When a family in Germany messaged Racine’s Mark Isenberg on a genealogy site, out of the blue, it was because of a siddur. The family had the book of Jewish prayers that belonged to Isenberg’s great-grandfather during the Holocaust.
Isenberg thought for a moment, letting the weight of the message sink in. This was no ordinary prayer book that you’d pull from a shelf in a synagogue. It was a living relic, a powerful link to his family’s past he could hold in his hands.
After about a month of correspondence, a package showed up on Isenberg’s doorstep in Racine. The siddur lay inside, a piece of Isenberg’s family history, returning 81 years after his great-grandfather’s passing.
“It was emotional, receiving something that my great grandfather had with him in the concentration camp,” Isenberg said.
Isenberg, 71, a former state human resources employee, has spent some of his retirement researching the Holocaust and helping others uncover their Jewish ancestry.
After Isenberg’s great-grandfather died in the Theresienstadt concentration camp during World War II, the siddur eventually came into the possession of a Munich man named Peter Hopfinger.
For 30 years, the siddur sat quietly in Hopfinger’s bookcase, the old cover blending in with the prayer books in his Siddurim collection.
According to Hopfinger’s written account explaining the siddur’s journey, he and his niece discovered Rudolf Sternheim’s name written inside the prayer book in October 2024. The realization sparked their journey to return the siddur to Isenberg and share the story of how it ended up in Hopfinger’s possession.
Alexandra Rottzoll, Hopfinger’s niece, found Isenberg through his prior family research online. She then messaged Isenberg and offered to return the siddur.
“It was a special moment. I knew that I wasn’t just reporting on an old book, but on a lost piece of family history,” Hopfinger told the German news publication Bergsträsser Anzeiger.
Isenberg felt joy at the book’s return to his family, but not surprise. He had seen pieces of Jewish history resurface before, and this was simply another Jewish relic returning to its lineage.
Isenberg views the siddur’s return as a symbol of Jewish resilience throughout history.
“This book is a symbol of humanity and hope,” Hopfinger wrote. “Through all this terror and sorrow, the beacon of hope is still shining.”
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