Descriptive Summary
Administrative Information
Access Points
Biography
Scope and Content
Descriptive Summary
Title: Fairbrook (Lotte Cohn) Memoirs,
Date (inclusive): 1898-1938
Collection number: Mss177
Creator:
Lotte Cohn Fairbrook
Extent: 0.5 linear ft.
Repository:
University of the Pacific. Library. Holt-Atherton Department of
Special Collections
Shelf location: For current information on the location of
these materials, please consult the library's online catalog.
Language: English.
Administrative Information
Access
Collection is open for research.
Preferred Citation
[Identification of item], Fairbrook (Lotte Cohn) Memoirs, Mss177,
Holt-Atherton Department of Special Collections, University of the Pacific
Library
Access Points
personal name
Fairbrook, Lotte Cohn (1898-1996)
Cohn, Bernard
Cohn, Johanna Magnus
Fairbrook, Alvin
Fairbrook, Erika
Fairbrook, Paul
Fairbrook, George
Schoenbach family
Cohn family
Magnus family
subject
Jewish bankers -Germany
Jewish women -Germany
Jewish youth -Germany
Jews -Biography
Jews -Genealogy
Jews -Persecutions -Gemany
Jews -Palestine
Jews -France
Biography
Lotte Cohn Fairbrook (1898-1996) was the daughter of a well-to-do banker
in Hamburg, Germany. She attended Gertrud Baumer's Women's School of Social
Work in that city. In 1920 Lotte Cohn married Alvin Schoenbach, a banker of
Hildesheim, Hanover. The Schoenbachs had four children (1922-29), Erika,
George, Paul and Helmut. In 1924 they moved to Berlin. There Alvin Schoenbach
collected miniature paintings. With the rise of anti-Semitism in Germany, the
Schoenbachs resolved to emigrate to Palestine. The sale of one of Schoenbach's
miniatures financed their trip and they arrived in Tel Aviv in 1933. The
parents found that Palestine's climate and social conditions were not to their
liking, however, and they soon planned to emigrate to America. During this
period, Alvin began collecting postage stamps and the sale of a portion of his
collection helped finance their perilous trip to America via Yugoslavia (1938).
After their arrival in the United States, the Schoenbachs translated their
German name as "Fairbrook." Alvin Fairbrook continued in the stamp collecting
business in New York City. He died in 1962. Mrs. Fairbrook remained in New York
until 1982, when she moved to Stockton (Calif.) to be near her sons, George, a
computer programmer with Atkinson Computer, and, Paul, Director of Auxiliary
Services at the University of the Pacific and, later, Commissioner of the Port
of Stockton (Calif.).
Scope and Content
The Lotte Fairbrook Memoirs describe Mrs. Fairbrook's life from its
beginnings in Hamburg, Germany (1898) through her emigration to Palestine
(1933) and then to the United States(1938).