On February 21, 1939, the Nazi regime enacted the "Third Decree based on the Ordinance regarding the Registration of Jewish Property". This discriminatory edict required 2,306 Jewish families in Munich alone to surrender all their valuables.

Ludwig Feuchtwanger was one of the people forced to hand over their treasured items, which, in his case, included a silver menorah that had been in the family for generations. On learning of the decree, he realized that the family’s cherished menorah would be confiscated. In anger, he hurled it to the ground and trampled it to pieces. Edgar Feuchtwanger, when speaking to Regina Prinz, recalls his father Ludwig’s reaction to the Nazi decree. That day "my father lost his cool".

The Historisches Stadtmuseum München, as the Museum was then known, acquired, through the Municipal Pawn Office, a silver spoon that had belonged to Ludwig Feuchtwanger. Our provenance researcher, Dr. Regina Prinz, went all the way to Winchester, England, to return the silver spoon to the Feuchtwangers, its rightful owners. The family then kindly donated it to the museum. It is their wish that the public learn about their family history and the circumstances surrounding the confiscation of the spoon.

Ludwig Feuchtwanger was the brother of the famous writer Lion Feuchtwanger. As a critic of the Nazi regime, Lion had been subjected to cruel persecution which had started even before the Nazis came to power. When they took office, he was forced to flee to France in 1933 to live in exile. Ludwig Feuchtwanger chose to remain in Germany and weather the ever-increasing restrictions and discrimination. He worked as a lawyer, ran a publishing house, and was actively involved in Munich’s Jewish Community. He lost his job at the Regional Court in 1933 and was barred from the Reich Chamber of Culture in 1935, leaving him with his position within the Jewish Community alone.

His son, Edgar Feuchtwanger (born 1924), grew up in Munich, near Prinzregentenplatz. He was nine years old when the Nazis seized power in 1933.He showed Regina Prinz pictures from his childhood and old schoolbooks. His elementary school teacher had made the children paint swastikas in class and write birthday greetings to dictator Adolf Hitler in their exercise books. Edgar, a good, diligent student, was forced to take part in this ideological indoctrination. He also told of how his friends gradually began to shun him because of his Jewish faith.

Along with many other Jewish men, his father, Ludwig Feuchtwanger, was, as Edgar put it, "carted off to the Dachau concentration camp" on Kristallnacht in November 1938. He was, however, released in December, and the family immediately got ready to emigrate. Edgar Feuchtwanger was the first to leave, traveling to England alone in February 1939 when he was just 14 years old. He lived with a local family until his parents, Ludwig and Erna Rosine (née Rheinstrom), joined him two months later. The family finally settled in the southern English town of Winchester.

Just 18 months after his imprisonment in Dachau, Ludwig Feuchtwanger was again detained, this time in England, on account of his German nationality. Following his release, he worked as a translator and advisor to the British army. He died in 1947, aged just 61.

Edgar Feuchtwanger did military service from 1943 to 1944. He then studied at Cambridge University where he was awarded his doctorate in 1947. He subsequently taught history at the University of Southampton. In 1981/82, he returned to Germany as visiting professor and taught at the Goethe-University, Frankfurt am Main.

He still lives in Winchester, where he married Primrose in 1962. They have three children.

He has written a book about his childhood in National Socialist Munich entitled "Hitler my Neighbor. Memories of a Jewish Childhood" (available at Penguin Random House) which has been translated into German and published by Siedler-Verlag in 2014 ("Als Hitler unser Nachbar war. Erinnerungen an meine Kindheit im Nationalsozialismus").