Saturday, May 31, 2014
Goldfoot and Oster Surprise Match
Nadene Goldfoot
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In 1939 a 23 year old Werner Oster was one of the last Jews to get out of Germany. In order to do so, he had to be sponsored and promised to have a job so as not to be a burden on the USA economy. My great uncle, Max Turn, signed to get him out and in turn got his nephew, Maurice Goldfoot, to give him a job in his new flegling Lincoln Wholesale Meats Company as a sausage maker. So Werner went from Boppard to Hamburg, Germany and onto New York City
He had been put in a prison/concentration camp before he left. The reason was for slapping a cow, which was "cruelty to animals". His father was a butcher, and Werner had bought the cow from a farmer and was walking it home. The treatment was cruel in the prison and he didn't care to talk about it, but Uncle Max knew what he had gone through. This happened just at the beginning of the Holocaust. He was probably assaulted by the guards and forced to eat raw meat such as pork. His parents gave him linens and things to take with him. His mother had been Rosa Ullmann and her family had owned a linen factory. He came to New York and lived there for a year. He was sponsored by the B'nai Brith. Uncle Max Tern, who lived in La Grande, Oregon sponsored him and sent for him to come to Portland from N.Y. He came here and my uncle Max got him a job with my father, Maurice Goldfoot.
Werner's father was Ferdinand Oster. Ferdinand was a butcher and lived on Kirchenstrasse Street in Boppard. Boppard is a beautiful small town on the banks of the Rhine River. It is a popular stop on the river with the many boats that go by. Koblenz is also on the Rhine River and is bigger.His father had served in the German army and was a decorated soldier in the service of the Kaiser, but was forced to scrub the streets because he was a Jew. Many wore their uniforms while doing this to show people they had been good citizens. His parents and 16 year old red-headed sister died in one of the camps in Poland in the Holocaust. Werner had been able to get out, but could not get his parents out. By that time it was too late. The Nazis weren't allowing anymore to leave. They had gone through a lot to just get Werner out.
Texas had been sponsoring Jewish refugees., so he worked in Texas first, then New York, then in La Grande for Max Tern in Max's furniture store. Then my father heard about him through Uncle Max and sent for him to work with him.
I found the information on immigration from Germany. Werner came over as a butcher on the ship George Washington. Last residence was Boppard and his immigration paper was issued in Stuttgarten. He was born in Westerburg. A friend listed was Arthur Rose.
My brother, David, spent time in Germany as a foreign exchange student after the war. To get to Koblenz, he said "we went right thru Boppard, which is only about 9 kilometers from where we were staying in Koblenz. Boppard is a beautiful little village right on the Rhine, which is probably the most beautiful part of Germany. I had opportunities to go visit Boppard but I found I couldn't do it. I talked in German to several people who pronouced German just like Uncle Werner did, and I just felt really sad about what happened to him in his life and that I wasn't around when he died, so I just couldn't do it."
From Werner's youngest daughter I learned that " I also had known that he landed in New York, he worked 1 year there as a butcher in the World's Fair, and then was sponsored by another Jewish agency to head west, and Aunt Alice via the agency took him in when she lived in ... I think LaGrande, OR, where Uncle Max had a furniture store at the time. But I think they were closing the store there and they all moved to Portland, which is when my father moved with them and was hired by Uncle Maurice, and then he met Mother, and on their first date, he said, "Someday you shall be my wife." And 3 months later, she was.
The hiring was a plan made in heaven, for Maurice had an unmarried sister, Ann. They hit it off right away and produced 5 girls.
Maurice Goldfoot on left and Werner Oster on right with family and children in abt 1944
Little did we know that we Goldfoots were genetically related to Werner's Oster family. We've recently had the familyfinder DNA autosomal test through familytreedna out of Houston, Texas, and we wondered why Werner's youngest daughter matched others with double the amount of chromosome segments than David and I did and laughed about it, saying, maybe she's getting some from the Oster side, not really taking it seriously.
Sandra matched with Phyllis L. Oster with 25 segments of 104.36382cMs and was listed as 4th cousins. She also matched Eunice PrOSTERman with 19 segments of 65.54225cMs and was listed as 5th cousins. They are not part of her immediate family.
But lo and behold, I also match a Phyllis L. Oster with 14 segments of 52.09047cMs and am listed as a 4th cousin and I also match a Eunice Prosterman with 15 segments of 46.78779cMs. Sandra and I are 1st cousins and we match each other with 55 segments of 829.92612cMs. My son, Steve Henwood matches his 1st cousin once removed or 2nd cousin, Sandra Oster, with 34 segments of 372.1421 cMs. Her nephew, Aaron Bloom, matches Sandra with 66 segments of 1780.36885cMs.
David matches Eunice Prosterman with 18 segments of 55.26214 cMs and is listed as a 5th cousin. Eunice and Sandra have some matching genes, so she is originally an Oster as I see it.
Sandra also matches a Floyd Oster with 18 segments of 91.402cMs and is listed as a 4th cousin with him, so there is another line of Osters we haven't identified with as yet.
The beauty of this all is that my great Uncle through my father rescued a Jewish man unknown to them who was already a relative to the Goldfoots. Evidently our roots go back to Germany as we have found out through the Halpern group on FTDNA and connect to the Rabbi of Worms through Samson or his brother, Moses Wertheimer (January 17, 1658-August 6, 1724), who in turn are connected to RASHI, our very famous Biblical commentator (1040-1105 CE) who in turn has oral history of connecting to King David.
Not surprising to me is that the distance from Worms to Boppard is only 54 miles or 86 kilometers.
The distance from Boppard to Oberfell is 7 miles or 11.26 kilometers. It is easy to see that we connect with these other Osters from Worms
Worms was a famous center of Jewish scholarship in the Medieval Period and Rashi studied there in 1055 to 1065. "Worms is a city in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, on the Rhine River about 60 kilometres (40 mi) south-southwest of Frankfurt-am-Main." Samson Wertheimer was born in Worms, Germany, son of Joseph Josel Wertheimer 1626-May 2, 1713) and received his education at the yeshivas of Worms and Frankfurt am Main. Though the Jewish community of Worms was annihilated in the First Crusade, it re-established shortly afterward and again was destroyed in the Black Death outbreaks in 1349. Jews were expelled in 1615 and restrictions were imposed on them in 1641 during our known ancestor's day. A massacre was carried out by the soldiers of Louis XIV in 1689. Emancipation was bestowed on Jews after the French Revolution.
It could very well be that if we can go back far enough, we'll find we are connected to other Jewish people that we never realized. Already the saying is that if a married couple digs back 5 generations they can find they are related, and my aunt and uncle just proved this. This is what makes genealogy and DNA so exciting.
A friend was Arthur Rose, as I mentioned. This strikes me as interesting, maybe as an example of synchronicity, because Werner named his 4th daughter "Rose" and she married an Arthur.
http://www.aroundtheworld360.com/distance/worms_de/boppard_de/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worms,_Germany
He had been put in a prison/concentration camp before he left. The reason was for slapping a cow, which was "cruelty to animals". His father was a butcher, and Werner had bought the cow from a farmer and was walking it home. The treatment was cruel in the prison and he didn't care to talk about it, but Uncle Max knew what he had gone through. This happened just at the beginning of the Holocaust. He was probably assaulted by the guards and forced to eat raw meat such as pork. His parents gave him linens and things to take with him. His mother had been Rosa Ullmann and her family had owned a linen factory. He came to New York and lived there for a year. He was sponsored by the B'nai Brith. Uncle Max Tern, who lived in La Grande, Oregon sponsored him and sent for him to come to Portland from N.Y. He came here and my uncle Max got him a job with my father, Maurice Goldfoot.
Werner's father was Ferdinand Oster. Ferdinand was a butcher and lived on Kirchenstrasse Street in Boppard. Boppard is a beautiful small town on the banks of the Rhine River. It is a popular stop on the river with the many boats that go by. Koblenz is also on the Rhine River and is bigger.His father had served in the German army and was a decorated soldier in the service of the Kaiser, but was forced to scrub the streets because he was a Jew. Many wore their uniforms while doing this to show people they had been good citizens. His parents and 16 year old red-headed sister died in one of the camps in Poland in the Holocaust. Werner had been able to get out, but could not get his parents out. By that time it was too late. The Nazis weren't allowing anymore to leave. They had gone through a lot to just get Werner out.
Texas had been sponsoring Jewish refugees., so he worked in Texas first, then New York, then in La Grande for Max Tern in Max's furniture store. Then my father heard about him through Uncle Max and sent for him to work with him.
I found the information on immigration from Germany. Werner came over as a butcher on the ship George Washington. Last residence was Boppard and his immigration paper was issued in Stuttgarten. He was born in Westerburg. A friend listed was Arthur Rose.
My brother, David, spent time in Germany as a foreign exchange student after the war. To get to Koblenz, he said "we went right thru Boppard, which is only about 9 kilometers from where we were staying in Koblenz. Boppard is a beautiful little village right on the Rhine, which is probably the most beautiful part of Germany. I had opportunities to go visit Boppard but I found I couldn't do it. I talked in German to several people who pronouced German just like Uncle Werner did, and I just felt really sad about what happened to him in his life and that I wasn't around when he died, so I just couldn't do it."
From Werner's youngest daughter I learned that " I also had known that he landed in New York, he worked 1 year there as a butcher in the World's Fair, and then was sponsored by another Jewish agency to head west, and Aunt Alice via the agency took him in when she lived in ... I think LaGrande, OR, where Uncle Max had a furniture store at the time. But I think they were closing the store there and they all moved to Portland, which is when my father moved with them and was hired by Uncle Maurice, and then he met Mother, and on their first date, he said, "Someday you shall be my wife." And 3 months later, she was.
The hiring was a plan made in heaven, for Maurice had an unmarried sister, Ann. They hit it off right away and produced 5 girls.
Little did we know that we Goldfoots were genetically related to Werner's Oster family. We've recently had the familyfinder DNA autosomal test through familytreedna out of Houston, Texas, and we wondered why Werner's youngest daughter matched others with double the amount of chromosome segments than David and I did and laughed about it, saying, maybe she's getting some from the Oster side, not really taking it seriously.
Sandra matched with Phyllis L. Oster with 25 segments of 104.36382cMs and was listed as 4th cousins. She also matched Eunice PrOSTERman with 19 segments of 65.54225cMs and was listed as 5th cousins. They are not part of her immediate family.
But lo and behold, I also match a Phyllis L. Oster with 14 segments of 52.09047cMs and am listed as a 4th cousin and I also match a Eunice Prosterman with 15 segments of 46.78779cMs. Sandra and I are 1st cousins and we match each other with 55 segments of 829.92612cMs. My son, Steve Henwood matches his 1st cousin once removed or 2nd cousin, Sandra Oster, with 34 segments of 372.1421 cMs. Her nephew, Aaron Bloom, matches Sandra with 66 segments of 1780.36885cMs.
David matches Eunice Prosterman with 18 segments of 55.26214 cMs and is listed as a 5th cousin. Eunice and Sandra have some matching genes, so she is originally an Oster as I see it.
Sandra also matches a Floyd Oster with 18 segments of 91.402cMs and is listed as a 4th cousin with him, so there is another line of Osters we haven't identified with as yet.
Not surprising to me is that the distance from Worms to Boppard is only 54 miles or 86 kilometers.
The distance from Boppard to Oberfell is 7 miles or 11.26 kilometers. It is easy to see that we connect with these other Osters from Worms
Worms was a famous center of Jewish scholarship in the Medieval Period and Rashi studied there in 1055 to 1065. "Worms is a city in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, on the Rhine River about 60 kilometres (40 mi) south-southwest of Frankfurt-am-Main." Samson Wertheimer was born in Worms, Germany, son of Joseph Josel Wertheimer 1626-May 2, 1713) and received his education at the yeshivas of Worms and Frankfurt am Main. Though the Jewish community of Worms was annihilated in the First Crusade, it re-established shortly afterward and again was destroyed in the Black Death outbreaks in 1349. Jews were expelled in 1615 and restrictions were imposed on them in 1641 during our known ancestor's day. A massacre was carried out by the soldiers of Louis XIV in 1689. Emancipation was bestowed on Jews after the French Revolution.
It could very well be that if we can go back far enough, we'll find we are connected to other Jewish people that we never realized. Already the saying is that if a married couple digs back 5 generations they can find they are related, and my aunt and uncle just proved this. This is what makes genealogy and DNA so exciting.
A friend was Arthur Rose, as I mentioned. This strikes me as interesting, maybe as an example of synchronicity, because Werner named his 4th daughter "Rose" and she married an Arthur.
http://www.aroundtheworld360.com/distance/worms_de/boppard_de/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worms,_Germany
Labels: Boppard, dna, Germany, Germany King David, Goldfoot, matches, Oster, Rashi, sponsor, Wertheimer, Worms, WWII
