POST 45: HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCE: RECALLING MY PAULY ANCESTORS

REMARK:  What started out as an attempt to remember relatives and friends of Dr. Josef Pauly’s branch of my family who perished in the Holocaust became more involved the deeper I got into writing.  I uncovered two new third cousins, including an elderly relative who personally knew some of the victims; I discovered a diary written by one of the Holocaust victims, translated into English, describing the final wrenching months of he and his wife’s lives before they killed themselves; I found a second, lengthier account, in German, written by the daughter of another victim, describing her father’s final two years before he too committed suicide; I learned about a Polish on-line database with inhabitant information from Posen, Germany [today: Poznań, Poland] (Figure 1), the community where Dr. Pauly lived and where all nine of his children were born.  And, to top it all off, I just uncovered another collection at the Leo Baeck Institute in New York/Berlin, the John H. Richter Collection, an enormous cache of materials referencing, among other ancestors, the family of one of Josef’s son-in-laws, the Neissers.  None of these discoveries alone have changed the trajectory of this post, but together they were cause for distraction.  That said, these recent finds allow me to tell a more complete story.

Note:  In this post, I remember members of my Pauly family and their close friends who perished in the Holocaust.

Related Posts:

Post 40:  Elisabeth “Lisa” Pauly Née Krüger, One of My Uncle Fedor’s “Silent Heroes”

Post 44:  A Trove of Family History from the “Pinkus Collection” at The Leo Baeck Institute

Figure 1. 1917 map of Posen, Germany with Wilhelmstraße highlighted, street along which Dr. Josef Pauly and his family lived

 

Holocaust Memorial Day takes place annually on different days across the globe and marks the date on which remaining prisoners at Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest Nazi concentration camp, were liberated in 1945.  This is a day for everyone to remember the millions of people murdered in the Holocaust, under Nazi Persecution, and in subsequent genocides which followed in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia, and Darfur.  With each passing month, unhappily, I learn about more members of my extended family and their friends who perished at the hands of the National Socialists.  To coincide with this day of remembrance, I want to recall and memorialize the multiple victims among the Pauly branch of my family along with a few of their close friends.

Regular readers may recollect that Post 40 post was about Elisabeth “Lisa” Pauly née Krüger, one of my Uncle Dr. Fedor Bruck’s “silent heroes,” who hid him in Berlin during WWII for periods of his 30-month survival “underground.”  Most of the Pauly family members mentioned in this post were aunts, uncles, and cousins of Lisa Pauly.  Briefly, let me provide more context on how this family is related to me.

Figure 2. My great-grandmother Friederike Bruck née Mockrauer (1836-1924)
Figure 3. My great-great-uncle Josef Mockrauer (1845-95), Friederike’s younger brother

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In Post 44, I mentioned two siblings, my great-grandmother, Friederike Mockrauer (Figure 2), and her brother, my great-great-uncle, Josef Mockrauer (Figure 3); I was already aware of their existence but found more information on their children in the “Pinkus Family Collection” archived at the Leo Baeck Institute in New York/Berlin.  Friederike and Josef had other siblings, including a sister Rosalie Mockrauer (1844-1927) (Figure 4) who married Dr. Josef Pauly (1843-1916) (Figure 5) from Posen, Germany [today: Poznań, Poland]; together they had eight daughters and one son, all of whom survived to adulthood.  Ancestrally-speaking, these nine children would be my first cousins twice-removed.

Figure 4. My great-great-aunt Rosalie Pauly née Mockrauer (1844-1927), married to Dr. Josef Pauly
Figure 5. My great-great-uncle Dr. Josef Pauly (1843-1916)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 6. Wilhelm Pauly (1883-1961), Josef and Rosalie Pauly’s only son

The only son from Josef and Rosalie Pauly’s union was named Wilhelm Pauly (Figure 6), and through steps I detailed in earlier posts, I was able to track down two of Wilhelm’s grandsons, Peter Pauly and Andreas “Andi” Pauly, living in Germany; Peter and Andi are my third cousins.  Both have been enormously helpful in the course of my ancestral research.  Not only have they provided a detailed, hand-drawn Stammbaum (family tree), developed by their father, Klaus Pauly, but they’ve scanned and made available copies of many family photographs. 

Figure 7. Large Pauly family get-together, probably in the mid-1890’s, with heads of the 31 attendees circled and numbered (numbers correlate to table below)

 

Figure 8. My third cousin Agnes Stieda née Vogel, Ernst & Margarethe Neisser née Pauly’s granddaughter, whom I only just learned about

This included a photo of a large Pauly family get-together that likely took place in Posen, Germany, probably in the mid-1890’s, judging from the estimated age of some of the individuals pictured whose dates of birth are known to me.  The partial caption that accompanied this and other photos has allowed me to put names to some of the people shown, including all nine of Josef and Rosalie Mockrauer’s children.  Through a laborious process of cross-comparison with other photos, including another large Pauly family get-together for the 1901 marriage of one of Josef and Rosalie’s daughters, I’ve now been able to identify 22 of the 31 individuals captured on film in this snapshot (Figure 7); as I was writing this post, an elderly third cousin from Canada who I only just learned about, Ms. Agnes Stieda née Vogel (Figure 8), helped identify two more people.  Considering the age of the image and the incomplete captioning, it’s astonishing that after almost 125 years it’s still possible to put names to faces of people who lived largely “anonymous” lives.  I attach the table below with names and vital data of the people (i.e., casual readers need not concern themselves with this): 

 

NO. NAME EVENT DATE PLACE
         
1 Anna Rothholz née Pauly Birth 14 March 1871 Posen, Germany
Death 21 June 1925 Stettin, Germany
Marriage 20 May 1892 Berlin, Germany
2 Josef Pauly Birth 10 August 1843 Tost, Germany
Death 7 November 1916 Posen, Germany
Marriage 1869  
3 Paula Pincus née Pauly Birth 26 April 1872 Posen, Germany
Death 31 March 1922 Magdeburg, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany
Marriage 16 November 1891 Berlin, Germany
4 UNKNOWN WOMAN      
5 Julie Neisser née Sabersky Birth 26 February 1841 Wöllstein, Germany
Death 11 April 1927 Berlin, Germany
6 ERNST NEISSER Birth 16 May 1863 Liegnitz, Germany
DEATH

(SUICIDE)

4 OCTOBER 1942 BERLIN, GERMANY
Marriage 5 September 1898 Stettin, Germany
7 Margarethe Neisser née Pauly Birth 16 January 1876 Posen, Germany
Death 10 December 1941 Berlin, Germany
Marriage 5 September 1898 Stettin, Germany
8 Rosalie Pauly née Mockrauer Birth 3 January 1844 Leschnitz, Germany
Death 28 November 1927 Berlin, Germany
Marriage 1869 Unknown
9 Rosalinde Kantorowicz née Pauly Birth 22 January 1854 Tost, Germany
Death 3 November 1916 Frankfurt am Main, Hessen, Germany
10 UNKNOWN MAN      
11 Charlotte Mockrauer née Bruck Birth 8 December 1865 Ratibor, Germany
Death 10 January 1965 Stockholm, Sweden
Marriage 18 March 1888 Ratibor, Germany
12 UNKNOWN WOMAN      
13 UNKNOWN BOY      
14 Therese Sandler née Pauly Birth 21 August 1885 Posen, Germany
Death 1969  
15 GERTRUD KANTOROWICZ

“GERTRUDE PAULY (PSEUDONYM)”

Birth 9 October 1876 Posen, Germany
DEATH

(MURDERED)

20 APRIL 1945 THERESIENSTADT, CZECHOSLOVAKIA
16 Maria Pohlmann née Pauly Birth 21 July 1877 Posen, Germany
Death Unknown  
Marriage 30 September 1901 Posen, Germany
17 GERTRUD WACHSMANN NEE POLLACK Birth 10 July 1867 Görlitz, Saxony, Germany
DEATH

(MURDERED)

22 OCTOBER 1942 THERESIENSTADT, CZECHOSLOVAKIA
Married 17 October 1893 Görlitz, Saxony, Germany
18 Heinrich Sabersky Birth July 1845 Grünberg, Germany
Death January 1929 Berlin, Germany
19 HELENE GUTTENTAG NEE PAULY Birth 12 April 1873 Posen, Germany
DEATH

(SUICIDE)

23 OCTOBER 1942 BERLIN, GERMANY
Marriage 5 February 1898 Berlin, Germany
20 ADOLF GUTTENTAG Birth 4 December 1868 Breslau, Germany
DEATH

(SUICIDE)

23 OCTOBER 1942 BERLIN, GERMANY
Marriage 5 February 1898 Berlin, Germany
21 Wilhelm Pauly Birth 24 September 1883 Posen, Germany
Death 1961 Unknown
22 UNKNOWN MAN      
23 ELLY LANDSBERG NEE MOCKRAUER Birth 14 August 1873 Berlin, Germany
DEATH

(MURDERED)

15 MAY 1944 AUSCHWITZ, POLAND
Marriage 1892 Posen, Germany
24 Edith Riezler née Pauly Birth 4 January 1880 Posen, Germany
Death 1963 Unknown
25 UNKNOWN MAN      
26 UNKNOWN WOMAN      
27 ELISABETH HERRNSTADT NEE PAULY Birth 2 July 1874 Posen, Germany
DEATH

(MURDERED)

27 MAY 1943 THERESIENSTADT, CZECHOSLOVAKIA
Marriage 11 May 1895 Cunnersdorf, Germany
28 Arthur Herrnstadt Birth 15 March 1865 Hirschberg, Germany
Death 21 October 1912 Stettin, Germany
Marriage 11 May 1895 Cunnersdorf, Germany
29 Adolf Wachsmann Birth 3 January 1859 Ratibor, Germany
Death Unknown Unknown
Married 17 October 1893 Görlitz, Saxony, Germany
30 UNKNOWN MAN      
31 UNKNOWN MAN      
       
       

 

*Names italicized and in CAPS are family and friends who perished in the Holocaust.  Numbers in the left-hand column correspond with the numbered, circled heads in Figure 7.

Figure 9. Mid-1890’s Pauly family get-together with Holocaust victims’ faces circled

 

Having identified more than half the people in the Pauly family photo, I researched their fate using family queries, ancestry.com, and Yad Vashem; I’ve learned through experience that if I can find no other information on the fate of family, I’m compelled to check the Holocaust database.  While multiple of the individuals in the photo had the relative “good fortune” to have died before the Nazis came to power, I was surprised at the number of people in the photo killed by the Nazis or who took their own lives after they were told to report for deportation. (Figure 9)  What was even more sobering was discovering that children or husbands of some of the people photographed similarly perished during the Holocaust.  While I’m unable to show images of all the victims, it’s important to acknowledge they once existed.

Adolf and Helene Guttentag

Figure 10. Helene Guttentag née Pauly (1873-1942)

 

Figure 11. Dr. Adolf Guttentag (1868-1942)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 12. Christoph Guttentag, Adolf and Helene Guttentag’s grandson, the second third cousin I learned about while writing this Blog post

Helene Guttentag née Pauly (1873-1942) (Figure 10) was the third oldest of Josef and Rosalie Pauly’s daughters, and married Dr. Adolf Guttentag (1868-1942) (Figure 11); they had one son, Otto Guttentag (1900-1992), who immigrated to America.  In the course of writing this Blog post, I found his obituary and established contact with one of Adolf and Helene Guttentag’s grandchildren, my third cousin Christoph Guttentag (Figure 12), living in North Carolina; I learned from him about the existence of a diary that Adolf Guttentag wrote for his son in the final weeks of his life before he and Helene committed suicide on October 23, 1942 in Berlin.  The diary eventually made its way to their son, who donated it to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.  It is available in English on their website (i.e., Christoph’s mother did the translation).  My next Blog post will be about this diary, which is unquestionably one of the saddest accounts I’ve read about Jews entrapped in Germany during WWII with no means of escaping other than to kill themselves.

Hermann Rothholz

Figure 13. Anna Rothholz née Pauly (1870-1925), whose husband Dr. Hermann Rothholz (1857-1940) was murdered in the Holocaust

Dr. Hermann Rothholz (1857-1940) was married to the oldest of Josef and Rosalie’s nine children, Anna (1870-1925) (Figure 13); she died in 1925, and thereby escaped the horrors of the Holocaust.  Dr. Rothholz was not so fortunate, and was transported from Stettin, Germany [today: Szczecin, Poland] to the Lublin District of Poland, and died there on October 19, 1940.

 

 

 

 

Ernst Neisser

Figure 14a. Dr. Ernst Neisser (1863-1942) at the Pauly family get-together in the mid-1890’s
Figure 14b. Dr. Ernst Neisser later in life

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 15. Margarethe Neisser née Pauly (1876-1941), who predeceased her husband, possibly of natural causes

Ernst Neisser (1863-1942) (Figures 14a-b) was born in Liegnitz, Germany [today: Legnica, Poland] in 1863 to a Protestant family of Jewish descent.  He was a bacteriologist, and the nephew of Alfred Neisser who in 1879 isolated the Neisseria gonorrhoeae bacteria that causes gonorrhea. Ernst Neisser became the director of the municipal hospital in Stettin, Germany in 1895, and married Margarethe Pauly (1876-1941) (Figure 15) in Stettin on September 5, 1898.  After his retirement around 1931 they moved to Berlin.  He and his cousin, who was named Luise Neisser (1861-1942), committed suicide together.  In Adolf Guttentag’s diary, Ernst’s cousin is referred to only as “L. Neisser”; only one Neisser with the initial “L” is listed in the Shoah database who died in Berlin, “Luise,” so I reasoned this was the cousin with whom Ernst committed suicide.   And, Ms. Stieda confirmed her name.

Figure 16. A “Page of Testimony” from Yad Vashem for Ernst Neisser uncertainly identified as a widower

Margarethe Neisser’s name does not appear in Yad Vashem as a Holocaust victim, suggesting she died before Ernst killed himself.  According to the large family tree I’ve referred to in previous posts, the “Schlesische Jüdische Familien” (Silesian Jewish Families), she died on December 10, 1942, two months after her husband.  This death date made no sense to me.  First, Yad Vashem suggests Ernst Neisser was a widower (Figure 16), and second, why would Margarethe wait two months to kill herself after her husband, unless they were divorced or separated and living apart, no evidence of which exists.  I’ve explained to readers in the past that I rarely accept prima facie ancestral data from other trees unless I can track down the origin, even if the information is from a usually reliable source.  I again contacted Ms. Elke Kehrmann, the tree manager, and asked where dates for Margarethe’s death come from; she explained she’d found them in two other trees, but upon re-examining those trees, Elke realized she’d accidentally recorded the death year as 1942 when it was really 1941!  Once I learned this, the timing of Ernst Neisser’s death vis a vis his wife’s death made more sense.  The cause of her death is unknown, but the fact remains she is not listed as a Shoah victim.

In the course of researching Ernst Neisser, I found a 34-page typed letter written by his daughter, Susan Vogel née Neisser, in 1947 to an American relative.  It is entitled “Die letzten ebensjahre Vaters Prof. Ernst Neisser,” “The Last Two Years, Professor Ernst Neisser,” and describes the last years of her father’s life from 1939-1942.  The letter concentrates on the suicide of Ernst and his cousin to escape deportation in 1942.  Unfortunately, the document is written in German, so presently I can offer no insights on Dr. Neisser’s final years.

And, lastly, as mentioned at the outset under “Remarks,” I learned about the huge “John H. Richter Collection, 1904-1994” archived at the Leo Baeck Institute in New York/Berlin; suffice it to say, this collection includes an enormous amount of ancestral information, not only about the Neisser family, but even about my own Bruck ancestors.

Elizabeth Herrnstadt, Anna Herrnstadt, & Ilse Herrnstadt

Figure 17. Elizabeth Herrnstadt née Pauly (1874-1943)
Figure 18. Elizabeth’s husband, Arthur Herrnstadt (1865-1912), who predeceased her and avoided the horrors of the Holocaust

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Elizabeth Herrnstadt née Pauly (1874-1943) (Figure 17) was the fourth of Josef and Rosalie Pauly’s daughters.  She was married to Arthur Herrnstadt (1865-1912) (Figure 18), with whom she had two daughters, Anna (“Aenne”) in 1896 (Figure 19) and Ilse in 1897. (Figure 20) Arthur died in 1912, but Elizabeth, Aenne and Ilse were all murdered in 1943 in the Theresienstadt Ghetto in Czechoslovakia.  Astonishingly, Aenne Herrnstadt was the godmother of Agnes Stieda, the third cousin I mentioned above.

Figure 19. Birth certificate for Anna “Aenne” Herrnstadt, the older of Arthur and Elisabeth’s two daughters, born in Cunnersdorf, Germany on the 1st March 1896
Figure 20. Birth certificate for Ilsa Herrnstadt, the younger of Arthur and Elisabeth’s two daughters, born in Cunnersdorf, Germany on the 20th of February 1897

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gertrud Kantorowicz (pseudonym “Gertrud Pauly”)

Figure 21. Gertrud Kantorowicz (1876-1945), whose pseudonym was “Gertrud Pauly,” suggesting a close affiliation with the Pauly clan

Gertrud Kantorowicz (1876-1945) (Figure 21), like all nine of Josef and Rosalie’s children, was born in Posen, Germany; her pseudonym was apparently “Gertrud Pauly,” suggesting a close relationship with the Pauly clan.  Gertrud was one of the first women in Germany to obtain a PhD. in Humanities.  She was in England in 1938 but inexplicably returned to Germany later that year.  After the outbreak of war, she arranged a post at Skidmore College in the United States, but by then was unable to leave Germany legally; she was arrested trying to illegally cross into Switzerland, and sent to the Theresienstadt Ghetto in Czechoslovakia, where she died in April 1945, shortly before the end of WWII.

 

Gertrud Wachsmann

Figure 22. Gertrud Wachsmann née Pollack (1867-1942), a family friend of the Pauly’s
Figure 23. Gertrud Wachsmann’s husband, Adolf “Friedl.” Wachsmann, who is thought to have predeceased his wife before the Nazis came to power

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 24. A death certificate for Gertrud Wachsmann (misspelt “Wachsbaum”), curiously completed on the 5th September 1955, 13 years after she was murdered in the Holocaust

Gertrud Wachsmann née Pollack (1867-1942) (Figure 22) was married to Adolf Wachsmann (Figure 23), an Apotheker (pharmacist) in Posen.  The detailed Pauly Stammbaum (family tree) I’ve alluded to in multiple posts, includes some Pollacks, suggesting Gertrud was a distant cousin of the Paulys.  She appears to have been deported from Breslau, Germany, first to a detention camp at Grüssau in Lower Silesia, then to the Theresienstadt Ghetto in Czechoslovakia where she perished in October 1942. (Figure 24)

 

Elly Landsberg

Figure 25. Elly Landsberg née Mockrauer (1873-1944), my great-great-uncle Josef Mockrauer’s daughter by his first wife

 

Figure 26. Charlotte Mockrauer née Bruck (1865-1965), second wife of Josef Mockrauer, whose niece she was

Elly Landsberg née Mockrauer (1873-1944) (Figure 25), was the daughter of Josef Mockrauer by his first marriage to Esther Ernestine Mockrauer née Lißner; to remind readers, Josef Mockrauer was the sister of Rosalie Pauly née Mockrauer.  Josef Mockrauer’s second wife was Charlotte Mockrauer née Bruck (1865-1965) (Figure 26), my great-aunt, who was born in 1865.  In a book by Elly Landsberg’s grandson, W. Dieter Bergman, entitled, “Between Two Benches,” he mentions his grandmother:  “In 1891 Elly came from Berlin to the town of Posen to stay with her aunt Rosalie and with the well-known family of Dr. J. Pauly.  Her widowed father had remarried a young cousin and Elly was not happy in Berlin.  In Posen, however, she fitted right into the family of eight girls.” (p.11)  A point of clarification.  Josef Mockrauer was not in fact a widower, and his first wife Ernestine Mockrauer lived until 1934; after separating from her husband, she had an out-of-wedlock son in 1884, Georg Mockrauer, oddly given the surname of his mother’s former husband.

In 1892 in Posen, Elly married a lawyer, Adolf Landsberg (1861-1940), who came from a family of distinguished scholars and rabbis.  Elly went on to become a lawyer.  She lived in Naumburg Saale, Germany during the war, and was deported first to the Theresienstadt Ghetto in Czechoslovakia, then moved to Auschwitz, where she was murdered on May 15, 1944.

Figure 27. Maria Pohlmann née Pauly, born 1877, who survived WWII thanks to her “connected” husband
Figure 28. Alexander “Axel” Pohlmann (1865-1952), Maria’s husband

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In response to why Maria might have survived the Holocaust when multiple members of her family did not, my cousin sent, among other things, what turned out to be an “Einwohnermeldekarte” (resident registration card) or “Einwohner-meldezettel” (resident registration form) for Maria and her husband.  Having never seen one of these cards, I asked about its origin, and my cousin explained that each city historically kept these records for their residents.  With recent changes in European laws, these police records must be digitized for individuals born at least 120 years ago and made available at no cost to the public.  Poznan, Poland happens to be one of those jurisdictions which has automated these resident registration cards, but each city and country is moving at its own pace.

Polish databases, for me, are notoriously difficult to navigate.  I had the incredibly good fortune to find detailed English instructions on how to use these digitized population records for the city of Poznań (Posen), so for any readers with ancestors born there at least 120 years ago, here is the link.

Readers may rightly wonder where some of the specific vital data included in the table above comes from, so using the digitized Posen population records, I’ll give three examples.

Figure 29. “Einwohnermeldekarte” (resident registration card) or “Einwohner-meldezettel” (resident registration form) for Maria and Alexander Pohlmann showing they got married on 30th September 1901

 

The resident registration card for Alexander “Axel” Pohlmann and Maria Pauly, mentioned above, records their marriage as 30th September 1901. (Figure 29)  A photo given to me by Andi Pauly of Axel and Maria’s wedding is captioned with the date 1902 (Figure 30), so the resident registration card provides an opportunity to precisely date the event.

Figure 30. Alexander “Axel” Pohlmann and Maria Pauly’s 1901 wedding including names of some guests

 

Three resident registration cards can be found among the Posen population records for Josef and Rosalie Pauly and their nine children; as readers may be able to discern, for at least some of the children, their date of birth and place and date of marriage are shown. (Figures 31a-c)

Figure 31a. Resident registration card 1 for Josef & Rosalie Pauly and their children providing dates of birth and place and date of marriage (only Josef and Rosalie Pauly’s names and vitals are circled)
Figure 31b. Resident registration card 2 for Josef & Rosalie Pauly children providing dates of birth and places and dates of marriage
Figure 31c. Resident registration card 3 for Josef & Rosalie Pauly children providing dates of birth and places and dates of marriage

 

And, finally, the resident registration form for Adolf and Gertrud Wachsmann, friends of the Pauly’s, provides Adolf’s date and place of birth and their date and place of marriage, all previously unknown facts now firmly “anchored” with reference to a historic document. (Figure 32)

Figure 32. Resident registration card for Adolf and Gertrud Wachsmann providing previously unknown vital data

In conclusion, in the absence of surviving personal papers, it is very difficult to properly commemorate victims of the Holocaust who led fulfilled lives which were abruptly terminated by the Nazis.  Still, I feel a need to at least speak their names, show their faces, where possible, and acknowledge their existence using what scant evidence can be found to show they were once living beings.

REFERENCE

Bergman, W. Dieter

1995  Between Two Benches.  California Publishing Co. San Francisco, CA