For Donald Trump’s Family, an Immigrant’s Tale With 2 Beginnings (original) (raw)

Politics|For Donald Trump’s Family, an Immigrant’s Tale With 2 Beginnings

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/22/us/politics/for-donald-trumps-family-an-immigrants-tale-with-2-beginnings.html

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A copy of a photo from the early 1900s of Donald J. Trump’s forebears. From left, Fred Trump, his father; Friedrich Trump, his grandfather; Elizabeth Trump; Elizabeth Christ, his grandmother; and John George Trump.Credit...Bryan Thomas for The New York Times

In the middle of the night, Friedrich Trump left his house in Kallstadt, a small town spotted with vineyards and a Lutheran church, for a northern port city that served as Germany’s gateway to America.

A few days later, on Oct. 7, 1885, Friedrich, then 16 years old, bought a steerage-class ticket on the S.S. Eider, the start of an adventurous life as a barber, restaurateur, saloonkeeper, hotelier, entrepreneur, gold rush prospector, shipwreck survivor and New York real estate investor.

It was an immigrant tale that would make any family proud. But for decades, the Trumps almost never talked about it.

Friedrich Trump’s son, Fred, came of age between the World Wars, a period marked by resentment of and even discrimination toward Germans in the United States.

More important, he was marketing his properties to the growing Jewish middle class filling up the old farmsteads of central Brooklyn and Queens.

During his presidential campaign, Fred’s son Donald has occasionally run roughshod over Jewish sensibilities, notably with a post on Twitter that featured a six-pointed star and a pile of cash. But for many years, the Trumps went out of their way to avoid disquieting their Jewish friends and customers by burying their German identity.


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