Guckenheimer, Gertrude

Gertrude Guckenheimer née Goldschmidt was born on December 12, 1916 to Clemens Goldschmidt (1877-1945) and his wife Anna née Baer (1889-1985).

Her father’s grandfather Moses Herz Hachenburger founded the family wholesale store for wool goods, Herz Hachenburger Sohn, in 1846, the same year that the Grand Duke of Hessen granted him citizenship in Darmstadt and permission to marry Sarah Hachenburger. This business stayed in the family until 1938. When Gertrude was growing up, her family lived two floors above the store at Rheinstrasse 1 in Darmstadt.

Gertrude’s father Clemens Goldschmidt was forced to give up the business in 1938. He and Anna Goldschmidt were able to flee Germany for England, but Clemens was held at the Onchan Internment Camp on the Isle of Man as an enemy alien during 1940. Clemens died in London in 1945, and Anna eventually immigrated to the United States.

Gertrude attended business school in Neuchatel, Switzerland for 15 months in the mid-1930s in an effort to gain skills to make her employable outside of Germany. With the support of family members living in Los Angeles, California, Gertrude immigrated to the United States via Hamburg in 1937. In 1939, she married the lawyer Ludwig Guckenheimer, whom she had known from her childhood in Darmstadt. They had four children, Anna, Elizabeth, John, and Sam.

Ludwig Guckenheimer was born on April 11, 1911 as the second son of Moritz Guckenheimer (1878-1934) and his wife Sofie née Hirsch (1880-1970). He studied law, but by 1933, he was no longer able to continue this career in Germany and immigrated to the United States.

Ludwig’s older brother Siegfried Guckenheimer (1909-1978) immigrated to the United States in October of 1937. He eventually settled in Cleveland, Ohio, where he became an advocate for vocational training programs.

Alongside several of their family members, Gertrude and Ludwig Guckenheimer filed restitution claims for damages to their education, careers, and the cost of emigration, among others. Most of these claims were successful. Ludwig also joined his mother, aunt, and cousin to file for restitution for his uncle Simon Hirsch who perished in the concentration camp at Theresienstadt. Their claims on his behalf were also successful.

From the guide to the Gertrude Guckenheimer Collection, 1819-circa 1997, (Leo Baeck Institute)