How to untangle the saga of the Kokotek sisters, Elsa and Inge, two Holocaust orphans whose heartwarming photo was snapped in Fort Worth in 1941? The photo was taken the moment they arrived at the Texas & Pacific Station into the welcoming arms of their aunt and uncle, Ruth and Sol Englender.
Local historian Susan Kline, assigned to assemble a permanent photo exhibit of passengers arriving at the rail terminal since it opened in 1931, was equipped to research captions for news pictures of FDR, Will Rogers, Amon Carter, porters, WACs, and traquerias who laid track for the railroad.
But the Kokotek girls had left barely a trace in Fort Worth.
Their aunt and uncle had changed the spelling of their last name, from Englender to Englander, which made them hard track in phone directories. The couple had moved multiple times as they climbed the social ladder in Fort Worth. Within a year of the refugee sisters’ arrival, their aunt and uncle had disowned the girls and turned them over to a social worker. When the children’s Aunt Ruth and Uncle Sol passed away in the 1970s, their obituaries did not mention the Kokotek nieces among the survivors, although several nephews were listed. Why the rupture?