Käthe Sigmund
Käthe Sarah Sigmund was born on July 3, 1905, in Scheinfeld. Her father, Moritz Kaufmann, lived in Scheinfeld, and her mother, Elise, née Ansbacher, died as early as 1905, two months after Kätchen's birth. On August 20, 1925, Kätchen Kaufmann married 23-year-old Ernst in Augsburg.
In the first few years, the young couple moved a number of times. Ernst went to work for the Landauer department store in Worms on the Neumarkt. In the years that Ernst worked for Landauer, they lived in an apartment above the department store. This is where Lotte and Kurt were born.
In 1933, the young family fled from the Nazis to the Netherlands. Ernst started a toy business, ERSI (ERnst SIgmund) which was located in Roomolenstraat 16-18 in Amsterdam.
Sio
At his farewell as director in 1977, Mr. Mertens spoke about the Sigmund couple: It should not go unmentioned that Mr. and Mrs. Sigmund from Germany had settled in Amsterdam at that time. They ran a toy import business. That came to an end when toys were no longer supplied from Germany. Mr. and Mrs. Sigmund remained associated with SIO as toy designers until the war.
Käthe Sigmund was closely involved in the activities surrounding Sio. In Sio's early years, she often traveled with her husband Ernst to Vroomshoop. The couple would stay at the home of a relative of Director Mertens next to the factory.
From the founding of Sio in 1938, a large collection of toys was designed in a short time. Ernst and Käthe contributed the new models and product ideas for this. Ernst and Käthe's children, Sigmund, Lotte, and Kurt, are staying with the de Nooij family on Hooftlaan in Bussum during those visits to Vroomshoop, who are looking after them.
The handwriting on the back of this photo is the same as that on the back of the photo of Ernst Sigmund.
Lotte’s Poetry Album
At the Sinterklaas celebration on December 6, 1938, Lotte receives a Poetry Album. Lotte's mother, Käthe, is allowed to be the first to write a poem in her Poetry Album. The poem is:
Become a strong, pretty girl,
who in fearful hours
always bites the apple
even if it is a sour one.
Your mother.
The poem is a 'standard' Poetry Album poem for that time, a bit moralistic but also containing a little joke.
In early 1939, the Sigmund family had been living in the Netherlands for over 5 years following their flight from Germany. It is striking that Käthe writes the poem in Dutch. Apparently, Ernst and Käthe considered it important that their children learn Dutch in their new homeland. Käthe does write it with a spelling mistake, however; Jou moeder instead of Jouw (your) mother.
