Kurt Goldstein was born on November 6, 1878, in Kattowitz, a small town in Upper Silesia, the seventh of nine children of an agnostic Jewish family. His father, the prosperous owner of a local lumber yard, had not had much formal education, but had acquired a great respect for scholarship. Thus he saw to it that all his sons obtained advanced university degrees as the proper preparation for life. Goldstein's childhood was spent in a huge house amidst the hustle and bustle of many people. The lumberyard workmen joined the family for the midday meal; there was a ballroom for festive occasions, just as there were small dark rooms which no one ever entered because they were said to be haunted. There were always visiting aunts or cousins about, among the latter frequently the future philosopher Ernst Cassirer, Goldstein's senior by four years.