Arthur and Eugenie married in 1910 in Otterndorf, about 15 kilometers northwest of Cadenberge. The town served as the capital of the state of Hadeln for an extended period and was also the district seat until the establishment of the district of Cuxhaven in 1977.

Both Samuels were 30 years old at the time of their wedding and their marriage endured for 46 years – literally, in good times and bad.

In 1917, Eugenie and Arthur moved to Cadenberge and shared their lives in this community until Eugenie's death in 1956.

Eugenie Samuel (née Barnatzky)

Eugenie was born in 1880 in Gänglingen, Lorraine. Gänglingen, presently known as Guinglange and located in the French Moselle region, remains a small rural hamlet with only a few hundred residents. The distance to Cadenberge is approximately 800 kilometers, which must have been considered substantial at the time.

Exactly when Eugenie moved to northern Germany remains lost in the fog of time, as do the circumstances that triggered her move there. It could have had something to do with the political and religious instability of the Alsace-Lorraine region at the turn of the 20th century. Other possibilities, however, include the existence of relatively better job opportunities in the north or, improbably, a move of the entire Barnatzky family about which sadly no information has been found.

Unfortunately, details of Eugenie and Arthur's courtship also remain unknown. They were married in a municipal registry office, which might well be explained by their different religious backgrounds. The marriage certificate notes that Eugenie was Protestant and Arthur Jewish. There are no other references, such as which family members attended the wedding ceremony.

The occupation given in the document for Arthur is cattle dealer and for Eugenie Stütze (which is a colloquial term for a domestic helper in the Rhineland).

A Partnership of Equals

Eugenie was a tremendously supportive partner for Arthur in many ways, including in business matters. In the early 1930s, Arthur faced legal disputes arising from a lawsuit initiated by third parties regarding purportedly outstanding payments, during which Eugenie successfully demonstrated her positive and constructive negotiation abilities.

Handwritten note by Eugenie Samuel from 1954 to the compensation authority of the district president in Stade.
(Source: Niedersächsichsisches Landesarchiv, Signatur NLA St Rep. 210 Nr. 2006.. Thank you for the approval.)

Unlike many other couples, where one of the partners was Jewish, Eugenie and Arthur continued to live together in their hometown of Cadenberge during the Nazi era. While such so-called "mixed marriages" were unusual at the time, there seems to have been a married couple in Otterndorf where a Jewish woman was married to a sexton of the local Evangelical Lutheran church.

Eugenie's unwavering support for Arthur continued during the Nazi years, during which she experienced many hardships and sacrificed her health to ensure that she and her husband were provided for at the lowest subsistence level. When Arthur's income and the family's savings were essentially wiped out and Arthur was assigned to road construction work, Eugenie was forced to work in a fish factory in nearby Cuxhaven. Since she had never worked as an employee of a business, she found herself in unusually difficult circumstances. At the age of 60, she was tasked with lifting heavy boxes and barrels and working in ice boxes and brine. Due to her marriage to a Jewish individual, the factory owners assigned Eugenie to work alongside much younger foreign workers from Russia and Poland, whose performance she had to match despite her age.

Notwithstanding these humiliations and great burdens, on numerous occasions and from a variety of sources, we have been able to observe that Eugenie was praised for her strong character, her good-naturedness and her willingness to help in the neighborhood. The goodwill of the community is evidenced by the fact that Eugenie was held in high esteem by the citizens of Cadenberge and never became the victim of harassment and insults.

It will come as no surprise that Eugenie was declared physically disabled after the war and, more especially, was recognized as a victim of racist persecution.

In Commemoration

It is clear that Eugenie and Arthur remained loyal to each other, with Eugenie steadfastly sustaining their union despite differences in tradition and religion, as well as the hardships and sacrifices faced through years of persecution.

Regrettably, the couple did not have any children. Nonetheless, for the residents of Cadenberge, the preservation of their shared gravestone remains a testament to the union of two remarkable individuals who endured the challenges of the Nazi era together.