A chumash belonging to a Jewish family in Nazi GrandchGermany has made its way back to its descendants after decades of being passed from collector to collector.
The chumash originally belonged to Eduard and Ernestine Leiter, who had to leave their home due to the growing persecution in Nazi Germany and later died in a concentration camp in Poland. Now, over 80 years later, researchers and historians have traced the couple’s lineage and returned the book to the family, according to the Washington Post.
When the chumash was put up for sale on eBay in 2017, artist and historian Gerhard Roese noticed that the book contained illustrations from Gustave Dore. A famous artist of the late 19th century, Dore’s illustrations implied that the Bible may have belonged to a family during the Holocaust.
Working with researchers of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, they set to work to find the ancestors of the original owners.
The couple had a son, Sali, who survived the concentration camp, changed his name to Charles, and moved to America. Charles had a son named Max who died years ago but was featured in the New York Times in 2008. Max had three grandchildren, one of whom had a LinkedIn page and was contacted by the researchers. The search took over four years, but they eventually found the owner’s great-great-grandson living in New York City.
Read more at Washington Examiner.
{Matzav.com}
‘…they set to work to find the ancestors of the original owners’ Perhaps they meant to write ‘decedents’