For International Holocaust Remembrance Day, German historian Thomas Kemper will visit Tidewater to speak about his discoveries while investigating the history and fate of the Gonsenhauser and Bachenheimer families during the Holocaust – the families of Tidewater’s Mark Gonsenhauser and Joan Joffe.

 Among the many stories he will share, Thomas will talk about Augusta Gonsenhauser’s last weeks during which she was transported to and murdered in Estonia, as well as history on Helmut Gonsenhauser and his half-brothers, and the shocking truth about Helmut’s childhood friend who turned out to be a rabid Nazi.  Thomas will reveal some of the documents he unearthed such as a letter from Helmut’s father to the school principal begging in vain for him to allow Helmut to stay at the school.  Thomas will also explain why, as a Catholic, he became so interested in what happened to the Jews of the neighboring towns during the Nazi era, especially that of the Gonsenhauser family.  How Thomas met and became friends with the Gonsenhausers and his personal struggle to understand the entire tragedy, will also be disclosed.

 In late September 2024, members of the Gonsenhauser family, travelling from various countries, met in Frankfurt, Germany to start an amazing journey organized by Thomas. The culmination of the trip would be at the laying of seven Stolpersteinen (stumbling blocks) outside the house originally occupied by the Gonsenhauser family in the small Northern German town of Bad Berleberg.  Stolpersteinen have metal plaques attached to them, and they replace cobble stones outside houses previously occupied by Jewish families who left Germany or were murdered during the reign of the National Socialists (Nazis).  They can be seen in many cities and towns throughout Europe.  Each Stolperstein has the name and fate of individual family members inscribed on them.   

 Everyone had arrived at the Frankfurt hotel by the morning of September 20 and was handed a beautifully produced booklet containing hour by hour details of the journey we were about to embark on. Produced by Thomas, the booklet was typical of the care and time he put into every aspect of his research into the Gonsenhauser family.  The booklet also contained more than 30 pages of Gonsenhauser history.  For that first day, Thomas had arranged for an afternoon tour to what had been a huge covered market that was also used as an assembly point for the deportation of Frankfurt’s Jews. The part of the building – underground and empty and eerily quiet – where the doomed Jews were assembled, is now a memorial to those lost. Thomas arranged for a member of the Jewish museum to lead the tour. 

 The next day, Thomas took us to the site of the Jewish hospital where Augusta Gonsenhauser worked. Augusta Gonsenhauser (nee Bachenheimer) was the third wife of Moritz Gonsenhauser (Joan Joffe and Mark Gonsenhauser’s grandfather).  Augusta’s sister, Johanna Gonsenhauser (Joan and Mark’s grandmother), had died giving birth to Joan and Mark’s father, Helmut. We also visited the Jewish children’s home where Augusta’s son, Werner Gonsenhauser, had lived. By coincidence, this building was close to the Frank family home before Anne, her sister, and parents fled to Holland.  

 On the third day, we departed Frankfurt and drove to our next hotel in a small town called Oberkirchen. On the way, two of our stops were at buildings in separate towns where Helmut Gonsenhauser had served his apprenticeships. Later that day, Thomas gave an organ recital in memory of Augusta Gonsenhauser. 

 The next day, we went to the small town of Wetter where we visited the old synagogue, now a museum, displaying artifacts donated by descendants of the Bachenheimers who had lived in the town.  We also visited the nearby Jewish cemetery where Bachenheimer ancestors were buried in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. 

 On the fifth day, we made our way to the town of Bad Berleberg for the laying of the Stolpersteine. A large contingent from the local population attended, including the press, with TV cameras. The town’s mayor addressed the crowd, and high school students sang Shalom Chaverim, which touched us all.  There, we visited a school which Helmut Gonsenhauser attended, as well as two local cemeteries, which contain the graves of many Gonsenhauser ancestors. 

 The following day, we toured the larger town of Schmallenberg which is near Oberkirchen and Bad Berleberg, where we also saw some Stolpersteinen dedicated to family members, and the Synagogenstrasse memorial. 

 Thomas Kemper’s presentation on January 27 offers Tidewater the chance to witness this history through the eyes of the researcher who revived it. His work reminds us that remembrance is more than reflection—it is an effort to restore dignity, confront truth, and ensure these stories continue to guide future generations.

For more information and to register, visit jewishva.org/IHRD, or contact the Holocaust Commission. The program is free.                                                                                                                                            

And Phillipe, his mother, and maternal grandmother, went into hiding in the south of France. Not surprisingly, no one knew what had become of them during the war and with so many murdered, the assumption was that they too had perished. The Jews of Transylvania fared somewhat better while the country was ruled by the Romanians; but in 1944, when Hungary took over, all the Jews were rounded up and sent to the concentration camps in Poland. On the train platform in Auschwitz was the last time my grandmother, Rozalia, after whom I am named, and my aunt Lia, after whom my sister Tamar Lia is named, were ever seen. To our knowledge, except for my father and my grandfather Fred, every other member of the Lazar clan had been killed. 

That is what we thought until a few years ago.

One Sunday morning I came downstairs from teaching Confirmation to lead Tefilah and stopped in my office to pick up my kippah and siddur. Looking down at my desk, I noticed there was a message on my phone from my sister. Since she doesn’t call often, I decided to take the minute it took to listen to the voicemail. What I heard was astounding. She had received a phone call from Paris, from Phillipe’s wife, Dominique, who told her that, after years of genealogical research, she had uncovered documents that proved that our father, Gusti, and her husband, Phillipe, were first cousins; that unbeknownst to either of us, they had both survived the war, and that they were very anxious to meet with us. 

I could not believe my ears. Could this be true? Could my father, who had been gone over a decade at the time, have family members that we didn’t know about? I didn’t know much about my grandmother except that my father loved her very much, enough to name his firstborn child after her. And I knew almost nothing about her family of origin. We corresponded for a while and planned a trip to Transylvania for July of 2020. The tickets were purchased and all the arrangements made and then COVID hit and the trip was cancelled. 

Life intervened until this past fall, when my second cousin, Anne-Emmanuelle, Phillipe and Dominique’s daughter, emailed me saying that her father, Phillipe, was very ill and his dying wish was to meet my sister and me. We set up a zoom meeting immediately. I could not control my emotions. I cried through the entire call. I had dreamed that Phillipe would look like my father and, in many ways, he did. (All of us have dumbo ears). 

I don’t know what it was, but, after a lifetime of living in the shadow of the Shoah, I could not believe that before me were my cousins, my real live cousins. I can’t explain it. I felt like a part of my heart had been restored, that there was a way to know my father and his story, my story, that I never thought possible. It was truly a miracle. 

A few days later, I had a thought. I had already planned to be in Israel November 29th for my mother’s 85th birthday. Maybe I could add on a few days in Paris to meet them in person. Another miracle occurred in that my calendar allowed for the extra time and I reached out and asked if it might be possible to spend from a day to a week with them completely understanding if it wasn’t because it was only two months or so away. They responded immediately that they would welcome me with joy and that I should stay the full week.

This is how your homebody rabbi, who isn’t much of a traveler, had never been to Paris, and spoke almost no French, took a leap of faith and got on a plane to meet people I had met once on a zoom call to stay with them for a week. Crazy, right? But that is exactly what I did. And the trip was life changing in so many ways. 

I stayed with my second cousin, Anne-Emmaneulle and her husband Olivier in their apartment in Versaille and, immediately, I felt like I had known her all my life. She was more like a sister than a cousin; we had so many things in common in terms of our values, feelings about family, and likes and dislikes, that we became fast friends. Thanks to Linda Fox-Jarvis, who provided me with an amazing itinerary for what to do in Paris if you only have one week, I was able to see so much of the city on my own, while my cousins were at work. What a beautiful city. 

But the most moving part of the trip was meeting my dad’s first cousin, Phillipe, who is not in good health; neither of us could believe the miracle of our reunion and it was hard to let go of our embrace of one another. It was a heartwarming meeting, and I learned much about my father’s family of origin and the beautiful life they had led before 1944. I met my other second cousin, Benjamin, Anne-Emmanuelle’s brother, a well-known actor, director and producer of theater and opera, and Anne-Emmuelle’s daughter, Helen, and step kids, Julien and Tibaud. And we celebrated several times the wonder of being together after 80 years of separation. My only regret was that my father wasn’t alive to witness the miracle himself. But I knew I was meant to pick up his story where it left off and I was!

The hardest part, of course, was saying goodbye, but plans are already in the works for a reunion, this time with a trip to the south of France where my family has a country home in the area that hid and saved Phillipe, as well as a trip to Malam and Cluj, the Transylvanian village and city from where half of my family comes. This is a story with much more meaning and joy to unfold and I intend to live it for the rest of my life.

In this secular new year, I pray that each of us is willing to risk the unimaginable rewards that opening one’s heart and taking a leap of faith can bring, a year of health, fulfillment, joy, and peace. 

Rabbi Rosalin Mandelberg is the senior rabbi at Ohef Sholom Temple.  This story was excerpted from a sermon delivered in late December 2025.