Artifact of the Month

Adolph Katten's trunk

In the early 1930's Adolph Katten was a young man in Germany who was in business with his brother, Emil. They had a small clothing and dry goods store in Kirchhain called Gebruder Katten (Katten Brothers). The extended family had lived in that area for generations. One evening after work Adolph went out with one of his friends. On the way home they were stopped by three Brown Shirts* who called them dirty Jews and beat them up. Adolph tried to stop one of the Brown Shirts by reminding him that they had gone to school together as children. The Brown Shirt said "You are still a dirty Jew and I am going to beat you up even harder for trying to talk to me".

When Adolph got home he told his mother, Rachel, what happened, said it was no longer safe to stay in Germany and suggested that the family leave. But his mother said they should not leave and that government officials would know that the family was loyal to Germany because Adolph's oldest brother, Berthold, served in the Army during World War I and died fighting on the Russian front. Rachel's reaction was very typical of many German Jews. But in reality, army service during World War I did not spare any individuals from the Nazi's plans.

Adolph began the process of completing paperwork to come to the United States. His uncle, Abraham Katten, who lived in Hartford, CT sponsored him. Adolph arrived in August 1935 at the age of 29 with all his worldly possessions in the trunk and not speaking one word of English. He lived with cousins in Hartford and picked tobacco for the rest of the summer while he learned English. He began working at Brown-Thompson's in Hartford going from stock clerk to buyer until he bought Blake's at the "X" in Springfield, MA in 1940.

The rest of his family, his mother, 3 brothers and a sister and their families came to Hartford, CT between 1936 and 1940. His father and older sister died in Germany of natural causes before they could leave.

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SA was an abbreviation for Sturmabteilung ("Storm detachment" or "Assault detachment" or "Assault section"), and was usually translated as "storm troopers". They functioned as a military supplement to the Nazi Party and played a key role in Hitler's rise to power in the 1920s and early 1930s but were superseded by the SS after 1933.

SA men were often called "brown shirts" for the color of their uniforms and were distinguished from the SS (Schutzstaffel), who wore black and brown uniforms Brown-colored shirts were chosen as the SA uniform because a large batch of them were cheaply available after World War I as leftovers from German troops who served in Africa.

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Previous Artifacts of the Month

Einsatzgruppe armband

Citation given to Captain Sidney M. Cooley of Springfield, MA by the Jews in Beyreuth, Germany in 1946