Clara Sigmann-Seidel

On February 6, 1886, Clara Kahn was born in the small town of Kuppenheim in Baden. There was a relatively large Jewish community there (at times 6 percent of the population). The Jewish families earned their living by trading in livestock, hardware and textiles.

Clara married Salomon Sigmann, who came from Oświęcim (Auschwitz). Together they ran a lingerie and bridal outfitting business in the center of Pforzheim. The town on the northern edge of the Black Forest was characterized by its textile, metal and jewelry industries. The family took part in the city's economic boom. By changing locations several times, they managed to improve their living situation and business address: Clara and Salomon Sigmann lived at Schloßberg 2 at the beginning of the 20th century, their business (trousseau and linen manufacture or linen house and linen manufacture) was at Zerrennerstrasse 2. From around 1909 to 1912, they lived at Westliche Karl-Friedrich-Str. 30. Their store was located in the same street at no. 42. From 1913, they ran their business at Zerrennerstrasse 10, where they then also lived. The business location was excellent and it can be assumed that the majority of bridal couples in Pforzheim and the surrounding area purchased their outfits from Sigmann.

The children Alfons and Beda Sigmann were born in 1906 and 1907. Salomon Sigmann died in 1933 and the following year the business was liquidated and Clara moved in with her daughter's family in Mannheim.

Clara Sigmann moved to Mannheim in 1934. Her daughter Beda had married Albert Rosenburg (1890-1935) in 1929 and lived with him in the city on the Rhine and Neckar. Beda's husband had been practicing there as a surgeon and urologist since 1925. He first had his practice in L 14, 14, then in M 7,15. 

Albert Rosenburg was expelled from the practice in 1933, i.e. his license was revoked. The newspaper Hakenkreuzbanner announced on 21 April 1933 that the following doctors were excluded with immediate effect from practising as panel doctors: [...] Dr. Rosenburg, specialist in surgery and urology, Mannheim, M 7, 15. Dr. Albert Rosenburg then lived in S 1, 5. Perhaps he still treated some patients privately. He took his own life on May 25, 1935. 

Clara Sigmann lived at Lameystr. 11. After the death of her son-in-law, her widowed daughter Beda and granddaughter Inge, born in 1933, moved in with her. Their birth was presumably one of the reasons for Clara's move to Mannheim. 

Clara Sigmann owned the apartment building at Rupprechtstr. 16, which she had bought around 1935. She probably wanted to invest the assets she had acquired in Pforzheim. At that time, she was not yet thinking of emigrating. The situation of Jewish landlords at that time is illustrated by correspondence in the Mannheim city archives. The following picture emerges: Clara signed a rental agreement for one of the apartments on March 10, 1938. The tenant returned the lease to her shortly before she was due to move in on April 1, 1938, stating that she "could not move into the apartment under the given circumstances". Clara instructed her lawyer, who informed the tenant that the "unauthorized influence of the cell warden Jung" was not a legal obstacle, as there was no law prohibiting Jewish homeowners from living there. The tenant no longer agreed to a proposed settlement and Clara Sigmann had to accept the loss of rent without compensation. 

Clara Sigmann's son Alfred was the first of the family to escape. From Argentina, he was able to help his mother, sister and their young daughter Inge leave the country. Before that, however, Clara had to pay the required compulsory contributions. She had a small collection of 54 coins and medals. When she fled Germany in 1939, she was forced to hand them over to the Coin Cabinet of the Baden State Museum in Karlsruhe via the Mannheim customs office. Inge, the granddaughter born in Mannheim, later took the name Guttmann through marriage and, at the age of 77, was invited by the city of Mannheim to return to the place of her childhood. The press reported in 2010: 

"Inge Guttmann left Mannheim with her mother in March 1939, two days before her sixth birthday. Her father, Albert Rosenburg, had committed suicide in 1935. A long journey began: from Hamburg by ship to Chile, via Bolivia to Argentina, where she lived for 20 years, and finally to the USA. She had no memory of Mannheim for a long time, says Inge Guttmann, until she stood in front of the water tower again for the first time during a brief visit at the end of the 1990s. "That's when I remembered that the house we lived in was very close by." The building at Lameystraße 11 is still there." (Mannheimer Morgen 24.6.2010)

Clara Sigmann traveled by ship via Marseille to Chile in 1939 and then overland to Argentina, where her son Alfonso was already living in Buenos Aires. "Alfonso" vouched for his mother. This was one of the requirements, along with all the other obstacles such as immigration quotas and bureaucratic regulations that Clara had to fulfill. It is not known whether she had uninvited contact with German National Socialists in Buenos Aires, like many Jews who fled Germany. Especially after 1945, many Nazi perpetrators fled to Argentina and lived next door to Jewish immigrants. Clara's second husband Aaron Seidel died in 1955. Where and under what circumstances Clara met him is not known. Perhaps a shared fate as refugees from Europe brought them together.

Clara moved from Argentina to Buffalo in the US state of New York in 1964. There she lived with one of her sisters at 679 Auburn Avenue. Her great-grandson recalled in 2024: "She stopped in Tarrytown for a few days when I was still a toddler. Unfortunately, I can no longer find the picture of Clara holding me. My brother wasn't born yet. My mother took Clara with her to Buffalo, where she lived with one of her sisters until her death in 1965."

The Badisches Landesmuseum Karlsruhe has had a provenance research unit since 2010. The provenance researcher's investigations led to the discovery of a total of 25 coins and medals that turned out to be looted art. They had been unlawfully confiscated from Clara Sigmann, who lived in Mannheim, during the Nazi era.

Tracing revealed that in March 1939, Clara Sigmann, who wanted to emigrate, had handed over a "collection of silver and copper coins in a customs-sealed package" to the BLM's Coin Cabinet on the instructions of the Mannheim customs office. The original 54 coins and medals were inventoried in the museum at the time.

52 objects from the collection had been the subject of a restitution procedure initiated in May 1950, which led to the return of 22 coins. In 1956, the rightful owner received compensation of 200 DM for the loss of 28 objects due to "looting" at Karlsruhe Palace.

The pieces believed to be lost were identified many years later at the BLM, with the exception of seven objects. The search for the heirs proved difficult, but a newspaper article reporting on a visit to Mannheim by Clara Sigmann-Seidel's granddaughter in 2010 led to the right track. On June 23, 2017, the son Rob Jenson, who had traveled from Bethesda, Maryland, USA with his wife, was able to receive his great-grandmother Clara Sigmann-Seidel's inheritance, the 25 coins.

The material value of the coins was comparatively low and was in the lower four-digit range. According to the granddaughter and her son, their interest in the coins was rather restrained. However, according to provenance researcher Dr. Katharina Siefert, the numismatic collection was of great emotional significance as a "piece in the mosaic of family history", which Rob Jenson had begun to research and understand a few years before his trip to Karlsruhe.