A major business deal, believed to involve $15,000,000 to $20,000,000, was consumated this week to return to Germany control of the Emil Koester Company, operators of a chain of 19 German department stores, and which was owned by a family which fled to the United States in the 1930’s to escape Nazi racial persecution.
Title to the Emil Koester Company was transferred to this country by the Michaels family, but during the war the holdings were taken over by the Alien Property Custodian which returned it to its owners after the war. Sales in the company’s chain of stores is reported to have topped 200,000,000 deutschemarks annually.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.