ADOLF AND DORA STERN

As the Nazi Government tightened its grip on power in Germany, conditions grew worse for the Jews in the country.  In January 1938, Gertrude Stern, the wife of Herman Stern's nephew Gustav, wrote a letter to Herman from her family's home in Paris.  In the letter, she described how many of her friends and relatives were rushing to leave Germany.  Several men and women known to the Sterns had fled to Holland, and were temporarily living there with Gertrude's mother -- "Dr. Hausbacher, for whom you sent the affidavit, is with her," Gertrude wrote, "as well as a son of a cousin of hers, who was hiding for two weeks because of the Nazis, otherwise he would have ended in a concentration camp. Then he fled to Holland from where he has to flee [again] soon. China is the only country which gives a visa, thus he is forced to go there, and from China he will try to travel to the Philippine Islands where he has friends. It is so depressing how those people barely escape with only their life."

A page from the file kept on Adolf Stern at the Dusseldorf office of the "Staatspolizei."  The file contained information about Stern's property holdings and other wealth.  When Stern and his wife Dora left Germany in late 1937 to visit their son Gustav in Paris, the German government kept track of their activities, and reported information to the Gestapo.  This document notes that the Sterns had been granted a permit to travel outside Germany. The German government kept such files on most Jews in the country, partly in order to know how much property the government could seize if the Jew was arrested for "unsocial activities," and partly to make it easy to round up every Jew in Germany whenever the Nazis decided to do so.

Gertrude was particularly concerned about Adolf and Dora Stern, her husband's parents.  At that moment, Adolf and Dora were visiting them in Paris, having obtained permission from the Nazi government to travel outside of Germany in order to see their son.   Gustav and Gertrude tried to persuade Adolf to remain in France and live with them.  Adolf admitted that the situation in Germany was terrible but still resisted the idea of leaving behind all he had known for sixty-five years. Dora, too was uncertain. To leave Germany would mean leaving her home, which she had proudly decorated and maintained for so many years. After considerable hesitation, the couple decided to use their travel permit for a brief trip to America, to see their younger son, Julius. But before they left Paris, Adolph was struck by a car and suffered a broken leg. It was not until April or May that Adolph recovered sufficiently to travel. He and Dora then went on to America. In Chicago, they stayed with Julius and his new wife Herta, who was also a German refugee.  Then they went on to Valley City, where Adolf could talk to his brother Herman.  There, Herman made his own effort to convince his brother not to return to Germany. At one point he thought he had them convinced because he wrote to the nearest American consul and asked for the necessary papers they could fill out to “become permanent Citizens of the United States.”

In the end Adolph and Dora decided to secure a temporary French visa, return to Paris, and live, at least for a while, with Gustav and Gertrud. It is interesting to note that Adolph went to the German Embassy in Paris in August and asked for his and his wife’s passports to be extended, explaining that he wished to stay on “temporarily” in Paris while he recovered from “an accident.” He also said he and Dora would “return to Duisburg” as soon as he had recovered. He did this in part because the German government had begun calling in all Jewish-held German passports. Referring to his leg injury (which had not kept him from traveling to the United States and back) allowed him to buy some time while he decided what to do. 

In November 1938, the Nazis made Adolf's decision easier.  After an angry Jewish refugee shot and killed a German diplomat in Paris, in order to protest the treatment of the Jews in Europe, Hitler permitted the SA stormtroopers to go on a rampage across Germany, beating and killing Jews, looting their homes and burning down almost two hundred Synagogues.  This "Night of the Broken Glass" (Kristallnacht) made it clear to thousands of Jewish family that they must leave Germany.

Adolf and Dora remained in Paris with Gustav and Gertrude, who had secured for them residency permits as refugees.  Late in 1938, the Nazis declared Adolf an 'outlaw' for not returning to Germany, stripped him and Dora of their citizenship, and confiscated all their remaining property in Germany.

Another document in the "Staatspolizei" file on Adolf Stern, this one dated September 23, 1941 and confirming that Stern's German property (valued in excess of 30,000 marks) had been seized by the German government. Other documents in the file disclosed the Sterns residences in France.  Had the entire Stern family -- Adolf, Dora, Gustav, Gertrude, Hans (John) and Michael -- not been able to leave France at the end of 1941, they would doubtless been "relocated" to one of the death camps in the east during 1942.

Adolf and Dora remained with Gustav's family and ultimately made their way to America with them.  In 1942, when Gustav found work as a conductor in Seattle, Adolf and Dora moved there.  Adolf died in 1946, Dora nine years later in 1955.