By Mary Bolich
This article is sixth in a series on Luxembourg Americans who have gone through the process of reclamation of Luxembourg nationality to become Luxembourg citizens. These dual citizens, who were assisted in their citizenship journey by Luxembourg Legacy, reflect the passion that new Luxembourgers in America have for all things Luxembourg.

When we think about Luxembourg immigrants to the United States, poor Catholic farmers usually come to mind. While rural Catholic Luxembourgers seeking a better life in agriculture did make up most of the U.S. immigrant population, a noteworthy portion of Luxembourg’s Jewish population made their way to America as well. Nancy Cohen’s Luxembourg ancestors were Jewish, and her family history is filled with tragedy, good fortune and serendipitous discoveries.

Nancy’s paternal grandmother Gothon (Bermann) Joseph was born in Ettelbruck, Luxembourg. She and her husband Simon Joseph (who died during the influenza epidemic during WWI), had two children, Anna and Marcel, Nancy’s father.

When Nazi Germany invaded Luxembourg in 1940, Luxembourgish Jews faced intense persecution and many were forced into hiding or exile, while a large percentage were deported and exterminated in the Jewish Holocaust. [You can read about the history of Luxembourgish Jews during WWII here.] 

Because he had a Luxembourg passport, Marcel Joseph, who was born just across the border in Germany but moved to Luxembourg when he was a year and a half old, was not sent to a displacement camp. Fanny Mlotek, who later became Marcel’s wife, was from Pforzheim, Germany, and held a German passport. She was taken to a holding camp where Jews being held there were allowed a three-hour free passage each day. She used that time to try to procure documents to leave Germany. That’s when she met Marcel.

“My father made sure that before he left Europe, he had all the papers set up for his mother and his sister. He would never have left without them. Of course, things happened and they couldn’t get out,” Nancy said. 

Nancy relates a story of her father saving 60 people from a Nazi camp in Bayonne, France.

“It’s like a Spielberg movie. He had to appear in front of the Nazi guards, and they could have arrested him right there and thrown him into a camp, but somehow, he got all the way to Portugal, where their boat was leaving. But he was sent back, and they had to hide in abandoned train stations. It’s just a crazy, amazing story!”

Marcel did everything he could to get his mother and sister out of Luxembourg.

“My grandmother, may she rest in peace, who was a hardnosed Luxembourger, said, ‘Here I was born; here I’ll stay.’ And my aunt stayed with my grandmother. They were eventually sent to Auschwitz, and the rest is history,” Nancy said.

Marcel and Fanny emigrate to the Dominican Republic
Marcel was designated a leader for his heroic efforts in rescuing people from the camp and was subsequently selected for Dominican Republic dictator Rafael Trujillo’s program to accept Jewish refugees fleeing Europe into the Caribbean country. Trujillo’s intention was to “whiten” the population and improve his international image. Nancy’s parents had to sign an agreement that they would stay in the Dominican Republic for at least six years. There, they were married and Marcel farmed and Fanny worked in an office. 

“When my parents finally got the necessary documents and money together to move to the U.S., they pretty much just came with the shirts on their backs,” Nancy said.

Seeking jobs, her parents moved to Cleveland, where her mother’s brother lived, and then to Portland, Oregon, where Nancy was born. The family moved to Wisconsin when she was six years old.

Coincidental connections with family history
In the 1980s, as part of a reconciliation effort, West German towns and cities invited former Jewish residents back as honored guests. Nancy’s parents were invited and she accompanied them on the trip 1983. Nancy found it haunting.

“I just couldn’t stand it. Every older person I saw there I pictured in an SS uniform. It made my blood run cold.” 

When they drove across the border into Luxembourg, Nancy’s father yelled at her to stop the car.

“He got out and kissed the ground,” she said. “I sort of vowed at the time—I mean, my dad is my hero, and I knew I had to connect myself to Luxembourg.”

About four years ago, she thought about her bucket list item of acquiring her dual citizenship, so she googled it and she found Kevin Wester’s name. 

“I’m sitting here in Santa Monica, California, and Kevin popped up. Kevin, from Milwaukee, where I grew up. So, I signed up to get my citizenship,” said Nancy, who works as a registered clinical laboratory scientist at the American Red Cross. 

That led to her connection with Lilliane Gonvia, Kevin’s cousin who grew up in Ettelbruck. She assists Kevin with obtaining birth certificates for citizenship clients. After Kevin discussed Nancy’s ancestors with Lilliane, Lilliane mentioned the Josephs of Ettelbruck to her then 96-year-old mother, a lifelong resident of Ettelbruck. Liliane’s mother remembered the family and told her that Gothon had sewn dresses for her when she was a girl back in the 1930s. That was one serendipitous connection of many.

Through Lilliane, Nancy met Nico Beckerich, whose family owned a bakery in Ettelbruck that baked bread for and helped the Jews in hiding. Anna Joseph, who was a haberdasher like her mother, had a workshop above the bakery. Nico said that Anna sewed clothes for a doll displayed in the bakery window—coded outfits that provided covert messages and warnings to Jews about what was happening.

On her 2022 trip to Luxembourg to apply for citizenship, Nancy met Liliane and Nico and went to the bakery building in Ettelbruck and saw the window of her aunt’s workshop. Nico showed her a photo of a large wooden chest that had belonged to Anna, who had written her name on the lid thinking she would be returning to resume her life in Ettlebruck. 

Nancy also visited the Jewish cemetery in Ettelbruck and found her grandmother’s and aunt’s names on the plaque of martyrs of Luxembourg. She also found the grave of her father’s best friend, Julian Khan. The synagogue in Ettlebruck, the oldest remaining synagogue in Luxembourg, was destroyed inside during WWII, but the structure survived. It is being renovated as a cultural venue, meeting space and a museum dedicated to local Jewish history. Nancy has donated historic family photographs (her father miraculously got them through immigration), letters, documents and other items to be displayed there and, according to Nancy, serve as “a living legacy of our family.” 

That legacy, Nancy said, reads like a movie script. 

“I mean, it’s just crazy,” she said. “And that I made all these connections. My dad would probably say ‘Gothon is looking down on you’.” 

Q&A with Nancy Cohen

Did your family celebrate Luxembourgish heritage or traditions when you were growing up? 

Nothing in particular that was Luxembourgish. But my grandmother made a Pflaumenkuchen, a cake with plums on a butter crust covered with brown sugar, cinnamon and butter. She put the cake on the windowsill to cool, and my dad would always steal the streusel off the top. Every holiday, I would make a plum cake for my dad, and he would start crying because it would remind him of his mother.

My father also told the story of when Grand Duchess Charlotte went through Ettelbruck in a parade. My grandmother didn’t have a lot of money but was very well respected. My father said the duchess tipped her hat to my grandmother as she passed by. Now, I don’t know if this story is true, but my dad stood by it. 

Why did you apply for dual citizenship and what does it mean to you? 

It’s the completion of a bucket-list item. And the day I got my citizenship letter, it just was closure. I looked up to heaven, and I said, “Dad, I did it,” and it was just a real moment for me. My dad and I were like one person. He was always my light and I miss him. He was a very, very proud Luxembourger. I did this for him. 

What is your most memorable Luxembourg experience? 

I think the discoveries of all my family’s attachments and how I really do have a homeland, and that growing up, not thinking that there was a single morsel of my father’s family left on this planet, finding all these living, breathing, tactile connections to the stories that my father told me since I was a little girl. Everything about it was just very special. 

What was your experience working with Kevin, of Luxembourg Legacy, in the dual citizenship process? 

From the get-go, I had such confidence. Kevin just made me feel like every T was going to get crossed and every I was going to get dotted and he just made everything smooth as silk. He’s got such great connections in Luxembourg and he’s well respected. When you take on something big like this, do it right, you know? 

Any plans to go back to Luxembourg? 

God willing, yes. When they open the memorial museum, we’re definitely going to go back, because that’s going to be a big moment for my family. 

This Stolperstein, or stumbling sill, located on the Place de La Résistance in Ettlebruck, Luxembourg, marks the location where a vibrant Jewish community existed before World War II.

Anna Joseph, Nancy’s aunt, owned a large wooden chest containing various personal items. She wrote her name on the lid but never returned to claim it.