Cassirer and Cohen: histories, relatives and descendants

Whilst this site was originally made available for the interest of relatives interest has now extended well beyond that, and so has the content of the site.

The site touches on some related 4,000 families with more than 1,200 surnames. But the site is focussed on two families (Cassirer and Cohen) of Jewish origin, beginning in a small area bounded by Schweinfurt, Dessau, Berlin, Schwientochlowitz, and Crakow. The CASSIRER family became extremely prominent in Berlin prior to World War II. The COHEN family became extremely prominent in Australia. Both made interesting intellectual, commercial and political contributions. Since the Holocaust, relatives can be found spread across the world (to see more on this click on overview).

The site has grown to include more than 5,600 people (see family tree). It gives an account of how key events - whether the Holocaust or transportation to the colonies - confronted and scattered them, and the ways they responded and rebuilt their lives across the world. It includes a collection of images of original documents, including family trusts, photographs, and convict records amongst others.

Three things you need to know: Best place to start is the overview click here. To find a particular person click here... To delve into the collection of supporting documents click here.

Other links to the site (including its search engine) are given below. As to what you will find here, there will still be errors and deficiencies and the site will be as good as we make it. If you are able, please join in this exercise by providing me with corrections, additional facts, interesting accounts of the lives of any the people touched on here, or any photos, documents or references to documents which might enhance the interest or usefulness of this. It is my policy not to make available addresses or other contact details. Any description or photograph of you will, at your request, be removed or replaced with one that you provide.

Jim Falk.

To read an historical overview of these families click - OVERVIEW

To go to the family tree click here - FAMILY TREE

To read other related documents click here - KEY DOCUMENTS

Please help in identifying the unknown people in these photographs: PLEASE LOOK HERE

To contact me click here -

For those who wrote in relation to this site over 7 Dec 2004 - 11 Feb 2005. On 11 Feb 2005 the computer hosting the database for this site was stolen and, as a consequence, e-mails over that period were lost and some errors, corrected over Dec-Feb in the family tree, may also inadvertantly have been reintroduced. If you sent photos or other corrections in that period please check to see they have been included, and if not, please resend your email.

This comment is primarily for indexing purposes: These pages are about a few, not all members of the Cassirer, Cohen and Falk families, some of them living for centuries in Germany. Most prominent and now most looked after members are the philosopher Prof. Ernst (Alfred) Cassirer (1874-1945), galerist Paul Cassirer (1871-1926) and publisher Bruno Cassirer (1872-1941). Of course it's impossible to write about any jewish family of the 19th and 20th century without mentioning if and how they escaped antisemitism, humilation and extermination. Whereas the Cohens under consideration here were already in Australia, the Cassirers and Falks, as families who once migrated from the Russian Empire (Poland) and Austrian Empire (Galicia, Bohemia, Hungary) to the German Empire (Prussia), lost some of their dearest in the Holocaust. For more information about these please look at the Yad Vashem site of the Jewish Holocaust Museum . The Cohen family which is the subject of this site escaped the Holocaust since they were already in Australia. The fate of the Falk family in the Shoah is less well known. The oppression unleashed by the Nazi regime caused the Falk and Cassirer family members to leave Berlin or face death. We have identified family members who were killed in the Holocaust. Erich Falk escaped the Holocaust and ended with his family in Israel. The site author is Jim Falk, currently Director of the Australian Centre for Science, Innovation and Society (ACSIS) at the University of Melbourne. Details of his new book (with Joe Camilleri) can be found at Worlds-in-Transition.com. To see some genealogical sites which have supported this one by listing this in their directories click here. Click here for Ernst Cassirer Home Page , Cassirer Home Page , Falk Home Page , Cohen Home Page .

This site is supported by:bid sniper