Ron Steinhart delivers his speech at the Marta Fraenkel Auditorium of the Deutsches Hygiene-Museum Dresden on Oct. 7, 2026.
Sebastian Kahnert
Ron Steinhart is on a mission improbable.
For nearly half of his life, the 86-year-old retired banking executive and civic leader has pieced together shreds of evidence to identify members of his extended family murdered in the Holocaust.
He’s made numerous trips to Germany to find where they last lived and how they died — 31 from his father’s side in Dresden and Berlin, and nine on his mother’s side in the small town of Gelsenkirchen, where a third of its prewar population was Jews.
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And he’s still looking.
Before the war, most of Steinhart’s paternal kin lived in Dresden, where about 6,000 Jews lived in a prosperous community. It was obliterated as terrorized Jews fled, were killed, committed suicide or sent to death camps after Kristallnacht — the Nazi-orchestrated rampage throughout its evil empire.
“I am often asked what motivates me to care so much about the sites of so much devastation of our family,” Steinhart said following a recent trip to his father’s homeland. “I want my family to fully appreciate what our family endured for us all to live in freedom.
Ron Steinhart in front of the home of his grandparents, who were killed at Auschwitz.
Ron Steinhart
“And I also want my family — especially the younger members — to realize what can occur when any nation allows a dictator to take control and impose his or her beliefs on everyone.”
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That was seared into him in 2004, when he and his younger brother, Rick Steinhart, toured the death camps of Buchenwald, Theresienstadt and Auschwitz-Birkenau. “That horrific experience will haunt me for the rest of my life,” Steinhart said.
Steinhart was accompanied on his most recent trip by his twin adult sons, Kenneth and Barry Steinhart, his grandson Jared, and six other relatives — nearly all of them making return visits to Germany.
His 27-year-old grandson, who works in marketing at Red Bull headquarters in Salzburg, Austria, clearly gets his papa’s message.
“On this recent trip, I empathized even more about my family’s complicated history with Dresden, and the challenges my ancestors faced,” Jared Steinhart said. “Some were around my age when they were forced into camps and ultimately killed.
“Having three generations of Steinhart’s together really cemented for me how fortunate I am today, the sacrifices my family has made and how important it is to remain optimistic.”
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‘Unmistakable signs’
Steinhart was invited to share his search earlier this month by the lord mayor of Dresden at the city’s annual commemoration of the Holocaust that was held at the Deutsches Hygiene-Museum Dresden earlier this month.
Earlier that day at an outdoor memorial service, Stolpersteine für Dresden placed “stumbling stones” — brass cobblestones placed in front of the last known residences of Holocaust victims before they were killed or sent to concentration camps.
Each stone includes personal information about the victim.
Steinhart placed his 27th, 28th and 29th Dresden remembrances for his great uncle and great aunt, Hermann and Lina Steinhart Rosenberger, and their adult son Philipp in the sidewalk where their house once stood.
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Hermann died in June 1942 at Buchenwald concentration camp. Lina died that same year in Theresienstadt. Their son is believed to have been shot by the German SS when they took over the Italian Castelraimondo prisoner of war camp in 1943.
“Before 1933, the Steinhart family was one of the most respected families in Dresden with shops and department stores in different parts of the city,” Brigitte Lange, chairwoman of the Stolpersteine nonprofit, said in introducing Steinhart at the lord mayor’s event.
“Stolperstein are not laid only for Jewish people,” she said, “but also for Sinti and Roma, Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexual people, victims of the so-called euthanasia program and for those who resisted — whether for political or simply humanist reasons.
“They were humiliated, stripped of their rights, brutally mistreated, driven out or murdered. The stolperstein is always laid at the place where they lived or worked,” Lange said. “They are quiet but unmistakable signs against forgetting.”
36 years, still searching
Steinhart is a proud “birthright baby” born in Beaumont before his parents completed their citizen requirements four years later. He’s the first American in the Steinhart family.
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His brother Rick, who is six years younger, was born after their parents became citizens.
“My mother and father wanted to forget everything about the past, so they only spoke German when they didn’t want Rick and me to know what they were talking about,” Steinhart said. “Otherwise, they wanted to blend in, and with their thick German accent, that was really quite funny.”
His father never knew what happened to his extended family other than vague reports that some were killed by the Nazi’s.
Ron Steinhart, left, Mary Pat Higgins, CEO of Dallas Holocaust and Human Rights Museum, with Rebecca Fletcher and Frank Risch at a grand opening event in September 2019. Steinhart, Fletcher and Risch co-chaired an $85 million capital campaign to build the new museum that opened Sept. 18, 2019 in downtown Dallas.
Amanda Lynn Harris
“Following my father’s passing in 1988, and the gradual release of additional German records, I spent 15 years researching what happened to our [Dresden] family during the Holocaust.”
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By 2006, Steinhart had enough verified information to place his first stumbling stones in front of his grandparents’ home — for them, his aunt, uncle and two first cousins.
He later added a seventh stone for his uncle’s mother-in-law, who moved in shortly before his grandparents were forced to sell it and the surrounding estate for a negligible amount.
All were killed at Auschwitz.
First seven “stumbling stones” placed by Ron Steinhart for members of his family killed in the Holocaust.
Ron Steinhart
Their 100-year-old home, which was heavily damaged by Allied bombs, was reconstructed after the war.
Through serendipity, Steinhart learned that he had a distant cousin, Simone Müller, who lives just outside of Dresden. She spotted a YouTube video that Steinhart and his brother made in 2004 and realized that there were Texans on the other side of the Steinhart family tree to collaborate with.
“She’s delightful, and it’s been amazing to compare notes,” Steinhart said.
It also helps that Müller can translate German. Steinhart speaks strictly Texan.
A man for all seasons
Steinhart, who retired in 2001 as chairman of Bank One Corp.’s national commercial banking group, has a lengthy resume of civic, philanthropic and religious involvement.
Elvis L. Mason (left) and Ron Steinhart when they were both executives at InterFirst Corp. in the 1980s.
File Photo/Staff
He was a former board member of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. appointed by George W. Bush, past chair of the United Way of Metropolitan Dallas, and former board member of Temple Emanu-El. He is still an active Temple member as was his wife, Phyllis, who died earlier this year.
He’s a disciplined numbers guy with a BBA in accounting and an MBA in finance from the University of Texas.
Mary Pat Higgins, president and CEO of the Dallas Holocaust and Human Rights Museum, said Steinhart is a steadfast tour de force in financial matters and well as a spiritual leader.
He co-chaired a capital campaign that raised $85 million to build the current museum that opened in downtown seven years ago.
Ron Steinhart next to his late wife, Phyllis, with Mary Pat Higgins, CEO of Dallas Holocaust and Human Rights Museum at a grand opening event in September 2019.
Amanda Lynn Harris
“Ron’s leadership is the reason we were so successful in building this museum,” she said. “Many, many people supported our project because of their respect for him. He was also single-minded about demanding that we not break ground until all of the campaign objectives were met — which included building an endowment and setting up an operating reserve.”
They are also dear friends despite their age difference.
“When Ron commits to you as a person, he’s a lifelong friend,” the 42-year-old said. “I think he wakes up in the morning thinking about what he can do to help someone. I’m so fortunate to be one of the people he thinks of and supports.”
Steinhart also has personal priorities.
He’s an ardent UT Longhorn football fan. So much so that he arranged his Germany itinerary to be back for what turned out to be a disappointing last-minute shocker against the Oklahoma Sooners at the Cotton Bowl.
Star of David miracle
The Steinhart entourage spent three days in Dresden, visiting the sites where he’d placed stones; Rosa Steinhart Strasse, the street named for his great aunt, and the New Jewish Cemetery where 11 family members who died before 1939 are buried.
They also went to the New Synagogue built in 2001 on the site of the Semper Synagogue that burned down on Kristallnacht. Its centerpiece is a 27-inch, glass-enshrined miracle.
Alfred Neugebauer, a Jewish firefighter, braved flames during Kristallnacht to rescue the Star of David from its spire. The 24-year-old hid it under a woodpile at his home and returned it to Jewish leaders after the war.
The Steinharts also visited the site of the detention camp where family members were imprisoned in unimaginable conditions, and the site of the former Zeiss‑Ikon Goehle plant where those detainees were forced to make Nazi war munitions.
“We also went to the Dresden Neustadt Train Station from where many of our family members were deported to concentration camps,” he said. “At a time when the Jewish community is witnessing rising antisemitism, it was heartening to see a community of people who remember and still care.”
Tale of Uncle Sol
In an unexpected twist of fate, Steinhart owes his existence to Kristallnacht — also known as The Night of Broken Glass — official start of the Nazi reign of terror.
His 20-something parents, Marga Goldblum and Werner Steinhart, were on their honeymoon in Switzerland when all hell broke loose in Dresden.
The synagogue where they married just six days before was burned to the ground, as were shops and businesses. The headstones of the Jewish cemetery were toppled and destroyed.
“Thanks to my mother’s successful uncle, Sol Katzenstein, who immigrated to the United States when he was 18 in 1888, my parents escaped Germany with two suitcases just 10 days after returning from their honeymoon,” Steinhart recalled.
Uncle Sol moved to the small East Texas town ironically named Palestine, which had a growing Jewish community, and formed a company making pajamas.
“Uncle Sol became known as the ‘Pajama King,’ ” Steinhart said. “He became very wealthy, eventually sold the business for a large sum.”
As restrictions tightened on German Jews wanting to flee to the United States, they had to find a rich person willing to guarantee their full financial support.
Ron Steinhart delivers his speech at the Marta Fraenkel Auditorium of the Deutsches Hygiene-Museum Dresden with his German interpreter, Louise Wolfram on Oct. 7, 2026.
Sebastian Kahnert
“Because of his caring heart and financial capability, Uncle Sol was able to guarantee the entry of 400 Jews who were in his family — including my parents — or lived in the small German community where he was born,” Steinhart said.
“Without him, my parents would have died in the Holocaust.”
At 86, Steinhart isn’t ready to hang it up.
“My footprints are all over the internet,” he said. “I still retain a Dallas genealogist who informs me whenever there is new information about my Steinhart or Goldblum sides of my tree.
“I get inquiries from descendants seeking my help for information about their relatives.
“And I get notified from ancestry sites whenever anything is added to either side of my family tree.
“So, I’m definitely still in the hunt.”