The Cig­ar Fac­to­ry of Isay Rot­ten­berg: The Hid­den His­to­ry of a Jew­ish Entre­pre­neur in Nazi Germany

Isay Rot­ten­berg was born in Russ­ian Poland in 1889 and grew up in Lodz, mov­ing to Ams­ter­dam on the occa­sion of his mar­riage. In 1932 he moved to Ger­many to take over a bank­rupt cig­ar fac­to­ry. It was the most mod­ern at the time. Rot­ten­berg was cer­tain he could bring it back to life, and with new­ly hired staff of 670 work­ers, the cig­ar fac­to­ry was soon back in busi­ness. Six months lat­er, Hitler came to pow­er and the Nazi gov­ern­ment for­bade the use of machines in the cig­ar indus­try so that tra­di­tion­al hand-rollers could be re-employed. The Cig­ar Fac­to­ry of Isay Rot­ten­berg is writ­ten by two of Rottenberg’s grand­daugh­ters, who knew lit­tle of their grandfather’s past until a call for claims for stolen or con­fis­cat­ed prop­er­ty start­ed them on a jour­ney of dis­cov­ery.