This autograph book is unique among those that survived the Holocaust

• Author: Steve North
• Published date: 08 November 2021
• Publication title: Israel National News (Israel)

"Jenny! Get to know people," wrote Elisabeth. "People are changeable. Some who call you a friend today, might talk about you tomorrow! With love from your classmate, Elisabeth."

One hundred and five years later, Elisabeth's 84-year-old daughter Johanna was astonished to read her mother's words for the first time. "It was a very special joy and surprise for me," she said in German. "The sight of that page touched me very much."

The author's grandmother, Jenny Katz, in 1927, the year before she married Siegfried Bachenheimer. Courtesy Steve North

Jenny Katz Bachenheimer was my grandmother. Jenny's autograph book, known in German as a "Poesiealbum," accompanied the family when my mother and grandparents escaped the Nazis in the 1930s, ending up in New York City.

Half a century later, as she was moving out of her apartment in the then heavily German-Jewish neighborhood of Washington Heights, Oma (Grandma) Jenny handed me the Poesiealbum. She died in 1998, at the age of 95, and this teenage memento has always intrigued me, filled as it is with nearly two dozen pages of clever notes, poems, colorful stickers and intricate designs from friends and relatives, all long gone.

And now, thanks to two German scholars who have spent years researching the custom of "Poesiealbums," my curiosity has been rewarded with their insights into what they say is one of the rare such albums by a German Jewish girl to have survived the Holocaust.

Earlier this year, in a Facebook group dedicated to the German-Jewish community, I noticed a post by Dr. Stefan Walter, whose doctoral thesis focused on the tradition of "Poesiealbums." "Autograph books from German Jews are very rare, due to the Holocaust, and little explored," he wrote. "I've created a collection of Poesiealbums for research and teaching purposes, and no albums of Jewish women are yet included. I'm looking for owners of these kinds of books."

As a longtime chronicler of my family's history, I couldn't resist. Stefan and his life partner Katrin Henzel both work at the Carl von Ossietzky University in the city of Oldenburg, and we made a deal: They would interview me about Oma Jenny's life and translate the pages, and I would interview them for this story.

The couple, both in their 40s, provided some Poesiealbum background. "This tradition began in the 16th century," said Katrin, a lecturer at the university. "It started originally with adult students and scholars, who would travel around. They would ask professors and...