Peter Katzenstein Isaac is the son of Grete Katzenstein who is also recorded in this Memorial Book. He was born on September 9, 1940 at the Jewish Hospital in Frankfurt am Main, Gagernstraße 36. A few weeks before his birth, Grete Katzenstein registered him in the Home of the Jewish Women's Association in Neu-Isenburg. After birth mother and son returned together to Neu-Isenburg. Grete Katzenstein tried very hard for her son, but eventually had to leave him behind and flee the persecution of the Gestapo.

When Peter was six months old, he was moved from Neu-Isenburg to Frankfurt in the home of the association "Weibliche Fürsorge" in Hans-Thoma-Straße 24. He remained there for eighteen months. On September 15, 1942, the association "Weibliche Fürsorge" was forcibly closed. The remaining 43 children and their carers were deported the same day from Frankfurt to the Theresienstadt ghetto. Among them was the two-year-old Peter Isaak Katzenstein.

Peter survived the Theresienstadt concentration camp. Shortly before the war ended, he was rescued in the so-called “Musy-Transport” to Switzerland. On February 5, 1945, 1200 Jewish prisoners from Theresienstadt were brought to Switzerland in an exchange deal, people against foreign currencies. Most of them were elderly people, but 58 children were allowed to leave. Peter was brought to the Montreux Belmont detention center; he later lived in the Möhlin (Kanton Aargau) transit camps. He got in contact with his future adoptive family by a fortunate coincidence. Peter visited the Albert Luss clothing store in Rheinfelden with a Red Cross nurse from Möhlin. The owner's daughter was very sensitive as his last name was called. Katzenstein was the name of her boyfriend and later husband. Ruth Luss had hoped that Peter could be a German relative of Katzenstein's who had survived the Shoah. Although it turned out that no family relationship existed, the Katzenstein family fought for the little boy to be allowed to stay in Switzerland. Anni Tilli Katzenstein eventually took the boy into her care and adopted him a few years later. Upon his arrival in Switzerland, Peter knew nothing about his origin. The crucial enlightenment came from Emma Haas who held a leading position as a matron at the Home of the Jewish Women's Association in Neu-Isenburg from 1924 onwards. Emma Haas had moved to Mainz after the forced dissolution of the Neu-Isenburg establishment in March 1942 and was deported on February 10, 1943, from Darmstadt to Theresienstadt. On February 5, 1945, she was rescued to Switzerland in the same transport as Peter. Under the mediation of the Swiss Relief Society for refugee children, she was able to provide the foster mother with information about the boy's mother in the autumn of 1945. Peter's mother, Grete Katzenstein had not survived the Shoah (see the Memorial Book entry on Grete Katzenstein).

After the end of the war, Peter's uncle, the mother's brother, was able to flee to Palestine. Another relative had immigrated to the USA. Both were willing to take the boy. But since Peter had settled down well in Switzerland, he stayed with Anni Katzenstein in Switzerland.

Peter grew up in Switzerland with his adoptive mother. After completing his school-leaving qualification, he trained as an auto mechanic. At the age of 26, Peter Katzenstein immigrated to Canada, where he trained as an insurance broker. Peter Isaak Katzenstein lives with his wife in Calgary.

Sources:

Archive: Stadtarchiv Neu-Isenburg/Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv Wiesbaden

Documentation:

Volker Mahnkopp: Dokumentation zu vom NS-Staat verfolgten Personen im Frankfurter Kinderhaus der Weiblichen Fürsorge e. V., Hans-Thoma-Straße 24: https://www.platz-der-vergessenen-kinder.de/mai/frontend/function/file.php?id=71

David Katzenstein: Chronik der Familie Katzenstein aus Schwalenberg, Grafschaft Lippe-Detmold (unveröffentlicht)

Mirjam Truniger: Von Theresienstadt via St. Gallen nach ‘Unbekannt’. Die Minderjährigen des Theresienstadt-Transports vom Februar 1945, Masterarbeit (Pädagogische Hochschule St. Gallen), 2018: http://phsg.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/singleitem/collection/p15782coll2/id/2179/rec/2

Special thanks to Peter Isaak Katzenstein for his information and approval of its publication and to David Katzenstein for the mediation of the contact with his cousin Peter Isaak and for providing his researched facts to the life story of his cousin.