Sigmund and Erna Fein
Sigmund Fein was born on July 9, 1880 in Leipzig, Germany. His wife Erna Fein née Creutzberger was born Mar 17, 1888, the daughter of Georg Creutzberger and Anna Stein. Sigmund Fein was the head of Rauchwarenfirma Fein & Co. Erna and Sigmund were married in 1920, and they had one child who lived to adulthood named Marianne Fein. Marianne Fein later married Edgar Daniel and became Marianne Daniel née Fein.
On November 9, 1938, Mr. and Mrs. Fein were detained and interrogated by Nazi authorities; according to the International Tracing Service, Mr. Fein was interned on November 11, 1938 at Buchenwald. His release from Buchenwald on November 30, 1938 did not put an end to Mr. Fein’s persecution, and he fled with his family to Brussels, Belgium on December 20, 1938. In early 1941 the Fein family immigrated to the United States, traveling via Spain where they boarded a ship bound for New York. Mr. Fein died in New York on 19 May 1942.
Sometime after the Fein family fled to Brussels, they paid the shipping company Hans Eitner to move their property to Belgium. Only a portion of the property was shipped, however, and the Gestapo confiscated the remainder. Leipzig financial authorities auctioned the confiscated property in 1940 and 1941 and deposited the proceeds into blocked accounts.
Among the property taken from the Feins were works of art, later sold by a Leipzig art dealer by the name of Huhn. The proceeds of this sale were likewise deposited into an account to which the Feins had no access.