Wolfstein, Rhineland-Palatinate
Wolfstein was founded in 1275 on Habsburg King Rudolph I's orders, which called for a “fortified and free” town near his castle, “Woluisstein”, now known as the "Alt-Wolfstein" (“Old Wolfstein”) ruin. Rudolph forthwith granted the new town the same town rights and freedoms as the town of Speyer. As an “everlasting marketplace”, it was to be a sanctuary for commerce, trade and dealing. The first townsmen and -women came from the surrounding, much older villages.
Rosi Wolfstein
Rosalie Wolfstein was born at Witten, then a industrial city west of Dortmund in the Ruhr region. Her father, Samuel Wolfstein (1843–1901), was a businessman. She was one of her parents' four recorded children. Her elder brother, Paul, later died in the First World War: later still, in 1942, both her sisters, Wilhelmine and Bertha, would be deported to Auschwitz concentration camp and murdered.