Heinz Praeger papers

Karl Heinz Praeger (1911-1997) was born on July 7, 1911 in Berlin, Germany to Siegfried (1880-1943) and Rosa Praeger (1877-1939). He had an older brother, Armin (b. 1908). He was educated as an accountant and worked at a large bank in Berlin. After the Nazis took power in Germany, Armin Praeger, who was a Communist, left for Switzerland in 1933, and from there, moved to Argentina. In 1936, after Karl Heinz was fired from the bank, he moved to Kitzingen, Germany, to help manage the accounting books of a friend who was being forced to sell off his wine business. He lived with the Oppenheimer family in Kitzingen between the summer of 1936 and November 1938. The Jewish men of Kitzingen, including Karl Heinz and the Oppenheimers, were arrested on Kristallnacht and sent to Dachau, where Mr. Oppenheimer died. Karl Heinz was released at the end of January 1939 after his parents paid for his release and purchased a ticket for him to Shanghai. On June 13, 1939, Karl Heinz left for Shanghai on the Gneisenau, stopping in Bombay, Singapore, and Hong Kong. After arriving in Shanghai, he learned that his mother passed away the day he left Germany--he believed that she committed suicide. Siegfried Praeger was murdered in Auschwitz in 1943. In Shanghai, Karl Heinz worked as a photographer, was permitted to leave the Jewish quarter, and captured many scenes of Chinese life during the war. He met Felicitas Hoffmann (1918-1986), an Austrian refugee who came to Shanghai from Great Britain in 1939. They married on October 11, 1942. They had one son, Jack (1945-1978), who was born in Shanghai on February 15, 1945. In the spring of 1947, the family immigrated to the United States on the SS Marine Lynx, arriving in San Francisco on April 7, 1947. Karl Heinz became "Heinz" and Felicitas took the name "Phyllis." They moved to Boston to join Phyllis's relatives. Jack passed away on May 23, 1978, and Phyllis on March 9, 1986. Heinz Praeger passed away on April 20, 1997.