~ Adolf Katz ~

I got to wondering about Adolf Katz yesterday when I was doing some research on one of the Coro brooches I have in my inventory. There's nothing particularly spectacular about the brooch itself. It is very lovely, but is, in fact, a common hand brooch. I say common, because people have been using the human hand as a design theme since mankind first started painting on cave walls. And we all recognize the motif as an especially popular one in Victorian jewelry.

Anyway, the brooch and its patent filing are shown below. You can see the patent was filed on August 2, 1944. That date, coupled with the name of the jewelry - Coro called it "Friendship" - struck me as ironic, since 4 days after this design patent was filed, the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. That event changed the world forever.

And the enormity of the event got me to wondering about the man, Adolf Katz, who signed the Friendship patent. Here is this man, a German Jew, representing Coro, one of the largest costume jewelry companies in the world. And he has just filed a patent to launch a new line (or a new piece) called "Friendship". The irony of subsequent events, as they unfolded, could not have escaped him. I began to wonder what were his innermost thoughts? Which, in turn, got me to wondering, how was he personally tied to world events? In what way had his life been impacted? He certainly had a German sounding name. In this way, I became curious about the man who was silently behind the Friendship Hand that August of 1944.

Adolf Katz was the head designer of Coro in 1944, and though he never actually designed the jewelry himself, he approved of and executed scores of patent filings on behalf of Coro with the US Patent Office. It seems very little else is known about him, except that he immigrated to the USA before WWII and worked for Coro for most of his career.

According to the author, Marcia Brown, "[Adolf] received all of his schooling in Germany and was able to attend the University of Frankfurt . . . At the age of sixteen, he found work on the Frankfort stock exchange floor. . . His future was uncertain in Germany, as the Nazi party was growing stronger and creating turmoil in his native country. He felt it was time to leave." [need book citation]

I searched the online records for Ellis Island. I found that Adolf Katz had immigrated to the United States on October 11, 1924 from Hamburg, Germany, via the brand new ship, The Deutschland, which had been built the year before.

Their roots in the community ran very deep, so when Adolf left, it must have been like ripping out his own heart. Imagine how we feel just going off to college nowadays, and think how this young man must have felt, leaving his roots and his family, possibly forever, for an uncertain future.  Adolf spoke very little English.

A decade later, in 1933, Adolf's parents were still living in Heinebach, Germany, with their daughter, Jenny, and her husband and the granddaughter, when Nazi party members and Hitler Youth groups began attacking them openly. Because of this, in 1934, Adolf's sister, husband & daughter fled to America.

I don't know what happened to Adolf's parents.  

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