“Grandmother really knew how to combine dignity and poise with warmth, cheerfulness, and generosity.” That is how Charlotte Knobloch remembers her grandmother Albertine Neuland. And she adds: “Grandmother was every inch a lady.” Albertine Neuland, née Lehmann, came from a Franconian merchants’ family. She married the textile dealer Sali Neuland in 1888 and the couple moved to Bayreuth, where Sali Neuland and his brother Simon ran a ladies’ fashion shop. Albertine and Sali Neuland’s first son Siegfried (called Fritz) was born in 1889, their second son Willi two years later. Sali Neuland was held in high regard in Bayreuth town society. The family lived in a large house at Alexanderstraße 4 in the city centre and liked to go to the opera. According to her granddaughter Charlotte Knobloch, it was Albertine Neuland who shaped life in the family home. She was involved in the Jewish community of Bayreuth and the Israelitischer Frauenverein (Jewish Women’s Association). The Nazi seizure of power brought about fundamental changes in the lives of the Neulands. The revenues of the fashion shop decreased, and in January 1936, Karl Krämer and Karl Hacker “aryanized” the business. In the aftermath of the “Kristallnacht” pogroms Albertine and Sali Neuland were forced to leave their home and move in with Albertine’s sister Ida. After the death of her husband on May 24, 1939 Albertine Neuland moved to Munich to live with her eldest son Fritz. Her younger son Willi had fled to the U.S. and did everything in his power to arrange for his mother to follow. The American authorities refused her entry, however, on account of her advanced age. On July 23, 1942 the Gestapo (Secret Police) deported Albertine Neuland to Theresienstadt ghetto, where she died of starvation on January 19, 1944. Her son Fritz Neuland and her granddaughter Charlotte survived the Nazi era. Charlotte Knobloch is now the president of the Israelitische Kultusgemeinde (Jewish Community) of Munich and Upper Bavaria. The memory of the Jews murdered by the National Socialists, and especially her grandmother Albertine Neuland, is a matter very close to her heart.(text Barbara Hutzelmann and Maximilian Strnad, editor C. Fritsche, translation J. Rosenthal)
