Arthur Samuel was one of the youngest of eight children born to Samuel and Henriette Samuel. In total, the couple had five sons and three daughters, all of whom were born between 1871 and 1882 in Hüls (Krefeld), North Rhine-Westphalia.

The parents

The Samuel family in Hüls has a long history. Samuel was born there in 1836 and Henriette in 1843. He was a cattle dealer, a trade that flourished in the second half of the 19th century due to population growth and improved living conditions. The business activity must have been successful, because his son Arthur and his brothers-in-law also took up this profession.

Samuel and Henriette were practicing Jews and members of a prominent and socially esteemed Jewish community based in Krefeld. This is particularly notable given the rising anti-Semitic sentiments in the region, especially after the First World War.

Interestingly, the rabbi of this community at the time was a certain Leo Ullmann, who established the Jewish elementary school in the city in 1840. Ullmann remains a prominent figure today, as he published a translation of the Koran during that period. This suggests a rather liberal-minded Jewish community, which is also reflected in the philosophical outlook of the Samuel family.

Samuel died in 1896 at the age of 60; Arthur was only 16 years old at the time. As the eldest male sibling still residing at home and not yet engaged in a profession, it is reasonable to assume that Arthur was required to assume responsibility for the family business.
Henriette died in Krefeld in 1919 at the age of 76, the grandmother of at least nine grandchildren, some of whom lived in other parts of Germany. At the time of his mother's death, Arthur had been married for nine years and had recently established his residence in Cadenberge.

The siblings

Whereabouts of the Samuel siblings from 1930 onwards. (Graphic created from family documents)
(Graphic created from family documents)

Family records and information on the Internet provide the following information about the fate of Arthur's brothers and sisters:

Adolph married Caroline Levy from the Netherlands in 1899, at the age of 28, and afterwards apparently lived in Venlo, Limburg. Since Venlo is only 30 kilometres away from Hüls, it is likely that the couple remained in close contact with their relatives there.

While the details of Adolph and Caroline's fate during the Nazi era are unknown, we do know that their daughter Grete was able to survive.

Johanna, the eldest sisters, remained in Hüls her entire life. She married the cattle dealer Josef Davids, who was a member of a large and prominent Jewish family in the area. At the age of 69, Johanna was deported to Treblinka and murdered there in 1942, as were her husband and son Ernst.

Josef Max, like his elder brother, was married to a Dutch woman. At the age of 50, he married Elizabeth van Schaak. Apparently, the couple initially resided in Hüls for before moving to The Hague in the province of Zuid-Holland. Both were deported from there to Auschwitz when they were nearly 70 years old, and there they were murdered in 1943.

Emilie was born four years before Arthur. She married Moritz Voss, a cattle dealer. The couple initially lived happily and contentedly in Hüls for many years; during this time, their four children were born. Changes in their business circumstances and possibly other constraints then prompted her to move to Bartenstein in East Prussia together with her husband and youngest daughter Kate. This move likely occurred towards the end of the 1920s, relatively long after Arthur had moved to Lower Saxony. Meanwhile, their younger son Max had died at an early age and the older daughter Else had married and moved to Prague in Czechoslovakia.

The increasing persecution of the Jews and the growing isolation from family members compelled Emilie to leave Germany. With a lot of help from their eldest son Fritz, who had fled to South Africa in the early 1930s, they were among the last to escape via a five-day flying boat trip before the outbreak of World War II. Emilie dazu, Deutschland zu verlassen. Mit viel Hilfe ihres ältesten Sohnes Fritz, der Anfang der 1930er Jahre nach Südafrika geflohen war, gehörten sie zu den Letzten, die mit einer fünftägigen Flugbootreise vor Ausbruch des 2. Weltkriegs entkommen konnten.

Her husband Moritz died shortly after his arrival in Johannesburg; Emilie, however, lived to the ripe old age of 82, supported by the care and devotion of her two surviving children.

This allowed her to enjoy the early years of her two grandchildren, one of whom is the co-author of this report. (Emilie was thus the grandmother of Henry lrwig.)

Unfortunately, the difficult financial and other circumstances associated with emigration never allowed Emilie and her brother Arthur to meet before her death (in 1958). However, they were in contact with each other, mainly through regular correspondence.

Hermine was the youngest of the three sisters. She resided in the Krefeld area all her life, a large part of it with her husband Albert Salomon, who died in 1937. Together with many others from the community, she was deported to Theresienstadt, where she was murdered in 1942 at the age of 64.

Arthur was 23 years old when he left Hüls in 1903. There is hardly any information about this early period, and the reasons for his relocation are also unknown.

Meinhard, Arthur's brother, who was two years younger, stayed in Hüls for most of his life. There he married Paula Gerson, who was also a member of a large family. Together, they had four children. As a trained butcher (possibly as an offshoot of his parents' business), Meinhard opened his own butcher's shop, thus continuing the family's tradition of the meat trade.

Since Meinhard had fought as a soldier for Germany in World War I, he was convinced that nothing would happen to him despite the persecution of Jews. Although his children urged him to do so, he refused to emigrate. Due to the increasing boycotts, Meinhard finally had to sell his business and soon afterwards his house. After the so-called "Kristallnacht" in November 1938, he and his two sons were sent to the Dachau concentration camp where they were held for three months. Their later plan to emigrate to Trinidad failed. By the end of 1941, the entire family, except for their daughter Hilde, who had previously moved to England, was deported to the ghetto in Riga.

Meinhard was unable to tolerate the catastrophic living conditions there and died after a few weeks. He left behind his wife, two sons and a younger daughter in harrowing circumstances, which only his two sons survived.

Karl was the father of two children, and all that is known is that he moved from Hüls to Magdeburg in the mid-1910s. There are no records available about the exact dates of his birth and death.

The Samuel couple in Hüls had eight children; only two were still alive in 1945.

The horrors and suffering of this family during the Nazi era are unimaginable.

(For additional information on the fate of individuals, see "The Fate of Family in the Second-Generation" and the Exhibits.)