Research Journey
Discovering My Family's Story
After retiring, I set out to learn more about my father's family so I could preserve our history for my children and, one day, my grandchildren. What began as a simple family history project quickly became a journey through archives, historical records, and conversations with people around the world. Each discovery answered one question while raising several more, gradually bringing the people behind the names to life. Their personalities, relationships, and experiences emerged piece by piece, allowing me to reconstruct my family's history in ways my father never had the opportunity to know. That journey ultimately became the foundation for The Last to Leave.
Click an image below to follow the discoveries that transformed a simple family history project into The Last to Leave.
Where My Journey Began
Among the mementos my father left me when he passed away was this family tree, printed on an early computer and covered with his handwritten notes and corrections. At first glance, it looked like a simple genealogy. But as I studied it, I discovered names I didn't recognize, missing branches of the family, and questions it couldn't answer. I had no idea this modest document would become the starting point for a journey that would span years, connect me with relatives, historians, and archivists around the world, and ultimately uncover the true story of my family's past.
Following My Father's Footsteps
Before I began my own research, my father had already started searching for answers. In 1991, he traveled to Germany to visit the places where our family had once lived and met with local historian Gernot Römer, whose research helped him uncover important pieces of our family's past. Even so, many questions remained unanswered. Years later, after inheriting his notes, correspondence, and photographs from that trip, I came to understand that I wasn't beginning the journey—I was continuing one he had started.
One Photograph Changed Everything
Everything began with a single photograph. It showed my grandfather, Julius, sitting proudly on his motorcycle only a short time before he was murdered during the Holocaust. At first glance, it seemed like an ordinary family picture. But one detail immediately caught my attention—the Star of David on the motorcycle's gas tank. The photograph was taken in 1937 or 1938, several years before Jews in Germany were required to wear the yellow Star of David identifying them as Jewish. Julius appears to have put the symbol there by choice. Why would he do that? Was it an expression of pride, identity, or quiet defiance? I suddenly realized how little I knew about the man behind the photograph. That image sparked my curiosity and set me on a journey to discover who Julius was, the life he lived, and the choices he faced. In many ways, it became the beginning of everything that followed.
The Questions That Wouldn’t Go Away
Every discovery answered one question while raising several more. What had begun as a simple effort to learn more about my family quickly became something much larger. My desk filled with family trees, letters, photographs, archival records, newspaper articles, handwritten notes, and correspondence from historians and archivists around the world. Every document answered one question while revealing another mystery waiting to be solved. Before long, I was no longer researching my family's genealogy—I was reconstructing the lives of ordinary people whose histories had been scattered across countries, archives, and generations. The deeper I searched, the more determined I became to keep going.
Finding My Family’s Voice
Among the papers my father preserved were diaries and correspondence written by my great-aunt Mina and great-uncle Arthur. Unlike official records that documented births, marriages, and deaths, these personal writings revealed the people behind those events. Through their words, I began to glimpse their personalities, relationships, daily lives, and the challenges they faced as history unfolded around them. Their words transformed my relatives from names on a family tree into real people whose voices could still be heard decades later. Those voices became a trusted guide as I continued uncovering my family's story.
Lives Preserved on Paper
This ordinary government record became one of the most revealing discoveries in my research. The more I studied residence registration cards like this one, the more they told me about my family's everyday lives. They documented where family members lived, when they moved, and who shared the same household. By comparing cards from different years, I could follow my relatives through marriages, new homes, growing families, and, eventually, the disruptions brought about by Nazi persecution. What first appeared to be little more than a collection of addresses gradually became a timeline of everyday life.
Discovering a Larger Family
As my research progressed, I began encountering names I had never heard before. At first, I assumed I had made mistakes. There were multiple relatives named Max Neuburger, several Isaak Neuburgers, and other family members who appeared repeatedly across different generations. Gradually, I came to understand that I wasn't tracing a single family—I was uncovering an extended family whose roots in Binswangen stretched back many generations. Cemetery records, family trees, and municipal documents revealed relationships I never knew existed while helping explain many of the conflicting records I had encountered along the way. What I had once imagined as a small family became an interconnected community whose history was deeply woven into the fabric of Binswangen.
Opening the Archives
One of the first original records I discovered was this page from Dachau's admission register. There, in the camp's own handwriting, was my great-uncle Max's name, prisoner number (21,786), birth date, and hometown of Binswangen. For the first time, family stories became documented history. Seeing his name recorded by the very institution that imprisoned him was both sobering and deeply personal. It reminded me that archives preserve far more than names and dates—they preserve the evidence of individual lives, suffering, and survival. At that moment, I understood how much of my family's story was still waiting to be uncovered.
A Life Recorded
At first glance, this appears to be nothing more than my father's birth record. It documents his birth in March 1936 and records the information every birth register was intended to preserve. But years later, I noticed something even more important—a handwritten note added to the margin in 1939. It records the appointment of Berta Herrmann as my father's legal guardian after he was left without parents. In a single document, I could see both the joyful beginning of my father's life and the first official step that helped ensure his survival. It reminded me that historical records often continue telling a story long after they are created.
Loss
This document records one of the most devastating moments in my family's history—the death of my grandmother, Rose Neuburger, on April 6, 1936. She was just 27 years old, and my father, Werner, was only eight days old. Like all civil death records, it presents the facts in a matter-of-fact way: her name, age, residence, and place of death.
Yet one detail challenged everything I thought I knew. The record states that Rose died in the district hospital in Wertingen. First-hand accounts preserved by her siblings, however, tell a very different story—that she was denied medical care because she was Jewish and never admitted to the hospital. If those accounts are accurate, then the official record does not tell the whole story.
It became a powerful reminder that no single document can fully capture the past. Every source—even an original archival record—must be understood alongside other historical evidence and within the context in which it was created.
Escape and Survival
After my grandparents were gone, my father faced an uncertain future. Dated May 22, 1939, this letter from the Washington Heights Synagogue in New York documents the extraordinary efforts of family members on both sides of the Atlantic to bring him safely to America. Four relatives agreed to assume financial responsibility for him until he reached adulthood, making it possible for an orphaned three-year-old to immigrate to the United States. More than a legal document, this letter reflects the determination, generosity, and courage of family members who refused to abandon one of their own. It marked the beginning of my father's journey to a new life—and, ultimately, the reason I am here today.
Reconstructing a Community
Until I discovered this register, my research had focused almost entirely on my own family. Then I found this official list of every Jewish resident living in Binswangen in April 1936. There, alongside my grandfather Julius and my newborn father, Werner, were dozens of other families whose lives were intertwined with theirs. Shopkeepers, merchants, children, parents, and grandparents—all part of a thriving Jewish community that had lived in Binswangen for generations. Seeing my family's names among their neighbors transformed my research. I was no longer reconstructing a single family history; I was uncovering the story of an entire community whose lives would soon be forever changed.
A Community Remembered
As I learned more about Binswangen, I discovered that the town had carefully restored its historic synagogue. This photograph, taken during the dedication ceremony in 1996, shows the sanctuary filled once again—this time with people gathered to remember the Jewish community that had once worshipped there. Knowing that my own ancestors sat in this very room makes the image especially meaningful. The synagogue is no longer the center of a Jewish community, but it has become something equally important: a place where its history is preserved and its memory continues to inspire future generations.
Remembering Those Who Came Before
As I traced my family's history through generations, the Jewish cemetery in Binswangen became one of my most important research resources. Its gravestones preserved names, relationships, and dates that helped confirm family connections and extend my family tree further into the past. This is the gravestone of my great-grandfather, Sigmund Neuburger, who died in 1931. The Hebrew inscription describes him as "the humble and upright man" and concludes with the traditional blessing, "May his soul be bound in the bundle of life." The more I learned about my ancestors, the more I came to understand that they were ordinary people living ordinary lives until history took an extraordinary turn. I found myself wondering what I would have done had I been in their place.
From Research to Story
Years of research had given me the facts of my family's story, but historical records alone could never fully capture what it felt like to live through those extraordinary times. I wanted readers to experience the uncertainty, fear, hope, and impossible choices that ordinary families faced as history unfolded around them. Historical fiction gave me a way to bridge the gaps that no document could fill. Every chapter of The Last to Leave is grounded in extensive research, while the conversations and personal moments were carefully imagined to bring the historical record to life. Writing the novel transformed years of research into a story that readers could experience, remember, and perhaps see a part of themselves in.
Sharing the Story
What began as a search to understand my own family's past ultimately became something much larger. As I researched the choices my ancestors faced, I couldn't help but recognize troubling parallels between the world they inhabited and many of the challenges we face today—growing hatred, rising antisemitism, increasing polarization, and the tendency to blame others during times of uncertainty. Those parallels convinced me that this story needed to be shared. I wrote The Last to Leave not only to honor my family's legacy, but also to encourage readers to reflect on the consequences of prejudice, the importance of moral courage, and the responsibility each of us has to speak up before prejudice and hatred become accepted as normal. If this journey inspires even one person to pause, reflect, and choose empathy over indifference, then my family's story will continue to make a difference.
Interested in researching your own family history? Explore the archives and historical resources that helped me reconstruct mine.
