Rozenkwit

Rosenkwit or Rosenkvit is an old Germanic family name. The name is believed to originate in 11th century Lower Lorraine, a western area of the German Kingdom on its border with the Dutch county of Flanders, where it was adopted by a Jewish family during the reign of duke Godfrey of Bouillon.

Godfrey had inherited the duchy of Lower Lorraine from his mother, Ida, and had mortgaged the lands to finance his campaign in the Holy Land. But to bolster his authority with the contemporary Church he sought to remove the Jewish associations of his heritage and original name. As well as having himself re-baptized by Pope Urban II, he promoted a wave of Christianization in the territories he controlled, including the replacement by Jewish families of Hebrew patronyms with names derived from their occupations, residences, or simply from plants, metals, and colours. By adopting the name "Rosenkwit", a Jewish family of prosperous horticulturalists supported Godfrey's campaign and won his favour and grace.

By the middle of the 15th century, Rozenkwits were established in the city of Cologne, then a centre of arts and learning as well as a major commercial hub. The family flourished in the city's cosmopolitan atmosphere, becoming prosperous merchants. The comparative tolerance of the contemporary church allowed the family to maintain its Jewish roots, and many generations descended from the Rosenkwits of Bouillon lived in the city. By the 18th century members of the family were engaged in the business of agricultural tool manufacture, selling products across Europe as far as Finland.

The family was closely associated with German freemasonry, which caused political difficulties for some of its members. One Rosenkwit was, during an early 20th century business trip to Moscow, accused of "conspiracy against the czar". He fled, settling in Olyka, eastern Prussia, with the support of the Radziwill family, but was in 1916 shot dead by Tsarists in a German-Polish border trench.

During the Second World War the Rosenkwit family shared the fate of Germany's Jewish population, with many killed during the Nazi Shoah and a few able to emigrate to the United States.