- Document ID: 6956934
- Document Collection: 1-1-5-3-Individuelle H�ftlingsunterlagen-KL Buchenwald
- Link to Online Archive: https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/de/document/6956934
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Mendel Alter ROTENBERG
#jew
According to the Joods Monument he was American (not Dutch):
https://www.joodsmonument.nl/en/page/148387/alter-mendel-rotenberg
Rev Alter (Johnnes) Mendel Rottenberg (1888 - 1941) - Genealogy (geni.com)
He was born Alter Mendel Rotenberg in December 1888 (not in 1889, 1890 or 1891) in the mining city of Dąbrowa Górnicza (in German language called Dombrowa), in WW I part of Austria, but since 1918 located in the southern part of Poland. He was a son of rabbi Izak Rotenberg and Debora Werker.
About 1911 he was baptized in a Reformed church in Rotterdam, added the given name Johannes and changed his surname to Rottenberg, with two letters t. His father was very angry about that and they never saw each other again.
In the period 1911-1914 he was an assistent-missionary among the Jews for the missionary society under Jews „Elim“ in the Dutch harbour city of Rotterdam, located in the southwestern part of the Netherlands.
On July 14, 1914 Johannes Rottenberg (25 years old, born in Austria, Hebrew, reverend) arrived on the S.S. Noordam from his last residence place Rotterdam, Holland, at the port of New York, Ellis Island.
In the period 1914-1919 he studied theology in Chicago (Illinois), Dubuque (Iowa) and Grand Rapids (Michigan), which led to a master’s degree in theology and ordination in the Christian Reformed Church.
On June 5, 1917 John Rottenberg was living in the village of Lansing, nowadays a southern suburb of Chicago, Cook County, Illinois, and a missionary for the Society of Lutheran Church in Chicago, when he was administrated on a WW I Draft Registration Card. He was short and slender, had dark blue eyes and dark brown hair, and was slightly bald. The document states that he was born on December 25, 1891 (instead of 1889 or 1890).
On February 20, 1920 John Rottenberg married in Lansing, Cook County, Illinois the two years younger Cornelia Boender, born in February 1894 in the southwestern part of the Netherlands.
On December 8, 1920 Johannes aka John Rottenberg, born on December 25, 1889 in Austria and residing at 1324 W. 14th Street in Chicago, Cook County, Illinois was naturalized. The document confirms that he arrived on July 14, 1914 in the USA.
They had the following children:
- Nellie, April 18, 1921 Chicago;
- Cecilia, March 18, 1922 Chicago;
- Deborah, May 22, 1923, Chicago;
- Gertrude, July 12, 1924, Chicago;
- Isaac Cornelius, June 11, 1926, Harrow-on-the-Hill (near London), England;
- David Baron, December 5, 1927, Harrow-on-the-Hill, England.
In the second half of 1924 they moved from Chicago to England.
On March 26, 1929 they arrived on the S.S. Berengaria from Southampton, England at the port of New York, Ellis Island, heading for Lansing, Cook County, Illinois, to visit his wife Cornelia’s family.
On June 9, 1929 they arrived on the S.S. Statendam from New York at the port of Rotterdam and started to live at the village of Overschie, since 1941 a northwestern district of Rotterdam. On December 29, 1931 the family Rottenberg moved to Scheveningen near The Hague (Den Haag).
In 1929 he became in Rotterdam reverend for the missionary society „Elim“. He organized since 1932 in the Netherlands festivities for Jewish missionairs. In January 1942 he was arrested by the Germans, sent to prison in Scheveningen and then to the concentration camps Amersfoort (Netherlands) and Buchenwald (Germany).
John Rottenberg died in June 1942 at the age of 61 years in the quicksilver mines of the concentration camp Mauthausen in Austria.