Note: An art historian from Utrecht University working on her master’s degree in art history alerted me to the existence of another accomplished artist in my family tree, Gertrude “Traute” Steinthal. Born in Berlin in 1868, she began her artistic career there before moving to Paris in 1899 during the Belle Époque era. She died in 1906 when she appeared to be on the verge of attaining recognition. She seems to have specialized in painting portraits of German-Jewish social elites, though any surviving works are likely to be in private collections and difficult to locate.
Possessing no musical, judicial, medical, stomatological, nor artistic skills which abound in my family tree, I’m always fascinated when I find yet another closely related ancestor endowed with such deftness. I learn about such individuals sometimes through my own research, other times through the contribution of readers. The subject of the current post is Gertrude “Traute” Thomine, née Steinthal, whose mother was Jenny Bruck, one of my great-great-aunts. I learned about Traute from Brianah “Bri” Lee, an art historian working on her master’s degree in art history at Utrecht University in the Netherlands. I’d never previously heard of Traute Steinthal.
As Bri initially explained, she was the daughter of Jenny Bruck (1835-1902) and Gustav Steinthal (1825-1895). Jenny was the younger sister of my great-grandfather Fedor Bruck (1834-1892). (Figure 1) Jenny (Figure 2) and Fedor were among my great-great-grandfather’s Samuel Bruck’s eldest children. Samuel (1808-1863) (Figure 3), to remind readers, was the original owner of my family’s hotel/restaurant in Ratibor (today: Racibórz, Poland), the Bruck’s “Prinz von Preußen” Hotel. For frame of reference, Traute was my first cousin two times removed, though this is of scant import.
Bri Lee first came across Traute Steinthal while doing preliminary research on the Union des Femmes Peintres et Sculpteurs, Union of Women Painters and Sculptors, and learned she’d exhibited with them from 1903-1906. Taken by her intriguingly titled works, she decided to further investigate and quickly realized that, while very talented, not only had she never heard of Traute but no one else had either. As Bri put it to me, “I quickly realized that she was a successful painter and sits at a pivotal intersection of Belle Époque history. Then I found a photograph of her (Figure 4), and a sketch, and I knew I had to complete this research.” (personal communication) Bri also found low resolution photographs/illustrations of two of Traute’s paintings (Figures 5-6) and an enhanced copy of her signature. (Figure 7)
Like most people who contact me these days, Bri found me through my blog. She reached out while I was in Europe preparing to fly to Paris dealing with another accomplished family artist, my father’s first cousin Fedor Löwenstein. As I reported in Post 189, I traveled to Paris to retrieve three paintings confiscated from him by the Nazis at the Port of Bordeaux in December 1940 and shipped to the Jeu de Paume in Paris. The three paintings, among 25 seized by the Nazis, survived the Nazi rampage to destroy so-called degenerate art.
Having already collected a lot of information about Traute before finding me, Bri hoped I could fill in her biography and help locate any surviving images of the artist and her artworks. She is particularly eager to locate a portrait of Jenny Bruck painted by her daughter in 1892 and find any documents that might be preserved within the family. Having previously been unaware of Traute, I was unable to assist in this regard.
While Traute was born in Berlin in 1868, she relocated to Paris around May 1899, according to Bri, likely with her mother Jenny. In October 1899, she got married in Paris to Alexander Edmond Thomine in Paris, familiarly called “Edmond,” an engineer and the Director of the French affiliate of the Babcock & Wilcox company. Knowing I would be meeting with representatives of the French Ministry of Culture and Paris’ Musee d’art et d’histoire Judaïsme (mahJ) and aware of Traute’s connection to Paris, I asked several art historians I know if they’d ever heard of her.
David Zivie (Figure 8), my contact at France’s Ministry of Culture and the chef de la Mission de recherche et de restitution des biens culturels spoliés entre 1933 et 1945, Head of the Mission for Research and Restitution of Cultural Property Looted between 1933 and 1945, graciously undertook a search through the archival databases he has access to. David found and sent me Traute and Edmond’s 1899 marriage certificate (Figure 9); a marriage announcement from Le Figaro dated the 17th September 1899 (Figure 10); Traute’s February 27, 1906, death certificate (Figure 11); a death announcement from Le Figaro dated the 28th February 1906 (Figure 12); and another death announcement in La Vérité dated the 2nd of March 1906. (Figure 13) David also sent me information on the sale of three of Traute’s oil paintings from artprice.com (Figure 14), a database of art market information with a coverage of more than 700,000 artists of fine art with over 30 million auction results. While this was new to me, Bri had already found all this information.
Quoting from one of Bri’s emails, below is some of what she’s learned about Traute Steinthal:
“There are a handful of contemporaneous profiles written about Edmond available on Gallica and RetroNews, two of which speak to Traute. It seems she was well respected socially in her time, and from what I can garner, connected to Jewish and German communities even after her move to France. Strikingly, she is recorded in public registry books as a painter even after her marriage- something that speaks to her professionalism and dedication, as well as, perhaps, her relationship to her husband. In fact, from the little I can gather, it does seem as though they were a good pair, with Edmond supporting her artistic practice, attending society events with her, and likely, connecting her to French artists who would eventually nominate her to the Société des Artistes Français. Sadly, she would exhibit her most works, and be accepted to this society, only a month before her death. Her obituary notes she was 38, however, if her birth date of 1 May 1868 is correct, then she would have been only 37 years old. I managed to identify a few days ago that she is buried in the Montparnasse Cemetery. To my understanding, Traute never had children.
As of right now, I have a fairly clear timeline of public events from 1892 to her death in 1906, simply by tracking the digitized newspapers and periodicals that speak to her. However, her time studying is still very vague, as is, of course, her personal experience of it all. I am hoping as I continue my research to be able to piece together her early life, her time studying art, her experience as a German Jew, then as both German and a Jew in France (the Franco-Prussian War had done much to make relations between both nationalities difficult, then to add on rising antisemitism, as well as the hardship for her simply as a woman painter of the time…). I am also attempting to find as many images as possible of her works and hopefully locate a handful that remain in private collections- though this is undoubtedly the hardest part of this research journey. Given she painted portraits of many German-Jewish social elites, I fear that many works from before her move to France are likely lost.”
In closing, I would add that given the unexpected success I’ve achieved over the years uncovering information about the subjects of my blog posts and finding descendants of some, I hold out hope that a reader may stumble on this post and add to what is known about Traute Steinthal. This would indeed validate Bri Lee’s valiant efforts.
Note: This post links to two well researched articles written by an amateur historian who is the owner and administrator of a French Foreign Legion (FFL) website. As a member of the French Foreign Legion between November 1938 and November 1943, my father, Dr. Otto Bruck, took dozens of ultrarare photos during his time stationed in Algeria. Using high-resolution images I shared with the amateur historian, he explains what they tell us about the FFL artillery battery unit my father was a member of while also relating some of the unit’s history.
When I began my family history blog in 2017, I imagined my storytelling would largely follow a linear path. I assumed it would generally track an individual family member through the various phases of their lives from when they were young to their demise. This was never realistic as one simply does not learn about the lives of people in a linear fashion. Even with close members of my family, I’m continually uncovering new documents from unexpected places or learning more about them from people who knew them, even briefly. In the past year alone, I’ve surprisingly found new documents on both my father and aunt Suzanne Müller, née Bruck (1904-1942) from unexpected sources.
Apropos of the current publication, I wrote about my father’s time in the French Foreign Legion (Legion) in a sequence of three posts (Posts 79, 80, & 81) written in 2020. Those articles focused on what prompted my father to enlist in the Legion, where and when he joined up, what enabled his enlistment in this military corps of the French Army, where he was stationed, and more. I also discussed the geopolitical developments that permitted my father to travel from Algeria to France in 1941 across what I assumed were “enemy” lines to visit his beloved sister Suzanne, the last time he would ever see her. I also briefly touched on my father’s military deployments in Algeria relying on his service records obtained from the Legion. What I did not previously talk about was the artillery unit my father was a member of.
Thanks to the contributions and in-depth research of an amateur historian named “Peter” who stumbled on the blog posts and the accompanying photos about my father’s time in the Legion and recognized their significance, I now know more about his time in this famous military force and the artillery battery of which he was a member. Peter’s findings reinforce my belief that learning about one’s family can come in completely unexpected ways. Admittedly his discoveries reveal more about the history of the artillery unit than they do about my father, though in fact the two are intertwined. Because Peter’s articles will be of interest to only a small fraction of readers, I mostly defer to what he has written on the subject by linking at the bottom of this post to Peter’s two articles.
It is worth emphasizing, however, what I’ve realized for some time about my father’s photos. They occasionally offer a unique peek into some rarely documented places or events that permit fragmentary aspects of history to be better understood or inaccurate portrayals to be corrected. As Peter remarked in his initial email to me requesting permission to share some of my father’s rare photos, “I have been interested in the Legion for more than 20 years, I love Legion Saharan units, but I have never seen the BSPL [EDITOR’S NOTE: Batterie Saharienne Portée de Légion, Foreign Legion Saharan Motorized Battery] barracks in Ouargla [EDITOR’S NOTE: the administrative center of the Oasis Territory, which comprised the eastern desert regions of French Algeria]. It is an extremely rare piece. I dare say that even the official Legion and their archive don’t have one. The same stands for a photo showing a Legion Saharan unit taking part in a parade prior to or during WWII (the oldest one I know/have seen is from 1945-46).”
With the above background, let me review some of what I know about my father’s service in the Legion and the organization over time of the Saharan artillery unit he served during his engagement. On the advice of one of his closest cousins living in Nice, France, after leaving Germany in 1938, my father traveled to Paris to enlist in the FFL. From France, he was transferred to Sidi Bel Abbès in northwestern Algeria, then the Legion’s main headquarters. Then in January 1939, my father was sent to Saïda for standard four-month basic training before being assigned in May 1939 to the so-called Batterie Saharienne Portée (BSP), Saharan Motorized Battery, in Ouargla. As mentioned above, Ouargla was the administrative center of the Oasis Territory, which comprised the eastern desert regions of French Algeria. (Figure 1) My father remained in Ouargla without interruption until the end of 1942.
My father’s military records show, however, that on October 1, 1939, he was reassigned to the then newly created Compagnie Automobile de Transport du Territoire des Oasis (C.A.T.T.O.), Oasis Territory Automobile Transport Company. This was a truck-equipped unit tasked with transportation duties across the Oasis Territory. As Peter notes in Part I of his two-part series, other than the date of its formation and its commander, Captain Ardassenoff, an officer of Russian origin, no other records or evidence about the C.A.T.T.O. survive. Followers can read Peter’s conjecture about the creation of the C.A.T.T.O.
By November 1940, the Batterie Saharienne Portée de Légion (BSPL), the Foreign Legion Saharan Motorized Battery, had been established in Ouargla. The 1re BSPL, one of the Foreign Legion artillery batteries, was originally established as the Batterie Saharienne Portée (BSP), Saharan Motorized Battery, in Ouargla on July 1, 1938. At the time, it was part of the 1er Régiment Étranger d’Infanterie (1er REI), 1st Foreign Infantry Regiment. According to Peter, the BSP was the first Foreign Legion unit to officially bear the title “Saharan.” This unit was responsible for policing Algeria’s border with Libya, then occupied by Italy, an ally of Germany.
According to Peter, the establishment of the BSPL in November 1940 represented the formal separation of the BSP from the 1er REI (i.e., recall the BSP was originally part of the 1er REI). This date corresponds with when my father became a member of the newly created BSPL. This reorganization followed France’s defeat at the hands of Germany during the Battle of France in May-June 1940 when France was forced to sign an armistice with Nazi Germany. While Legion units in North Africa retained relative autonomy, German and Italian “commissions” regularly inspected French garrisons to ensure the armistice terms were adhered to.
This recalls something I discussed in Post 80 where I mentioned that the Legion command would send some of their units on assignment to remote areas in the Sahara whenever commission inspections were scheduled to protect their Jewish servicemen. To remind readers, while in the Legion my father was assigned an alias, Marcel Berger, though this would have been unlikely to protect him from a “vigorous” interrogation.
As Peter explains, in March 1941, the BSPL’s name was changed for administrative reasons to the 1re BSPL when a second Legion Saharan battery was created at the desert fortress of Fort Flatters.
Peter makes an astute observation about my father’s photographs, namely, that none of them show artillery pieces. This is striking since the unit my father was a member of was an artillery unit, suggesting that my father had been serving in the truck transport detachment since 1939. According to Peter, my father’s photographs confirm he remained in the transport detachment until the end of his service in the 1re BSPL.
Following the landing of the Allied forces in French Morocco and Algeria in November 1942, the Allies secured the allegiance of the French North African command and its armies. Then began in early 1943 the campaign aimed at liberating the third French North African territory, Tunisia, from the Germans and Italians. The only picture I have of my father holding a weapon during the Second World War is when the 1re BSPL participated as a support unit in the Tunisian campaign. (Figure 2)
My father left the Legion in November 1943 in favor of the British Pioneer Corps. As I’ve explained elsewhere, my father had hoped to get into Britain following the war to resume his dental career; for reasons that remain a mystery this never transpired, and my father only briefly ever again practiced dentistry before coming to America in 1948.
In any case, following the end of his service in the Legion there were a few weeks before my father joined the Pioneer Corps. In the interim, he was briefly assigned to the Groupement de travailleurs étrangers (GTE), Foreign Worker Group, in Colomb- Béchar, western Algeria. Despite his Jewish background and the fact that the Nazi government had revoked his nationality, making him “apatride,” French term for stateless, France still considered him a German national and thus a citizen of an enemy state. Suffice it to say, the Foreign Worker Groups employed foreign nationals in France who were not serving in military units to work on strategically important projects. Peter also notes the following: “For the record, legionnaires were often detached to GTE groups in North Africa as cadres.” In any case, my father was only released from the GTE to join the British Pioneer Corps in late November 1943.
In mid-1944 when my father was already in the British Army, he returned to Ouargla while on leave to visit friends. By then the 1re BSPL had been disbanded and the garrison was now home to the Compagnie Saharienne Portée de Légion (CSPL), the Saharan Motorized Company, later 1re CSPL; this was an automobile company of the same regiment (i.e., 1er REI) and the Legion’s second Saharan unit that had also been established in November 1940, responsible for the western Sahara. Interestingly, perhaps because of his enduring connection to the Sahara, Captain Ardassenoff commanded the CSPL.
Having provided more detail than I intended, I apologize to readers for whom this is overkill. The archaeologist in me compels me towards over explaining things. While I’ve gone into some detail above, readers can find even more information in Peter’s posts. Readers can also find my father’s pictures embedded in Peter’s two articles along with his captions describing what they’re looking at.
One final comment. I’m deeply indebted to Peter for his thoughtful and careful research and analysis of my father’s photos and the military unit he served in while in the Legion. I’m as grateful for Peter’s contribution as he is for having gained access to my father’s ultrarare FFL photographs. It fills a gap in my understanding of my father’s life during the five years he spent in the Legion in Algeria.
Note: In this post, I discuss among other things my recent visit to the small town of Żytna, Poland (German: Zyttna) where an inn once owned by my great-great-granduncle Dr. Jonas Bruck at one time stood. During my recent trip, I had the opportunity to meet some locals who are researching and writing about the history of Żytna and elsewhere in Silesia, including documenting its former Jewish inhabitants.
In contemplating a title for the current post, I was reminded of a French proverb my mother used to say to me as a child. The phrase “If Paris were small, we’d put it in a bottle” is an English translation of a well-known French proverb, “Avec des si on mettrait Paris en bouteille” (literally: “With ‘ifs’ one could put Paris in a bottle”). The meaning of the phrase is that it is pointless to speculate about unrealistic or impossible hypothetical situations because “ifs” do not change reality.
Nevertheless, we’re all guilty of senseless conjectures. In my case, I’ve often wondered why my aunt Suzanne and uncle Dr. Franz Müller did not escape to America after Hitler came to power in 1933 and they left Berlin. This would have been a viable option at the time since my uncle and aunt had contacts in America and the financial means to support themselves. Instead, my aunt and uncle went to Fiesole above Florence, then in 1938, after they were forced to leave Italy, they went to the small town of Fayence, France where my uncle’s daughter and son-in-law lived. In August 1942, my aunt Suzanne along with her stepdaughter’s brother-in-law were arrested there by the Vichy French collaborators and deported to and murdered in Auschwitz.
Given the widespread destruction wrought in Europe by the cataclysmic events of the Second World War, including areas of Germany and Poland where much of my Jewish family was concentrated, I’ve often pondered what happened to some of the places associated with my family. While by no means equating the murder of family with the destruction of places connected to them, it was part of the systematic dismantling of the fabric of the community in which they lived and interacted with their neighbors.
The hotel in Ratibor (today: Racibórz, Poland), the Bruck’s “Prinz von Preußen” Hotel, owned by my family for roughly 75 years, I know survived the war only to see post-war Communist authorities tear it down to “harvest” bricks to reconstruct Warsaw. (Figure 1) And the building in Tiegenhof in the Free City of Danzig (today: Nowy Dwór Gdański, Poland) where my father lived and had his dental clinic was bombed and destroyed during the war by passing Russian bombers after German partisans shot at the planes. (Figure 2)
Readers can thus imagine my interest when I discover a place still exists where I have proof in the form of photos that one of my relatives visited, lived, or worked, such as the home I recently wrote about in Post 188 in Kiesewald (today: Michałowice, Poland). The house in Michałowice is just the second place in Poland I’ve visited where I have photos of my father standing in the same place 90 or more years ago. The first was in Petershagen (today: Zelichowo, Poland), just outside Tiegenhof, where my father had his dental practice between April 1932 and April 1937. I wrote about that visit in Post 7. (Figures 3-4)
For the most part, however, the sites in Europe connected to my Jewish family did not survive the war. The current post is about another location that I learned and wrote about in 2023. It was once owned by one of my esteemed ancestors, Dr. Jonas Bruck (1813-1883). (Figure 5) It was an inn located in the small town of Żytna, Poland about 170km (~105 miles) southeast of Breslau (today: Wrocław, Poland), where Jonas was an eminent dentist.
In Post 145, I discussed primary source documents found and sent to me by a reader, a teacher/historian Mr. Jan Krajczok from Rybnik, Poland, located a mere 17.5km (~11 miles) east of Żytna. Originally uncertain whether the reference in the records to a Jonas Bruck related to my great-great-granduncle, I asked my German friend Peter Hanke for help translating the relevant land registers. As I explained in Post 145, Peter was able to confirm the involvement by the “dentist Dr. Jonas Bruck” in the ownership of the inn in Żytna. Based on Peter’s translation, it is clear my ancestor owned the inn from roughly 1846 to 1859. This was a most unexpected finding. Because of the distance between Breslau and Żytna and because the establishment was an inn, I assume it was an investment property, not a second home.
Jan is a subscriber to my blog and we have periodically corresponded regarding questions mostly related to the history of Silesia. Knowing I would be visiting Racibórz this past August, I asked Jan whether we could meet and perhaps visit the place in Żytna where the inn owned by Jonas once stood. Its precise location is known because contemporary postcards survive; I discussed and illustrated these in Post 145, Postscript.
Jan was most pleased to give my wife and me a tour, and this turned into a highly entertaining get-together. Jan picked us up in Racibórz, and took us to the home of Iwona Witt, née Hadam (Figure 6) and her husband Aurel Witt, residents of Żytna, a town of only about 600 people. Iwona is currently in the final throes of writing a book about the history of her village. Having grown up in the area and knowing most of the locals has given her unprecedented access to people’s homes and their collective memories and stories. Despite Iwona’s local connections, some residents have refused to even let her inside their homes or talk to her about what must be ugly wartime history. Readers can only imagine how difficult it would be for an outsider like me with no facility in Polish to draw out any of the stories Iwona is writing about.
Postcards of the inn once owned by Jonas Bruck along with a beer mug (Figures 7-8) believed to have come from the inn’s restaurant, some illustrated in Post 145, Postscript, were given to Iwona by old time residents along with other local memorabilia. Iwona took us to the site where the inn formerly stood (Figure 9) and explained the circumstances that ultimately led to the inn’s destruction. As the Russians were encircling the area in the final days of the war, the skirmish line between the Russian and German troops was along the main road in front of the inn. (Figure 10) Believing they were being shot at from the upper floors of the inn, the Russians used flamethrowers to fend off the German soldiers and set the structure aflame. While the fire was apparently doused before the inn was destroyed, it was not salvageable and was eventually torn down during the 1950s. Thus, the inn was dismantled long after Dr. Jonas Bruck had sold it.
While the inn did not endure, other contemporary structures such as a building and church tower across the street from the inn have survived. (Figure 11) They can be seen on a historic picture Iwona shared with me during our visit. (Figure 12) The structure to the left of the two women standing in Figure 12 is the inn formerly owned by my great-great-granduncle.
Apropos of the French proverb and its relevance to unrealistic hypotheticals, there are nonetheless occasions when places connected to my family have survived. As mentioned, I’ve visited two of them in Poland, but am aware of another in Fiesole, Italy where, as mentioned above, my aunt and uncle lived after they decamped from Berlin in 1935. It was called the Villa Primavera (Figure 13-14b), and my aunt ran it with another Jewish woman as a bed-and-breakfast until 1938. I’ve tried on three occasions to visit the villa, to no avail. Being the generally persistent sort, I intend to give it another try in February 2026.
In conclusion, I would remind readers that many places in Poland associated with one’s Jewish ancestors, particularly places that are today largely devoid of Jews, have locals who are interested in researching and rediscovering their town’s Jewish history. Such is the case with Iwona who was thrilled to learn of the Jewish connection to her hometown in the personage of my ancestor Jonas Bruck. It is also true of another friend from Rybnik, Małgorzata Płoszaj (Figure 15), who has written two books about its former Jewish inhabitants. And it is also true in my father’s birthplace of Racibórz where yet another friend, Magda Wawoczny, who is enrolled in the Jewish Studies program at Jagiellonian University in Kraków, is researching and writing extensively about the town’s former Jewish families and history. It behooves readers to seek out these local contacts to develop a more rounded view of available resources and historical events.
Note: In this post, I present newly acquired information about Ratibor’s former “Photo-Helios” studio, a one-time producer of cabinet cards. The proprietors were Hans and Emma Ogermann, the parents of Claus Ogerman (one “n”), a very famous musical arranger, conductor, and composer who made his name in America. Beyond being connected to Claus, I’ve been contacted by a few descendants of people who worked in the studio in the 1930s-1940s, one of whom shared photos taken inside. As readers will discover, these photos have allowed me to make connections to a lady once buried in Ratibor’s Jewish cemetery. There are multiple links I discuss.
Cabinet cards were a popular 19th century photographic medium featuring a photographic print mounted on a sturdy cardstock, typically measuring 4.25 x 6.5 inches. They were larger than their predecessor, the carte-de-visite, and were named “cabinet” cards because they were meant to be displayed on shelves or in cabinets. Introduced in 1863, they were widely used for studio portraits and other subjects until the early 20th century, when smaller more portable cameras became popular.
One of the producers of these cabinet cards in Ratibor (today: Racibórz, Poland), my father’s birthplace, was “Photo-Helios.” In December 2018, an English lady named Ms. Gisela Szpytko asked me about this studio explaining that her mother had worked there during the 1930s. Unfamiliar with this workshop, I turned to my now-deceased dear friend from Racibórz, retired lawyer and Silesian historian Pawel Newerla, for information. He sent me a postcard of LangeStraße (German name for “Long Street”) the street on which the studio was located (Figure 1a), known today as Ulica Dluga (Polish also for “Long Street”), with a fuzzy image of the “Fotografie Helios” store sign hanging in the distance. (Figure 1b) Pawel also sent me an advertisement for “Photo-Helios” from a 1936 Ratibor Address book (Figure 2), along with a page from a 1923 Ratibor Address Book listing all the town’s photo studios at the time. (Figures 3a-b) The latter identified the proprietor of Photo-Helios as Hans Ogermann, spelled with two “n’s.” More on this below.
Personally owning a few cabinet cards produced in Ratibor (Figures 4a-b), though none by Photo-Helios, Ms. Szyptko’s query provided the inspiration for Post 72. Following its publication in January 2020, I expected this would be the end of the story. While hardly the most widely read of my posts, Post 72 has generated more comments than any other. Post 138 and Guest Post 139 by Magda Wawoczny, a PhD. student from Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Poland hailing from Racibórz, emanated from queries and related findings. And recent questions add to the intrigue surrounding Photo-Helios with the current post being the result.
Following publication of Post 72, in January 2021, I was contacted by Jakub “Kuba” Stankiewicz, the Director of Jazz Studies at the Academy of Music in Wrocław, Poland. Being approached by an academician, while not unprecedented, was curious. Kuba asked whether I knew Photo-Helios had been owned by Claus Ogerman’s parents? By then, I realized Hans Ogermann had been the proprietor but knew nothing about his son Claus Ogerman (1930-2016). (Figure 5) (Parenthetically, Claus’ surname has only one “n.”) To say I felt unread would be an understatement, particularly when Kuba told me that Claus was well-known and made his name in America. Readers can find him in Wikipedia but suffice it to say that Claus was an exceptionally gifted German arranger, conductor, and composer. He is best known for his work with Billie Holiday, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Frank Sinatra, Bill Evans, Michael Brecker, Barbra Streisand, Leslie Gore, Diana Krall, and many other “A-listers.”
I will return later to my ongoing association with Kuba Stankiewicz, whom my wife and I met for the first time during our recent trip to Poland.
The next connection to Photo-Helios came in May 2023 when a German lady named Ms. Jessica Nastos contacted me. Astonishingly, Jessica’s great-grandmother had also worked in the workshop during the 1930s-1940s. Jessica graciously sent me a series of photos including group pictures taken inside the studio from this period, with some of the subjects identified by name; Jessica also sent an image of a tattered envelope with the name and address of the business embossed on it. (Figure 6)
As I wrote in Post 138, Jessica informed me that her great-grandmother was a lady named Elzbieta “Lilly” Slawik, née Grzonka (1926-2016). When she told me this I was flabbergasted since I’d previously come across her great-grandmother’s name in a different context. Let me explain. Shortly before Jessica Nastos contacted me, Ms. Magda Wawoczny, the student from Jagiellonian University and the guest author of Post 139, had told me of her research on the former Jewish cemetery in Ratibor. In particular, she told me of her interest in a headstone belonging to a Minna Linzer, née Guttmann.
To briefly remind readers, in Post 13 and Post 13, Postscript, I explained how the cemetery had been destroyed in 1973 by the Communist authorities seeking to erase all evidence of prior German presence in the area. Before it was destroyed, at the request of the city authorities, photo documentation of all the burials and headstones was made by a Mr. Kazimierz Świtliński. (Figure 7) The documentation is on file at the Muzeum w Raciborzu, including a photo of Minna Linzer, née Guttmann’s headstone. (Figure 8)
As Magda wrote in Post 139 about the headstone in Ratibor’s Jewish cemetery:
“During my archival investigations, my attention was drawn to an application by a woman from Racibórz who requested permission from the city authorities to exhume the body of her grandmother Minna Linzer from Ratibor’s former Jewish cemetery and transfer it together with the tombstone to the Catholic cemetery in the Ostróg district on Rudzka street. The woman emphasized that in the face of the anticipated liquidation of the cemetery, she felt an obligation to save the grave of her grandmother that she had taken care of and maintained for many years.”
The woman making the request was none other than Elizabeth (Elzbieta) “Lilly” Slawik, née Grzonka, Minna Linzer’s granddaughter.
It was then I realized that my seemingly unrelated research into Photo-Helios overlapped with Magda’s investigation into one headstone from the former Jewish cemetery. I was thrilled when I noticed that among Jessica Nastos’ pictures was one of Elzbieta as an infant with her unmarried parents, the Jewish man Hans (Jan) Linzer and the Catholic woman Pauline Grzonka (Figure 9); there were also several other photos taken inside Photo-Helios that included Elzbieta. (Figures 10-13)
Firstly, seeking to shield Elzbieta from antisemitism and the Nazis subsequent prohibition of marriages between Jews and non-Jews, Elzbieta’s parents never married though they symbolically exchanged rings as keepsakes. Pauline (1895-1971) and Elzbieta (1926-2016) survived the Holocaust, while Hans (Jan) Linzer (1901-1945) was murdered in Auschwitz, along with his father and two of his three siblings.
Secondly, as Magda pointed out in Post 139, Elzbieta “Lilly” Grzonka’s application to Racibórz city authorities asking to exhume her grandmother’s grave was accompanied by a card with the inscription that read “eternal memory of those lost in the Auschwitz camp: Hermann Linzer, Jan Linzer, Małgorzata and Henryk Schiftan, Lota and Maks Tichauer.” (Figure 14) As readers can see on Minna Linzer’s headstone these names are inscribed on it. (Figure 15) They correspond to Minna’s husband Hermann, three of their four children, and two of their sons-in-law, all of whom were murdered in Auschwitz.
In May 2025, Jessica Nastos uncovered a video of an interview she conducted with her great-grandmother Elzbieta “Lilly” Grzonka (1926-2016) in May 2013 for a high school project entitled “Fear During the Nazi Regime.” She graciously shared a copy of the digitally remastered video with English subtitles, which unfortunately I’m unable to share with readers. Suffice it to say, it is very moving.
Two recent emails attest to the continued interest in Photo-Helios and the people associated with it. Both queries require follow-up.
In mid-October 2025 I was contacted by a lady of Slovakian origin named Monika. She was recently searching for an old photo school in Ratibor when she stumbled on my blog Post 138. The reason for her interest is that her father Leopold “Leo” Simon (Figures 16a-b), who was also a photographer, lived in Ratibor from 1942 until 1944, and astonishingly apprenticed at Photo-Helios during that time! She was stunned when she recognized her father in one of the group pictures sent to me by Jessica Nastos, namely Figure 10 in Post 139 (Figure 17), a person I misidentified as Hans Ogermann, the owner of Photo Helios.
I estimate Monika’s father Leo was born around 1928 and would have been between 14 and 16 years old when he worked at Photo-Helios.
Another recent contact is related to the Linzer family, a contact that has not yet fully panned out. As I mentioned above, Hans (Jan) Linzer had three siblings. (Figure 18) The youngest was Leo born in 1908, the only one of Hermann and Minna Linzer’s four children to survive the Shoah. In mid-September, a German lady named Ms. Stephanie Scheibl reached out to me. She mentioned a book and some old photographs she inherited from her grandmother that were in turn bequeathed to her by her father Leo Linzer!!! He may have inherited them from his parents Hermann and Minna Linzer!! Stephanie would of course be Leo’s great-granddaughter. There might be some rare images among Stephanie’s photos.
Let me say a few more words about Kuba Stankiewicz. Since first being introduced to Kuba in 2021, we’ve stayed in touch. Kuba’s hometown, Wrocław, Breslau as it was known during the German era, is a city where my Bruck family had longstanding ties. From time to time, I’ve asked Kuba whether German-era buildings connected to my family still exist, and Kuba has graciously investigated and occasionally even sent pictures. Periodically, I’ve referred readers or family members visiting Wrocław to Kuba or put him in touch with one of my local Wrocław contacts. We had always hoped to meet face-to-face, so prior to my recent visit to Poland, I proposed that we get together. Unfortunately, meeting in Wrocław was not possible since he was teaching a student workshop that week out-of-town in a place called Jastrzębie-Zdrój.
Since our next stop after Wrocław was Racibórz, which is only about 30km north-northwest of Jastrzębie-Zdrój. Kuba suggested meeting in Racibórz on the 25th of August which worked perfectly. Prior to going for lunch, we took a stroll along Ulica Dluga, formerly LangeStraße where the Helios-Photo had once stood. Coincidentally, a photo shop sits in almost the same spot as the earlier studio though the current store bears no relationship to the earlier workshop. At lunch Kuba introduced my wife Ann and me to Michał Fita, Racibórz’s former Vice-Mayor, who happens to be a collector of Claus Ogerman-arranged discography. (Figure 19) Michał brought several of his most recent acquisitions to show us.
During lunch Michał and Kuba discussed an upcoming conference they had planned in Racibórz for Claus Ogerman to introduce the current generation to the city’s long-lost son. It turns out that steps away from where we ate lunch stands an anodized aluminum interpretive panel showing the no-longer standing house where Claus Ogerman was born and grew up which was located on Racibórz’s Rynek or Market Square. (Figure 20)
The conference on Claus Ogerman took place in Raciborz on the 17th of October. I attach a YouTube interview Michał gave during the conference which is interpreted into English.
Coincidentally, Diana Krall, whose music Claus Ogerman arranged, performed on the eve of the conference in the nearby Polish town of Zabrze (German: Hindenburg). Michal and Kuba attended the concert, met Diana backstage, and had their picture taken with her. (Figure 21) She was thrilled to learn that a conference was planned for Claus because with age she realizes what a genius he was.
Each new contact about Photo-Helios adds to the intrigue. What makes the story even more compelling is how intertwined it is with the story of Minna Linzer, the Jewish lady reburied in Raciborz’s Catholic cemetery, because Minna’s granddaughter Elzbieta “Lilly” Grzonka worked in the photo studio. In the 15-minute interview Jessica Nastos did with her great-grandmother I learned it is largely because of Emma Ogermann’s intervention that Elzbieta, as a half-Jew and so-called mischling, was saved from deportation to a concentration camp.
And, then one must not forget another connection that Magda Wawoczny discussed in Post 139. Not only did Elzbieta “Lilly” Grzonka look after her own grandmother’s grave in the former Jewish cemetery, but she also looked after Monica Lewinsky’s great-grandfather Salo Lewinsky’s grave (Figure 22) after the Lewinskys left Ratibor in the 1920s for El Salvador. As it happens, the Lewinsky and Linzer families were friends and remained so following the Lewinskys departure.
Magda’s recent contact with Dr. Bernard Lewinsky, Monica’s father, has resulted in Bernard donating an extensive collection of postcards his father George Lewinsky (1903-1989) received while living in Ratibor. (Figure 23) Magda recently delivered a presentation on these postcards and her findings. During her research at the Leo Baeck Institute in New York, Magda found a digitized songbook from the former Ratibor synagogue, music performed in conjunction with her presentation.
In coming weeks, I hope to learn more about Photo-Helios since the former workshop seems to generate riveting new links! As regular readers know, these often-unexpected connections get me quite excited!
Note: In this post, I tell the story of how after eleven years I prevailed in my quest to have three surviving paintings seized from my father’s first cousin Fédor Löwenstein by the Nazis at the Port of Bordeaux in December 1940 returned to me. I include pictures from the formal restitution event that took place at the Centre Pompidou in Paris on the 16th of September 2025 and share French and English versions of the 18-minute speech I delivered on the occasion. Along with previous posts I’ve written on this longstanding saga, this post provides readers with some of the history of the seizure along with the story of how I eventually succeeded in my pursuit.
While this is a story eleven years in the making, the tale had its genesis almost 85 years ago in December 1940. This is when 25 paintings destined for an art gallery in New York were seized at the Port of Bordeaux in France by the Nazis from my father’s first cousin, Fédor Löwenstein. (Figure 1) As I’ve previously reported the Nazis shipped them to the Jeu de Paume in Paris where they were slated to be “vernichtet,” German word for destroyed, as examples of so-called “degenerate art.”
Miraculously, three of Fedor Löwenstein’s confiscated works of art survived (Figure 2), although in 1973 they were conveniently integrated into the collection of the Musée National d’Art Moderne, housed in the Centre Pompidou as an “anonymous donation.” This “error” was only uncovered in 2010. Following this revelation, the French Minister of Culture began the search for the legitimate owner. However, before the Minister of Culture could find me, I contacted them.
As I’ve previously written about in Post 105 and Post 160, I learned about the three surviving paintings in 2014 while doing some forensic genealogy in Berlin. Coincidentally, 2014 is the year that the three seized paintings were first displayed in the city where they were initially seized, in Bordeaux at the Musée des Beaux-Arts. When I learned about the paintings, I immediately contacted the curator of the exhibit, Mme Florence Saragoza (Figure 3), who helped me file a restitution claim. I was eligible to file this claim by dint of the fact that as Fédor Löwenstein’s first cousin once-removed, I’m his closest surviving relative; Fédor never had any children nor did either of his two siblings.
Because France has a civil law system rather a common law system, my claim was trumped by those of two so-called “universal legatees” and denied. It was subrogated by the French Minister of Culture’s Commission pour l’indemnisation des victimes de spoliations (CIVS) without the legatees ever having even lifted a finger, done any work or research, or even been aware of the artist. To say this was galling is an understatement. To rectify this outrageous situation necessitated a lengthy, costly, and litigious process that took eleven years to resolve. It was only because the French Ministry of Culture was offering a substantial sum of money as compensation for the 22 presumably destroyed works of art, compensation I was willing to forego to obtain possession of the paintings, that Fedor Löwenstein’s works of art now belong to me.
It would be disingenuous to pretend that money does not factor into compensation claims filed by Jewish heirs. Afterall, the only justice many such people are ever apt to obtain for the crimes perpetuated against their ancestors are financial. In my case, this was not possible. That said, I’m satisfied that the path going forward will lead to my ancestor Fédor Löwenstein obtaining some of the accolades he never received in life. He failed to achieve this recognition because he died prematurely at age 45 of Hodgkins Lymphoma and because the Nazis denied him this validation.
Regular readers know that over the years I’ve written about my compensation claim involving the French Minister of Culture’s CIVS, often venting great frustration. I direct first-time readers to these earlier posts, namely, Post 105 and Post 160.
The Restitution Ceremony was held on the 16th of September 2025 on the fifth floor of the Centre Pompidou in the Grand Salon. (Figure 4) Because the Centre Pompidou has just begun a five-year renovation, the museum was empty save for the approximately 50-75 people who attended the event. Several distinguished guests participated and spoke at the event, after which I was given the floor to say a few remarks. I delivered an 18- minute speech in French, a language I’m reasonably fluent in.
Restitution ceremonies comparable to the one I was the center of are rare events. Without exaggerating, they tend to be noteworthy and newsworthy. Ordinarily, the French Minister of Culture Rachida Dati would have presided over the Restitution Ceremony. Unfortunately, the date of the ceremony coincided with the period after September 8th in the wake of the French government’s collapse after Prime Minister François Bayrou lost a vote of no confidence in the National Assembly, forcing French President Emmanuel Macron to seek a new prime minister. Because there was no official French Minister of Culture on the 16th of September, the ceremony was instead presided over by the M. Laurent Le Bon (Figure 5), President of the Centre Pompidou, and M. Luc Allaire (Figure 6), Secretary General of the Ministry of Culture, on behalf of the Minister of Culture.
Je tiens à vous remercier chaleureusement de votre présence à cette cérémonie.
Citoyen américain, je me nomme Richard BROOK. Je vais vous raconter en quelques mots la raison de ma présence, mon lien avec l’artiste Fédor LÖWENSTEIN et comment j’ai appris son existence.
Je suis aujourd’hui à Paris pour reprendre possession de trois tableaux de Fédor LÖWENSTEIN.
Ces tableaux font partie des 25 œuvres saisies par les nazis au port de Bordeaux en décembre 1940 alors que Fédor tentait de les envoyer à une galerie d’art à New York. Les nazis considéraient ces œuvres comme des exemples de ce qu’ils appelaient « l’art dégénéré ». Après leur saisie, elles furent expédiées au Jeu de Paume en attendant d’être détruites. On présume pour exposition que les 22 autres œuvres saisies à Fédor ont effectivement été détruites. La preuve que le même sort attendait les trois tableaux survivants se trouve sur la surface des toiles. En effet, de grands « X » y ont été tracés, signifiant qu’ils devaient être « vernichtet », le mot allemand pour « détruit ».
J’aime à imaginer que votre héroïne française, MME Rose VALLAND, a joué un rôle essentiel dans la sauvegarde des trois œuvres qui se trouvent devant vous. Elle était le seul membre du personnel du Jeu de Paume à avoir été maintenue en poste par les nazis pendant leur occupation de Paris.
Fédor LÖWENSTEIN est souvent considéré comme un artiste tchécoslovaque. La famille de son père était en effet originaire de ce pays. Il est évident que Fédor ressentait un lien profond avec la patrie de son père. L’une des peintures les plus célèbres de Fédor s’intitule « La Chute ». Elle s’inspire de la signature des accords de Munich le 30 septembre 1938. Ces accords ont démantelé la Tchécoslovaquie de l’époque et conduit à l’annexion des Sudètes par l’Allemagne. Cette peinture s’inspire de « Guernica », le tableau anti-guerre de Picasso datant de 1937.
Fédor LÖWENSTEIN est né en 1901 à Munich. Il était l’aîné de trois enfants. Sa mère, née Hedwig BRUCK, était ma grand-tante (mon nom de famille BROOK est la version anglicisée de BRUCK). Hedwig était la tante de mon père; Fédor et mon père étaient donc cousins germains. On ne sait pas très bien à quel point ils se connaissaient. Fédor et sa mère sont morts à Nice avant ma naissance en 1950. Cependant, enfant, j’ai rencontré le frère et la sœur cadets de Fédor, Jeanne, affectueusement surnommée « Hansi », et Heinz. Mon père était proche d’eux.
Je suis le descendant direct le plus proche de Fédor LÖWENSTEIN encore en vie. Ni Fédor, ni son frère, ni sa sœur n’ont eu d’enfant. La France étant un pays de droit civil, j’ai dû mener une bataille juridique de près de 11 ans pour récupérer ces trois tableaux. En effet selon la loi française, les droits de deux « légataires universels » priment sur les miens. Cependant, mon avocat a réussi à convaincre la CIVS (Commission pour l’Indemnisation des Victimes de Spoliations) que mon long travail de recherches et mes actions nécessaires et indispensables à la mise à jour des 3 tableaux devaient être également indemnisés. Cela n’a en en effet été possible que parce que j’ai été le premier à découvrir que la CIVS cherchait à restituer les tableaux de LÖWENSTEIN à ses descendants. C’est également moi qui ai déposé la demande initiale.
J’ai pu obtenir la possession des tableaux en renonçant à toute compensation financière offerte par la CIVS pour les 22 tableaux détruits. Cette somme est considérable. Au risque d’offenser quelqu’un, j’ai le sentiment d’avoir obtenu gain de cause sans l’intervention de la justice. Il serait peut-être exagéré de dire que cela ressemble presque à une victoire à la Pyrrhus… Deux légataires universels sont indemnisés et récompensés pour un travail que j’ai accompli et payé. Qu’il soit permis de dire que dans un pays régi par la common law, cela ne se serait pas produit.
Permettez-moi de vous raconter brièvement comment j’ai découvert l’existence de Fédor LÖWENSTEIN. Mon père ne parlait jamais de sa famille, à l’exception de sa sœur bien-aimée Suzanne, arrêtée à Fayence en août 1942 et assassinée à Auschwitz. J’ai découvert le reste de la famille de mon père grâce à mes propres recherches généalogiques.
Au cours de ces recherches, j’ai découvert que les documents personnels de deux tantes de Fédor, deux autres grands-tantes célèbres, étaient archivés au Stadtmuseum de Berlin. En 2014, j’ai pris des dispositions pour examiner et photographier tous les documents et toutes les photos. La collection comprenait plusieurs photos de Fédor. J’ai rapidement compris qu’il était le frère aîné de Hansi et Heinz, que j’avais rencontrés quand j’étais enfant.
Il y avait également plusieurs lettres, toutes écrites en allemand, langue que je ne maîtrise pas. La plupart étaient manuscrites et presque impossibles à déchiffrer. Mais quelques-unes étaient dactylographiées, principalement par la sœur de Fédor, « Hansi ». À mon retour aux États-Unis, j’ai traduit ses lettres dactylographiées, les seules que je pouvais lire, à l’aide d’une application de traduction. Dans une lettre datée d’août 1946, Hansi écrivait qu’elle avait vendu à titre posthume l’une des peintures de Fédor pour 90 000 francs français. Cela semblait être une somme énorme en 1946.
Déterminé à en savoir plus sur Fédor LÖWENSTEIN, j’ai contacté en 2014 une connaissance travaillant à la mairie de Nice. Je lui ai demandé si elle pouvait trouver la nécrologie de Fédor. Elle m’a plutôt envoyé des liens vers plusieurs articles. Le plus instructif concernait une exposition qui avait eu lieu en 2014 au Musée des Beaux-Arts de Bordeaux et qui présentait ces trois tableaux. Vers 2010, le Centre Pompidou a découvert que les œuvres de Fédor LÖWENSTEIN lui avaient été confisquées pendant la Seconde Guerre mondiale. L’exposition à Bordeaux était la première exposition publique consacrée à cette découverte.
Par coïncidence, 2014 est la même année où ma femme Ann et moi avons passé 13 semaines en Europe. Nous avons voyagé en voiture du nord-est de la Pologne au sud de l’Espagne, visitant des lieux associés à la diaspora de ma famille juive. Si nous avions su qu’il y avait une exposition, nous aurions certainement fait un détour par Bordeaux.
Les documents que j’ai reçus identifiaient Mme Florence SARAGOZA comme la commissaire de l’exposition et fournissaient une adresse électronique. Je l’ai immédiatement contactée. Elle m’a répondu deux jours plus tard. Je me souviendrai toujours de sa réponse. Elle m’a dit, en substance, que le fait d’apprendre qu’un membre de la famille LÖWENSTEIN avait survécu l’avait émue aux larmes. Florence – nous nous appelons désormais par nos prénoms – m’a gracieusement proposé de m’aider à déposer une demande d’indemnisation. Compte tenu de sa connaissance de Fédor, son aide m’a été précieuse. Je serai éternellement reconnaissant à Florence pour son aide désintéressée et compatissante au fil des ans. J’ai la plus haute estime pour Florence.
Il y a quelques autres personnes que je tiens à remercier. Tout d’abord, ma femme, Ann FINAN, qui a été ma plus grande supportrice et admiratrice tout au long de ces 11 années difficiles. Elle m’a aidé à créer mon blog sur l’histoire de ma famille (bruckfamilyblog.com), où j’ai écrit plus de 200 articles depuis ses débuts en 2017.
Après le rejet initial de ma demande par la CIVS début 2020, j’ai rédigé un article de blog très critique pour dénoncer cette décision. Une de mes cousines américaines éloignées a lu cet article et m’a immédiatement appelé. Elle m’a suggéré de contacter son avocat à New York. Sa branche de la famille est impliquée depuis longtemps dans une procédure complexe visant à obtenir une indemnisation pour une très importante collection de tableaux volés à son oncle à Berlin. J’ai immédiatement appelé son avocat. Il m’a mis en contact avec un avocat français formé aux États-Unis, Pierre CIRIC, qui s’occupe de demandes d’indemnisation similaires à la mienne. Pierre s’est montré extrêmement aimable, m’a fourni gratuitement de nombreux conseils juridiques et m’a mis en contact avec mon avocate française, Maître Caroline GAFFODIO. Sans Caroline et Pierre, je ne serais pas ici aujourd’hui.
Enfin, je tiens à remercier deux membres du personnel de la CIVS, David ZIVIE et Muriel DE BASTIER. Même si nous n’avons manifestement pas toujours été d’accord au fil des ans, je n’ai jamais eu l’impression que les décisions de la Commission étaient motivées par autre chose que des contraintes juridiques.
Je voudrais terminer cette présentation par une brève anecdote concernant Heinz, le frère de Fédor. Je ne l’ai rencontré qu’une seule fois, mais je me souviens de lui comme d’un homme très charismatique. Je me souviens qu’on mentionnait ses exploits pendant la guerre. Comme le font souvent les enfants, j’ai confondu réalité et fiction. J’ai toujours cru qu’il avait aidé des Juifs incarcérés à s’échapper des centres de détention. Grâce à un gentleman anglais, j’ai appris la vérité il y a quelques années.
Heinz était membre du Royal Pioneer Corps anglais. Il s’est engagé alors qu’il se trouvait en Palestine. Il a été capturé par les Allemands en 1941 pendant la bataille de Grèce et incarcéré dans divers stalags. Il s’est évadé quatre ou cinq fois. Son histoire mérite vraiment d’être racontée dans un livre, et il est d’ailleurs mentionné dans plusieurs ouvrages écrits par d’anciens prisonniers de guerre. Le public se demande peut-être pourquoi je termine mon exposé sur cette note. Tous les récits de guerre concernant Heinz soulignent à quel point il était doué pour falsifier des documents afin d’aider les prisonniers à s’échapper. Je ne doute pas que, comme Fédor, Heinz et probablement Hansi aient appris à peindre et à dessiner dès leur plus jeune âge.
Le public se demande sans doute ce qu’il adviendra des peintures de Fédor LÖWENSTEIN. J’ai accepté la demande de la Commission de les laisser en France pendant les prochaines années et pour les exposer au MAHJ (Musée d’Art et d’Histoire du Judaïsme) et à l’Orangerie ici à Paris, peut-être au Centre National Jean Moulin à Bordeaux lieu de leur spoliation. Ils seront au cœur d’expositions consacrées à l’art dégénéré. Une fois les expositions terminées, je déciderai de leur destination finale. Je suis désormais dépositaire d’une longue histoire qu’il ne nous faut pas oublier, je m’y emploie. A vous de me soutenir dans cette tâche
Merci de votre attention ! Y a-t-il des questions ?
ENGLISH
Ladies and gentlemen,
I would like to warmly thank you for attending this ceremony.
I am an American citizen named Richard BROOK. I will briefly explain why I am here, my connection to the artist Fédor LÖWENSTEIN, and how I learned of his existence.
I am in Paris today to reclaim three paintings by Fédor Löwenstein.
These paintings are among the 25 works seized by the Nazis at the port of Bordeaux in December 1940 while Fédor was attempting to send them to an art gallery in New York. The Nazis considered these works to be examples of what they called “degenerate art .” After their seizure, they were sent to the Jeu de Paume to await destruction. It is presumed that the 22 other works seized from Fédor were indeed destroyed. The proof that the same fate awaited the three surviving paintings can be found on the surface of the canvases. Large “X” marks were drawn on them, signifying that they were to be “vernichtet,” the German word for “destroyed.”
I like to imagine that your French heroine, Mme Rose Valland, played a key role in saving the three works before you. She was the only member of the Jeu de Paume staff to be retained by the Nazis during their occupation of Paris.
Fedor Löwenstein is often considered a Czechoslovakian artist. His father’s family was indeed from that country. It is clear that Fedor felt a deep connection to his father’s homeland. One of Fedor’s most famous paintings is entitled “The Fall.” It was inspired by the signing of the Munich Agreement on September 30, 1938. These agreements dismantled Czechoslovakia at the time and led to the annexation of the Sudetenland by Germany. This painting was inspired by “Guernica,” Picasso’s anti-war painting from 1937.
Fedor Löwenstein was born in 1901 in Munich. He was the eldest of three children. His mother, née Hedwig BRUCK, was my great-aunt (my surname BROOK is the Anglicized version of BRUCK). Hedwig was my father’s aunt, so Fédor and my father were first cousins. It is not clear how well they knew each other. Fédor and his mother died in Nice before I was born in 1950. However, as a child, I met Fédor’s younger brother and sister, Jeanne, affectionately nicknamed “Hansi,” and Heinz. My father was close to them.
I am the closest living direct descendant of Fédor LÖWENSTEIN. Neither Fédor, nor his brother, nor his sister had children. As France is a civil law country, I had to fight a legal battle lasting nearly 11 years to recover these three paintings. Under French law, the rights of two “universal legatees” take precedence over mine. However, my lawyer managed to convince the CIVS (Commission for the Compensation of Victims of Spoliation) that my extensive research and my actions, which were necessary and essential for updating the three paintings, should also be compensated. This was only possible because I was the first to discover that the CIVS was seeking to return the LÖWENSTEIN paintings to his descendants. I was also the one who filed the initial claim.
I was able to obtain possession of the paintings by waiving any financial compensation offered by the CIVS for the 22 destroyed paintings. This sum is considerable. At the risk of offending someone, I feel that I have won my case without the intervention of the courts. It might be an exaggeration to say that this is almost like a Pyrrhic victory… Two universal legatees are compensated and rewarded for work that I did and paid for. Let me say that in a country governed by common law, this would not have happened.
Let me briefly tell you how I discovered the existence of Fédor LÖWENSTEIN. My father never spoke about his family, except for his beloved sister Suzanne, who was arrested in Fayence in August 1942 and murdered in Auschwitz. I discovered the rest of my father’s family through my own genealogical research.
During my research, I discovered that the personal documents of two of Fédor’s aunts, two other famous great-aunts, were archived at the Stadtmuseum in Berlin. In 2014, I made arrangements to examine and photograph all the documents and photos. The collection included several photos of Fédor. I quickly realized that he was the older brother of Hansi and Heinz, whom I had met when I was a child.
There were also several letters, all written in German, a language I do not speak. Most were handwritten and almost impossible to decipher. But a few were typed, mainly by Fédor’s sister, “Hansi.” When I returned to the United States, I translated his typed letters, the only ones I could read, using a translation app. In a letter dated August 1946, Hansi wrote that she had sold one of Fédor’s paintings posthumously for 90,000 French francs. That seemed like an enormous sum in 1946.
Determined to find out more about Fédor LÖWENSTEIN, in 2014 I contacted an acquaintance who worked at Nice City Hall. I asked her if she could find Fédor’s obituary. Instead, she sent me links to several articles. The most informative one was about an exhibition that had taken place in 2014 at the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Bordeaux, which featured these three paintings. Around 2010, the Centre Pompidou discovered that Fédor Löwenstein’s works had been confiscated during World War II. The exhibition in Bordeaux was the first public exhibition dedicated to this discovery.
Coincidentally, 2014 was the same year that my wife Ann and I spent 13 weeks in Europe. We traveled by car from northeastern Poland to southern Spain, visiting places associated with my Jewish family’s diaspora. If we had known about the exhibition, we would certainly have made a detour to Bordeaux.
The documents I received identified Ms. Florence SARAGOZA as the exhibition curator and provided an email address. I contacted her immediately. She replied two days later. I will always remember her response. She told me, in essence, that learning that a member of the LÖWENSTEIN family had survived moved her to tears. Florence—we now call each other by our first names—graciously offered to help me file a claim for compensation. Given her knowledge of Fédor, her help was invaluable. I will be eternally grateful to Florence for her selfless and compassionate assistance over the years. I hold Florence in the highest regard.
There are a few other people I would like to thank. First of all, my wife, Ann FINAN, who has been my biggest supporter and admirer throughout these difficult 11 years. She helped me create my blog about my family history (bruckfamilyblog.com), where I have written more than 200 articles since its inception in 2017.
After my claim was initially rejected by the CIVS in early 2020, I wrote a highly critical blog post denouncing the decision. One of my distant American cousins read the post and immediately called me. She suggested I contact her lawyer in New York. Her branch of the family has long been involved in complex proceedings to obtain compensation for a very important collection of paintings stolen from her uncle in Berlin. I immediately called her lawyer. He put me in touch with a French lawyer trained in the United States, Pierre CIRIC, who handles compensation claims similar to mine. Pierre was extremely kind, provided me with a great deal of legal advice free of charge, and put me in touch with my French lawyer, Maître Caroline GAFFODIO. Without Caroline and Pierre, I would not be here today.
Finally, I would like to thank two members of the CIVS staff, David ZIVIE and Muriel DE BASTIER. Even though we clearly did not always agree over the years, I never felt that the Commission’s decisions were motivated by anything other than legal constraints.
I would like to conclude this presentation with a brief anecdote about Heinz, Fédor’s brother. I only met him once, but I remember him as a very charismatic man. I remember people talking about his exploits during the war. As children often do, I confused fact with fiction. I always believed that he had helped imprisoned Jews escape from detention centers. Thanks to an English gentleman, I learned the truth a few years ago.
Heinz was a member of the English Royal Pioneer Corps. He enlisted while he was in Palestine. He was captured by the Germans in 1941 during the Battle of Greece and imprisoned in various stalags. He escaped four or five times. His story really deserves to be told in a book, and he is mentioned in several works written by former prisoners of war. The audience may wonder why I am ending my presentation on this note. All the war stories about Heinz emphasize how skilled he was at forging documents to help prisoners escape. I have no doubt that, like Fédor, Heinz and probably Hansi learned to paint and draw from an early age.
The public is no doubt wondering what will become of Fédor LÖWENSTEIN’s paintings. I have accepted the Commission’s request to leave them in France for the next few years and to exhibit them at the MAHJ (Museum of Jewish Art and History) and the Orangerie here in Paris, and perhaps at the Centre National Jean Moulin in Bordeaux, where they were looted. They will be the focus of exhibitions devoted to degenerate art. Once the exhibitions are over, I will decide on their final destination. I am now the custodian of a long history that we must not forget, and I am committed to this task. It is up to you to support me in this endeavor.
Thank you for your attention! Are there any questions?
Note: In this post, I discuss my quest to find and visit a very distinctive house my father and uncle stayed in between Christmas 1934 & New Year’s Eve 1935, located in pre-WWII Germany, now in southwest Poland.
Among my father’s surviving photos are a sequence of pictures (Figures 1a-e) he took between Christmas 1934 and New Year’s Eve 1935 when he and his brother stayed at the so- called Haus Gotzmann in Kiesewald, Germany (today: Michałowice, Poland) in Riesengebirge (today: Karkonosze, Poland; Krkonoše, Czech Republic). In English these are often referred to as the Giant Mountains, and they are in what is today southwest Poland, straddling the border with the Czech Republic.
My father was typically very good at labeling his photos but in this instance, he merely provided the name of the house and its location in Riesengebirge. None of the principals were named, although I obviously recognized my father, Dr. Otto Bruck (1907-1994) (Figure 2), and uncle, Dr. Fedor Bruck (1895-1982). (Figure 3)
Like my father, my uncle was a dentist, and prior to Hitler’s rise to power in 1933 he had his own dental practice in Liegnitz, Germany (today: Legnica, Poland), a distance as the crow flies of about 100km (62 miles) from Michałowice. (Figure 4) In 1933, the Nazi regime passed the “Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service,” which was the first major piece of legislation to exclude Jews from public life. While not a total ban, this law served as a foundation for hundreds of later decrees designed to systematically marginalize and persecute Jews. Shortly after passing this law, my uncle was forced to shutter his dental practice in Liegnitz.
Rightfully assuming he could continue working under the auspices of an Aryan dentist in Berlin, he relocated there hoping to lose himself in the anonymity of the larger city. This subterfuge worked until 1941, when he was told to report to “an old age transport,” which effectively meant deportation to a concentration camp. As I’ve previously written in Post 17, he went underground at this point and miraculously survived hiding in Berlin for the remainder of the war with the help of friends and family, at great personal risk to them. Only about 5,000 Jews in all of Germany survived in this manner.
Let me digress for a moment and talk briefly about Riesengebirge. Years ago, when my uncle’s illegitimate son Wolfgang Lutze (1928-2014) (Figure 5), my first cousin, was still alive, we were discussing our great-aunt, Elsbeth Bruck (1874-1970). Following the Second World War, Elsbeth, who was the subject of Post 15, became a high-ranking apparatchik in the Communist East German government. (Figure 6) Like many of my Bruck family, she was born in Ratibor, Germany (today: Racibórz, Poland), and apparently worked when young in the family hotel-restaurant there, the Bruck’s “Prinz von Preußen” Hotel. My father who also later briefly worked there as a sommelier told me many of the staff were Polish workers. According to family lore, Elsbeth had an affair with one of the Polish cooks and became pregnant. I’ve seen the small headstone of her son buried in the Weißensee Jewish Cemetery in East Berlin so there is no question Elsbeth had a child who died in infancy in 1908. (Figure 7)
In any case, in talking about our great-aunt, my first cousin Wolfgang used a German proverb which I understood to mean something to the effect that Elsbeth was sent away to Riesengebirge by her family after they discovered she was pregnant for a “change of scenery” or “to clear her head.” Artificial Intelligence notwithstanding I’ve been unable to source the saying. Still, I learned other things about Riesengebirge that provide some colorful background.
During the 18th century the Giant Mountains (Riesengebirge, Krkonoše, Karkonosze) became a favorite destination for tourists from the German states and the Austrian Empire. At the time the mountains were favorably compared with the Alps. I could find no widespread proverbs related to Riesengebirge (Giant Mountains). Rather, the sayings are based on the mountains’ ancient folklore, particularly the legend of the mountain spirit, Rübezahl. The aphorisms are less like traditional proverbs and more like warnings or common wisdom related to the whimsical and powerful mountain spirit (e.g., calling his name is forbidden; beware his unpredictable mood; a “test” for travelers; the origin of weather).
While there is no common German adage about going to Riesengebirge for a change of scenery or to clear one’s head, as was apparently suggested for Elsbeth, the German concept of Fernweh describes a strong yearning for distant places and a desire to travel, and Wanderlust (“wanderlust” is a German loanword) describes a general love of wandering and exploring. These words capture the feeling of wanting to go somewhere new to get away from the familiar. This said there is no evidence to suggest Elsbeth ever spent time or even visited Riesengebirge.
Let me resume my narrative. Knowing my wife and I would be visiting Racibórz and southwestern Poland, we decided to incorporate a visit to the Giant Mountains. I was curious whether the very distinctive house my father and uncle visited in Kiesewald (Michałowice) still exists. I’ve amassed a considerable amount of information looking into this question.
Fatefully, almost immediately after starting my research into Haus Gotzmann, I stumbled on a genealogist named Marta Maćkowiak (Figure 8) living in nearby Jelenia Góra, known in the German era as Hirschberg or Hirschberg im Riesengebirge. Translated as “deer mountain,” Jelenia Góra is only about 18km (11 miles) from Michałowice. (Figure 9) Marta is a professional genealogist who specializes in researching Polish and Polish Jewish genealogy. Knowing I had nothing to lose, I contacted her and explained my interest in finding the house where my father and uncle had stayed in 1934/35. She kindly responded and told me to forward my father’s pictures so that she could investigate.
While waiting for Marta to reply, I asked my teacher/historian friend Jan Krakczok (Figure 10) from Rybnik, Poland, who I also met for the first time during my recent visit to Poland, whether he could track down any additional information on the Haus Gotzmann. In a 1937 Hirschberg Address Book (i.e., “Adressbuch – Einwohnerbuch fur den Landkreis Hirschberg, 1937”) (Figure 11), Jan discovered that by 1937 a lady named Ida Mattner owned or leased the house though the home was still referred to as the “Haus Gotzmann.” By way of clarification, the 1937 Landkreis Hirschberg address book includes listings for nearby Kiesewald-Petersdorf (see explanation below about the physical relationship between these two places). Curiously, the 1937 address book does not provide an address, so the German street name was at this point still unknown to me.
Based on the current owner or lessee in 1937, I erroneously concluded the owner, known to me at this point only as “Gotzmann,” was Jewish. I assumed he had had his home confiscated or been forced to sell by the Nazis. More on this below.
Several days later Marta wrote telling me she had located the house. She explained that the house is in fact described as Haus Gotzmann and Haus Mattner, so the information Jan had found matched what Marta uncovered. Marta also sent me a link with historic postcards. (Figures 12-14)
Marta happily reported the house still exists, and that its current address is 16 ulica Sudecka in Piechowice. (Figures 15-16) Marta helpfully explained that before the war Piechowice was called Petersdorf, and that Michałowice or Kiesewald, as it was formerly known, was and is still part of Piechowice. (Figure 17) Marta also reported she was able to match some of my father’s photos with a viewpoint near Michałowice called Złoty Widok, located not far from Haus Gotzmann.
Prompted by the information Marta uncovered, I continued my investigations. I tripped over another database I’d curiously never come across, “Kartenmeister.” This is described as an online gazetteer and genealogy tool for locating towns and places that were historically in eastern Prussia and other German-speaking areas especially, but not exclusively, east of the Oder and Neisse rivers. It helps users find the current name of a place and provides historical details such as alternate names, geographical location, church parish affiliations, and population records from specific names. The database includes over 100,000 entries for towns, villages, and other points of interest like mills, battlefields, and cemeteries.
Helpfully, the Kartenmeister database includes a listing for Petersdorf (Figure 18), which as Marta explained includes Michałowice where the Haus Gotzmann was located. Conveniently, the listing included the names AND emails of six people also researching Petersdorf. (Figure 19) Unabashedly, I started working my way through the list. I struck gold when I reached a German gentleman named Holger Liebig.
Initially, I was interested in uncovering the German street for modern-day ulica Sudecka. I thought the German street name in conjunction with owner names from contemporary address books might provide clarification on the sequence of owners; this never panned out because I never found the contemporary address books from the 1930s. Regardless, in a so-called “Häuserbuch,” Holger found some very useful information. A Häuserbuch is described as a German-language term for a “house book.” In a genealogical context, it is a historical record that documents the history of properties and the families who have lived in them. A Häuserbuch can be a valuable resource for tracing a family’s lineage.
By way of clarification, a Häuserbuch is to be distinguished from a “Grundbuch,” a land register, something I’ve alluded to in some earlier posts. A Grundbuch is an official public land register with legal authority over property rights, while a Häuserbuch is a historical or informal private record of a household or family. The Grundbuch (land register) is a formal, public register maintained by a special division of the local court (Grundbuchamt) in Germany. I would later learn from Marta Maćkowiak that the Grundbuch for the Haus Gotzmann was destroyed during the war.
In any case, Holger found the Haus Gotzmann listed in the Häuserbuch under Kiesewald (Kw 73; Agnetendorfer Straße; Haus No. 136). (Figure 20) Significantly, the German street name and number are given. The Häuserbuch provides other information. It indicates that the Haus Gotzmann was built in 1933 by a man named Leo Gotzmann, a dentist from Weißwasser, a town in Upper Lusatia in eastern Saxony, Germany. Weißwasser is located about 130km (80 miles) from Piechowice. (Figure 21) Additionally, Holger learned that Dr. Gotzmann sold the house to Ida Mattner in 1940 (she first rented the house, then later bought it). Though ultimately a dead-end, the Häuserbuch further tells us that Ida Mattner was born in 1896 in Wronke (today: Wronki, Poland), about 50km (31 miles), northwest of Posen (today: Poznań, Poland).
Holger Liebig sent me a link to an old prospectus of Kiesewald showing the “Landhouse” Gotzmann as lot “Nr. 31b.” (Figure 22a) To be clear, this number is not to be confused with the regular house number but rather corresponds to the number on the prospectus identifying the lot. Note that five of the homes on the list of houses shown in the prospectus were connected to members of Holger Liebig’s family. (Figure 22b)
Having ascertained that Dr. Leo Gotzmann was, like my father and uncle, a dentist, I surmised that perhaps a professional relationship had evolved into a friendship. Having determined that Dr. Gotzmann was from Weißwasser, Saxony, I checked for address books from there from the 1930s, to no avail. I similarly checked address books from Hirschberg-Petersdorf for Dr. Gotzmann from this period, again in vain.
However, I struck gold again when I checked in ancestry.com. I found several German military cards for a Dr. Leo Johannes Gotzmann showing he was killed in action on the 6th of December 1941 in Russia. (Figure 23) What convinced me this is the same man my father and uncle was friends with is that he was born in Ratibor on the 24th of December 1892. Additionally, another card in the German military records indicated Leo was from Weißwasser, matching information found in the Kiesewald Häuserbuch. (Figure 24) He was less than three years older than my uncle, born in August 1895, and less than 15 years older than my father born in April 1907. Clearly, my family’s familiarity with Dr. Gotzmann ran through my father’s birthplace.
While I was convinced that Leo Gotzmann was Jewish, unlikely given that he died fighting for the Wehrmacht in Russia, I learned from Jan and another friend from Racibórz that even today there are non-Jewish Gotzmanns, possibly of German descent, living nearby. As we speak, I’m working on trying to obtain Leo Gotzmann’s 1892 birth certificate to confirm that he was in fact not Jewish.
I initially had difficulty reading and tracking down the place where Dr. Gotzmann was killed in action, but eventually deciphered he died at Yukhnov, Russia (German: Juchnow) (Figure 25), likely as the Germans were retreating from Russia following their rout at Stalingrad.
One of the German military cards provided Dr. Gotzmann’s wife’s forename, “Lilly” (Figure 26), but so far, I’ve been unable to track down her surname. She was shown living at Berliner Straße 2 in Weißwasser.
After learning all I was able to by resort to historic directories and documents, I tried something I’ve attempted in the past with mixed results. I wrote a “cold” letter addressed to the unknown current owner of the Haus Gotzmann. Knowing the modern-day address of the home, I merely addressed my letter to “Owner,” included my father’s sequence of photos, explained I was going to be in the area in a few weeks and expressed a hope that I could stop by and take a few pictures of the house; I also provided my contact information. More than two weeks passed before I received a gracious email from the current owner, Ms. Wiola Trybalska, telling me how touched she was by my letter and seeing my father’s old photos of her house. Not only were my wife and I invited to visit, but Wiola cordially asked us to come for lunch.
Our much-anticipated meeting took place on the 30th of August 2025. Along with Wiola, two of her three daughters, Ania and Alexandra, and a family friend Marek were present. (Figure 27) Since all our email exchanges had taken place in English, I mistakenly assumed Wiola was fluent in English. It was Ania, however, who is most fluent in English and translated.
The history of ownership of Haus Gotzmann following Ida Mattner’s proprietorship is unclear. I presume that Ms. Mattner was forced to flee once the Russians occupied Poland, as most Germans did. Possibly a Communist apparatchik occupied the house until the fall of the Soviet Union in 1989, at which point perhaps the home reverted to private ownership. What is clear is that Wiola’s husband inherited the house from his father, a noted Polish painter, Paweł Trybalski (1937-2023). His studio and some of the props and souvenirs brought back by Pawel’s friends on their travels used by him in some of his paintings are intact.
Wiola showed me a few old photos of people taken at the Haus Gotzmann, and in one of them I recognized a few of the same people my father photographed, presumably Leo Gotzmann and his wife Lilly. (Figure 28) The unknown person could be Ida Mattner, though this is conjecture since I’m uncertain what her relationship was to the Gotzmanns and how she came to lease and eventually own Leo and Lilly Gotzmann’s house.
One thing I had the opportunity to do during my visit with Wiola and her family at the Haus Gotzmann was to recreate photos my father took in 1934/35. Remarkably, those parts of the house inside and outside that my father pictured have hardly changed. The very distinctive alternating brown and white horizontal stripes painted on the outside still exist. I sat on the same steps where my father stood (Figures 29a-b), and in the same place he and his brother once stood. (Figures 30a-b) I also sat on the interior steps where partying guests participated in a masked ball on New Year’s Eve 1935. (Figures 31a-b) Given that Michałowice is 9300km (5,780 miles) from where I now live, I find this haunting. On only one previous occasion have I stood in the same spot I knew my father to have stood thousands of kilometers away and many years ago.
A few final thoughts. (Figure 32) While Wiola and I could not directly communicate with one another save for the intervention of her daughter, we made an immediate connection. I think it’s fair to say we both had this odd sense of having previously “met” and it being “fated” that we should meet again in this life. Wiola and other thoughtful and intelligent people I’ve encountered in my years of doing forensic genealogy convince me that my work transcends my own family history. Given the existential danger that the divisions in our current body politic pose to democracies around the world, a quote attributed to Cicero comes to mind, “To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child.” My recent trip to Europe, particularly the time spent in Poland, made it clear how real and worrisome the ghosts and horrors of the past are for people living in the shadow of the war in the Ukraine and the dangers posed by an aggressive neighbor.
Readers will rightly perceive that my search to relocate a house my father and uncle visited 90 years has yielded some productive and unexpected discoveries. For readers who may find themselves in similar circumstances, I encourage persistence. I do not pretend this is exclusive to my forensic searches because I’ve occasionally come across others who’ve achieved far more impressive results using old films, photos, diaries and ancestral accounts, and documents related to places their Jewish ancestors lived.
