Victor and Margot Nashalsky Stone Papers

Meta Loewenstein was born May 10, 1891, in a small town in Germany. In 1914, she met Paul Katzenstein, but before they could be married World War I began, and Paul was taken into the German army. He served four years in the army and came home severely wounded. Paul and Meta were married in 1919. Their first son was named Otto in honor of Paul’s brother who died in the war. But he was called by his middle name Victor most of his life. When the family immigrated to the United States, their last name was changed to Stone. Hitler came to power in 1933. The Nuremberg Laws were decreed in 1935 and took away most civil rights for Jews. Meta’s youngest brother was a doctor who immigrated to the United States in 1936 and established a medical practice in New York State. Her brother provided affidavits for the family, but they needed to wait until they came up on the quota list. Victor was sent to Arizona to join Meta’s oldest brother who had moved to Arizona many years before. The family had the necessary documents to emigrate, but Paul was arrested. Their quota number came up two weeks later, Paul was released, and Paul, Meta, and their son Ernest left Germany immediately. When World War II started, Victor enlisted in the Army and served for four years, primarily in California. He met his future wife Margot Nashelsky at a USO dance in San Francisco. With the help of Margot Neshelsky’s family in Denver, Paul and Meta Stone settled in Denver and after a few months they bought the Capitol Hill Bookstore. The store was located on Colfax near East High. Paul Stone died in Denver in 1964 and Meta Stone closed the bookstore in 1965. Meta Stone wrote the paper “Meta’s Story” in 1994 and died in Boulder in 1996. Julius (1887) and Friedl (1897) Nashelsky were married in Gudensberg, Germany in 1919 and were parents of Dieter (1920), Margot (1921), and Gunter Martin (1926). Julius Nashelsky served in the German army during WWI and was a leader in the small town. Gudensberg and nearby villages were easy prey for the Nazis in Hitler’s very early years. Hitler chose Gudensberg and four other small villages with viable Jewish communities in his experiments of hatred, persecution, and violence far from larger centers of population. Julius Nashelsky had a brother in Oklahoma who sponsored the family to come to the United States. The family left Germany in January of 1934, settled first in Oklahoma, and then established a Ben Franklin store in Fowler, Colorado. When Julius and Friedl Nashelsky wanted to retire around 1950, Victor and Margot Stone took over the store.