John and Margot Loewenberg papers

Margot Loewenberg was born in 1922 to Julius and Lily Stern in Frankfurt, Germany. She also had a younger brother named Werner. Her family managed a wholesale clothing store in downtown Frankfurt. As anti-Semitic laws began to take hold in Germany in the 1930s, the Hebrew schools which Margot attended were closed. She was sent to a children’s home in Cologne, where she learned child care. She stayed there until the Kristallnacht, where many nearby Jewish synagogues and businesses were destroyed. Margot was then sent back to her family in Frankfurt, where the Germans had confiscated Julius’ business. With not many options, Margot was accepted on a Kindertransport, and was sent by herself to Holland, and took a boat to London. Once in England, she helped acquire affidavits for her brother and parents. After the family had made it to England, they acquired visas for immigration to the United States, and set sail in March, 1940. It was while living in Chicago that Margot met her future husband John, and they were married after his return from deployment in the U.S. Army. Margot passed away in 2013.

John Loewenberg was born in 1912 to Hermann and Ella Loewenberg in Bielefeld, Germany. He had one sister named Edith. In 1941, John escaped Germany and sailed for America out of Portugal. After staying in Chicago, Illinois, he met his future wife Margot, and enlisted in the Army, where he served in the D-Day invasion of Normandy. When he returned from service in 1946, he learned that his sister Edith and brother-in-law Rudi were killed in the Poniatowa concentration camp, while his parents were killed in Auschwitz. He later married Margot and opened a candy store in Chicago. John passed away in 1992.