Rahn Family Collection

On January 28, 1901 Alfred Hermann Rahn was born in Fürth, Germany to Sidney and Johanna (née Goldmann) Rahn. Sidney Rahn owned the family metalworks business, M.S. Farrnbacher. The firm had been in the family for generations, originally owned by members of Sidney Rahn's mother's family, the Farrnbachers, and produced iron and metal products. The Rahn family lived upstairs from the metalworks. Alfred had an older brother, James, who was hydrocephalic, and a younger brother, Max. After attending Heinrich Schliemann Gymnasium (high school), and working in a bank and an accounting position, Alfred Rahn joined the family business in 1928. When his father died two years later, Alfred led the firm.

Lilli Bechmann was the daughter of the businessman Hugo Bechmann and his wife Ida Bechmann (née Metzger) and was born in Fürth on February 10, 1911. Hugo Bechmann was the owner of a mirror glass factory, founded in the 1840s as W. Bechmann, but renamed under Hugo Bechmann as the Bayerische Spiegel- und Spiegelglass Fabriken AG (Bavarian Mirror and Mirror Glass Factories AG). After completing the Städtisches Mädchenlyzeum (high school) Lilli Bechmann spent one year in Geneva at a finishing school before returning to Fürth for one year at the Oberrrealschule so she could attend university. Beginning in May 1930, she attended the universities of Freiburg, Berlin, Vienna, and Erlangen, studying philosophy, history of philosophy, theatre, and the history of theatre. In 1934 she received her doctoral diploma in philosophy from the University of Erlangen with the dissertation Der Darmstädter Freundeskreis. Ein Beitrag zum Verständnis der empfindsamen Seelenhaltung des 18. Jahrhunderts (The Darmstadt Circle of Friends. A Contribution to the Comprehension of the Sentimental Conception of Soul of the Eighteenth Century). In addition to her academic interests she often wrote poetry. From 1934-1936 she reorganized the library of the Jewish Community of Fürth.

At some point around 1929 Lilli Bechmann met Alfred Rahn. They both shared a love of the outdoors, and frequently went hiking and skiing in the mountains and wrote each other often when separated. Due to the hereditary illness of Alfred's brother James, who was born hydrocephalic and suffered from schizophrenia, the couple, and especially Alfred, had reservations about marrying and having children. However, on July 3, 1933, they did marry and three years later their first daughter, Ruth Marion, was born.

In 1935 Alfred Rahn travelled with his mother to New York in order to determine if the family ought to leave Germany; his brother Max already was living in the United States and was now an American citizen residing in Puerto Rico, where he worked for a cigar business. However, believing that the difficulties for Jews in Germany wouldn't last and reluctant to sell a family business of generations, they decided against leaving. By the summer of 1937 the Rahns had changed their minds and sold M.S. Farrnbacher to an Aryan business by November. With the help of Max Rahn they received visas for America in November 1937 and planned to leave Germany at the end of December. However, the Nazi approval for the sale of M.S. Farrnbacher never occurred, and on December 25, 1937 Alfred Rahn was arrested for attempting to hide funds. The following month he was sentenced to fourteen months in prison.

While Alfred Rahn remained in prison in Nuremberg, Lilli Rahn began efforts to secure the family's immigration visas, which otherwise would expire in March 1938. Although at first having been informed that their visas would be extended, the consul revoked Alfred Rahn's visa due to a claim of moral turpitude. Max Rahn went to Washington, D.C. to advocate his brother's case and on December 31, 1938, the Attorney General, Homer Cummings, intervened, deciding in favor of Alfred Rahn. Two days after Alfred Rahn was released from prison the family, including Ruth's nurse, Helen Lorz, received new American visas. After a brief stay in Paris, the Rahns left for America, arriving on April 15, 1939 in New York.

After exploring conditions in New York, Alfred and Lilli left Ruth with her grandmother (Johanna Rahn) and her nurse in New York and left to find a location that would suit the family better. They arrived in Denver, Colorado, in July 1939. Although they knew no one in Denver, the location and the mountains reminded them of the mountainous areas of Bavaria they had left behind and they decided to stay. Alfred found a job, and eventually bought the John S. Worthington Company, a firm that produced roofing and steel products. After the war he became sales manager for Continental Steel and Penn Metal Company. From 1942-1944 Lilli Rahn taught at Denver University, giving courses in the history of the theater and in German, teaching the latter as part of the Army Specialized Training Program (ASTP). On January 21, 1945 Alfred and Lilli Rahn's second daughter, Evelyn, was born.

In April 1945 Alfred and Lilli Rahn were successful in bringing Ida Bechmann, Lilli's mother, to the United States from Sweden, where she had spent the war and where her husband Hugo Bechmann had died. She later changed her surname to Beckman. After staying with the Rahns for a short while she decided to find a job and live on her own, even though she had spent her life in a well-to-do family with servants and had never worked before. She eventually found a position in the dietary kitchens of the National Jewish Hospital in Denver. Ida Bechmann died in 1978. Alfred Rahn's mother, Johanna Rahn, had arrived in the United States in October 1938. She also lived with the Rahn family in Denver for a time, but later moved to a home for the elderly. Johanna Rahn died in 1965; her husband Sidney had died in 1930 in Fürth.

Shortly after her arrival in Denver, Lilli Rahn joined the Jewish women's organization Hadassah. She became president of the Denver Chapter, and later National Vice-President of the organization. She also was a member of its National Board. She chaired several Hadassah committees and travelled to Israel multiple times between 1954 and 1968 as Hadassah's representative.

Beginning in 1959, Lilli Rahn also began a fight against cancer. Over the next eleven years she had surgeries to combat it, but after a skiing accident in April 1970 it was discovered that the cancer had metastasized. She died on December 27, 1970. The following day Alfred Rahn committed suicide, unable to live without his Lilli.

After their parents' death, Ruth and Evelyn gave funds to Hadassah Hospital in Alfred and Lilli Rahn's honor, with a plaque commemorating them and in 1995 established a scholarship at the Hadassah College of Technology in their names. In 1999 the philosophy department of the University of Erlangen established the Lilli Bechmann-Rahn Prize to be given annually to the best doctoral dissertation. In 2012 Ruth Rahn Budd published the book From Generation to Generation: a Family Story.