Individual Details

Arrival

mail of WCT 11/12/1998:
Hillel originally wanted to immigrate to Palestina.
However at the insistence of Beryl and William he agreed in 1923 (1922?) to visit USA first.

Hillel's Berlin Apartment Building:

The apartment building that Hillel once owned in Berlin is interesting because it a) represents one of Hillel's early and better investments b) was not confiscated by the Nazis and it survived the intensive Allied air bombardments of Berlin and c) explains why George travelled to Berlin so frequently during which visits he was able to stay with family members and/or make continuation trips to Lemberg, and once even to Tarnapol and Podwoloczyska (see Note No.17).

To protect himself against the extreme inflation which ensued after WWI, Hillel used some of his stock market gains in 1918 or 1920 to buy the property shown in these photos at "Berlin S036, Manteuffel Strasse 102." There were 43 apartment units/tenants. The building was in two sections one set behind the other. Also there were two street level stores, one being a "Fleisherie" or "Meat Store" and the other a Beleuehtung." Hillel provided George a "Foilmacht" or "Affidavit" (more likely a "Power of Attorney") certified by the German Consulate in the USA so he could go to Berlin several times a month to pay taxes, collect rents etc. Before he left Vienna in 1938, George hung a large sign painted on a wooden board on the foyer wall which said "Hillel Turkel, Cleveland Ohio." During WWII the Nazis did not take over the building because it was a "foreign building," that is, it was owned by a foreigner as Hillel was by that time considered.

After the War the building ended up in the American Zone where private ownership continued to be protected whereas most property in the Russian Zone was confiscated.

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known also as Isak Moses SPAZIERER
birth 1875
Podwo³oczyska Jewish Birth Index, Supplementary and Delayed Registrations (1858-1936) database, fond 701, opys 1, sprava 262, page 13, AKT number 26. The original records are held in The Central State Historical Archives of Ukraine in Lviv and were added to this search engine on 27 December 2013. An image of this record can also be viewed on FamilySearch/LDS microfilm #2405335, item #5. The Gesher Galicia unique record ID is GG-Podwoloczyska-Births-Supplementary-26.