Thanks to a participant in the Haberman Institute webinar on Baron Hirsch, whose question about Jewish farming projects in Virginia sparked my interest, and to Albert Sherman for sending me an article on the nineteenth-century Virginia venture, inspiring me to prepare this post.

Thanks also to Robert H. Gillette for providing so much information about the Hyde Park Farm for Jewish refugees in his book the Virginia Plan, William B. Thalhimer and a Rescue From Nazi Germany. and to Michael Caplan for his documentary film Stones from the Soil, which follows his search for the Gross Bressen farm in Germany, where many of the refugees who later settled in Virginia in the 1940s had trained.

Do click on the links below for much much more, and fascinating, information.

Virginia’s First Jews

As related in the Jewish Virtual library, “The Jewish experience in Virginia dates back to Sir Walter Raleigh’s ill-fated Roanoke Colony, then a part of the Virginia territory when Joachim Gaunse, a Prague metallurgist, landed with Raleigh in 1585.”

A few other Jews trickled in. Among the most notable, Jacob Myer accompanied George Washington in his 1754 expedition across the Allegheny Mountains. Dr. John de Sequeyra, of Williamsburg, was credited by Thomas Jefferson with introducing the custom of eating tomatoes and Commodore Uriah P. Levy of New York  purchased and began the first restoration of Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello in 1836.

Virginia Seeks Immigrants

After the Civil War had so devastated much of the South, the Commonwealth of Virginia, looking at least in part to replace the free labor of slaves, decided to include increased immigration in its recovery plans.

On February 5, 1866 the legislature passed ‘An Act to Incorporate the Virginia Land and Aid Immigration Company….To purchase or lease lands in Virginia, to be resold or relet to immigrants; [and/or]To act as agents for the sale or leasing of lands, in Virginia, to immigrants.

“By May of 1866 the [Company] was advertising in the Richmond Examiner that it was sending a Director abroad to secure tenants and laborers.”¹

Waterview Colony for Russian Refugees

In the early 1880s when the great wave of Russian Jewish emigrees began, Joseph Friedenwald, a German Jewish Baltimore businessman, bought 783 acres at Waterview in Middlesex County, Virginia, on the banks of the Rappahannock River, where he settled 72 Russian Jewish refugees. They were to raise tobacco, corn, oats, wheat and rye. But the settlement seemed to disband after only two years.²

A Colony That Never Made It

Then in 1908, Rabbi Leonard Levy, Chairman of the Jewish Agriculturalists‘ Aid Society, bought 2000 acres near Richmond, planning to settle Russian Jews as farmers.³ But it seems that never happened.

Hyde Park Farm

In 1938, inspired by his earlier visit to Germany where he was horrified by the violent anti-semitism, William Thalhimer, owner of the Thalhimer department store chain, based in Richmond, established a farm for young Jewish refugees on Hyde Park Farm in Burkeville, Va. Listen to Robert H. Gillette discuss the Hyde Park Farm experience at this link.

Gross Bressen to Hyde Park

The approximately 30 young Jews that came to Hyde Park had been students at the Jewish Emigration Training Farm at Gross Breesen on Germany’s then eastern border, a farm that was the property of a wealthy Jewish landowner. The farm was part of a movement to give young Jewish Germans skills they could use after emigrating, or as hoped by some, to change Jewish occupations in the hope that they would be more acceptable to other Germans. Read all about Gross Bressen in this article by Heidi Landecker, the daughter of a Gross Bressen participant who then went to Hyde Park Farm in Virginia.

The Gross Bressen Experience

Gross Bressen was led by the forward leading psychologist Curt Bondy⁴ who was recommended for the post by the famous Jewish philosopher Martin Buber. In the evenings, after the students spent the days learning farming skills, Bondy taught crucial subjects, resilience, mindfulness and the importance of strong characters,

Life at Gross Bressen was almost idyllic until November 9, 1938, Kristalnacht. On that night the German SS raided the farm and carried off most of the students and Bondy himself to the Buchenwald Concentration Camp.

Buchenwald had yet to become a death camp so after 30 days the group was allowed out with the proviso that they all leave Germany as soon as possible.

Members of the Gross Bressen group left for Australia, Palestine, Kenya, England, Argentina and Hyde Park Farm in Virginia. It wasn’t easy to obtain U.S. visas. At that time, those who couldn’t offer proof that they could support themselves were barred entry and those who came with the promise of a job were barred entry as well. So Thalhimer gave each refugee a share in the Hyde Park farm making them self supported investors.

From Idyllic Hyde Park to Spying in Europe

In 1941 Thalhimer had a major heart attack and for financial reasons Hyde Park Farm had to close. Almost all the young men joined the U.S. Army. Because of their native German and their deep understanding of German culture, many became spies for the U.S., many joining the famous Ritchie Boys, a secret U.S intelligence corps. Members interrogated prisoners and performed counter-intelligence duties. Some even convinced German soldiers to surrender.

Other Hyde Park participants went on to work as counselors and farm hands at the Carson College Orphanage near Philadelphia.⁵ After the War many Hyde Park participants received university educations with funds from the G.I. Bill.

Bondy Publishes First Studies of Concentration Camp Prisoners

Through Thailhimer’s friendship with the president of William and Mary College, Bondy had already become a professor at the College’s Richmond branch, the Richmond Professional Institute (RPI). In 1943 he published some of the first studies on the behavior of prisoners in concentration camps.⁶. Following WW II Bondy returned to his native Hamburg, Germany where he continued his academic career.⁴

Hyde Park Alumni

For first hand accounts of the lives of many Gross Bressen alumni following WWII, including those that had been at the Hyde Park Farm, see this article which describes letters written by the alumni. To read the letters themselves, some in German, some in English, click on the original document under Source in the right hand corner of the page and then you can download all the letters.

The documentary film Stones from the Soil includes interviews with many of the Hyde Park alumni describing life at Gross Bressen.

In his second book, Escape to Virginia, From Nazi Germany to Thalhimer’s Farm, Robert Gillette tells us the story of two Hyde Park participants, Eva Jacobsohn Loew y Werner “Tom” Angress from the time they first heard of Gross Bressen through to their lives after WW II. With a Ph.d from U. of California, Berkeley, Werner became a distinguished history professor at SUNY Stony Brook University. Eva became a registered nurse, married another Hyde Park participant, Ernst Loew, and together they ran a dairy farm in Hampton, Connecticut where she served on the school board. Ernst also became a colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve.

From Gillette’s the Virginia Plan, and other sources noted below we can learn about the lives of several other Hyde Park alumni. (Discussed in alphabetical order of surname.)

Spies, Artists, and Agriculturists

During WW II Ernst Cramer became a member of the U.S. Army’s secret spy corps, the Ritchie Boys. Ernst landed on Omaha Beach three days after D-Day . He interrogated German soldiers and wrote propoganda leaflets that were dropped over Germany. After the war Ernst returned to Germany where he became one of the leaders of the Axel-Springer News Conglomerate, founded in 1946 to reinstate a free press in Germany. For his efforts to support the new German democracy, Ernst was awarded one of Germany’s highest medals, the Federal Cross of Merit with Star and Band

Friedel Dzubas became a very important abstract artist and studio mate of the well known artist Helen Frankenthaler. Dzubas’ work is in the collections of the Whitney and Guggenheim museums and many other prestigious institutions. See a video on Dzubas’ life aquí.

Hans George Hirsch spent the war years in the U.S. Army interpreting for German prisioners and then teaching farm management techniques to convalescing U.S. soldiers. After WW II he received a Ph.d in agriculture from the University of Minnesota and then joined the U.S. Department of Agriculture and eventually the Department’s Foreign Agricultural Service. An interview with Hans Hirsch about his whole life can be heard at this link.

Harvey P. Newman, né Neustadt, also served in the U.S. army during WW. II and then also made a career in the U.S. Foreign Agricultural Service. Read more about him at this link to the Center for Jewish History archives.

Soldiers, Journalist, and Dairy Farmers

Isidor Kirshot served in the U.S. Army in Northern Africa during WWII. He then remained in the army for his whole career, retiring as a colonel.

George Landecker served in the U.S Army in WWII and then ran a farm in Remsen (Oneida County) New York for the rest of his life. He is featured at the Virginia Holocaust Museum

Marianne Regensburger returned to Germany after graduating on a scholarship from the Quaker institution, Earlham College. Marianne’s niece gives us an overview of her life aquí.

In Germany Marianne became a noted journalist. In 1962 she “converted from Judaism to Christianity…, not least because of her experiences with the Quakers in the United States during her emigration. In the final years of her life, she was a committed Christian pacifist who regularly participated in peace demonstrations such as the Easter Marches.”⁷

Luise Tworoger spent most of her life in Southern Florida. Luise was a teacher and served on the board of Peace Place- A Living Experience.⁸ Peace Place was a non-profit that fostered the inclusion of human rights and conflict resolution in educational settings.

Luise and her husband George Tworoger, also a Hyde Park participant, owned Expert Dairy Products in Miami. George was a director of the Florida Association of Milk and Food Sanitarians.⁹

And Even More Hyde Park Alumni

If you would like to learn about other Hyde Park Farm alumni, here is a partial list of the participants.¹⁰ Just google their names and out will come their stories.

Lu Alberheim

Hans Bacharach

Rudi Caplan

Rolf Falkenstein

Manfred Gottschalk

Ruth Hadra

Ernst Ludwig Heimann

Ken (Klaus) Herman

Howard Irvin

Herbert Kirchroth

Hermann Kiwi

Trudi Levin

Manfred Lindauer

Walter Mielzinger

Ludwig Rfoshlich

1. Charles, Joan D. The Russian Colony of Middlesex County…. The Jewish Magazine, April, 2013. [↩]
2. Ginsberg, Louis. The Jewish Colony at Waterview, The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Oct. 1958. pp. 459-462. If you register for a free jstor account you can read this article online at the link under the title in this footnote. [↩]
3. Home for the Persecuted, The New York Times, August 27, 1908, p. 4 [↩]
4. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curt_Bondy, To read this wikipedia post in English click on 3 sprachen to the right of Curt Bondy’s name and choose English. [↩] [↩]
5. Gillette, Robert H. Escape to Virginia, From Nazi Germany to Thalhimer’s Farm. Charleston, S.C. : The History Press, 2015. p. 215. [↩]
6. Christian Fleck and Albert Muller, Bruno Bettelheim and the Concentration Camps, Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences , December, 1998, p. 6. (To see that article which is in English scroll down from the German language title page at the link.) Bondy’s article can be read at this link pp. 453 – 457 [↩]
7. this is a translation from this German language Wikipedia post. [↩]
8. See https://thebaronhirschcommunity.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/ConvertTiffToPDF.pdf [↩]
9. see page 162 at https://www.foodprotection.org/upl/downloads/journal-archive/journal-of-milk-and-food-technology-1961-volume-24-issue-5.pdf [↩]
10. taken from the Virginia Plan pages 81, 86, 102, 176 and 177. [↩]