What We Know:
Family name: Köstner
Given name: Leopold
Date of birth/Place of birth:  3 November. 1920. Coburg/Bavaria
Date of death/Place of death: 6 December. 1999. Norwalk, Connecticut, USA
Age:  22 years old at deportation

Leopold Rudolph Köstner (later Rudolph L Köstner) was born 3 November 1920 in Coburg, Germany. He was adopted by parents Michael Köstner and  Elisabeth. geb Schiller in Sonneberg. Leopold‘s birth  parents were Josef Goldberg and Regine Steinfeld. Information regarding the circumstances of his adoption and when he was adopted is unknown. It is important to note that Leopold’s birth parents are indicated as “mos.“ on his marriage certificate, an abbreviation of Jewish. His adoptive parents were catholic and protestant. Under the Nazi Nuremberg Laws Leopold was considered ethnically Jewish despite being adopted into a catholic and protestant household.

Leopold worked as a general labourer in Sonneberg. He lived at Coburger Straße 21.

After the Nazis came to power in 1933, Leopold applied for emigration to Spain. The exact date of his application is undocumented on his emigration index card. Leopold applied on his own without the mention of any other family members. Unfortunately his efforts to emigrate were unsuccessful.

On Kristallnacht, all of the Jewish men in Sonneberg were rounded up and forced to walk around the town holding antisemitic signs. Leopold and two other Jewish men were arrested and taken to Buchenwald concentration camp. The date of his release is unknown, however he did return to Sonneberg after his arrest. In 1939, 13 Jews remained in Sonneberg.

Leopold was the only Jewish person deported from Sonneberg to Belzyce Ghetto on 10 May 1942. He was 22 years old when he was deported.

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Leopold arrived in Lublin Ghetto 12 May 1942 and was registered in Majdan Tatarski Ghetto, a suburban industrial district of Lublin closely connected to Majdanek Concentration camp. During this time only those deemed fit to work and who possessed a J-Ausweis were able to settle within the ghetto. Selections to reduce the amount of people in the ghetto were carried out on a regular basis. Leopold Rudolph Köstner is recorded in the “Index of persons with J-Ausweis residing in the ghetto in Majdan Tatarski (1942)” as J-Ausweis number 3452. The Majdan Tatarski Ghetto was gradually terminated through various liquidation efforts between April and 9 November 1942, when the final “resettlement” was carried out. The remaining Jews in the ghetto were either murdered on the spot, sent to Majdanek concentration camp, the work camp in Lipowa Street or the Gestapo prison in the Lublin castle.

It is unclear where Leopold was located after the liquidation of the ghetto as there are no records indicating his whereabouts after Majdan Tatarski ghetto. Wherever Leopold was sent to next, he is one of very few survivors from the 10 May 1942 deportation. It is possible that he never arrived in Belzyce and instead remained in camps in and around Majdanek. In a post war card file for the registration of displaced people inside and outside of camps, the card file for Rudolph Köstner b.1920 indicates the last concentration camp he was registered was Majdanek, Lublin. Majdanek was liquidated in 1944 where the majority of the remaining prisoners were either shot or brought on a death march headed to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Some estimated 300 prisoners were left behind and were later liberated by Soviet soldiers.

On 21 July 1945 in Munich, Leopold married Anastasia Ilasch at the Evangelical Lutheran Parish Office of Munich, a little over 2 months from when Germany surrendered. From this point on. Leopold is referred to by the name Rudolph L Köstner.

A year later, in 1946, Anastasia and Leopold welcomed a baby girl, Traudl, into their family. They emigrated to the US on 12 March 1948 from Bremerhaven Germany on the MARINE TIGER, and arrived in New York on 23 March 1948.

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After their arrival in the United States, Rudolph and Anatasia spent many years living in both Naples, Florida and Norwalk, Connecticut. Rudolph was the founder and president of Trudy Toy Co., Inc. located in Norwalk.

In 1957 they had a son named Rudolph Leopold Köstner Jr. They had a daughter Elizabeth, later Elizabeth A Thyssen.  There is no mention of Rudolph and Anatasia’s daughter Traudl past her registration on the passengers list when they emigrated from Germany to the USA  in 1948. It is possible that Traudl changed her name to Elizabeth in the United States, but this cannot be confirmed.

Rudolph L Köstner died 6 December 1999 in Norwalk, Connecticut, survived by his wife, two children and four granddaughters.  He is buried in Montana, USA. Anatasia was buried in the same location in 2010.

There are no stolpersteine laid for Rudolph Leopold Köstner in Coburg or Sonneberg.

Based on the very little information we have about Rudolph’s birth parents, it is hard to determine their fate. As per the 1939 minority census, Josef Goldberg born 18 October 1871 was deported from Berlin and murdered in Theresienstadt. However, it cannot be confirmed if this is Leopold’s father as his birthdate is unknown and cannot  be verified. The fate of Regina Steinfeld is unknown.

Information regarding his adoptive parents is unknown as their birthdates are unconfirmed in any of the documents found about Leopold Rudolph Köstner. They are referred to in Rudolph’s obituary as his late parents.