Archive | July 2026

A ceremony in Munich

Jul24

I never thought of my Jewish great grandmother Lotte (Charlotte) Thannhauser as a holocaust victim. I thought she had just died, long widowed, of old age at 70 (which now seems young to me!). It turns out that she probably lost interest in living after her beloved only child, son Siegfried, was put on leave from his professorship because he was Jewish in April 1933, and so succumbed to her illness.

I have just returned from a trip to Munich where she was honored with a plaque on the current building at the address where she once lived, along with her sister and niece Josie. Many of my American and Israeli cousins were there too. Click here for the story about this on the Münchner Wohnen website. Lotte and her sister Lina’s descendants could be found because I keep a web site with our family history which I have been researching for many many years.

Charlotte Langermann Thannhauser, perhaps her brother Max, and Lina Langermann Thannhauser playing cards

I received an email this past January from a German historian, Dr. Christiane Fritsche, who was researching the residents of the building my great grandmother Lotte lived in. She found me online. The Munich housing authority (Münchner Wohnen) was planning on adding plaques to the buildings there. They provided Dr. Fritsche with a group of interns who were assigned to do the research. I forwarded her email to my double third cousin Nava in Israel because her great grandmother Lina, the sister of Lotte, was truly a holocaust victim. She did not want to leave Germany until it was too late.

Continue reading →

Happy 250th to the country my ancestors came to

Jul4

Twelve years ago I wrote a post here thanking this country for taking my mother and her parents in (click here to read it). Today on the 250th, I want to honor my hard-working Norwegian ancestors, who came in the late 1800s.

My father, Larry Munson, with his Dad, Lawrence J. Munson in about 1940

Below are some excerpts from letters my Norwegian grandfather, born in Christiansand, wrote many years later to his son. He describes his emigration at the age of 6 with his family and their arrival in Brooklyn, N.Y., where there was an enclave of Norwegian immigrants. (click here for all the letters.)

What America was I did not know, but I had imbibed enough of family talk to realize it was a land of plenty and an interesting place to go to.
[…]
My first impression was naturally that of wonder at everything new and strange. It was a great adventure into new and different conditions. My second reaction was one I shared with my mother – that of disappointment at the dirt and filth in Brooklyn in the summer of 1884. Goats were walking the streets eating the paper that littered the street.
[…]

Munson family in 1909 celebrating 25 years in America

My mother […] pictured the U.S. as wealthy and prosperous, and here was poverty and unrestrained drinking.
[…]
In our little Norsetown the streets were clean and in almost every house you would see potted geraniums or other flowers in the front windows. There were many poor people but they were clean and orderly, and there was no public display of poverty.
[…]
My mother with her family of eight children felt she was too busy to learn a new language, and the children did all the shopping. It was only later on as she would hear the children glibly jabber on in this new tongue, that she wanted to know more of this new language. Her children used English among ourselves – especially when we did not want mother to know of our exploits.

My grandfather would later marry a piano student of his, the daughter of Norwegian immigrants (who totally approved!). He wrote about their courtship in his diary.

Continue reading →