Note: In this post, I discuss a man with whom my father was once friends, Dr. Herbert Holst, a teacher by profession, and Vice-President of Tiegenhof’s Club Ruschau.
In the previous post, I discussed what I learned about my father’s erstwhile friend Dr. Franz Schimanski. He was a lawyer and notary by profession, and the President of the Club Ruschau, the sports organization my father was a member of in Tiegenhof [today: Nowy Dwór Gdański, Poland]. This is the town in Freistaat Danzig (Free State of Danzig) where my father had his dental practice between 1932 and 1937. In this post, I turn my attention to Dr. Schimanski’s deputy in the Club Ruschau, Dr. Herbert Holst (Figure 1), another former friend, to relate the little I know about him. As with the previous post, I owe a debt of gratitude to Mr. Peter Hanke from “danzig.forum.de,” who uncovered much of the information I relate below.
Around 2012, I began my forensic investigations into my father and his family prompted by seven albums of photos my dad bequeathed me covering from the late 1910’s until his departure for America in 1948. Two of these albums include photos exclusively from the five years my father spent in Tiegenhof and the Free State of Danzig. While many of the images are labelled, often they include only the people’s forenames or nicknames, making it difficult to figure out who they were, how they were connected to my father, and what might have happened to them.
Around the time I was trying to make sense of my father’s collection of portraits, my mother reminded me about two aged friends of his both born in Danzig [today: Gdańsk, Poland], Peter (b. 1923) and Lolo Lau (b. 1925). I wrote about this couple in Post 2, and my visit to see them in Germany in 2012. (Figures 2-3) Peter Lau lived in Tiegenhof from around age 5 to 15, when his father, Kurt Lau (Figure 4), was the Managing Director of the “Tieghenhofer Oelmühle,” the rapeseed oil mill there. For this reason, he recognized many of the people in my father’s pictures and told me the fates of some of them. Interestingly, though Lolo Lau never lived in Tiegenhof, one person she recognized among my father’s photos was Dr. H. Holst, the Vice President of Tiegenhof’s Club Ruschau; she recognized him because he’d seemingly moved to Danzig and been a teacher at the Gymnasium, high school, she attended there. Lolo could not remember what subject he taught, nor, for that matter, his first name, which Peter Hanke recently discovered.
I was able to confirm Dr. Herbert Holst indeed relocated from Tiegenhof based on listings for him in Danzig Address Books for 1940-41 (Figure 5) and 1942 (Figure 6), indicating he’d lived at Adolf Hitlerstraße 97. In these directories, his profession is listed as “Studienrat,” which is an obsolete term for high school professor or teacher.
Astonishingly, Peter Hanke found a book written by a gentleman named Hubert Hundrieser, entitled “Es begann in Masuren:Meinen Kindern erzählt (It Began in Masuria: I Told My Children)” (Figures 7-8), who was a student of Dr. Herbert Holst in the early 1930’s for about 18 months in Tiegenhof and wrote kind words about him (1989: p. 98-99). Peter graciously translated these lines for me (I’ve added footnotes to clarify a few things):
“My mathematics teacher was a bachelor, Dr. Holst, who always gave himself up to being distinguished. I was truly sorry that I had to disappoint him in his subject. It seemed almost embarrassing to him to have to return my mathematics work to me with the grade ‘unsatisfactory’ (a) that I was used to and undoubtedly deserved.
After a teachers’ conference he took me aside, as he had done several times before. He couldn’t make any sense of the fact that I, who would have achieved the grades ‘good’ in the main subjects German, Latin and English, failed so completely in his subject. He offered private tutoring (b). There he wanted to find out, outside the scholarly setting, when and where my mathematical knowledge stopped or began
After the most recent comprehensive examination he could not help but let his arms sink helplessly. . .because with the latest ‘Tertian’ (c) material my mathematical knowledge was lost in impenetrable fog wafts. But Dr. Holst did not dismiss me with a devastating verdict or with the prophecy that I would amount to nothing. Instead, he had his landlady bring us coffee. With the remark that as a future Obersekundaner (d), this once he offered me a cigar (e), and we talked for an hour about things that had nothing to do with school.
Before I said goodbye, he encouraged me. If I could only keep my good grades in languages, I could also have a grade with bad results in his subject, and certainly there would be an angle in my later life where mathematical ignorance would not be decisive.”
(a) At the time grades ranged from 1 (best) to 6 (worst). The “unsatisfactory (ungenügend)” corresponded to “6.”
(b) These lessons were not held in the school building but in the teacher’s apartment. Essentially, Dr. Holst was offering a “school psychological evaluation” to understand the reasons for Hubert Hundrieser’s failure in the mathematical field.
(c) “Tertia” corresponded with mathematical knowledge of grades 8-9 which was inadequate for the 10th or 11th grades, “Sekunda.”
(d) The next-to-last year of high school before the “Oberprima.”
(e) This was a one-time thing, because at that time it was strictly forbidden for “Tertia” students to smoke, ergo the reference to the student’s soon-to-be status as a “Sekunda” student, when smoking would be permitted.
From these few lines, we learn that Dr. Holst was a mathematics teacher.
Peter Hanke uncovered what’s called a “Beamten-Jahrbuch 1939,” that’s to say, a “Civil Servant Yearbook” (Figure 9) for all the civil servants working in Danzig in 1939, including Dr. Holst. Figure 10a includes a partial list of teachers who taught there at the time, the schools where they taught, their birthdays, and their Service Date.
Below is a table transcribing and translating the column headers, and detailing the information specifically for Dr. Holst (Figure 10b):
Column 1 (German), Translation & Information for Dr. Holst
Column 2 (German), Translation & Information for Dr. Holst
Column 3 (German), Translation & Information for Dr. Holst
Column 4 (German), Translation & Information for Dr. Holst
Column 5 (German), Translation & Information for Dr. Holst
Column 6 (German), Translation & Information for Dr. Holst
Amtsbezeichnung
Name
Dienstort, Behörde (Amt, Schule)
Wohnort, Wohnung
Geburtstag
Dienstalter
Official title
Name
Place of employment, authority (office, school)
Place of residence, apartment
Birthday
Seniority (i.e., Service Date)
StudRat (Studienrat)=teacher, professor
Dr. Herbert Holst
Lfr GudrS (Langfuhr Gudrun-Schule)
Ad. Hitlerstr. 97 (Adolf-Hitlerstraße 97)
25th August 1894
1st May 1928
From the above we learn that Dr. Holst was born on the 25th of August 1894, that he began teaching on the 1st of May 1928, and that he taught at the Gudrun-Schule (i.e., Helene Lange School) (Figures 11a-c) located in the Danzig borough of Langfuhr. Peter found one additional item, a roster of teachers from the Gudrun-Schule listing Dr. Holst as one of its professors. (Figure 12)
As I discussed in the previous post, on account of the removal of all Germans following WWII from much of what is today again Poland, it’s been impossible to learn what may have happened to Dr. Holst. Possibly, someone with knowledge of his fate will stumble upon this post and contact me with information.
Note: I continue my forensic investigations into people my father, Dr. Otto Bruck, knew during the five years he lived in Tiegenhof, in the Free State of Danzig. In this post, I discuss a man who befriended him named Dr. Franz Schimanski, a lawyer and notary by profession, and President of the Club Ruschau. The fate of such people, though not family, has always intrigued me, and I’m continuously trying to locate some of their descendants.
I return in this post and the ensuing one to Tiegenhof [today: Nowy Dwór Gdański, Poland], the town in the Free State of Danzig where my father briefly had his dental practice between April 1932 and April 1937. I’ll talk about two men who were, respectively, the President and Vice-President of the “Club Ruschau,” the local sports club my dad joined with whose members he regularly socialized. The President was Dr. Franz Schimanski (Figure 1), and his deputy was Dr. Herbert Holst, both of whom I discussed in Post 7. My father would no doubt once have characterized these people as good friends given the numerous pictures of them which survive among his photos.
Finding out what happened or may have happened to people from Tiegenhof and Danzig who were once within my father’s orbit of friends, acquaintances and professional colleagues has always piqued my interest. Because of the turbulence, movements and vast relocations in this part of Europe during WWII, and the eventual ouster of Germans from the area after the war, it is particularly challenging to track down what happened to some of the people my father knew. As regular readers know, I’ve already related the fates of some of them. I tell these stories dispassionately since I have no idea how my dad’s relationship with these people ended in the era of National Socialism. The only thing my father ever said about this is that by the time he left Tiegenhof in 1937, he no longer had any dental clients and knew few people who still acknowledged his existence. I can only imagine how heartrending and dangerous this must have been.
Thanks to the intervention of Mr. Peter Hanke, my acquaintance from “forum.danzig.de,” recently I’ve learned a little more about Dr. Schimanski. There are major gaps in my understanding of his life, and unlike other people my father knew from Tiegenhof, I’ve yet to track down any of his descendants. Let me briefly review what I know for sure, what I surmise, and what Peter has recently uncovered about Dr. Schimanski.
From Address Books for the District in which Dr. Franz Schimanski resided, Kreis Großes Werder im Freistaat Danzig, listings in 1925 (Figure 2) and 1930 (Figure 3) directories show him to have been a “Rechtsanwalt und Notar,” a lawyer and notary. Two newspaper articles Peter found in Die Presse. Ostmärkische Tageszeitung. Anzeiger für Stadt und Land. (The Press. Ostmärkische Daily Newspaper. Gazette for City and Country.) (Figure 4) from 1912 first announce Dr. Schimanski’s appointment as notary (Figure 5), then several days later provide background (Figure 6):
Thorn [today: Torun, Poland], the 20th of August 1912, page 6:
Transcription:
“Tiegenhof, 20. August. (Drei Rechtsanwälte)
hat sich unser Städtchen in den letzten Wochen ge-
leistet. Die Überfüllung der Juristenlaufbahn be-
dingt, daß viele Assessoren nicht in den Staatsdienst
aufgenommen werden. Der Überschuß ist auf die
Rechtsanwaltschaft angewiesen. Wird nun in einem
Ort durch Fortzug oder Tod eine Anwaltsstelle frei,
so sind gleich viele Bewerber auf dem Posten. So
war es auch hier. Herr Justizrat Künstler siedelte
als lebenslänglicher Notar nach Berlin über.
Darauf ließen sich die Herren Gerichtsassessor Dr.
Schimanski aus Stuhm und Rechtsanwalt Selleneit
in die Liste der Rechtsanwälte beim hiesigen Gericht
eintragen. Beide konnten sich jedoch hier nicht be-
haupten, da hier noch ein dritter tätig ist. Es han-
delte sich also bei den beiden neuen Herren darum,
wer das Notariat bekommen würde, denn von den
Einnahmen eines Rechtsanwalts allein kann in
dem kleinen Bezirk der dritte Herr nicht bestehen,
und mehr als zwei Notarstellen sind hier nicht vor-
gesehen. Es schweben zwar schon lange Gerüchte
darüber, daß unser Amtsgerichtsbezirk durch den
rechts der Weichsel belegenen Teil des Kreises Dan-
ziger Niederung vergrößert werden soll, doch liegt
die Verwirklichung dieses Wunsches noch in weitem
Felde. Infolgedessen wird der nicht zum Notar er-
nannte Rechtsanwalt unsere Stadt wieder verlassen.”
Translation (using DeepL Translator):
“Tiegenhof, 20 August. Our town has afforded itself three lawyers in the last few weeks. The overcrowding of the legal career means that many assessors are not accepted into the civil service. The surplus is dependent on the legal profession. If a lawyer’s position becomes vacant in a town as a result of a move away or death, the same number of applicants are on the job. So it was also here. Mr. Justizrat Künstler moved to Berlin as a lifelong notary. Then the court assessor Dr. Schimanski from Stuhm and lawyer Selleneit joined the list of lawyers at the local court. Both could not assert themselves here, however, since here still a third one is active. So the two new gentlemen were concerned with who would receive the notary’s office, because the third gentleman cannot exist in the small district from the income of a lawyer alone, and more than two notary offices are not provided for here. Although there have been rumors for a long time that our court district is to be enlarged by the part of the district of Gdansk’s lowlands to the right of the Vistula, the realization of this wish is still a long way off. As a result, the lawyer, who was not appointed a notary, will leave our city again.”
One of the most remarkable things Peter found related to Dr. Schimanski, he located, of all places, on eBay! He discovered an original document with Dr. Schimanski’s signature and seal, dated the 15th of July 1913 (Figure 7), from shortly after he was appointed notary in Tiegenhof. From this document, we can determine that one of the earliest projects he worked on was a contract for construction of a narrow-gauge railroad.
My father arrived in Tiegenhof according to his Pocket Calendar (see Post 6) precisely on the 9th of April 1932 (Figure 8), exactly one week before his 25th birthday. Throughout his life, my dad was an active sportsman, and he wasted no time applying for membership to the local sports club, the “V. f. B. Tiegenhof, Baltischer Sportverband (Baltic Sports Federation),” to which he was accepted on the 12th of November 1932. (Figure 9) While this was ostensibly a sports club (Figure 10), in order to be accepted by the businessmen and social elite, one clearly had to be a member of civic organizations in town, particularly if one expected to have a successful dental practice. Many of the club’s social events appear to have taken place at the Club Ruschau, located in Petershagen [today: Zelichowo, Poland], just outside Tiegenhof. Mr. Marek Opitz, the current director of the Zulawskie Museum in Nowy Dwór Gdański, was unaware of the club’s existence until I asked him about it and sent him photos. I discussed in Post 7 how Mr. Opitz was able to locate one of the Club’s surviving buildings, to which he took me and my wife on one of our visits to Nowy Dwór Gdański. (Figure 11)
Numerous of the photos of Dr. Schimanski and other members were taken at the Club Ruschau. (Figure 12) In multiple photos, he is shown holding a cane. I surmise Dr. Schimanski was a veteran of WWI and was wounded in theater. Ancestry.com has numerous WWI German Casualty Lists, identifying those killed and wounded in action. I attach a single example with a “Franz Schimanski” listed; in this case, the number “15.6” (i.e., 15th of June) follows the name. (Figure 13) This may correspond to the month and day of birth, or, just as likely, to the day the person was killed or wounded. Regardless, I have no knowledge this Franz Schimanski was my father’s friend. I only know from other pictures in my father’s photo albums that Dr. Schimanski was born in June, year unspecified, based on a birthday party held in his honor that month in 1933. I’m not a very good judge of age, but I would gauge Dr. Schimanski was born around 1880, give or take a few years. If he went to war in 1914, he would have been around 34, seemingly old to be a foot soldier, although Peter Hanke found a secondary source which indicates about 30% of German soldiers were that age or older during WWI. To date, I’ve been unable to locate any primary birth, marriage or death records definitively related to Dr. Schimanski. This was a very common surname in Kreis Großes Werder, and in fact in the 1935 Danzig address book alone, there are 98 listings for Schimanski!
Several pictures among my father’s collection show Dr. Schimanski with who I think is his wife and three adult daughters. (Figure 14) Unlike most of his other pictures, he doesn’t identify the ladies by name but merely refers to them as Lieblinge, “darlings.” My dad clearly had a sweet spot for Dr. Schimanski’s family. Regardless, his pictures give no further clues I can pursue to determine the fate of Dr. Schimanski’s family.
The Totenkarte, death card, from the Heimatortkartei Danzig-Westpreußen database for Dr. Schimanski (Figure 15) indicates only he died in 1940. The information was reported by a Dr. Kurt Heidebrecht, who is listed in the Amtliches Fernsprechbuch für den Bezirk der Reichspostdirektion Danzig 1942 (Official telephone directory for the district of the Reichspostdirektion Danzig 1942) as a Rechtsanwalt u. Notar, lawyer and notary (Figure 16), just as Dr. Schimanski was. I assume Drs. Heidebrecht and Schimanski were once colleagues. Peter Hanke was able to find a Heidebrecht living in Hamburg, Germany who may be a descendant of Kurt Heidebrecht. I’ve written a letter to this person hoping he is related and may be able to tell me what happened to Dr. Schimanski and his family. Watch this space for further developments.
Note: In this post, I relate the story of uncovering multiple copies of a family portrait rendered in the Biedermeier style in what I estimate was the early 1830’s.
During a recent email exchange with my 92-year old third cousin, Agnes Stieda née Vogel (Figure 1), subject of several earlier posts, I casually mentioned other topics I want to eventually write about on my Blog. This includes one illustrious branch of my Bruck family, the von Koschembahrs, about which more is said below. This prompted Agnes to tell me in passing she has a family portrait of them hanging in her apartment in Victoria, Canada. A short while later she sent me several photos. (Figure 2) They show a touching depiction of two children, one holding a rabbit, painted in what I would learn was the Biedermeier style. Agnes quickly added this is a revered painting within her family.
Other than knowing it portrayed two von Koschembahr children, no doubt from the period when the Biedermeier style was in vogue in Germany between 1815 and 1848, Agnes had no further information as to the painter, the subjects, nor the exact year it was painted. Obviously curious whether the painting or the boy and girl might be known to other members of my extended family, I decided to send a copy of the photo to another of my German third cousins, Kurt Polborn. (Figure 3) He is a close descendant of the von Koschembahrs, and I thought he might recognize the artwork. And, indeed he did. He promptly told me they depict Leopold von Koschembahr (1829-1874) (Figure 4), and his slightly older sister, Mary von Koschembahr. Judging from the approximate age of the children, and Leopold’s year of birth, 1829, I estimate it was done in the early 1830’s, well within the timeframe the Biedermeier style was popular.
Let me briefly explain to readers how my Bruck family is related to the von Koschembahrs. The first-generation owner of the family hotel, the Bruck’s “Prinz von Preußen” Hotel in Ratibor [today: Racibórz, Poland], the town where my father was born in 1907, was Samuel Bruck (1808-1863) (Figure 5), my great-great-grandfather. Ownership of the hotel was acquired by his son, Fedor Bruck (1834-1892), my great-grandfather. (Figure 6) Fedor’s youngest brother was my great-great-uncle Wilhelm Bruck (1849-1907), (Figure 7) who married a baroness, Margarete “Grete” Mathilde von Koschembahr (1860-1946) (Figure 8), sometime before 1885; Leopold and Mary von Koschembahr were, respectively, Grete’s father and aunt. The term “von” is used in German language surnames “either as a nobiliary particle indicating a noble patrilineality,or as a simple preposition used by commoners that means of or from.” On account of his wife’s noble patrilineality, Wilhelm Bruck added her surname to his upon marriage. Thus, in Germany, this branch of the family was known as “Bruck-von Koschembahr,” but upon their arrival in America they completely dropped the Bruck surname. Suffice it to say, this complicates the family tree.
During my conversation with my third cousin Kurt Polborn who’d identified the von Koschembahr children, he mentioned in passing the painting belongs to his aging von Koschembahr uncle, Clemens von Koschembahr, living in Ohio. Clemens is about to turn 94 and is the grandson of Wilhelm Bruck-von Koschembahr and the sole surviving child of Gerhard von Koschembahr (1885-1961) (Figure 9) and Hilda Alexandra von Zeidlitz und Neukirch (1891-1954), who immigrated to America in 1938 with their 13 children. (Figures 10a-b, 11) Kurt’s claim that the family portrait of the von Koschembahr children is still in the family, while entirely reasonable, left me puzzled. (Figure 12) What then is the version owned by Agnes, an original or a copy? I would add that Clemens, being told that another version of this family portrait exists, was quite surprised.
Things got even more puzzling when I probed into this more. Agnes remembered having visited her cousin Klaus Pauly (Figure 13) in Germany and hanging in his house was yet another copy of this same painting! Curious as to how many copies of this painting might exist, I immediately sent an email to Klaus’s son, Andi Pauly (Figure 14), whose name I’ve often mentioned. The existence of this copy, at least, could be explained. During one of Klaus’s visits to see Agnes, he’d greatly admired the painting and tried to talk her out of it. Agnes, naturally, was unwilling to part with this family heirloom, but, Klaus, undeterred, photographed the “original,” and upon his return home turned it into a full-size photo which he framed. Problem solved!
Still, the existence of two seemingly high-quality versions of the Biedermeier-style portrait is intriguing. It seems unlikely the von Koschembahrs would have allowed the original to leave the family, so I’d argue that version is the one owned by Clemens von Koschembahr. Admittedly, while I can only gauge this from low resolution images, it would seem the older looking of the two copies is also that one. Unfortunately, neither copy of the paintings is signed; Kurt explained this was not uncommon in paintings done of royals and aristocrats of the time, where the “star,” so to speak, was the king, queen, or noble. The creates an obvious problem where originals can easily be forged and claimed as authentic. Absent a professional side-by-side comparison, the question of which is the original portrait will remain an open one. Things, though, could get even more confusing should yet more high-quality versions of this portrait emerge from other members of the family! This may not be as implausible as it sounds given the endearing quality the von Koschembahr artwork possesses and the possible desire by others to have had their own copies.
Note: In this post, I discuss how I’m related to two living Brucks I’ve known for half-a-dozen years, and how I inadvertently stumbled on the answer and responded to their question, “Where’s the smoking gun?”
This story begins in 1951. Soon after I was born, my parents received a congratulatory note from my father’s uncle, Wilhelm “Willy” Bruck, then living in Barcelona, Spain. (Figure 1) As a boy, I would later meet my great-uncle’s daughter Eva in New York when she came to visit the family but never realized who she was. (Figure 2) Though I met her only once, I remember her fondly because she gave me an old silver coin I still cherish (i.e., readers will recall I’ve been a lifelong coin collector). Because of my father’s rather dismissive attitude towards family, except for his beloved sister Susanne murdered in Auschwitz, naturally he lost contact with most of his relatives. Thus, when I began my forensic investigations into my family, I was left to reconstruct and find family descendants on my own, years after my father was gone and might have helped.
Aware some family members had wound up in Barcelona, I began my search there vaguely cognizant my great-uncle Willy may have had grandchildren. To remind readers, I discussed the search for my great-uncle and his descendants in Posts 32 and 33. Since this remains one of my all-time favorite family quests, I will briefly remind readers how I met the two Brucks, first cousins to one another, as what can only be characterized as serendipity. I thought perhaps my great-uncle’s grandchildren, my second cousins that’s to say, might live in Barcelona. I started by checking the White Pages for Barcelona and found nary any Brucks there. I expanded my search to all of Spain and discovered 14 listings. I immediately did the calculus, and said to myself, “No problem, I’ll write to all of them!” And, this is in fact what I did in late 2013.
Many weeks passed with no responses. Then, early one Saturday morning, I received a call from a gentleman in Haifa, Israel by the name of “Michael Bruck.” I had no known relatives there so was intrigued why this namesake was calling. He quickly explained I’d written to his first cousin Ronny Bruck in Alicante, Spain inquiring about my great-uncle Willy. Aha! Michael is the family genealogist, so Ronny forwarded him my letter, ergo his call. I must share one other alluring aspect of this story that corroborates what Branch Rickey, the brainy former General Manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers, once said: “Luck is the residue of design.” That’s to say, luck doesn’t just happen, you create the circumstances to get lucky. For those who may be familiar with the postal service in Spain, they’ll know it’s notoriously unreliable. The letter I sent to Ronny inquiring about my great-uncle Willy not only arrived safely, but it arrived in his mailbox on his 65th birthday, making him believe some unknown cousin from America was sending him well-wishes! The stars were obviously properly aligned.
All my letters to the Brucks residing in Spain had included a photo of my great-uncle, and Michael immediately noted the family resemblance (Figure 3), even though he’d never come across Wilhelm Bruck’s name in connection with his own research. In 2014, my wife and I had already planned to spend 13 weeks in Europe visiting places associated with my family from northeastern Poland to southern Spain, so I suggested we all meet in Spain. Meeting there was not possible, so Ronny suggested Germany instead, and Michael and his wife joined us from Israel. Thus, in 2014, we met in person at the home of my first cousin. (Figures 4-5) Despite our in-depth respective knowledge of our family trees, over the years, Michael and I could never pinpoint how closely or distantly we are related.
Fast forward to the present. My previous post told the story about obtaining the complete roster of students who were enrolled in the Ratibor Gymnasium, high school, between its opening in 1819 and 1849; Ratibor is the town in Upper Silesia where my father was born in 1907, and where many Brucks hail from. Among the first-year students who attended the Ratibor Gymnasium upon its opening were two brothers, Isaac and Samuel Bruck. (Figures 6a-b) As I told readers in Post 73, Samuel Bruck is my great-great-grandfather, and is known to me. (Figure 7) His brother Isaac was completely unfamiliar to me, so I casually checked on ancestry.com and MyHeritage, to no avail. Not expecting to find anything through a Google search, I nonetheless checked Isaac’s name there. Imagine my surprise, then, when I was “kicked” into a query that had been posted by Michael Bruck in 2012 on Genealogy.com inquiring about him. (Figure 8)
As followers can read, Michael asked the genealogical community for information on Isaac Bruck and his wife Caroline Stolz from Ratibor; he went on to say that their daughter Marie Friederike Bruck married David Isaac there on the 29th of June 1857, and that Friederike was Michael’s great-great-grandmother. Upon seeing Michael’s message, it immediately became clear how we’re likely related. While I qualify the previous statement, there is absolutely no question in my mind how Michael, Ronny, and I are related. We are fourth cousins once removed. Let me briefly review the evidence, again by reference to primary source documents as in the previous post.
To remind readers what I said in Post 73, in the Ratibor Gymnasium Album, the names “Isaac Bruck and Samuel Bruck” occur in succession and are “bracketed” together with their unnamed father’s profession identically described as “Arrendator,” leaseholder. (Figures 6a-b) From a condensed family tree developed by my uncle Dr. Fedor Bruck reproduced here (Figure 9), I know that Samuel’s father was Jacob Nathan Bruck and that by association, so too is Isaac’s father. To me, the names in association with one another and their father’s profession being the same is “the smoking gun,” the answer to the question Michael and Ronny once posed.
The marriage register listing of Michael’s great-great-grandmother Marie Friederike Bruck to David Isaak dated the 19th of June 1857 survives and can be found on LDS Microfilm Roll 1184449. (Figure 10)
Below is a transcription and a translation of the marriage register listing for Isaac(k) Bruck’s daughter and her husband.
Register No.
Datum
1857
Vor & Zuname
Bräutigam
Gewerbe
Wohnhaft
Name der Braut
& ihrer Eltern
Gewerbe
Wohnhaft
(Register Number)
(Date
1857)
(First & last name of the groom)
(Occupation,
Residence)
(Name of the bride)
(& her parents’ occupation & residence)
GERMAN
113
29.6
David ISAAK, 32 Jahre, Sohn d[es] zu Wrirtzen verstorb[enen] Handelsmanns Hirsch ISAAK & der dort lebenden Ehefrau Cheinchen geb. CASPER
Handlungskommis, Berlin
Marie Friederike BRUCK, Ratibor, 24 Jahre
zu Altendorf verstorb[ener] Sattlermeister / p. Kaufm[ann] Isaak BRUCK & Ehefrau Caroline geb. STOLZ, Ratibor
ENGLISH
113
29 June
David ISAAK, 32 years old, son of the merchant Hirsch ISAAK, who died in Wrietzen, and his wife Cheinchen née CASPER, who lives there
Clerk, assistant or commercial employee, Berlin
Marie Friederike BRUCK, Ratibor, 24 years old
Died in Altendorf, master saddler / p. businessman Isaak BRUCK & wife Caroline née STOLZ, Ratibor
As readers can see, in the far-right column, Marie Friederike’s parents are identified, Isaak (spelled with a “k”) Bruck and Caroline Stolz, with a notation that Isaak died in Altendorf, a suburb of Ratibor (Figure 11), obviously before his daughter got married in 1857.
The town where the groom comes from is incorrectly spelled “Wrietzen,” when it should have read “Wriezen.” It’s a town in the district Märkisch-Oderland, in Brandenburg, Germany.
One final point. Some may wonder, as I did, why Michael and Ronny’s surnames are Bruck when this originates in their matrilineal line. (Figure 12) Michael explained that some of David and Marie Friederike Isaac’s children were in the clothing business in Berlin and owned several shops there in the late 19th and early 20th centuries; on account of persistent anti-Semitism, they started to use their mother’s maiden name. One of David and Marie Friederike’s sons, Max Isaac and his wife, formally applied to the Berlin authorities to use the Bruck name permanently on the 3rd of November 1919, evidence of which survives. (Figure 13)
It’s satisfying to have figured out how Michael, Ronny, and I are related, albeit in the scheme of things, it’s not seemingly a near ancestral link. That said, I maintain close ties with Michael and Ronny, and we regularly communicate. Furthermore, Ronny, by dint of his familiarity with Sütterlin, the German saw-toothed script briefly taught in schools there, has translated numerous family documents penned in this writing. This has enormously furthered my family research.
Note: In this post, I discuss a recently obtained list of students who attended Ratibor’s Gymnasium, or high school, between its opening in 1819 and 1849, and facts I’ve gleaned from this registry. While I expected a linear unfolding of the ledger’s contents and information, in some ways it has turned into a game of three-dimensional chess, as I’ll explain. This post also provides an opportunity to lay out the exacting approach I try and take to make a case for ancestral connections relying on primary source documents.
One of the most exciting moments doing forensic genealogy occurs when you discover a copy or original historic document with the names of your ancestors, particularly when the names are those of your oldest known relatives. As a former archaeologist, this is analogous to unearthing an artifact that was last handled by a human hundreds if not thousands of years ago. The context in which an artifact or document is found is key to properly interpreting its significance.
Last year, Mr. Paul Newerla, my friend from Ratibor, retired lawyer and current writer of Silesian history, mentioned that 2019 marked the bicentennial of Ratibor’s Gymnasium, or high school, still used today as a commercial school. To remind readers, Ratibor is the town where my father, Dr. Otto Bruck, was born in 1907. In Post 60, using background information provided by Mr. Newerla, I discussed the high school’s history and a publication Paul found archived at the British Museum written by the school’s first director, Dr. Carl Linge, entitled “Denkschrift über die feierliche Eröffnung des Königl. Evangel. Gymnasium zu Ratibor am 2. Juni 1819. . .,” “Memorandum on the solemn opening of the Royal Evangelical High School in Ratibor on June 2, 1819. . .” (Figure 1) This publication, printed in 1820, included a list of names of all first-year attendees, including two members of my Bruck family with only the initials of their forenames written in elaborate Gothic script, read by Paul as “S. Bruck” and J. Bruck.” (Figure 2) Based on the intimate knowledge of my family tree, I concluded these stood for Samuel Bruck (1808-1863) and Jonas Bruck (1813-1883), brothers who are shown as the children of Jacob Bruck in an abridged typed family tree developed by my Uncle Dr. Fedor Bruck. (Figure 3)
Typically, attendance at Gymnasiums begins between the ages of 10 and 12, give or take a year, so Samuel’s attendance in 1819 when he would have been 11 years old makes sense. However, his brother Jonas’s attendance in 1819, when he was only six years old seems implausible, unless he was exceptionally precocious. Absent any other incontrovertible evidence, however, this is the preliminary conclusion I came to in Post 60, namely, that Jonas Bruck had attended the Ratibor Gymnasium at a very early age.
Naturally, I became curious whether the original ledger of student names upon which Dr. Linge’s publication was based still exists, whether it is in the Polish State Archives in Racibórz or possibly curated by the Muzeum Racibórzu. Paul explained that because an existing commercial school now occupies the buildings of the former high school (Figure 4), some of the original records are retained there. In the recent past, there had apparently been some discussion about transferring the remaining ledgers to the archive or museum but for unknown reasons these negotiations ended acrimoniously.
Paul offered to contact the commercial school and inquire about the student ledgers, which he knew to have existed at one time because a colleague had shared some pictures of the “Album,” as it is referred to. Paul was recently granted access to the Gymnasium’s records. This turned out to be a frustrating exercise because the school was unable to initially locate the Album of student names for the period 1819 to 1849, even presented with irrefutable evidence of its existence in the form of pictures; Paul even checked the school’s archives, to no avail. Dispiritedly, Paul left his name and number, and asked them to call him if the Album was ever found.
Paul was not optimistic the ledger would turn up. He’s related some horror stories how nearby Polish and Czech Republic parishes have on occasion burned Kirchenbücher, church books, Kirchenmatrikeln, the roll or register of parishioners, and Pfarrmatrikel, parish matriculations, related to former German occupants of the area simply because none of their descendants live locally anymore. To use another archaeological analogy, it’s like pillaging a cultural site, ripping a page from prehistory, so to speak. So, it came as a pleasant surprise when several weeks after Paul’s visit to the former Ratibor Gymnasium he received a call telling him they’d finally located the Album in question. Paul promptly visited the commercial school and took pictures of the entire ledger of students covering the period 1819 through 1849, roughly 90 pages worth of material, which he sent me. (Figure 5)
I’ve been a coin collector much of my life and going through all the pages of the Ratibor Gymnasium Album was comparable to sorting through a cache of pennies in search of pre-1959 wheat chaff coppers. While the names of family members I discovered were relatively few, the information corresponding to each ancestor has provided multiple avenues for further investigation. The challenge is making sense of ancestral connections for people who lived 170 to 200 years ago in the context of what was a very large Bruck family at the time. As I mentioned at the outset, it’s a bit like playing three-dimensional chess
In the table below, I summarize the family data I gleaned from the Ratibor student ledger. Then, I examine using available primary source documents how or whether these people are or may be related.
SUMMARY OF FAMILY NAMES FROM RATIBOR GYMNASIUM ALBUM, 1819-1849
Readers will note that Isaac and Samuel Bruck’s names are listed in succession and bracketed, and the profession of their father is identical, an “Arrendator,” a leaseholder (i.e., holding property by lease). Thus, I assume they were brothers, although I had no prior knowledge of Isaac. Samuel Bruck (1808-1863) (Figure 7) was my great-great-grandfather, and I have photos of both he and his wife, Charlotte Bruck née Marle (1809-1861), later in life. Samuel purchased the family hotel in Ratibor, the Bruck’s “Prinz von Preußen” Hotel, around the middle of the 19th Century, following a career as a wood merchant.
My uncle Dr. Fedor Bruck produced an abbreviated typed family tree (Figure 3) that includes the names of Samuel Bruck and his brother Jonas (more on him later), shown to be the sons of Jacob Bruck and his wife Maria Aufrecht. From primary source documents, Jacob (Jakob) Nathan Bruck, his complete name, and Maria Aufrecht are known to have had other children. LDS microfilm roll 1184449 for Ratibor documents the birth of a daughter named Rebecka on the 10th of January 1815. (Figure 8) The same microfilm roll also documents the marriages of three of Jacob’s daughters, Wilhelmina, Dorothea, and Fanny, respectively, in 1814, 1817, and 1822 (Figure 9); the mother is not identified but I presume is Maria Aufrecht. And, yet another primary source document identifies Jacob Nathan Bruck as the father of a son named Marcus Moritz Bruck who married Nanette von Aldersthal in 1836 in Berlin at the age of 36 (Figure 10); again the mother is not named but I presume is Maria. So, from various sources, I can reasonably document that Jacob Nathan Bruck likely had at least eight children (i.e., Wilhelmina, Dorothea, Fanny, Marcus Moritz, Isaac, Samuel, Jonas, and Rebecka).
Let’s move on to Isaac and consider what primary sources are available for him. With the original Ratibor Gymnasium Album for 1819-1849 in hand, and with Isaac Bruck’s full name written out, I am now certain the initial for Isaac’s forename in Dr. Carl Linge’s 1820 publication referenced above was mistakenly recorded as a “J.” rather than an “I.” This led me to initially conclude that Jonas had attended the high school at the precocious age of 6. Not the case.
Isaac’s age at the time he attended the Ratibor Gymnasium in 1819 is stated as 13. Given that the Gymnasium Ratibor Album records students’ names starting on the 11th of May 1819, I generally place Isaac’s birth in the early part of 1806, though it could certainly have been in the latter half of 1805. I discovered a family tree on MyHeritage that gives an Isaac Bruck’s exact date of birth as the 9th of November 1805 in Breslau. However, upon locating the original birth register listing for this individual in the LDS microfilm for Breslau (LDS Roll 1184380, page 34 of 594), I found the listing is for someone named ISAAC BRUG. (Figure 11) Conceivably, an alternate spelling for “Bruck” in the early 19th Century could have been “BRUG,” but because the father is identified as “abr. Meyer Brug,” I’m dubious this is the same Isaac. I’m convinced Isaac’s father was Jacob Nathan Bruck because of his association in the student ledger with the name “Samuel Bruck,” whose father was assuredly Jacob. This is another example of something I rail about, the need to be cautious about adopting and replicating information found in other family trees without confirming the source of the data.
Years ago when I did a basic Google query on Isaac Bruck, I stumbled upon an intriguing announcement in Volume 18 of the “Amtsblatt für den Regierungsbezirk Marienwerder (Official Gazette for the Marienwerder District),” dated the 26th of May 1828 about him. (Figures 12a-b) There is no question the announcement relates to my ancestor as he is said to have come from Ratibor, and his age of 22 in 1828 coincides with my estimate of how old he would have been then had he been born between 1805 and 1806. It seems, the Security Services from the West Prussian town of Graudenz issued a bulletin in May of 1828 alerting the police authorities to arrest Isaac Bruck after he had gone AWOL or escaped from the local penitentiary. He was described as Jewish, 22 years old with black and curly hair, a black beard, a normal sized mouth, having an oval chin and face, of average stature, 5 feet 2 inches, with a scar on his right forearm from a horse bite. Whether Isaac was ever brought to justice remains unknown.
Several other primary sources from Ratibor make mention of Isaac Bruck and his wife Caroline Bruck née Stolz, who is identified as the daughter of Joachim Meyer Stolz. The birth register for Ratibor records Isaac and Caroline gave birth to a daughter named Fany on the 28th of December 1833 (Figure 13), who according to one of my cousins supposedly died in 1834. Isaac and Caroline’s divorce is recorded on the 19th of July 1835, and gives the name of Caroline’s father as “Joachim Meyer Stolz.” (Figure 14) Yet a third primary source from 1835, claiming that Caroline and Isaac are then living separately, states Isaac remarried a woman named Charlotte Leopold; this same document gives the names and dates of birth of Isaac and Caroline’s two other children, Marie born on the 27th of June 1832, and Heinrich on the 6th of January 1835. (Figure 15) Caroline Bruck née Stolz’s death certificate records her death in Berlin on the 24th of January 1875, and claims she was born in 1803 in Rawitsch [today: Rawicz, Poland]. (Figures 16a-b)
The Ratibor Gymnasium Album records Heimann’s enrollment on the 4th of April 1823, when he was 11 years old, placing his birth around 1812. Some ancestral trees claim his full name was “Heinrich Hermann Heimann Bruck.”
The Ratibor Gymnasium Album states that Heimann’s father was a “Destillateur,” a distiller, unlike Isaac and Samuel’s father, who, as mentioned, was an “Arrendator,” a leaseholder. Given that Jacob Nathan Bruck had so many siblings, it’s possible some lived in Ratibor, and that Heimann was one of Jacob’s nephews rather than his son. There is insufficient data to conclusively determine Heimann’s relationship to Jacob Bruck.
A Jonas Bruck, whose father was also a “Destillateur,” a distiller, was enrolled in the Ratibor Gymnasium on the 21st of April 1824, when he was 10 ½ years of age. Once again, the question of whether this Jonas was the son of Jacob Bruck or the son of one of his brothers or cousins is subject to debate. Let me explain.
The Jonas Bruck who was the son of Jacob Nathan Bruck and the father of the famed dentist Dr. Julius Bruck, discussed in Post 68, is buried in the Jewish Cemetery in Breslau; his dates of birth and death are thus known (i.e., b. 5 March 1813-d. 5 April 1883). (Figure 19) In April 1824, when Jonas was enrolled, he would already have been 11 years of age, not 10 ½ as noted. This, and the fact that the father of the Jonas who was enrolled in the Ratibor Gymnasium in April 1824 was “Destillateur” would suggest this is possibly not Jacob’s son. No way to be sure.
Marcus (Markus) Braun was enrolled at the Ratibor Gymnasium on the 19th of May 1829 at the age of 12 ½. Marcus, my great-great-grandfather, a Brauereipachter, or tenant brewer, was the subject of Post 14. He is known to have been born in 1817, and his age in 1829 confirms this.
Oscar (Oskar) Bruck was registered as a student at the Ratibor Gymnasium on the 22nd of May 1845. By this year, the precise date of birth of students rather than their age was recorded, and Oscar’s birth is noted as the 8th of October 1832, which corresponds with data available to me elsewhere (i.e., the Pinkus Family Collection at the Leo Baeck Institute). Oscar Bruck was my great-great-uncle.
On the 3rd of January 1846, a Heimann Bruck from another generation is enrolled at the Ratibor Gymnasium, and his father was “Sattlermeister,” or saddler. His date of birth is noted as the 26th of December 1833. It’s not clear how he’s related to Jacob Nathan Bruck. Figure 15 indicates that Isaac Bruck and Caroline Bruck née Stolz had a son named Heimann, born on the 6th of January 1835, so presumably the parents of the Heimann born on the 26th of December 1833 were someone other.
My great-grandfather Fedor Bruck (Figure 24), brother of Oscar Bruck, was enrolled at the Ratibor Gymnasium on the 27th of April 1848. His date of birth is recorded as the 30th of September 1834, which again corresponds with data available in the Pinkus Family Collection at the Leo Baeck Institute.
In preparing this Blog post, I conferred with one of my fourth cousins. He has in his possession a memoir written by his great-aunt Bertha Jacobson née Bruck, great-granddaughter of Jacob Nathan Bruck, claiming he was one of 17 children and had 12 children of his own with Maria Aufrecht!! One family tree manager, now deceased, has precise vital data on Jacob’s dates and places of birth and death (b. 18 February 1770, Pschow-d. 29 June 1832, Ratibor), as well as the birth years of a few of his children, but cites no source. Given the very precise dates and places, I’m inclined to believe they’re authentic, but I can’t independently confirm this, so I reserve judgement as to their accuracy.
Given the large number of potential ancestors Jacob Bruck may have had and the likelihood that names repeated themselves within and across generations, it’s difficult to pinpoint the relationship among all the Bruck members who attended the Ratibor Gymnasium absent more primary source documents.
In closing, I cannot emphasize strongly enough that many of the family history stories I relate on my Blog would be impossible without the generous assistance of a cadre of researchers and genealogists who offer their help free-of-charge simply because they derive a vicarious “high” from doing so. Obtaining the help of local historians and researchers, particularly native speakers, is especially valuable as they often have knowledge of historic documents, not yet automated, that an outsider, like myself, would be unaware of. The mere existence of my Blog, albeit of limited interest to most of the world, attracts enough attention by people in a position to further my ancestral investigations and allows me to relate some of my tales. To these named and unnamed people I’m eternally grateful.
Note: In this Blog post, I discuss a few Bruck family Cabinet cards, photographic prints mounted on card stock, originating from several photo studios once located in Ratibor, Prussia, and Berlin.
The inspiration for this post came in part from a reader who inquired about the Helios photo studio in Ratibor [today: Racibórz, Poland] where her mother had worked during the 1930’s, and partially from some family photographs mounted on card stock with the names and locations of Ratibor and Berlin photo studios imprinted on the front or back.
In time, I would learn these photographs are referred to as Cabinet cards (Figure 1), which got their name from their suitability for display in parlors—especially in cabinets. This was a style of photograph first introduced in 1863 by Windsor & Bridge in London, that was a popular medium for family portraits. The Cabinet card, 108 mm by 165 mm (4 ¼” by 6 ½”) in size, gradually superseded the smaller carte-de-visite, 64 mm by 100 mm (2 ½” by 4”), which was introduced in the 1850s. The popularity of the Cabinet card waned around the turn of the century, particularly after the introduction of the photographic postcard (Figures 2a-b), but they were still being produced right until the First World War.
The name of the photographic studio is often imprinted on Cabinet cards under the photograph; typically a lithographic design covers most of the photo backing. Many designs incorporate attractive graphics, including medals or awards the studio supposedly won at some exposition or competition, or perhaps a medal of merit or excellence that was awarded by a European monarch. Sometimes, there is even an indication that the photographer or studio was the “official” photographer of a named monarch.
I always try to assist readers if possible, particularly if our respective ancestors originate from the same town; this sometimes presents an opportunity to learn more about the town’s history and its people, possibly obtain an alternative perspective, and often provides ideas for future Blog stories. Answering readers typically involves my consulting with more knowledgeable individuals. So, having never heard of the Helios photo studio the reader had asked about, I turned to my friend Mr. Paul Newerla, retired lawyer and current Silesian historian from Racibórz, for help. Paul sent a postcard of Langestraße, the street in Ratibor along which the Helios studio had once been located with the studio name circled (Figures 3a-b); he also included a page from a 1936 Ratibor Address Book listing existing photo studios with a larger advertisement for the “Photo-Helios.” (Figure 4) And, finally, in responding to the reader, I attached a section of a 1927 Ratibor map circling the approximate location of the studio.
More recently, I’ve turned my attention to the few Cabinet cards in my collection with the names and addresses of Ratibor and Berlin photo studios. These are often the most endearing and charming photos of my nearest relatives, specifically, my grandfather (Figure 5), along with my father (Figure 6) and his two siblings. (Figures 7-9) My ancestors literally seem to leap out from the picture and come to life.
The Cabinet cards depicting my family originate from three Ratibor studios, “J.D.P. Platz Kunst-Institut (Art Institute)” (Figure 10); “Oskar Krispien” at Oberwallstraße 10 (Figure 11); and “Alfred Schiersch” at Wilhelmstraße 12 (Figure 12); and two Berlin studios, “W. Höffert” with two locations, Leipziger Platz 12 and Unter der Linden 24 (Figure 13); and “V. Scheurich” at Friedrichstrasse 2017 in Berlin S.W. (Figure 14)
Curious whether I could learn more about these studios, I again turned to Mr. Newerla for help on the ones in Ratibor. In response to my query, Paul sent the list of existing photo studios from Ratibor Address Books for three years, 1889 (Figures 15a-b), 1923 (Figures 16a-b), and 1938. (Figures 17a-b) The 1889 directory showed J.D.P. Platz was located at Oberwallstraße 8, while the 1923 and 1938 directories indicated “Helios” or “Photo-Helios,” owned by Hans Ogermann, the studio the reader had asked me about, at Lange Straße 10. Alfred Schiersch was also listed in the 1923 and 1938 directories but shown to be at two different addresses, Oberzborstraße 8, then Eisenbahnstraße 3. None of the directories listed Oskar Krispien.
In addition to pages from various Ratibor Address Books, Paul sent me a link to “The Museum of Family History, Education and Research Center,” a virtual (Internet-only), multimedia, and interactive creation designed to help people learn more about modern Jewish history. Within this virtual museum is a link at “www.fotorevers.eu” to The Museum of Family History’s collection of over 3500 photos. This Polish and German language website documents by city the activities of photographers and their studios in the years 1850-1914; for Ratibor, it includes Jozef Axmann, Atelier Helios, and Platz Ph. (Figure 18), while for Berlin, W. Höffert is shown to be in multiple cities.
The Cabinet card depicting my grandparents around the time they got married in 1894 was taken at the W. Höffert studio (Figure 19), which on the reverse side of the card lists locations in seven German cities though more are known. (Figure 13) A different Cabinet card picturing only my grandfather at about the same age was taken at the “V.Scheurich” studio in Berlin. (Figure 20) Possibly, both photos were made in Berlin, although the wedding picture could certainly have been taken in Breslau, closer to Ratibor. However, the fact that neither picture was taken in Ratibor made me wonder where my grandparents married. Both were born in Ratibor and owned the Bruck’s family hotel there; additionally, I have a poem written by my grandfather’s brother, Wilhelm “Willy” Bruck, in honor of his brother’s wedding on the 11th of February 1894 that was printed in Ratibor, strongly suggesting my grandparents were married there. Yet, I had not previously found their wedding certificate at the Polish State Archives in Racibórz on two previous visits.
Knowing exactly the day my grandparents got married, I scoured the Landesarchiv Berlin database for their names but came up empty. Once again, I asked Paul Newerla whether he could check at the Polish State Archives in Racibórz for their wedding certificate on the off-chance I missed it, and sure enough he found it with ease. Possibly, my grandparents honeymooned in Berlin, and had their wedding photos taken there.
The reverse side of the Cabinet card from W. Höffert states: “Königlich Sächs., Königlich Preuss., Hof Photograph Sr. Königlich Hoh., Hof Photograph des Prinzen von Wales.” (i.e., Royal Saxon., Royal Preuss., Court Photographer Sr. Royal Dynasty Hohenzollern, Court Photographer of the Prince of Wales) In addition, there are three medals of merit or excellence illustrated on the Cabinet card. (Figure 13)
In the case of the Cabinet cards picturing my grandparents and their three children, since I know their vital statistics, they do not add to my knowledge of when specific events may have taken place or when they were born. However, for readers who may not have this information for their ancestors, knowing that Cabinet cards were in vogue between roughly 1866 and ca. 1914 may help narrow the window of time for which ancestral information is sought.
