Back Where She Wouldn’t Go

Iwas living in Manchester with my young family, part of an active frum kehillah, when in August, 2018 I received an email through the Geni website that would impact the lives of many of my family members:

Dear Sir or Madam,

We are a small group of teachers/pedagogues in Northern Hesse (Germany).
We try to find some biografical notes [sic] of Mrs. Doris Mathias Guttentag, born in Treysa, Northern Hesse. What we know is that she was born on 15/10/1929 in Treysa … as the only child of Simon and Hannah Mathias, running a small ironware store in the centre of the small town. She was saved by a Kindertransport in May 1939 — first she went to England, then to Israel. Either she married Mr. Max Guttentag in England or in Israel. Maybe you know something about Doris Mathias Guttentag?

We are preparing with our schools an exhibition about the Kinder of Kindertransport of our region. But we have only a few biografical notes about Mrs Mathias Guttentag. May you give us a support?

Thank you very much, Jürgen JUNKER

I recognized the name Treysa, Savta’s childhood hometown, where she had lived with her parents before the war. This looked interesting. Apparently, the school in Treysa was preparing an exhibition about the Jews who had lived there before Hitler wiped them out. The school had the names of the three Jewish children from the town who had been saved by leaving on the Kindertransport, and one of them was Doris Matthias. Using Google and Geni, they found a record of her marriage to my grandfather, Max Guttentag, and then they tracked me down.