The collection was prepared for shipping from Germany to USA by the shipping company "Mannheimer Paketfahrt Gesellschaft M.B.H". The paintings were packed in crates in the family's Frankfurt house. The family fled Frankfurt in 1939. The collection was shipped on the Rhine River to Holland, but the shipment was ostensibly returned to Mannheimer Paketfahrt due to the outbreak of WWII. The shipment no longer contained paintings, etchings, drawings or other objects of art or value.