Dear Ben,

thank you very much for your email. It's a pleasure to let you and your aunt know what I know about the Schlegelstraße 17.

Until now, I was not aware that your grandparents were the ones who built this house, in which they were only able to live for ten years. After your family was forced to abandon the house, the Eras Family moved in. I assume that your Grandparents did not even get the money far below the value of the house as money from these kind of forced sales was often transferred to special accounts controlled by the government.

Mr Eras was a building contractor. Mr and Mrs Eras had two sons: One died as a child from diphtheria, the other one, Fritz (yes, a Fritz), was about 20 years old when they moved into the Schlegelstraße. I don't know exactly how much time passed between your family leaving for London and the Eras family moving into the house. They lived in the house and the building contractor's office was located in the first storey. After I met you this 8th of December, two days before my mother's death, I asked her if Mr Eras was a member of the NSDAP and if that was the reason why he was granted the house. ( I think members of the NSDAP were the first to be offered previously Jewish property) To this, my mother answered quite clearly: "I suspect he was".

In 1943 Fritz Eras and my mother got engaged. In 1944 (I'm not shure about the year dates) he got killed in battle and after the governance of the Nazis his father committed suicide. According to my mother, Mrs Eras blamed him for Fritz's death: There was a legal regulation that stated that if a family only had one son, this son needn't go to war. Mr Eras however urged his son to go to war because even fathers of families went. Was Mr Eras so convinced by National Socialism, by the Nazi regime, that he could not handle the collapse of the "Third Reich"? Or did he see no purpose in his life after the death of his last child? Maybe it was both.

ß My mother married my father in 1945. My sister Ursula, who is going to write to you as well, was born in 1953, I was born in 1955 and my brother Hans in 1962. In my childhood, Mrs Eras was a regular visitor to our home (We lived in Erlangen, which is only a thirty minute drive from the Schlegelstraße). I remember her as withdrawn, lonely woman. She passed the house on to my mother and after Mrs Eras' death in 1966 we moved into the Schlegelstraße. My mother loved the house and its huge garden. From time to time she told us that there were still some tablecloths and a huge chest of drawers that belonged to the Tuchmann family and another tablecloth with a monogram of the Seidlein family indicating the owners. It always sounded like:  This is a dark story from a dark time. I am not able to tell you more than that. But if someone from the Tuchmann family were to come along, I would be very happy to give their belongings back. 

My brother, who lived in the Schlegelstraße throughout his entire childhood and adolescence and who associates a lot of memories with it, loves the house like his mother did. I feel a little different about the house: I was 12 years old when we moved in and from today's point of view I would say that our family's living in this house was a little bit inappropriately: This glove was too big for us. We were a middle class family living in an upper class house. This grand house called for grandeur and generosity but we were frugal and strict. Do you know what I mean? (And what is more it was the opposite of London in the 60th.)

In 1974, after secondary school, I moved out and did so gladly. My mother, who lived in the Schlegelstraße 17 until her stroke in August 2010, will probably have been the last of our family to be living there.

I would be very happy to hear from your aunt. I wonder what her memories of the Schlegelstraße and Nueremberg are like. What was it like for the Tuchmann family after they worked out that they could not stay in Germany?

I am so glad that we have met that day in the Schlegelstraße!

My daughter Vera translated the first email, this one is translated by my son Jan.

Greetings from Munich to you, your family and especially to your aunt Brigitte,

Yours Annette

Benedict

Fascinating ‐ found it on google earth almost immediately. It is in the outer suburbs of Nuremberg but I don't think it's a huge distance from the centre. There seems to be a lot of restaurants etc around there and if it was me, I would take a day out or at least a morning to have a look around. The photos from when it was built show it fairly isolated and the surroundings bare as a new development but the photo map shows plenty of mature trees and foliage all around now; very nice.

Malachy

Earth Views

Dear Mr McCauley,

I'm so sorry about the long time it took me to answer your mail below. My sister had forwarded it to me, but there was a lot to be done in Schlegelstraße and I stored your mail without finding it again until today.

You are lucky because we have the original plans of the Schlegelstraße‐House and I could even hand you over  " if you are interested  " some copies of the cause about the payment after Worldwar II. Please let me know, what you are interested in and, after drawing some copies, I will send it over to you.

Best regards
Ursula Lanig

www.ursula‐lanig.de

Von: "Dr. Annette Seybold‐Krüger"
Gesendet: Dienstag, 26. April 2011 19:45
An: Ursula Lanig
Betreff: Fwd: 17 Schlegelstrasse

Liebe Schwester, ich weiß nicht, wie ich das ganze Glump da, des "Sendeprotokoll", wegkriegen soll. Die Mail liegt schon ein bisschen. Machtest Du ihm antworten? Sollen wir ne Kopie schicken? Was meinst Du? Eihgentlich würde ich dem Wunsch gern entsprechen.

Bis später
Annette

Dear Doctor Seybold

Please forgive me for writing in English as I do not have the German language. Please may I introduce myself? I am Malachy, the brother of Ben McCauley. I understand that you met him when he came to have a look at your house in Erlenstegen in winter 2010, when he was on holiday in Nuremberg.

My hobby is genealogy and here in London in my house, I keep the family collection of photographs. I made the web pages here, which I think you may have seen already: http:⁄⁄www.mmcsl.com⁄family I thought that you might be interested in some more pictures of the house, when it was new, and some photos of the Tuchmann family with the house as the background.

As you may know from my Aunt Brigitte, my Grandfather Hans had a considerable influence in the design of the house. I took the liberty to write to the authorities in Nuremberg to find out if any architectural plans exist. They replied, informing me that I would need permission from the current owners to allow me to make further research. I have copied the email below.

Would you, like myself, be interested in finding out if the planning permission and original design of the house exists? If so, I would be very grateful for yours (or the owners) permission.

Thank you and regards

Malachy McCauley

‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐

Christof.Neidiger@stadt.nuernberg.de
To:
mal@mmcsl.com

Dear Mr. McCauley,

there is no document about Schlegelstrasse 17 stored in our archives.
We have only documents of houses not existing anymore.

Architectural plans of houses still existing are in Stadt Nuernberg,

Bauordnungsbehoerde, Bauhof 5⁄UG, 90402 Nuernberg, phone
+49‐911‐231‐4327, E‐Mail: bob@stadt.nuernberg.de.

Please turn to that authority directly, because you need a permission of
the current owners of Schlegelstrasse 17 for research there.

Yours sincerely,

Christof Neidiger
Stadtarchiv Nuernberg
Marientorgraben 8
90402 Nuernberg
Germany

phone: +499112312775
Fax: +499112314091
Internet: http:⁄⁄www.stadtarchiv.nuernberg.de
E&8208;Mail: stadtarchiv:stadt.nuernberg.de

Dear Benedict

You did not think what a hornets nest you stirred up when you were in Nuremberg! All very fascinating. I sent Dr Seybold‐Krueger at the weekend and got an immediate reply. I am sending you my translation of it.

Very revered Mrs Dowling,
I am so pleased with your writing to me that I will answer it immediately. At the moment I am very busy to leave it for a few days to answer it more lengthily. While living in Schlegelstrasse the family Tuchmann, your family, was always in the background. We will send you photographs because we think there are still some chests belonging to you in the house. Then you can see which you wish to have in England. Table cloths and serviettes we will send you with pleasure and be glad that at least some things are with you again.. For now with grateful thanks that you wrote etc. etc.

I had just written to her to introduce myself. I mentioned the linen and wondered whether it was worth while, in what sort of condition they were in.

Also I mentioned that Agnes and I were getting together in a few weeks and would tell here about our childhood there and said that she might have some questions.

Hope all is well with you both

Much love Aunty B

Hello Aunt Brigitte,

I'm very pleased you're in communication with Dr Seybold‐Krueger. As promised I've attached a photo of the table cloth that Annette's sister Ursula Lanig sent me, it is approximately 72x74cm, and also a scan of the letter she sent with it. Do you have any comment on the motif in the middle?
I have also attached a picture of the flyer (A5) that I've produced for a concert I'm giving with a friend on 5th March which I am busy preparing for; I will be playing my flamenco and classical guitars.
With best wishes to yourself and Uncle Thomas,
Benedict

Dear Benedict, many thanks for the last chapter in the Saga, most interesting, esp to see the sample of the tablelinen which did not ring a bell at all in my memory. I and Thomas looked at the monogram , enlarged till our eyes ached but could not really discern T and S. also the style of it is rather more turn of the century and I wonder whether it was from the Tuchmann Rosenwald era which would have been from Lina Tuchmann. However as I said Agnes is coming 10th March and we will ponder together.. Perhaps we will get some more photos telling us what the "trunk (s) " cum chest of drawers. are about. I still cant believe how that should have been lurking in the house 74 years .Both Seybold sisters sound very pleasant and obviously want the thing resolved .
Good luck with your concert I will think of you on the 5th. This date was incidentally the birthday of your grandfather Hans Tuchmann, who would be now 122. Also strangely Elizabeth Tuchmann's birthday. Patsy's son Alex also plays in gigs, Rock of course give me classic or flamenco though. Wish I could be there. Much love to both Aunty B

Dear all,

As you will no doubt be aware, I was sent a box of linen that had been in the old Tuchman family home in Nuremberg since our time there ‐ I think it may have been part of Granny Tuchman's 'trousseau' as it is all monogrammed with  S  for Seidlein and so pre‐dates her marriage. It was kindly sent to me by the daughter of the erstwhile owner, a woman who had been linked with the house since the 1930's.

I have thought long and hard about how to divide it all up fairly and decided that I would divide it up into 18 numbered 'lots' (the number of Granny T's grandchildren) and then give each person a number which was then randomly pulled out of a hat. And so all the 18 lots were allocated!

I hope you will all agree that this was the fairest way and will enjoy whatever memento you received.

Aunty B

Dear Malachy

Thank you very much for the fine and interesting pictures of the early Schlegelstrasse and the Tuchmanns, who obviously loved the house, they lived in. If you see Schlegelstrasse today you can't imagine how much open space there was between the few buildings, one of the first was for sure the Tuchmanns house.
(By the way, I used to live in the room with the Christmas‐tree in the second floor.‐and we never saw the Garden in the North of the house in this dimensions.)

I'm sure that the design of the entrance, the higher situated ground‐floor and the wonderful swinging doors (that we children admired as a sign of glamour and glory) show the British influence you wrote about in your letter.

I think, I should give you some explanations about the way, the house came to our family. My mother was engaged with Fritz Eras, the only son of the Eras‐family after the early death of two children (one by leukaemia, one by diphterie). Fritz Eras was wounded and died in WWII and his parents became very depressed, so that his father committed suicide in 17th of May 1945 (As our mother said, because he couldn't stand the steady blame of his wife any longer ‐ she wanted her husband to get Fritz out of the war as a distinguished person in the Eras' construction business, which might have been possible.) So my mother was the only link of our so called "Tante Eras" to the times, when her family existed. My sister and I remember her as an always well dressed and friendly Lady, who had a small gift for us children every Monday she came to visit us. She left the house to Annette and me.

Now to the documents I send you in this letter:

The lucky times:
1. The sales‐contract between Mr Goll and Dr. Hans Tuchmann
2. The ground‐plan (you can see the diminution of the ground)
3. Notices of Dr. Tuchmann to the Nuremberg magistrat and their answer

The sad times:
4. The sales‐contract between the Tuchmanns and the Eras‐family
5. Order of the Court of Restitution of SchIegelstrasse 17 (May 1952)
6. "Resale" of Schlegelstrasse 17 to Mrs Eras (March 1953)
7. Orders Court of Restitution (Oktober, November, Dezember 1955)

These are the documents I have found  ” I hope they don't bring too much sadness to you and especially to Brigitte Dowling (I include a letter to her). Some I send you in copy, the ground‐plan and the early documents with Dr. Tuchmanns sign on are originals (as you see).
If there are any further questions, that I can answer  ” please write.

I wish all of you, also in the name of my sister and brother, a wonderful diamond‐wedding‐anniversary for the Dowling‐couple and best wishes to Mrs Agnes (with late congratulations to her 90th birthday).

Yours very sincerely
Ursula Lanig

Hello Mark and Kuai

What a lovely day at the Dowlings 60th wedding anniversary celebration ‐ so good to see you and Kuai again and Melanie was very happy to meet you both, Lucy and Elizabeth and all of the other cousins. We stayed in 'the fleece' in Witney, I would recommend it!

Well, I promised to send you the copy of the plans and papers of the house in Erlenstegen. These came to me recently from Ursula Lanig, one of the sisters who I believe you met when you went to the house in the 70s, Mark. I didn't find any reference to Peter Anton von Seidlein in the plans but you may spot something in there ‐ I cannot read German. Our grandfather Hans signed the pages.

They are large files and so I used a system that Tim Lawson introduced me to ‐ 'dropbox' ‐ a repository on the internet for storing photos etc. and other items to be shared. I have sent an invite to 'dropbox' as this is where all the picture files are ‐ too much to send via email and you can download them one by one if you like, from my dropbox. Aunty Brigitte told me that Mrs Eras who occupied the house made an alteration whereby there is a french door now on one side.

I have a 'long weekend' as I work a 4 day week as a postman, so that I get 5 days off together over the weekend every 3 weeks and so it is now that I get the chance to write. Today Melanie and I get our car back which had a new clutch fitted ‐ I had to hire a car because it took them so long ‐ two weeks.

Warmest regards
Malachy and Melanie
ps Dear Caroline I hope you are better, we missed you ‐ nice to see Les again ‐ lots of love, m&m

Many thanks for your email, Malachy, and the invite to dropbox.
I look forward to viewing the documents soon.
It was lovely to see you again last Sunday and to meet Melanie for the first time.
We drove home to Blackburn after leaving Tim and Eve's, as we had arranged to meet friends in a lovely pub called The Millstone, near Blackburn, at 9pm.
Enjoy your long weekend.
With very best wishes
Mark and Kuai Fong

Melanie and I were delighted to meet you and Kuai Fong again.

You're most welcome Mark and I hope you will be able to easily download the pictures of the plans of '17' if you wish.

I've now found data in 'wikipedia' about our great grandfather and something of his parliamentary career by adding the 'ritter' to the search as you advised, so many thanks for that tip!

Just yesterday I found some references to records in the Bamberg state archive about Peter (the miller) and son Lorenz von Seidlein. In the booklets Lorenz describes that they lived in three addresses in the town, but is not specific enough for me to easily identify the houses (if they still exist) and so I am hoping to narrow it down soon.

We are off for a week to Paris for our first (paper?) anniversary on 18th September. I last was there in 1966 on a student swop. We already booked the summit of the Eiffel tower for two visits in the day and evening. We are looking forwards also to the journey by Eurostar and to seeing the local markets, gardens, cafes and maybe one or two museums.

Time for me to make lunch today! We shopped yesterday in a Chinese emporium in Charlton. Hope it's sunny there like it is here today,

warmest regards
Malachy and Melanie

Dear Brigitte Dowling, dear Ben and Malachy Mccauley,

from Ursula Lanig we got your Emailadresses.

We are very glad to have now a new home in the Schlegelstr. 17!

Since we did the first step in the house, we love this house and feel very well there.

As you know from Ursula, my parents live next to the house since 1993 and now almost the whole original piece of ground is together again.

Ursula gave us all the old fotos and documents and the history of the house. This is realy great! We apreciate this very much and hope to have a oportunity to meet you all one day and learn to know you. You are welcome anytime!

At the moment we do some renovations in the house, we try to keep or even change back to the old style. The first floor is not anymore a separate flat, we opened it back.

As soon as everything is ready to move in, we will let you know and then we would be glad to have you here.

May be some words to us: My husband, Bernd Rautenstrauss is originaly from Ulm, he is a Professor for Human Genetics and working in MGZ (Medical Genetics Center) in Munich and partly at the University of Erlangen, specialized in Neurogenetics. He drives almost every day to Munich by ICE‐train. As soos as possible he will write you some words to introduce himself.

My family is originaly coming from Romania, we are from German origin and had to escape from the dictator‐regime of Ceausescu in 1981. We lost everything, as the communist regime tooked over ower whole properties. My mothers family owned many ground in former times, her grandfather was a Senator in the goverment in Viena/Budapest but as you know after world war II they tooked us everything away.

As we arrieved in Germany in 1981 my family had to builed up a whole new live. My father is a machine construction engineer and he was working already in Romania in developing and science. We left Romania ilegaly with falsificated passports as a family (my sister was 12, me 15) in a old "Trabant" (car build in German Democratic Republic) and campground equipment. Together with a schoolfriend my father started in Nuernberg with his company Delu GmbH, building air cushion systems. Nowerdays we are an international working company and design and manufacture innovative solutions on air cushion based systems in all industrial fields.

Originaly I did my PhD in Molecular Genetics, after working 11 years in Glaucoma Genetics I changed to the company of my father 4,5 years ago to take over the company as my father is 70 now.

After 30 years in Germany I have finaly the feeling to have a real home with this house in the Schlegelstrasse! We are looking forward to hopefully blessed and happy times in the house, with family and friends. We can not wait to move in, we are almost dayly there...

Our kids, Simon Ferdinand (11) and Tobias Leonard (8), are very happy with their future big rooms, Simon will move in the room on the west side of the house, Tobias in the middle and our sleeping room will be the big one in the east side (first floor). We removed partly (have still to do the rest) the gate to my parents and the kids enjoy the garden and to be close to the grandparents. We all look forward to enjoy the summer there, to have many parties, open doors for friends and open windows to the world!

I like a lot the attached foto!

All the bests and warm regards from Nuernberg

Karin Michels‐Rautenstrauss

Dear Karin

Hello and greetings from London.

Sorry for the delay as I finally get round to making a reply to your interesting letter about your own family history and about 17 Schlegelstrasse.

It really is gratifying for us to know that your whole family are now living in this house and making a new home, which was designed with much input from my Grandfather Hans, the original inhabitant whose young family and wife moved into it from Bad Strasse in Nuremberg in the early 1930s.

In my opinion it's especially wonderful that you decided to combine the parts of the property so that now it is very much to the original layout that was planned in 1926.

Over the intervening years since the war, various holidaying visitors from our family have had a look at the house. Most recently, my brother Benedict on a Christmas Market visit in 2010 was, by sheer coincidence, greeted and invited inside by Annette who was so kind and together with her sister Ursula has been corresponding with us since. The sisters very generously sent linen and a piece of furniture to my Aunt Brigitte; a chest of drawers that had been kept in the house all the time since, even during the war. We all shared this linen, which consisted mainly of huge napkins embroidered with, we think, a very ornate Von Seidlein monogram from older times (my Grandmother Tuchmann's maiden name). The chest‐of‐drawers went to my first cousin Mark Tuchmann. It was an interesting revelation to learn from the sisters, the history of the occupants of the house since the Tuchmann family had to leave the house and Germany.

In addition Annette and Ursula sent me the original plans of 1926 for the house which I scanned into the computer ‐ I can send a link for these if you do not already have copy. There are many other photographs of the house here in the family collection, taken just after it was built and also from the early and mid 1930s. I believe you may have copies of all of these that I'd sent to Annette and Ursula, but please write and I can make a link for you to download these also.

Of the six members of the Tuchmann family who lived in the house as children my two surviving Aunts both are living in the UK now. The photograph that you sent was an enlargement of a tiny print that I had scanned from the family photo albums. Wheeling one of the bicycles is my Aunt Agnes who lives now in Berkshire and who last year celebrated her 90th birthday. Uncle Max (with the other bike) sadly passed away in 2006. My dear Aunt Brigitte lives in Chester and last year she and my Uncle Thomas Dowling celebrated their diamond wedding anniversary. For this occasion the whole family got together in Oxfordshire at their daughter and son‐in‐law, Eve and Tim Lawson's house for a lovely party:

http://web.me.com/tim.lawson/Dowlings_Diamond_Wedding/Welcome.html

It was Tim Lawson who drew up the family tree that is attached. Also attached is my Uncle Max Tuchmann's account of the family flight from Germany and Brigitte's memoir of life in Erlenstegen. My late mother Annamarie McCauley (nee Tuchmann ‐ the oldest daughter of Hans and Marianne) was a doctor of Medicine here in London. Her practice was in Chelsea, where we were brought up. She studied at the in Englische Fraulein Institute in Bamberg and came to London early and then Dublin to study medicine and again to London and so missed the later events involved with the exodus.

I'm sure that my Grandparents would have been extremely happy that you have preserved the house that they made, and I am also sure that all of us descendents send their very best wishes for the happiest of times for your own family life, at home in Erlenstegen.

So nice for me to 'e‐meet' you! Warmest regards and many thanks for your kind invitations and I will keep in touch.

Malachy McCauley

Dear Maria,

may I say how glad and indeed honoured I was to have met you and your charming son Konstantin at my brother Peter's funeral back in July.
By the way, did you manage to get to the Tate Gallery? I had the impression that Konstantin would have enjoyed a visit there.

When I spoke to you then I promised I would send you an email recounting my visit to Erlenstegen, Nuremburg back in 2010. I mentioned that when my wife Caroline and I were having a short holiday in Nuremburg I took the opportunity to take a cab to visit my grandparents old house in Erlestegen, Schlegelstraße 17.

When I got there I asked the cabby to take a picture of me outside the house (please see attached). Just at that moment a woman was walking along toward the house and, in a friendly manner, asked who I was; we introduced ourselves ‐ I remember I showed her a picture I had of the house taken before the war. Anyway she invited me in and we had a fairly convivial chat each about our mutual connection with the house and its history. Her name is Dr. Annette Seybold‐Kruger and she is the daughter of the fiance of one Fritz Eras, who was the son of the subsequent owner of Schlegelstraße 17 after my grandparents' family left in 1936‐7. Since that encounter with Annette I enjoyed a very pleasant and informative course of emails with her and I have copied below one of her emails which may be of interest to you and which goes into the history of the Eras' at Schlegelstraße 17:
‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
‐‐‐Original message‐‐‐‐
From : mvseidlein
Date : 17/08/2017 ‐ 15:21 (GMTDT)
To : mccauley883
Subject : Re: My visit to Erlenstegen, Schlegelstraße 17

Hello Benedict

Thank you for sharing this interesting story!
Did your family ever got reparations from the government? And did you ever try to get you property back?
Most jewish families got their houses back‐ if they survived..
Greetings
Maria

Von meinem iPhone gesendet
‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
29th October 2017
Hello Maria,

my apologies for not getting back to you sooner regarding your question on reparation.

I have discussed this with my brother Malachy and he has included you to share relevant files in a Dropbox link: 'For Ben' under the subdirectory '17' + two sub directories under '17' ‐ 'Paper Trail' which has all of the legal papers to do with the house and reparation, and 'House Plans' containing copies of the original architect plans.

I will forward Malachy's email with the Dropbox link to you.

With best wishes,

Benedict

Dear Ben and Malachy McCauley,

now it is 9 years we live in Schlegelstrasse 17 in the house built by your grandparents. For some reason I started to look at all documents and information I got from Ursula in 2012 and got interested in the history of your family who built the house. I'm so sorry we had no contact for so many years.

Hope you are doing well and are able to deal with this unpleasant pandemic situation.

You offered 2012 to send me Fotos from former times, I would really appreciate if this is still possible.

Attached you find some resent Fotos from the house.

I searched about the history of your family, it is really so interesting. Do you have a summary of that?

I realized that you find Tuchmann's in Australia and in New York. I wonder if Barbara W. Tuchmann, an American historian and author is also related with you.

Her husband Lester Reginald Tuchmann was the son of Max L. Tuchmann (1876‐1964), but I can't find the connection to your family. I'm sure you would know that.

I also read about your ancestors coming from the village Uhlfeld close by Nuernberg and about the family of your grandmother like her father Lorenz Ritter von Seidlein. All very interesting!

And I found in the internet that in 2016 Marianne Annie Annamarie was born and named after her grandmother. So nice! May be she wants one day to see where her ancestors came from...

Hope you do not wonder to hear from me after so many years!

Best wishes and warmest regards from Nuernberg,

Karin Michels‐Rautenstrauss

P.S. Below you see the address an a brochure of our company

DELU Luftkissen Transportgerätetechnik GmbH
Deutsche Luftkissensysteme
Gebertstraße 7, 90411 Nürnberg, Deutschland
Tel.: +49 (0)911 23 88 88  " 12
Fax: +49 (0)911 23 88 88  " 28
E‐Mail: k.michels@delu-gmbh.de
Web: www.delu‐gmbh.de

Geschäftsführer: Dr. Karin Michels‐Rautenstrauss, Dipl.‐Ing. (FH) Peter Kluge
Sitz und Registergericht: Nürnberg, HRB 2724
USt. Id. Nr.: DE133509172

Dear Karin

Your email with the lovely photographs of the house and gardens of 17 Schlegelstrasse was a pleasant surprise ‐ the winter views of the garden are wonderful in my opinion ‐ thank you. My brother Ben forwarded your email to me, as my address has now changed to mmalachy@yahoo.com.

Thanks also for the company brochure ‐ I know Ben will be very interested in it, with his engineering background.

My last email to you was in 2012 ‐ how time flies! Many things happened to us in the interim ‐ not least that at the end of April 2019, after I retired, we emigrated from London to my wife's homeland of Mindanao in the Philippines. We had bought land and had a new house built on it before moving and we were finally able to live there in June of 2019. As you mentioned, we have a young daughter Marianne, 5 next July, who is thriving here and has cousins on Melanie's side of the family around the same age. Her cousins on my side of the family in the UK are all in their 20s and 30s.

I look at the daily news from the UK and the USA. The pandemic rules here are very strict with masks and visors required outside. The authorities have a identity pass system which allows shopping etc. on staggered days. Because of my age I'm disqualified from going into stores. I don't really mind as we have lovely gardens and plenty of space here for exercise. The vaccines have just started arriving, to date, from China and America and the authorities and health workers have been well rehearsed in the distribution and application of them. The authorities have allocated vaccine implementation by grouping the population according to risk. Can't wait to get a jab and I'm still prepared to wear the mask probably until 2022 in the hope that the virus will subside by then.

On family history ‐ sadly, none of the earlier generations are still with us. Our two older brothers Tom and Peter also have passed away. My pages from the link below include photographs of everyone and show, I hope clearly, the relationships with the Tuchmanns and the Von Seidleins:

http:⁄⁄www.malmccauley.com⁄genealogy⁄pie⁄index.htm

There is a further link on the page to family photographs which include your house.

The tree is a few years out of date now. Over the last five or six months my cousin Celia has organised zoom sessions with cousins in the UK and Canada (nine cousins last time) which is great fun and they have been reporting marriages and the birth of new little ones so I will need to update the chart soon.

It's astounding to me what you can find on the internet ‐ just today I came across an image of my great grandmother Lina Tuchmann (nee Rosenwald) as well as her probate index and other papers. I'd not seen any of it before. I was told that she stayed in Nurnberg and was still there for the Kristallnacht but later, somehow managed to get back to London and safety in Grange Road, Ealing with the family.

This afternoon I had a look to see if I could trace a link to famed Barbara W Tuchmann to no avail. There is a family group of Tuchmanns, not related to ours, whose roots were in Westphalia, unless I'm mistaken. The name Tuchmann was dished out arbitrarily during one of the pogroms of the early 18th century. The earliest traced Tuchmann of our genealogy had the original personal name of Mordochai ben Josef Ha Levi ‐ "Red Mordochai" who, with flaming red hair, was an adopted foundling. His family lived in Uehlfeld and it was there that they started the Hop business. There is a portrait of him in the first Tuchmann Stammbaum (attached). Charles Perry Stanton made updates in the 1980s onwards from the original Stammbaum editions which were composed by Friedrich Carl Tuchmann from 1928 on.

My wife Melanie and I visited Uehlfeld during a wonderful holiday in 2015 before our Marianne was born. We used the public transport, trains and buses to get around. We stayed in Munich, Nurnberg and Bamberg, tracing over the family footsteps.

Here is my 2020 family album: http:⁄⁄malmccauley.com⁄year2020⁄

With our very best wishes

Malachy McCauley
Benedict McCauley

Dear Malachy,

I'm really so excited!!!! Thank you so much for all this valuable information!

Next time you visit Germany, it would be a great pleasure for us to have you here in the house and the garden of your grandparents and the place of the childhood of your mother.

Especially Marianne, your daughter dear Malachy, should learn to know were her great grandmother and grandmother lived, whose names she received.

You are all warmest welcome in the Schlegelstr. 17 in Erlenstegen!

Two weeks ago, we went for a walk in and around Uehlfeld, to look for the forgotten, hard‐to‐find, Jewish Cemetery outside of the village on the way to Hermersdorf, were "Red Mardochai" is buried. This is a very interesting place and it seems that in our times more people get interested in tracing back the history of Jewish people, banished to the rural regions 1499 under King Maximilian (see the book mentioned below). They then moved back in the middle of the 19th century to the industrial cities.

In the first half of the 18th century, the surroundings of Uehlfeld, called in German "Aischgrund" ‐ valley of the river Aisch ‐ was one of the most significant hops growing areas of Bavaria and as you know better than me, "Red Mardochai" developed very successfully his business and got the most important hops trader of the region. His sons, Salomon and Feist (Philipp) are the generation, who moved back to Nürnberg or Dessau and have further developed the hops business until your grandfather Hans Tuchmanns generation. I'm sure you know all about all the other descendants of Mardochai, some of them have taken over the management of various Franconian companies (like "Seligmann Bendit & Sons" by Philipp Tuchmann or "Drei‐S‐Werke" by Walter Tuchmann) in different ways and have decisively shaped them.

So it is obvious that they played a significant role in the history and development of Nuremberg. It is a great loss for our country, that these righteous, hardworking and well‐educated people had to leave their homeland to save their lives because of the cruelty and lawlessness of the Nazi regime.

I started to find out what happened to the neighbours of the Schlegelstraße 17, who are mentioned by Brigitte in her memories "The Thirties History". The the "Lauingers" of today Schlegelstraße 15, who fatally choosed the Netherlands as the destination of their emigration, never came back, they were deported to Auschwitz and killed. This is so terrible and sad.

I'm so glad that the Tuchmanns managed to find a new home in London, where it was possible to live in peace and dignity! If we imagine with how much hope and love they have built the home for their family, with the expectation that it would be the family home for generations to come and than they had to leave it 11 years after they moved in!

I'm not sure if I told you that I also fled 1981 ‐ fifteen years old ‐ with my parents from a country that was in the iron grip of an autocratic dictator ‐ from the Ceausescu‐regme in Romania. We had to leave the houses built by my grandparents from both sides and we have been expropriated ‐ the houses were ripped from us. So for me it is very exciting to have found here in the Schlegelstrasse 17 a new home, where we can live in peace and dignity!

It should never happen again that people must fear for their lives because some crazy, irresponsible, violent narcissistic criminals gain power! That is why we have to ensure that these traces of Jewish life also in Nuremberg are not forgotten, they must remain visible for the next generations. This is one of the reasons, why I try to write down the history of this house in the context of the historical, political and social background.

I will try ‐ hopefully with the help of my sons ‐ to translate my script, when it is finished in English for you, it is hard for me as my English is not accomplished.

I found a link to a book in the internet (temporarly not available) from Gisela Naomi Blume Uehlfeld  " Jüdisches Leben und Häuserchronik (Nürnberg 2017, 844 S., über 650 farbige Abb., 75 historische Pläne, einliegende Karte, ISBN 978‐3‐929865‐70‐7) ‐ about the Jewish live, the Cemetary and the house chronicle in Uehlfeld, which might be interesting:

By the way it is interesting to realize that one of your relatives was 1979‐1989 a member of the European Parlament.

As far as I know from Ursula Lanig and Anette Seybold you still, or better expressed, again have the originals of the blueprints of the house. Do you know who they have and where they are? This would be an interesting issue for me. In case you are not any more much interested in them, I would really appreciate to see them.

Attached you find: a Foto of the grave of Salomon Tuchmann in Nürnberg and a register of the Jewish hops dealer in Nürnberg 1930.

I hope we can meet soon, until then it would be a big pleasure to continue correspondence and exchange of new discoveries on the journey back in time, to trace back individual fates.

With best wishes and warmest greetings from Nuernberg,

Karin