Erich and Magdalena Schulhof: family papers

This collection consists of the family papers of Erich and Magdalena Schulhof, a Jewish family who fled Berlin after they were forced to sell their business due to the increasing Aryanisation of Nazi-Germany in the late 1930s. Included are the couple's school reports and qualifications; birth, death and baptism certificates; naturalisation certificate; passports; papers relating to Erich Schulhof's work and the family's restitution claim; correspondence with family and friends; family portraits and copy of the family history. Also included are the papers of their children and their parents' registration certificates.

Magdalena Maria ("Lene") Höllering was born in Vienna in 1899. She trained to become a nursery nurse. She got married to Erich Schulhof (born in 1887) in 1922, joint owner of a family business. The couple and their two children, Thomas (born 1923) and Martina (born 1925), lived in a large villa with domestic servants in Berlin-Wannsee. In 1938 Erich Schulhof was forced to sell his business due to the Aryanisation in Germany. He did not receive any money for the sale of the business or the family home. The family together with Erich Schulhof's mother, Ida (nee Mann), emigrated to England in the same year.

Erich Schulhof tried to establish a new business but it was destroyed in the bombing raids in 1940. In 1940 Erich Schulhof was interned as an enemy alien. In the meantime the family moved to the country in Gloucestershire where Magdalena spent most of the war years working at a farm. Erich received permission to work in 1942 and soon started working as a teacher. He was made redundant in 1945 when the teacher he had replaced returned from military service. He suddenly died in 1948. Magdalena later remarried.

Chronological and by subject

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Donated by Martina Thomson

2009/17