A number of pieces of Alfred's life have now come together, with special effort from Phillip Minden (gen. 3) and some help from Australia. And what a story it is! It begins while the Minden family lived in Hamburg. Recall that Max and Sophie lived in Hull, England, from 1894 to 1904, so it was here that Alfred was born in 1902. Max's death in 1914, when Alfred was just 12 years old, must have had a powerful effect on all 11 children.
In Alfred's case, the future soon turned difficult We can see by steamship manifests that Alfred traveled by ship to New York City from Hamburg in both July 1923 and September 1924, at ages 21 and 22, respectively. He was living in Australia by the time he was 25, in 1927, and in that year two things happened: He married Rieke Goldman (also known as Rieke Cohen), and he was arrested for embezzling from her company!
The marriage was clearly difficult. One point of controversy, as exposed in this newspaper article describing a family fight at the cemetery for the dedication of Rieke's mother's stone there, may have been that Alfred lied about his family of origin. Although he said truthfully that part of the family was engaged in banking, his father was actually a business owner, deceased, and his mother Sophie was still living -- which he may have changed into having lost his mother, as he told his story in Australia.
By 1933, Alfred had become a habitual petty criminal (court cases can be found using this link: http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/result?q=%22Alfred+minden%22), and his "mug shots" are the only photos so far that we can be sure are his:
In 1939 he was interned for about three weeks, as a German in Australia, despite his official British status. The internment documents show that the police collected him and that he "refused to sign" something, so evidently he resisted being collected.
However, Alfred must have made some sort of peace with Australia and his second wife, as he entered the armed service there in 1941 and served until 1943, with his wife Veronica listed as his next of kin. One wonders what changes he experienced during this time.
We know only that in 1951 he returned to England, and died there at age 50.
His niece Ruth says that she never met him and never knew he returned to England, but that she remembers knowing that he had been "sent away to Australia" because he was an unmanageable teen who had done something "bad."
Although Alfred's documented life was often dishonorable, Ruth said that Alfred's presence in Australia saved the life of his younger sister Claire and her family, who also emigrated to Australia. Claire married Herbert Goldfeld, and they changed their surname to Gore; they had a son Werner Goldfeld, born about 1931. Claire appears on one of the internment documents as Alfred's next of kin. I think this son's name may have become Sydney Gore. We hope to connect with this part of the family later, and add to this story of how Alfred's "black sheep" status may have had some positive aspects, after all.
- It seems Reike Cohen was his wife's aunt.
ReplyDelete- I think he didn't resist the collection, just refused to sign the thing in protest. (Understandably so, if he was an English Jew and long-time resident of Australia who was now regarded an enemy alien. Another uncle of mine had to put up with this nonsense in England for a short time, too.)
- Yes, that's Sid (Sidney Gore), I knew him.
- Internet aside, I remember Alfred being mentioned when I was a child, but only that there was no contact with him, who had gone or was sent to Australia and had a wife and a child there. There was no feeling of taboo around this; my father just didn't know any more than that. How's that with all of you? Did your parents mention him at all?
- I wonder what the point was of claiming his mother wasn't alive anymore. Sympathy or concrete legal advantages as an orphan? Spite and bad feelings towards the family because he had to leave?
- The early death raises questions of suicide. (Not necessarily, though, his brother Hans, for instance, died of a brain tumor at 49.)
Thanks for the insight on the Internment "refusal to sign," Phillip.
ReplyDeleteMy father told us he had very few relatives, and NONE who lost their lives in the Shoa. As both of those were clearly not true, I am not a good source for "mentions of Alfred."
I do think that I met Sid Gore when I was a child but I can't pin that down any further; was there also a Lotte Gore?
In terms of Alfred's early death, the only source material I have is the UK death register, which gives the year, his age (50), and the location, Willesden in Middlesex. I was impressed with what our Australian friend found in the newspaper archive there; if you can think of the likely newspaper to report Alfred's death, I'll try that. I did already check the national obituary registry on Ancestry, with no result.
And yes, I had the same thoughts you did about Alfred's apparent claim at some point that his mother had died, and also wondered whether it might have been to avoid the expense of a stylish wedding.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDelete