Mom's Memoirs:

As you probably all know I was born in Berlin, unfortunately. By German law, a person does not acquire citizenship by being born in the country, but has the nationality of the parents at the time of birth; that made me Polish, After WWI when Poland was created (or recreated). put together from the German/Austrian/Russian parts, people born in that geographic region could chose what they wanted to be, and my parents opted for Poland,   My parents met at a High School graduation party given by Pola Jonas, my father’s sister, a classmate of my mother’s (Mina Magdalena Baumgarten). My father-to-be, Raphael, (spelled differently in Polish) at that time was a chemistry student at the University of Munich. The year was 1913, I believe. My father was the son of exceedingly well-to-do parents from Lodz (which was under Russian domination)

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[Geneva] ... who had left Munich in a hurry, because the Russians were trying to induct him into the army. He had registered in the chemistry department of the University, the “Ecole de chime”. My mother chose pre-med so she saw plenty of him (first year of pre-med is all science, incl. lab work) and they got engaged in March of 1916. When the Russian revolution broke out, my grandfather Jonas got cut off from all his sources of income and my father had to fend for himself. The professor who was supposed to have become his supervisor for his doctoral thesis (Dr. Briner), had taken a liking to him and appointed him Laboratory Assistant, with a salary sufficient to support him and his wife. 

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[In Berlin] My father had to take an industrial job which he hated, and he was never able to get out of it. He had a tiny lab where he experimented with cosmetic product at the side, but never “made” it, stayed in detergents for the rest of his life (also later on in England) 

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My father’s job with Jewnin & Tebrich (not sure of spelling) was in the Northeastern part of Berlin, Prenzlauer Allee, (the industrial section, which  became East Berlin in WWII when the wall went up.) But my mother was not  happy, even though there was plenty of opportunity for nice walks in the park; according to her the baby had to have fresh air, only available in the suburbs near the Grunewald (which in those days actually still was largely a forest). There are some photos of it in the old album I still have. For my father this became a very large hardship: his commute was terrible: his workday was from 9 to 6, half day on Saturday. Too far to come home for lunch. He had a 10 minute walk to the streetcar which took him to the railroad station also ca 10); then ca 20 minutes (I don’t remember ) on the train to Alexanderplatz (known as “Alex”) and then another walk up Prenzlauer Allele. I left for school before he had breakfast (I had to be there at 8 am, got home at 1 or 2. depending on classes). My father did not get home till 7 pm. But my mother did not give up or modify her custom, so we (she, Lila and I) had our big, cooked midday meal at 2 (At school we had the “big intermission” at 10 and ate our sandwiches). For my father she warmed the stuff up and served it to him alone at 7 pm, I guess she would sit with him. I can’t remember hearing him complain about this arrangement, but I am sure it was the reason why I rather spoiled MY husband n that regard! 

Mom's Memoirs (from the "Red Diary")

My father’s family, however, was from Grodus [Grodno] and his first language was Russian.

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My father had two younger sisters, Pola and Fania (Fanny); he did not go to public school but had private tutors and then took the Russian “Abiturium” (school-ending examination). About 1911 I believe he went to Munich to study chemistry; Bayer was still there, an impressive faculty altogether. But WWI broke out before he graduated, and he and his Russian colleagues were interred as enemy Aliens. It proved not too difficult to be declared medically unfit for military service which enabled him to leave Germany for Switzerland, a neutral country. He enrolled as a chemistry student at the University of Geneva (ecole de chimie).

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WWI did not see to have had a great effect on life in Switzerland and it seems that there was little trouble in communicating with my mother’s family in Berlin and my father’s in Moscow until the Russian Revolution. The revolution cost my grandfather his wealth and cut my father off his funds. By then, however, he had finished his degree of industrial chemistry and was working on his PhD thesis. He because a research assistance to Prof Emile Briner[1] and also got some consultant work for a chemical firm so that these two incomes permitted him to maintain a decent standard of living.

Additional comments by Mom:

Home educated (private tutors; took Russian school end exam as extern). Mother language Russian.
Dachau in summer
Met Mina at Pola Jonas's graduation party. [Mina was a classmate; Rafal was home on vacation.]
Supposedly a Cohen
Loved music of all kinds; would play songs on a comb or another object. Disappointed that his daughter had no talent for music.

See also:

• Deportation to Poland

• Letter on their marriage

Aunt Franka's Memories

From her diary entry of April 25, 1945:

Poor, poor Rafał. He somehow didn’t fit into our Baumgarten family. He didn’t like us – he felt bad and uncomfortable among us. We didn’t give him what he was looking for – financial security – he had to fight for a job – for survival. Disappointment with Janka, that he wasn’t a son, his terrible pangs of conscience with regard to his father, whom he couldn’t help[2]; all this ruined his health, and on top of that the matter with Aronowska.[3] He had an unhappy life, in fact Madzia was struggling with it. Will she be able to arrange her life anew! She is still very feminine. And I didn't have that absolute brotherly feeling towards him, Julek was closer to him after all, but I really appreciated his honesty and some kind of righteous character. I could say that I have many things on my conscience towards him, but above all I can't get over the fact that he ended up like that, that he wasn't lucky in life, that he had such a terrible awareness of his fate and maybe also a great resentment towards me - for Janka, for Madzia, for himself. It's unspeakably hard for me. I would like to cry out loud.

Notes:

1. See article on "170 years of chemistry at the University of Geneva: 1800-1970".

2. Mom never mentioned how her father must have felt about his father being left in Warsaw.

3. No idea what this refers to.

4. Unsure of how Russian names translate from Cyrillic alphabet. In German, his father's name was Herman Jonas, his mother's Klara.

5. Perhaps the chief rabbi of Lodz (from 1873 to 1912): Eliyahu Meisel (see also this).

6. Second date (October 19) was his birthday Julian calendar. Russia still used Gregorian calendar at the time, which is what the first date is.