Another fun and rather bizarre ‘Holocaust Survivor’ included in the ‘New York Times’ in an article by Ari Goldman on 10th November 1988 which is the origin of the ‘Cage with a Bear and Eagle at Buchenwald’ story (1) is that of a jew named Fritz Falkenstein.
We read how:
‘Fritz Falkenstein, 76, remembered the Nazis coming to his house in Hochneukirch, near Cologne, and asking for his father, who owned a local cigar factory. ‘’I told them, ‘My father is sick. Take me instead.’ They did, but who knew what they would be like? In the Rheinland we did not know what animals they were.’‘
Mr. Falkenstein was sent to Dachau, but was sent home a few months later to sign over his father’s factory to the Nazis. ‘’Our factory was being ‘Aryanized,’ ‘’ he said. ‘’We had employed 150 to 160 people. When we finally got out and came to America, we were lucky to get jobs in a factory. And the women washed floors.’‘’ (2)
The problem with this narrative is we don’t have any real dating of it but given the context it sounds like what Falkenstein is referring to is the aftermath of Kristallnacht (9-10th November 1938) which ramped up with new anti-jewish laws to force Aryanization of jewish-owned business being passed on 12th November 1938. (3)
This also makes sense because when Falkenstein was sent to Dachau in place of his father was then freed months afterwards to sign over his father’s business as part of the Aryanization process.
The fundamental problem however is that there is no Fritz Falkenstein in the Falkenstein family of Hochneukirch with the family patriarch Salomon Falkenstein having eleven children of which eight survived childhood; of these five were males: Victor, Gustav, Joseph, Hermann and Carl. All of whom have no children named Fritz; while Gustav had died in 1923 meaning he can’t be Fritz’s father who is alive in November 1938. (4)
The problem therefore is that there is no ‘Fritz Falkenstein’ of Hochneukirch of the Falkenstein family that owned the local cigar factory since the factory seems to have been passed down to the eldest Falkenstein son: Victor, who is the correct age and died in Auschwitz on 15th July 1944 aged 69. (5) Yet Victor Falkenstein only had two daughters – Ruth Diekhoff and Ilse Berta Rubsteck – which means there is no ‘Fritz Falkenstein’. (6)
So, I rather think that the ‘Fritz Falkenstein’ that Ari Goldman met in a synagogue in New York in 1988 was simply a fraud and a liar. Since he doesn’t appear to be who he claimed he was.
References
(1) See my article: https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/remarkable-holocaust-nonsense-58
(2) https://www.nytimes.com/1988/11/10/world/time-too-painful-to-remember.html
(3) https://www.berlinlayers.com/blog/2015/long-shadow-aryanization-hertie
(4) https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Falkenstein-554
(5) https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Falkenstein-553
(6) Idem.