Places Behind the Story
Follow the places that shaped my family's journey.
Every place has a story. Together, these places trace my family's journey—from small Bavarian villages to cities of refuge. They witnessed my family's joys and struggles, and, ultimately, their determination to survive.
Explore the places that shaped my family's journey and discover how each became part of the true story behind The Last to Leave.
Follow the Journey
1. Binswangen, Bavaria, Germany
Binswangen today
Where our family lived for generations.
A close-knit Jewish community with its own synagogue, school, and traditions, Binswangen was home to the Neuburger family for generations. As part of a Jewish community that had existed here since the 1600s, my great-grandparents, Sigmund and Marie Neuburger, raised their children—including my grandfather, Julius—before Nazi persecution destroyed that centuries-old way of life.
Marie Neuburger with newborn twins Max and Julius (1902)
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Rose Heidelberger (later Rose Neuburger)
Flehingen today
2. Flehingen (Sickingen), Baden, Germany
Where my grandmother’s story began.
Flehingen was the childhood home of my grandmother, Rose Heidelberger. Here she grew up surrounded by family, faith, and a close-knit Jewish community before marrying my grandfather, Julius Neuburger, and beginning the next chapter of her life in Binswangen. Like countless Jewish communities throughout Germany, Flehingen would ultimately see generations of Jewish life shattered by Nazi persecution.
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Former entrance to Dachau Concentration Camp
Max Neuburger's release record from Dachau (Arolsen Archives)
3. Dachau, Germany
Where persecution was carried out on a national scale.
By November 1938, my grandmother, Rose, had died after being denied timely medical care, and my grandfather, Julius, had been murdered. During Kristallnacht, my great-uncle Max was arrested while in Binswangen completing the remaining family's emigration plans and imprisoned at Dachau concentration camp. Kristallnacht marked the Nazi regime’s escalation from persecuting individual Jews to the coordinated, mass imprisonment of thousands across Germany. His incarceration separated him from my then three-year-old father Werner, and delayed the desperate effort to get Werner out of Nazi Germany.
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