the the brother of your deceased husband. I think they loved each other. That family owned and operated Ben Simon & Sons clothing store. The other Gold sister Henrietta as mentioned before married Albert Speier Albert Speiers father was Judah Speier a brother of Jacob Speier whose son was Hanna's grandfather Alfred Speier. The Speier family in Lincoln ran several laundry and dry cleaning businesses. Some of you may remember the Speier or Evans laundry and dry cleaning stores. So there you have it — Jewish and dogmas marriages and stereotypical business professions.

Note the picture on the right. Our first date in the fall of 1950 was a costume party given by one of my Lincoln high classmates Bridget Warnie Watson who was born and raised in in France and she invited me to a party. I was a senior at the time at Lincoln High and invited me and a date to attend this costume party. And like any teenager I cried to my mother, "I don't know any girls." And my mother said well why don't you ask Hanna Rosenberg. And I said she's two years younger than I am and but I decided I would do that. Hanna was 14 years old and I was 16 and my mother let us go. I went as a Mandarin and my mother let me wear a 19th century historic textile a Mandarin gown and Hanna went in a mid 19th century Japanese kimono. She went as my geisha girl you know that's 16 year old male thinking. So any rate, Hanna and I have been intertwined in this story for nearly 81 years and we have known each other that many years and we've been married for 61 years. So this whole story is something I pretty much grew up with and which I feel very connected to.

I actually welcome the opportunity to share this story of my grandmother's Persian lamb coat as I was growing up I remember my mother wearing the coat from time to time. She never spoke of the grandmother to whom it belonged. In fact I was nearly an adult before I learned that my grandparents were murdered in the war. I remember say saying prayers at night before going to bed for my grandparents for many years and then eventually I stopped. And I never really was told what happened to them. Children in German families were sheltered from news of concentration camps and gas chambers. The coat made a perilous journey to Lincoln where my family found safety, freedom, and happiness.

Mady you started this adventure so you get the last word.

For me it's really difficult to sum up in a relatively short period of time an era of timeframe that was so filled with emotion. Two things I remember from especially that evening in Ames was reading the deportation orders and that letter written by Hanna's grandfather to her here in Lincoln. Because of meeting Hanna herself they took on a very personal point for me. They it things were no longer just history, there was a personal connection there. And this all started in this in a building this building that many would think of as merely a reflection of the past. And I excuse me I do believe that such items such as this coat in museums have the ability to touch people. Sometimes as long as they're open to it and I go back to what David said right at the get-go that museums do matter. They're very important for a reflection of the past but how do we deal with that and bring it forward into the present and the future and learn from it. I would like to take a minute if I could to thank the people that made all of this possible for me and that's John, Hanna, David, Don, and his sister Mary Porter who first suggested that we come to this museum. Without their openness to my following a deep feeling I would not have the connection to what started on September 29th 1942. And I think of Hanna's grandmother and she's with me. Thank you.

Now it's your turn. Let's have your questions Leslie