Abstract

One of the twenty Jewish families who were originally permitted to settle in Jebenhausen in 1777 was Isai Ottenheimer and his wife Zettlin from Muehringen. By 1832 the family had established a manual weaving business which they relocated to the city of Göppingen in 1865. Using an interim process between manual and mechanical weaving, known as the Verlagssystem, during their time in Göppingen, they changed to all mechanical weaving in 1904 when their factory in Klein-Süssen began operations. The factory eventually became the main business, and the Göppingen branch closed in 1925. Although business at first grew, the economic woes of the 1920s with inflation and unemployment and the stock market crash also affected the Ottenheimer business, so that they had to cut hours of operation. At the end of 1937 the Ottenheimer brothers, Max and Alfred, sold their business to a local businessman. Thereafter their homes in Göppingen were also aryanized. Fortunately Max and family were able to emigrate, while Alfred died in 1938 and his wife Luise was deported in 1942 and murdered. Their sons Werner and Richard emigrated to Cuba and the United States respectively. The chapter also looks at Max's and Hedwig's efforts at reparations for the assets and property they lost during the Holocaust.

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