CiomaSchönhaus

. 28 September 1922 Berlin to 22 September 2015 Biel-Benken northern Switzerland

The Forger 2007

• Der Passfälscher 2004 book, 2022 film Multco

Two Wheels to Freedom 2024

by Arthur J. Magida, Beaverton Lib 940.5318 MAG

Quotes the "The Forger" more than 80 times, but includes other material. I will read the original someday.

NO INDEX which would be helpful when names or places are mentioned later in the book. The Dramatis Personae on page XV to XVII is better than nothing.

The 600 km bicycle journey from Berlin to Switzerland took four weeks; I've cycled that distance in 5 days (mostly I5, from Beaverton Oregon past the California border). I had a better bicycle and road surface, though the maximum elevation on the route (Siskiyou Summit, 1310 meters above sea level).

• Cioma Schönhaus

• p03 parents (Fanja and Boris) and maternal grandparents (Bermann) immigrated from Minsk Russia to Germany after the revolution

• p04 Berlin 4% Jewish (Portland is 2%)

• p05 Scheunenviertel neighborhood

• p07 November 1923 riots

• p09 1926 Rishon LeZion

• p10 1927 returned to Berlin after Cioma nearly died of dysentery

• p11 Hackescher square

• p16 1930 book burnings begin

• p22 Hashomer Hatzair youth group

• p25 1939 Art School for Fashion and Advertising

• p29 Manual labor in Bielefeld, Lotte Windmuller

• p31 Hermannsdenkmal

• p39 enrolled all-Jewish art school
• p40 Renate Klepper
• p48 Jews encouraged to emigrate until October 1941, after that heavy emmigration taxes
• p50 father Boris sent to prison for smuggling butter
• p52 Apartment building bombed, moved to seedy Münzstrasse
• p59 Anton Erdmann's tailor shop, 96 Jewish tailors made army uniforms
• p62 Wysocky's tailor shop, 52 employees, mistress Evchen Hirschfeld had sex with Cioma
• p64 first real girlfriend Dorothee Fliess, p68 Fliess family emigrated to Basel Switzerland
• p69 Det Kassriel and Cioma go to

• p72 bar at Hotel Kaiserhof, where Hitler goes

• p75 new job retooling rifle barrels at Gustav Genschow's small arms factory in Trepnow

• p77 intentionally makes tiny errors that reduce accuracy

• p83 parents transported Soribor, Cioma deferred

• p85 Father Boris to Majdanek

• p86 Zoo bombed, animals eaten, crocodile tails taste like chicken

• p90 Uncle Meier and Aunt Sophie send to Theresienstadt, Cioma moves to their apartment, p94 Det moves in with him

• p95 co-worker Walter Heyman connects Cioma with 38 yo counterfeiter Edith Wolff "Ewo" at Kaiseralle 79 in Friedenau

• p97 27 yo Jizchak Schwersenz
• p98 Edith arrested June 1943, Jizchak escapes to Switzerland in 1944
• p101 arrangements for spare room at Taunussastrasse 29
• p103 paints Nazi "stamp" on 'Jizchak's" wehrpass photo with magnifying glass, fine Japanese brush and water colors

  • image of a wehrpass, rivets in upper right and lower left corners

• p104 room at Frau Lange's, introduction to Franz Kaufmann in Halensee District

• p104 "stuff from three well equipped apartments in his grandmother/aunt/uncle/parent's flat"
• p105 earned 10,000 Reichsmarks selling it

• p107 Introduced to jurist Franz Kaufmann (1886, later shot at Sachsenhausen in Feb 1944)

• p108 Martin Niemöller

  • p108 0.3% of Germans helped Nazi victims

• p108 Helene Jacobs

• p109 German ID's: passports, military IDs, kennkarte,Postausweis

• p110 Hans Joseph Meyer

• p111 Reichsadler

• p111 Ludwig Lichtwitz forger, taught Cioma

  • p112 studio in Moabit

• p116 Georg Pahl photographs Hitler in 1923, surrenders film

• p121 Schlesinger's cousin 22yo Gerda . p122 "sleep at my place" . p126 Gerda "show you what we do"

• p127 Robert Stolz song: du sollst der Kaiser meiner Seele sein

  • smuggled 21 Jews in his limousine, 1940 fled to New York
• p129 Gerda befriends Nazi as "insurance", Cioma walks out. Gerda killed in Auschwitz August 1943
• p130 shoemaker aglet press for photo ID eyelets

• p131 Pelikan Tintentod . . . over 200 IDs, 8 to 10 per week

• p133 followed by stranger, hunts for new rooms

• p138 regular at Hotel Esplanade

• p139 Frau Schirrmacher new landlady

• p142 buys sailboat Kamerad moored at Stössensee

• p145 takes friends sailing; Hanni Hollerbusch expelled from school for saying German-Aryan ancestry nonsense
• p150 new girlfriend Tatjana

• p152 made fake ID for Stella Kubler who later helped Gestapo

• p155 Ludwig unkowingly burns newspaper hiding 21 IDs
• p157 Cioma meets Helene Jacobs
• p159 new fake name Peter Petrov, forged papers registered with the Russische Vertrauensstelle (Russian Trust Office)
• p161 lost papers, police found them, assumed Russian spy, began manhunt
• p165 hid in Helene Jacob's apartment for three months - discussion, learning, romance

• p170 Jacobs attended St. Anne's church in Dahlem, pastor Martin Niemöller

• p177 August 17, 1943, Helene arrested, sentenced to 2.5 years in prison
• p180 Aunt and uncle's apartment, plans trip to Switzerland
• p186 Mark Twain and yodellers (recounted in "A Tramp Abroad") ... paid them to stop
• p186 Switzerland accepted political refugees, but rejected Nazi victims (Jews, Roma, homosexuals, etc.
• p191 train conductor aquaintance suggests baggage car crosses border first, hide in that. Wrong; luggage removed before border.
• p192 Why a bike? Nobody did it, Germans wouldn't expect it. He didn't have a bike.
• p194 no bikes available, until he offers 3000 marks,

  • p272 Footnote 24.2: equivalent to $1200, 16 times the cost of top-of-the-line Schwinn Paramount in the US. This bit of extra research by the author probably isn't in The Forger

• p195 The Nazis hated bicycles, too much uncontrollable freedom
• p196 ideal bike: luggage rack, bike light with generator, balloon tires (much better for cobbled streets), padded seat
  • except ... only one gear, mountains difficult
• p201 Tatjana sews pouch so Cioma doesn't lose IDs (and maps, contact info in US and Basel)

• Berlin to Feldkirch on bike paths 990 km, 57 hours, 17 km/h, 5000 m Ascent, 4800 m Descent, 580 m maximum altitude, 9 peaks and valleys

• p204 1943 September 3, heavy British bombing raid on Berlin, 320 planes. Cioma disables hissing incendiary bomb with sand and water
  • later, large bombing raids every night
• p205 September 4, leaves Berlin, police too busy to stop him. Potsdam, Belitz, Wittenberg 130 km, 8 hrs on bikemap.net, 750 meters ascent and descent
• p211 Halle next night, then along Saale river

• p214 Bamberg

• p218 the other Grimm's fairy tales "The Girl Who Was Killed by Jews", and "The Jew's Stone"

• p219 Lindau on Lake Constance (Bodensee)

• p221 Feldkirch
• p222 tries to hop train, fails, observed. Heads back, northwest, along the northern shore of Bodensee

• p226 Öhningen

• p229 wades across small stream into Switzerland

• p232 Stein am Rhein

• p234 Schaffhausen, policeman calls contact Karl Barth in Basel

• p235 in refugee camp, Cioma meets Walter Joelson, whose ID Cioma had forged

• p237 discussions with Karl Barth about faith
• p238 Cioma graduates art school in 1948
• p239 Swiss citizen in 1955
• p239 Writes to Helene in 1946; she visited almost every year. She never married or had a lover.
• p240 Cioma Schönhaus A.G., with as many as 10 employees at a time
• p240 divorced Rosmarie-Susanne 1956, married Rigula in 1963, two sons from each marriage

• p242 second two sons performed as (NOT "Beit") Bait Jaffe Klezmer Orchestra

• p243 died September 22, 2015, six days short of 93rd birthday, Yom Kippur