April 2022 - bruckfamilyblog.com

POST 112, POSTSCRIPT: WOLFRAM E. VON PANNWITZ’S BEQUEST TO HIAS

Note: In this postscript to Post 112, I address the question of why Wolfram E. von Pannwitz’s friend, John Kroeker, may have arrived in America as a Stateless citizen, based on a reference sent to me by one of my German friends.

As a reminder to readers, the inspiration for Post 112 came from Mr. John Thiesen, a gentleman from Newton, Kansas. Among his family papers, he discovered that his grandfather John Kroeker arrived in America in July 1947 aboard the “Marine Marlin,” the same ship my uncle Dr. Fedor Bruck and his friend Wolfram E. von Pannwitz took to come here; it is clear from these ancestral documents that Wolfram and Mr. Kroeker befriended one another on their voyage to America.

Mr. Thiesen contacted me through my Blog hoping I might shed some light on why his grandfather suddenly moved from Kansas to Providence, Rhode Island in 1953. Providence is the city where Mr. von Pannwitz lived for several years following his arrival in this country, a place he likely called home until around 1952. Based on passenger manifests I located for Mr. von Pannwitz on ancestry.com, by late 1952 or early 1953, he’d permanently relocated to New York City. I have been unable to determine whether John Kroeker’s move to Providence was related to his friendship with Wolfram.

Another question I’d previously been unable to answer was why John Kroeker arrived in America as a “Stateless” citizen. Since he was a Mennonite, it was clearly not related to the revocation of his German citizenry by the Nazis because of his Jewish ancestry. Possibly, it is connected to one of the multiple reasons for “statelessness” enumerated in the link above (e.g., lack of birth certificate; birth to stateless parents).

By chance, my German friend Peter Hanke stumbled on an article in German Wikipedia about John Kroeker’s father and John Thiesen’s great-grandfather, Jakob Kroeker, which may provide a clue as to why John Kroeker was Stateless.

According to German Wikipedia, Jakob Kroeker was born on the 12^th of November 1872 in Gnadental in the Odessa Oblast of the former Soviet Union [today: Dolynivka, Ukraine]. An “oblast” is an administrative division or region in Russia and the former Soviet Union, and in some of its former constituent republics; readers are reminded that Ukraine was formerly part of the Soviet Union. Given the ongoing war between Russia and the Ukraine, this post coincidentally provides an opportunity to discuss a little history and geography. (Figure 1)

Figure 1. The oblasts or administrative regions of Ukraine

Jakob Kroeker was born in a Mennonite colony in Gnadental in the Odessa Oblast, but by 1881 he and his parents had moved to the Crimean Peninsula to the Mennonite village of Spat [today: Havardiiske or Gvardeskoye, Simferopol Raion, Republic of Crimea, Ukraine] near Simferopol. (Figure 2) The Crimean Peninsula, on which the Republic of Crimea is located, became a part of post-Soviet Ukraine in 1991, upon the latter’s independence, by virtue of Ukraine’s inheritance of the territory from the Ukrainian SSR, of which Crimea was a part since 1954. In 2014, Russia annexed the peninsula and established two federal subjects there, the Republic of Crimea and the federal city of Sevastopol, but the territories are still internationally recognized as being part of Ukraine.

Figure 2. Map showing the distance between Dolynivka, Ukraine, where Jakob Kroeker was born in 1872, and Simferopol, Ukraine on the Crimean Peninsula, near where he and his parents moved in 1881

The land for the Mennonite village where Spat was established and where Jakob Kroeker’s parents moved to was purchased in 1881 from Mennonites living in the Molotschna Mennonite Settlement [today: Molochansk, Ukraine] (Figure 3); Spat was located near the train station of Sarabus [Sarabuz] (Figure 4), which is about 11 miles or 18 km from Simferopol. Molochansk is approximately 185 miles or 297 km NNE of Simferopol.

Figure 3. Map showing the distance between Simferopol, Ukraine and Molochansk, Ukraine; the Mennonites in the latter community sold Jakob’s ancestors the land on the Crimean Peninsula where Spat was built, the town where Jakob Kroeker grew up as a young man

Figure 4. The train station in Sarabuz (Sarabus) near Spat at the end of the 19th century

Let me briefly digress and provide an instructive history of how and why Mennonites came to be in this part of the former Soviet Union.

The Molotschna Mennonite Settlement, located in the province of Taurida, Russia [today: Zaporizhia Oblast in Ukraine], on the Molochnaya River, was the second and largest Mennonite settlement of Russia. Chortitza [today: Khortytsia Island], founded in 1789, was the oldest and next in size, located about 71 miles or 114 km NW of Molochansk. (Figure 5) Chortitza was established by Mennonites from Danzig [today: Gdansk, Poland] (Figure 6) and Prussia who had accepted the invitation of Catherine the Great. The basis for this invitation was the fact that the Russian government needed good farmers in the Ukraine on land they had just acquired through a war with Turkey.

Figure 5. Map showing the distance between the Mennonite communities of Chortitza (Khortytsia) founded in 1789 and Molochansk founded in 1804

Figure 6. Map showing the distance between Chortitza (Khortytsia), and Gdansk, Poland, where the Mennonite community who built Chortitza in 1789 originated

Mennonite families, which tended to be large, were traditionally farmers but had been forced to seek other occupations as land along the Vistula River near Danzig and in Prussia had become scarce. Further complicating matters were Prussian edicts issued between 1786 and 1801 during and following the reign of Friedrich Wilhelm II of Prussia making it difficult for Mennonites to acquire land, because of their refusal to serve in the military due to their pacifist religious beliefs. Thus, the invitation by the Russian Empress Catherine the Great to relocate from Prussia was attractive because Mennonites could purchase all the land they wanted on the vast steppes of the Tsar’s Russian empire.

From a personal point of view, the fact that the Mennonites who founded Chortitza in 1789 came from Danzig is fascinating. Readers who have followed my Blog since its inception in 2017 may recall that my father Dr. Otto Bruck apprenticed as a dentist in Danzig, and later had his own dental practice between 1932 and 1937 in a Mennonite village to the east called Tiegenhof in the Free City of Danzig [today: Nowy Dwor Gdanski, Poland].

The region where Tiegenhof is located is called Żuławy Wiślane (i.e. “the Vistula fens”), which refers to the alluvial delta area of the Vistula, in the northern part of Poland. Much of the farmland was reclaimed artificially by means of dykes, pumps, channels, and an extensive drainage system. The arduous process of retaking the land from the sea started in the 14^th century and was in large part undertaken by the hardworking Puritan community of Mennonites, who originally came from the Netherlands and Flanders to escape religious persecution.

In any case, the land on the Crimean Peninsula where the town of Spat was established and where Jakob Kroeker grew up was sold to his ancestors by Mennonites who lived in Chortitza but originally came from Danzig and Prussia.

Returning to Jakob Kroeker. Even as a teenager he found comfort in the Christian faith, which eventually drew him to a theological training. He got married to Anna Langemann in 1894, and moved to Hamburg, Germany where he began studying at the Baptist seminary which he completed in four years. John Kroeker’s birth in Hamburg is thus explained.

Jakob’s wife could not obtain the necessary health certificate to work abroad, so he became a traveling preacher for the German Mennonites throughout Russia. In around 1906, he moved to Molotschna, where the cultural center of the Mennonites of Russia was located, although by 1910 he emigrated with his wife and children to Germany, to Wernigerode am Harz. Until the outbreak of WWI, he made numerous trips to St. Petersburg and southern Russia, although with the onset of the war he was no longer allowed to leave Wernigerode without permission because of his Russian nationality. The fact that he was never interned by the Germans during the war was probably because he was an ordained minister of the Mennonites.

Following the end of the war, until a peace agreement was signed in 1921, Jakob Kroeker held Bible courses for Russian POWs; this is deemed by scholars to have provided the impetus for the great religious movement in Russia after the First World War. This prompted him to cofound the mission union Light in the East in 1920 with the aim of spreading Christian literature among the Russian population. In connection with this, he continued to travel extensively throughout the 1920’s and the early 1930’s until the Nazis came to power, which severely restricted his mission’s work opportunities.

Jakob Kroeker and his wife wound up having eleven children, including Wolfram E. von Pannwitz’s friend, John Kroeker. Jakob died in 1948 in Mühlhausen (Stuttgart) in the German State of Baden-Württemberg.

We know that Jakob Kroeker was born in what was formerly part of the Soviet Union, lived as a child and young man on the Crimean Peninsula, and that he eventually emigrated to Wernigerode am Harz in Germany in around 1910. During WWI he was generally prevented from traveling to Russia on account of his Russian nationality. While he traveled extensively following WWI, he seems to have lived continuously in Wernigerode until around 1945-46 when he moved near Stuttgart. There is no indication that he ever relinquished his Russian nationality in favor of German citizenship, so while he was never interned during the Nazi era, the Nazis may have considered him to be Stateless. Following WWII, most Germans, including Mennonites, still living in the Soviet Union left or were deported; since Jakob had once religiously tended to these expelled German Mennonites, he would have had no reason to return to Russia once his flock was gone. As a Russian citizen, this may explain why Jakob was classified as Stateless, and why his son John Kroeker arrived in America as such.

POST 110, POSTSCRIPT: DR. WALTER LUSTIG, DIRECTOR OF BERLIN’S “KRANKENHAUS DER JÜDISCHEN GEMEINDE” (HOSPITAL OF THE JEWISH COMMUNITY) THAT SURVIVED THE NAZIS

Note: Having been told of the existence of a photograph of Dr. Walter Lustig by Mr. Daniel B. Silver, author of the book on Berlin’s Jewish Hospital that inexplicably survived the Nazi onslaught, in this postscript I describe how I managed to track down this image.

POST 110: DR. WALTER LUSTIG, DIRECTOR OF BERLIN’S “KRANKENHAUS DER JÜDISCHEN GEMEINDE” (HOSPITAL OF THE JEWISH COMMUNITY) THAT SURVIVED THE NAZIS

Regular followers may recall that while working on Post 110, I contacted Mr. Daniel B. Silver, author of “Refuge in Hell: How Berlin’s Jewish Hospital Outlasted the Nazis” to share some new information I had uncovered about the hospital’s wartime director, Dr. Walter Lustig. During our exchanges, Mr. Silver mentioned in passing that following the publication of his book in 2003, he’d attended a traveling exhibit in around 2007 on Berlin’s Krankenhaus der Jüdischen Gemeinde, the Hospital of the Jewish Community. He recalled the exhibit was developed by students from the University of Potsdam who, while assembling materials, had uncovered a photograph of the elusive Dr. Walter Lustig, something Daniel Silver had been unable to find during his extensive research. He eventually obtained a copy of this image, although at the time I contacted him, he was unable to relocate it.

I write this postscript mostly as an example to readers who may find themselves in a similar predicament, wanting to obtain a photo or information about a widely known individual, such as Dr. Walter Lustig, that one has learned exists or instinctively thinks should exist. In my instance, I was armed only with information that a traveling exhibit had been put together by students from the University of Potsdam, located on the outskirts of Berlin, and set about trying to track down the image of Dr. Lustig I was told survives.

The obvious starting point was the University of Potsdam’s website to whom I sent two emails, followed up with phone calls by a friend and relative, respectively; in both instances I was advised to wait though nothing came of my patience. Next, through a contact form I found online for the still-in-existence Jüdisches-Krankenhaus, Jewish Hospital, I reached out to them hoping them might have a photo of Dr. Lustig. In this instance, I received the very gracious following reply:

“During the first half of the last century the hospital was still in the hands of the Jewish Community of Berlin. Only in the 1960s did the hospital become a foundation under civil law. Thus, we do not have any archival material from the time before. We suggest getting in touch with the Jewish Community of Berlin. They might still have documents in their archives from that time.”

The Jewish Hospital provided a link to the Jewish Community of Berlin, known in German as the Jüdische Gemeinde zu Berlin. I sent them an email in early February of this year, and as of this writing, have not received a reply.

Not yet quite willing to give up, I asked a different German cousin, a historian by training, if he could again try and contact the University of Potsdam, which I still believed was my best chance of tracking down the photo of Dr. Walter Lustig. I provided the background information, but before calling the university, my cousin did a Google query and stumbled upon a reference I’d failed to discover on my own that included a picture of the difficult-to-find Dr. Walter Lustig.

It turns out that as part of its Oral History Project, the St. Louis Kaplan Feldman Holocaust Museum interviewed a Ms. Ruth Bileski Winterfield, a Forced Laborer during WWII who was compelled to work as a secretary for Dr. Lustig at Berlin’s Jewish Hospital from March 1943 onwards. Included as part of the documentary information related to Ruth Bileski, the St. Louis Holocaust Museum included a photo of Dr. Walter Lustig, whose provenance is the Stiftung Neue Synagoge Berlin-Centrum Judaicum, New Synagogue Berlin Centrum Judaicum Foundation.

A little background explaining how Ruth Bileski wound up working for Dr. Lustig is relevant. As the “Aryanization” of Germany society ramped up during the Nazi era, among healthy Jews of employable age who chose to remain in Germany, increasing numbers of Jews were forced out of public employment and professions. As Daniel Silver notes, “Once unemployed, Jews were required to register with a special Jewish Labor Bureau and had to perform forced labor wherever they were assigned. By 1941, most able-bodied Jewish men and women, including teenagers, were at forced labor, primarily in the many war-related industrial plants in and around Berlin” (2003: 34)

While Ruth Bileski and her sister Eva were technically mischlinge, half-Jewish, under Nazi racial laws, they were treated as equivalent to full Jews, referred to as Geltungsjuden. Both were working at an I.G. Farben factory and were rounded up by the SS in the Fabrikaktion. To remind readers, the Fabrikaktion, literally “factory operation” or “factory raid,” took place in Berlin in February 1943 when Berlin Jews were picked up by the SS primarily at their places of work. Following their arrest Ruth and Eva were transferred to Rosenstrasse. Again, as a reminder, this was the site of what is called the Frauenprotest, literally “women’s protest” or “wives’ protest.” This is the name given to the successful demonstration in February and March 1943 by Aryan wives and relatives of detained Jewish spouses and part-Jewish children arrested in the Fabrikaktion, an action that eventually resulted in the interned Jews and half-Jews being released.

Upwards of 35,000 Berlin Jews were rounded up during the Fabrikaktion, most of whom were deported to Theresienstadt or Auschwitz and murdered there. The only ones who given a reprieve because of the Rosenstrasse Frauenprotest, a reprieve always intended by the Nazis to be temporary, were some 5-6,000 intermarried Jews and their offspring. Ruth and Eva Bileski were among this group.

During their detention at Rosenstrasse, a Gestapo officer came to the door one day looking for someone who could type. While Ruth Bileski had secretarial training, she chose to remain silent, but her sister Eva offered her up. She was taken out of the room and made to wait all day before being reincarcerated with no explanation. The following day the Gestapo repeated the process again looking for a typist; Ruth’s sister anew volunteered her against her wishes, but on this occasion, she was put to work typing lists of people who were being detained in the building. She typed for thirty-six straight hours before falling asleep at the typewriter. Following the completion of this odious task, she was questioned by a Gestapo office about her secretarial skills, and eventually offered up to Dr. Lustig as his secretary at the Jewish hospital. In no position to make demands, Ruth nonetheless told her jailers she would not go anywhere without her sister. To her surprise her sister was allowed to accompany her. (Silver 2003: 134-136) Like many Jews and half-Jews who were released following the Rosenstrasse Frauenprotest, Ruth and Eva Bileski survived the Nazi Holocaust. Readers interested in learning more about Ruth’s time at Berlin’s Jewish Hospital should listen or peruse the script of the oral interview the St. Louis Holocaust Museum conducted.

Not having obtained permission from either the Stiftung Neue Synagoge Berlin-Centrum Judaicum or the St. Louis Holocaust Museum to use Dr. Walter Lustig’s image in this Blog post, I provide the link here so readers can view the photograph for themselves. As readers can observe, the photo of Dr. Walter Lustig shows him seated and dressed in a white laboratory coat. His distant cousin, Mr. Roger Lustig, whom I contacted while writing Post 110 thought no photos existed of Dr. Lustig because he was self-conscious of his short stature. Obviously, seated as he is, it is difficult to make out his height which may explain why he allowed this photo to be taken.

As a brief aside and conclusion, in Post 107, I mentioned that Ms. Kathy York née Powell’s grandmother Dr. Maria Wundsch née Pauly worked as a chemist at the Jüdische Krankenhaus, the Jewish Community Hospital, when Dr. Walter Lustig was the Director. Kathy thought letters from her grandmother’s experiences there might exist, but recent contact with one of her cousins who retains many of her family’s ancestral documents regrettably has not yet turned up these missives.

REFERENCE

Silver, Daniel B. Refuge in Hell: How Berlin’s Jewish Hospital Outlasted the Nazis. Houghton Mifflin, 2003.