Is there any oma — or bubby, savta, or grandma — who doesn’t like to serve the children chocolate? For Erna Koppenheim a”h of Manchester, chocolate was more than a way to sweeten the family’s visits. Chocolate was part of her legacy, an instrument she used to support her family alone in a foreign land and ensure her son could learn Torah undisturbed

Broad Lancashire accents mingle in the air; women work at a brisk pace. The heady scent of chocolate wafts from an industrial-sized melting pan, lending the 1940s factory scene its aromatic charm. Supervising the production is a frum lady with an aristocratic bearing. Her English is precise, but German-accented, and her dress is elegant and sophisticated. As various fillings emerge from their viscous chocolate bath, they’re left to dry, and then packaged by hand in decorative boxes.

Mrs. Erna Koppenheim, the factory’s owner, has an unerring business sense that keeps her confectionary enterprise bustling. Yet Erna (Esther) began her life in a very different world. She was born in 1910 to Reb Eliyahu Pinchas Hepner and his wife. The family hailed from Ocwiecim, but had moved to Leipzig, Germany, the center of the European fur trade. Her father had learned in the Lomza yeshivah and the family was staunch in their Yiddishkeit. An intelligent young lady, Erna left school at age 14 to work in the family business.

In the six years until her marriage to Avrohom Koppenheim, Erna became a proficient businesswoman. Her husband was a doctor, the only son of Reb Meyer Koppenheim, cattle fodder magnate and president of the Corn Exchange in Breslau, Germany. They moved into the Koppenheim mansion in Breslau, where the family lived a very privileged and affluent life.

The Koppenheims’ oldest son, Peter (Peretz Yehuda), was born in 1931, followed by Eva (Ellinson) in 1933 and then Ruth (Friedman). The Koppenheims employed a cook and a couple: she was the housekeeper, and he was the maintenance man and driver of the family Mercedes. A frum nanny (kinderfraulein) looked after the children. Erna had no need to put her hands into cold water.

The 1930s progressed. Inside their aristocratic home, the Koppenheims raised their children tranquilly on the yekkish path. Outside, on the streets of Germany, the Nazi party gained momentum, their hate-filled agenda capturing the hearts of an unsettled populace.

From Castle to Hostel

Erna’s sister Recha (Abeles) left Germany in 1933 to settle with her husband and children in London. By 1937, when Erna was expecting her fourth child, the Koppenheims decided they must leave too. At that time, the law held that if one family member was a British citizen, the entire family was automatically entitled to visas and could come live in England.

This law suggested a bold step, which Erna bravely took. She left her family a month before she was due to give birth, and flew from Tempelhof to Croydon, near London, on a primitive, unpressurized flight. With careful planning and the assistance of her sister Recha, Erna gave birth to her fourth child, Miri (Rebbetzin Miriam Levy of Zurich). Miri was the key to the Koppenheims’ safe exit from Germany.

Erna returned to Breslau with a newborn baby and the documents needed to move the whole family to Britain. With clarity and foresight, she planned for their future in England. Her husband would not be allowed to practice medicine without extensive retraining. What sort of life would they build there?

It was obvious there would be no cook, no housekeeper, no driver, and no car, since they could not transport their wealth, and Erna realized she would need to do something to help support the family. Inspired by her husband’s love of chocolate, she decided to take a course in chocolate-making.

The next goal was leaving. In May 1938, Doctor Koppenheim — an Agudah activist — was recruited by Rabbi Dr. Solomon Schonfeld to accompany 26 Jewish boys from Germany on a Kindertransport and to operate a hostel for them in Manchester, England. After Kristallnacht the following November, the Koppenheim home was visited by SS men, looking to arrest Avrohom, and Erna was able to say he wasn’t in the country. In February 1939, Erna followed him to England by plane with Peter, Eva, Ruth, and Miri. Baruch Hashem, they had escaped a terrible fate just in time.

The family was not able to take their cash, silver, or valuables out of Germany, and all their property was seized by the Nazis. Before leaving Breslau, Erna hurriedly turned cash into possessions by purchasing expensive paintings, and one of the nannies smuggled out some of her jewelry. Reb Avrohom’s seforim also came out with them.

Britain at War

Safe from the horrors of Europe’s destruction in the small but stalwart enclave that was Manchester’s frum community, Erna started to build her family’s future.

Britain was under intense strain — with the army and navy deployed to the maximum, the home front had to bear nightly bombing of the cities, a strict blackout, and dearth of all supplies. The solution to the shortages was to ration food. The government distributed ration cards to each household per number of residents. Nothing could be bought without a specific ration coupon.

In 1940, Erna Koppenheim applied for and obtained recognition from the wartime Ministry of Food and received a small allocation of raw materials, along with huge British chocolate manufacturers Cadbury’s and Rowntree’s. She bought cocoa beans and sugar from Reb Zalman Margulies, who dealt in commodities. With the initial investment of 500 pounds from her brother-in-law, Willy Neuman, and a family friend, askan Mr. Ziggy Stern of London, Koppenheim’s chocolate factory was born.

“The idea of a chocolate factory was brilliant, you see. Because of rationing, every ounce of chocolate was sold before it was actually made,” explains Mrs. Koppenheim’s daughter, Mrs. Hannah Roberg. “Rationing of some items, including sweets, continued until as late as 1952.”

The business was launched in the family’s three-story house on Great Clowes Street, but as Erna acquired more machinery, including an enrobing machine and conveyer belt, the neighbors objected to the noise, and it became impossible to operate in a residential neighborhood. The factory moved to the industrial estate in Cheetham Hill.

Erna had a passable background in the chocolate business, but she realized that she needed more expertise. When a (non-Jewish) Manchester chocolate factory moved to the nearby industrial town of Stockport, many workers objected to the move. Erna quickly scrambled to hire some of the now unemployed, skilled chocolatiers to teach her the industrial side of the chocolate-making business. She also headhunted Annie Barker from a Stockport confectionery firm called Fugistalls. Annie became the foreman in the chocolate factory and was later Erna’s trusted assistant in other business ventures.

Meanwhile, Erna’s husband Reb Avrohom was busy caring for the stream of refugee children who reached Manchester. Some of the boys wanted a more religious atmosphere than the original hostel offered, and Dr. Koppenheim met their needs by opening an Orthodox hostel for them. A gentle, scholarly man, he devoted his energies to caring for his boys, and also volunteered in the Jewish Hospital.

In 1945, the strain of bringing his family out from the horror that was Germany, of leaving behind his profession and possessions and all that was familiar, and of assisting young refugee children who had lost their whole world, caught up with Reb Avrohom. He suffered a massive heart attack. On Shabbos Chazon of 1946, he collapsed at home on Friday night and was niftar. He was 46.

Erna, just 36, was now a widow. She had given birth to two more children after the journey to England: Hannah (Roberg) and Devorah (wife of Neve Yerushalayim founder and dean Rabbi Dovid Refson). The youngest was only a year old. She was in a foreign country, with none of the comforts she’d been used to.

Initially, it seemed as if Erna was broken. Her tremendous loss hit her hard and she appeared to be depressed. It took rabbanim, askanim, and friends to coax her out of her despondency and encourage her to forge on alone. With their ongoing encouragement, she snapped back, and once again became the capable, independent woman she’d always been.

Chocolate Fanfare

Forge on she did. A cultured, yekkish lady in every sense of the word, Erna was always elegantly dressed, and presented her chocolates with natural style and flair. The kosher market was very limited in 1940s England and kosher chocolates were an exciting novelty. However, Erna aimed high, and didn’t limit herself to the kosher market — the majority of the Koppenheim chocolates were crafted for the non-Jewish market, even though they happened to be kosher. All handmade, and marketed under three different brand names — the most successful was called “Corona” — the chocolates were sold at tourist attractions and vacation spots like the Blackpool Tower.

From Easter to November, the chocolate business limped along, but Erna found ingenious ways to generate business. The Festival of Britain in the summer of 1951 — a celebration of British contributions to science, art, and industry, aimed at invigorating a post-War nation — inspired a beautiful box design with an assortment of handmade Corona chocolates

In 1953, a nation watched and celebrated as Queen Elizabeth II was crowned. Young Elizabeth was a beloved queen, and for both the royal wedding (1947) and the coronation, Erna Koppenheim took advantage of the national euphoria to promote her business. She used royal themes and insignia in special packaging produced for the occasions, and created beautiful chocolate roses. Fancy chocolate boxes with the Prince of Wales emblem also helped sales jump when Prince Charles was born.

The kosher market, meanwhile, benefited from the supervised chocolate that became available for Pesach, and from chalav Yisrael milk chocolate bars which the Koppenheims produced in the summers.

“There was no kosher milk powder available in England,” Mrs. Ruth Friedman recalls. “We had to produce it ourselves, from fresh milk.” During the school year there was never enough chalav Yisrael available, since milk was distributed to all schoolchildren in England daily. But during the six weeks of “summer holidays,” when school was not in session, Ruth and Hannah were sent to supervise the milking, so they could use the Jewish schools’ milk allocation in the production of kosher chocolate bars. “We used to go to Garstang, north of Preston, together with the Manchester beis din shomer, to supervise the milking at Cow &Gate Farms,” Hannah says.

Pesach was different. The Pesach chocolates were made in a Jewish-owned factory in London. Mrs. Friedman recalls three sets of mashgichim supervising production. “Since my mother’s chocolates were sold in Selfridges and other department stores, they needed hashgachah from the London beis din. They also bore a hechsher from the Manchester beis din, and one from Gateshead. So there were several mashgichim present. At night, the chocolates had to be sealed in vat-like containers until production resumed the next day.

“I remember one time, after production finished for the day and the mashgichim had left, the Jewish owner approached my mother. ‘If you want me to add anything, I can,’ he said.” An offer she obviously refused.

Funding a Higher Purpose

Erna’s older daughters were her right hands. It was their help with the house and the younger children that enabled Erna to make a living. Mrs. Ruth Friedman also worked with her mother in the chocolate business. After school was over, she’d go to the factory until around 8:00 p.m., after which she and her sisters would attend private shiurim to keep up their kodesh learning.

Daughter Hannah (Roberg) was old enough to help Ruth in the factory from 1951. “Artistic, colored fondants and beautiful wrapping were part of the sales technique my mother used to gain a niche in the confectionary market,” she remembers. “The tasteful packaging was very important to her.”

Her sister recalls being sent over to Woolworths, a department store, to buy boxes and ribbon for packaging. “My mother had tremendous taste and style, but the whole business was run on a shoestring budget,” Mrs. Friedman says.

In the factory, cocoa beans were processed and mixed with sugar, to produce 14-pound blocks of chocolate. The chocolate was then melted, and lady “dippers” used long sticks to dip the prepared individual centers into the lukewarm chocolate by hand. The chocolates were set in special glassine paper, presented like small chocolate baking cups.

The Koppenheim factory had 18 varieties of fillings — such as marzipan, mint, praline, . — and an assortment of the 18 varieties were packed by hand and presented in half-pound boxes. The packaging was designed by Erna herself and was evidence of her flair and style.

The girls helped in the factory and learned the business, but for her only son, Mrs. Koppenheim had other ideas. Peter was 15 when his father passed away, and it would have been natural for him to become Erna’s assistant. Yet she was determined that he attend yeshivah, without the worry of supporting his mother and family. Her chocolate factory enabled him to learn peacefully in Schneider’s yeshivah in London.

In 1959 Erna faced an intimidating court case. A wholesale company had given her a considerable order and purchased exclusive rights to distribute Koppenheim’s kosher chocolate biscuits. Although it was a very popular item, the company had misjudged and over-ordered. They promptly sued Erna Koppenheim for poor quality products to cover their losses.

When the case could not be settled out of court, it went to the High Court in London, where the hearing began on a Thursday and spilled over into the next week, forcing Mrs. Koppenheim to be away from her family over Shabbos. The case hinged on whether in fact the goods were of unsatisfactory quality when leaving the factory. The judge asked for a box to be opened before him, revealing chocolate biscuits in optimal condition. The case was thrown out, and Mrs. Koppenheim was awarded costs.

Kosher Swiss chocolate hit the British market around that time, and since rationing was over, large nonkosher firms like Rowntree’s and Cadbury’s could obtain unlimited raw materials and manufacture as much chocolate as they could sell. These two factors eventually led Erna Koppenheim to close her chocolate factory, but with the money she had been awarded in court, she was able to invest in real estate.

A Yiddishe Mummy

While her reputation as a businesswoman is fascinating, it is clear that in essence, Erna was the quintessential Yiddishe matriarch. “She did not preach a lot about Yiddishkeit,” her granddaughter remembers, “but it was deeply ingrained in her. She was a shul-goer and arranged a Jewish education for all her daughters.”

Erna’s priorities are clearly discernible from the following incident. On a visit to Switzerland in 1948, Mrs. Koppenheim had the opportunity for an audience with the Vizhnitzer Rebbe, visiting at the time. She told the Rebbe that she had five daughters to marry off, and she wanted them to marry talmidei chachamim. She also confided that she did not have money to support them.

Impressed with the caliber of Mrs. Koppenheim’s aspirations, the Rebbe gave her a brachah that all her daughters would marry talmidei chachamim from England! How many true talmidei chachamim did England boast in those days? Yet the brachah came true. The valuable paintings from Germany were sold to make her daughters’ weddings, and they all married distinguished scholars.

Erna stepped out of her home to run a business as the situation demanded it of her, but every step she took was to nurture the treasure within. Her children and grandchildren absorbed her teachings well. The Koppenheim descendants have realized their mother’s deepest dreams of Torah learning. Though Mrs. Koppenheim passed away over 20 years ago, on Rosh Chodesh Adar Beis, 5752 (February 1992), her family continues her legacy with dedication to Torah that has a sweetness far more enduring than the beautifully wrapped Corona chocolates.

(Originally featured in Family First Issue 480)