David Gelernter & Louise Levy
David: ‘There is only one family of Gelernters in the world which we have traced back to the mid-1400s. I have lived in the Hertfordshire area since 1992 working variously as a judge, a family court adviser, chair of governors of a primary school and director of a fostering agency.’
Louise (David’s daughter): ‘I have lived in the St Albans area since 2007 and I work as a midwife.’
Louise: ‘This postcard is written using Hebrew letters in a coded form of Yiddish – a mixture of German and Hebrew spoken in Central Europe. It tells of people my great-grandfather
Louis smuggled out of Germany before the First World War, including many members of my family.’
Louise: ‘Louis Gelernter made his first trip to Britain in 1899 with his wife and family. They were crowded into steerage, the cheapest accommodation on a ship, expecting to arrive in New York, but they mistakenly disembarked in Edinburgh.
My grandfather Monty’s birth was registered in Scotland, where we think this photograph was taken. The family returned to Berlin, where they lived for a further 13 years before moving to London in 1912.’
