Fritz Rosenthal family papers

Fritz Rosenthal was born in Würzburg, Germany on July 4, 1911 to Dr. Karl Rosenthal and Claire Rosenthal (nee Buschhoff). He attended school in Würzburg, Berlin, Bern, and Geneva. He left Germany for England around 1935 and immigrated to the United States in 1936, initially settling in Pittsfield, MA with his father’s cousins. His sister and brother, Anni and Paul, followed shortly after. Fritz Rosenthal married Martha Zellweger in March 1938. In November 1938, Karl and Claire Rosenthal’s house was destroyed during Kristallnacht, and Karl Rosenthal was arrested and taken to the Buchenwald concentration camp. When he was released a week later, he found that his wife, Claire, had deliberately overdosed on Veronal and been taken to the hospital where she died of pneumonia. Karl Rosenthal’s sister in Munich also committed suicide that month after learning that her only son had died after being transported to Dachau. Karl Rosenthal was forced to close his law practice at the end of 1938 and to sell his home for half of its true value in the spring of 1939 under Nazi Aryanization. He was granted an American visa in late September 1939 and immigrated to the United States via Genoa, settling with Anni and Paul in Chicago. Fritz Rosenthal became an American citizen in 1941 and pursued a successful career in research and industrial chemistry. Karl Rosenthal became an American citizen in 1945. He returned to Würzburg in 1949 to work on restitution claims and re-entered the United States in April 1953. Karl Rosenthal died in 1970, and Fritz Rosenthal died in 1994.