Rochelle & Gerald Oberman's Family Trees

The maternal grandparents of Gerald and his sister Rosa were Rosa [Roosje] Vecht and Jacob Politi.

 

The Politi family, Sephardic Jews, is believed to have migrated from Spain and Portugal, almost certainly during or before the Spanish expulsion of the Jewish community in 1492. They travelled to Venice, possibly Naples and then Corfu.

 

However, there is mention of a divorce case involving a Jewish Politi family member in Venice in 1447.

 

There is record of the murder of two members of the Politi family by the Inquisition in Italy in 1519. They must have been Jewish and others may have been forced to convert to Catholicism.

 

The earliest known ancestor of Jacob Politi is Vita Abraham David Politi born in Corfu about 1757.

 

Jacob Politi’s father, David Politi, was born in Corfu on 22nd June 1845. He came to England in 1862. The British Politi family is descended from him. David Politi founded the Turkish Delight confectionary company D. Politi & Sons Ltd in 1870.

 

On 9th June 1944, the Jewish community in Corfu, numbering around 2000, including the Politi family living there, were rounded up by the Germans. On 20th June 1944 they were transported to Auschwitz. They entered the camp on 29th June 1944 and were murdered.

 

David Politi’s grandson, also named David Politi, travelled to Corfu after the war bearing the Title Deeds of land owned by the Politi family before the Second World War. He found that a road had been built through it and the land was not recovered.

​

A Politi family branch, descended from the Corfu family, has recently been found [2022] living in Israel.

​