Note: I continue my forensic investigations into people my father, Dr. Otto Bruck, knew during the five years he lived in Tiegenhof, in the Free State of Danzig. In this post, I discuss a man who befriended him named Dr. Franz Schimanski, a lawyer and notary by profession, and President of the Club Ruschau. The fate of such people, though not family, has always intrigued me, and I’m continuously trying to locate some of their descendants.
I return in this post and the ensuing one to Tiegenhof [today: Nowy Dwór Gdański, Poland], the town in the Free State of Danzig where my father briefly had his dental practice between April 1932 and April 1937. I’ll talk about two men who were, respectively, the President and Vice-President of the “Club Ruschau,” the local sports club my dad joined with whose members he regularly socialized. The President was Dr. Franz Schimanski (Figure 1), and his deputy was Dr. Herbert Holst, both of whom I discussed in Post 7. My father would no doubt once have characterized these people as good friends given the numerous pictures of them which survive among his photos.
Finding out what happened or may have happened to people from Tiegenhof and Danzig who were once within my father’s orbit of friends, acquaintances and professional colleagues has always piqued my interest. Because of the turbulence, movements and vast relocations in this part of Europe during WWII, and the eventual ouster of Germans from the area after the war, it is particularly challenging to track down what happened to some of the people my father knew. As regular readers know, I’ve already related the fates of some of them. I tell these stories dispassionately since I have no idea how my dad’s relationship with these people ended in the era of National Socialism. The only thing my father ever said about this is that by the time he left Tiegenhof in 1937, he no longer had any dental clients and knew few people who still acknowledged his existence. I can only imagine how heartrending and dangerous this must have been.
Thanks to the intervention of Mr. Peter Hanke, my acquaintance from “forum.danzig.de,” recently I’ve learned a little more about Dr. Schimanski. There are major gaps in my understanding of his life, and unlike other people my father knew from Tiegenhof, I’ve yet to track down any of his descendants. Let me briefly review what I know for sure, what I surmise, and what Peter has recently uncovered about Dr. Schimanski.
From Address Books for the District in which Dr. Franz Schimanski resided, Kreis Großes Werder im Freistaat Danzig, listings in 1925 (Figure 2) and 1930 (Figure 3) directories show him to have been a “Rechtsanwalt und Notar,” a lawyer and notary. Two newspaper articles Peter found in Die Presse. Ostmärkische Tageszeitung. Anzeiger für Stadt und Land. (The Press. Ostmärkische Daily Newspaper. Gazette for City and Country.) (Figure 4) from 1912 first announce Dr. Schimanski’s appointment as notary (Figure 5), then several days later provide background (Figure 6):
Thorn [today: Torun, Poland], the 20th of August 1912, page 6:
Transcription:
“Tiegenhof, 20. August. (Drei Rechtsanwälte)
hat sich unser Städtchen in den letzten Wochen ge-
leistet. Die Überfüllung der Juristenlaufbahn be-
dingt, daß viele Assessoren nicht in den Staatsdienst
aufgenommen werden. Der Überschuß ist auf die
Rechtsanwaltschaft angewiesen. Wird nun in einem
Ort durch Fortzug oder Tod eine Anwaltsstelle frei,
so sind gleich viele Bewerber auf dem Posten. So
war es auch hier. Herr Justizrat Künstler siedelte
als lebenslänglicher Notar nach Berlin über.
Darauf ließen sich die Herren Gerichtsassessor Dr.
Schimanski aus Stuhm und Rechtsanwalt Selleneit
in die Liste der Rechtsanwälte beim hiesigen Gericht
eintragen. Beide konnten sich jedoch hier nicht be-
haupten, da hier noch ein dritter tätig ist. Es han-
delte sich also bei den beiden neuen Herren darum,
wer das Notariat bekommen würde, denn von den
Einnahmen eines Rechtsanwalts allein kann in
dem kleinen Bezirk der dritte Herr nicht bestehen,
und mehr als zwei Notarstellen sind hier nicht vor-
gesehen. Es schweben zwar schon lange Gerüchte
darüber, daß unser Amtsgerichtsbezirk durch den
rechts der Weichsel belegenen Teil des Kreises Dan-
ziger Niederung vergrößert werden soll, doch liegt
die Verwirklichung dieses Wunsches noch in weitem
Felde. Infolgedessen wird der nicht zum Notar er-
nannte Rechtsanwalt unsere Stadt wieder verlassen.”
Translation (using DeepL Translator):
“Tiegenhof, 20 August. Our town has afforded itself three lawyers in the last few weeks. The overcrowding of the legal career means that many assessors are not accepted into the civil service. The surplus is dependent on the legal profession. If a lawyer’s position becomes vacant in a town as a result of a move away or death, the same number of applicants are on the job. So it was also here. Mr. Justizrat Künstler moved to Berlin as a lifelong notary. Then the court assessor Dr. Schimanski from Stuhm and lawyer Selleneit joined the list of lawyers at the local court. Both could not assert themselves here, however, since here still a third one is active. So the two new gentlemen were concerned with who would receive the notary’s office, because the third gentleman cannot exist in the small district from the income of a lawyer alone, and more than two notary offices are not provided for here. Although there have been rumors for a long time that our court district is to be enlarged by the part of the district of Gdansk’s lowlands to the right of the Vistula, the realization of this wish is still a long way off. As a result, the lawyer, who was not appointed a notary, will leave our city again.”
One of the most remarkable things Peter found related to Dr. Schimanski, he located, of all places, on eBay! He discovered an original document with Dr. Schimanski’s signature and seal, dated the 15th of July 1913 (Figure 7), from shortly after he was appointed notary in Tiegenhof. From this document, we can determine that one of the earliest projects he worked on was a contract for construction of a narrow-gauge railroad.
My father arrived in Tiegenhof according to his Pocket Calendar (see Post 6) precisely on the 9th of April 1932 (Figure 8), exactly one week before his 25th birthday. Throughout his life, my dad was an active sportsman, and he wasted no time applying for membership to the local sports club, the “V. f. B. Tiegenhof, Baltischer Sportverband (Baltic Sports Federation),” to which he was accepted on the 12th of November 1932. (Figure 9) While this was ostensibly a sports club (Figure 10), in order to be accepted by the businessmen and social elite, one clearly had to be a member of civic organizations in town, particularly if one expected to have a successful dental practice. Many of the club’s social events appear to have taken place at the Club Ruschau, located in Petershagen [today: Zelichowo, Poland], just outside Tiegenhof. Mr. Marek Opitz, the current director of the Zulawskie Museum in Nowy Dwór Gdański, was unaware of the club’s existence until I asked him about it and sent him photos. I discussed in Post 7 how Mr. Opitz was able to locate one of the Club’s surviving buildings, to which he took me and my wife on one of our visits to Nowy Dwór Gdański. (Figure 11)
Numerous of the photos of Dr. Schimanski and other members were taken at the Club Ruschau. (Figure 12) In multiple photos, he is shown holding a cane. I surmise Dr. Schimanski was a veteran of WWI and was wounded in theater. Ancestry.com has numerous WWI German Casualty Lists, identifying those killed and wounded in action. I attach a single example with a “Franz Schimanski” listed; in this case, the number “15.6” (i.e., 15th of June) follows the name. (Figure 13) This may correspond to the month and day of birth, or, just as likely, to the day the person was killed or wounded. Regardless, I have no knowledge this Franz Schimanski was my father’s friend. I only know from other pictures in my father’s photo albums that Dr. Schimanski was born in June, year unspecified, based on a birthday party held in his honor that month in 1933. I’m not a very good judge of age, but I would gauge Dr. Schimanski was born around 1880, give or take a few years. If he went to war in 1914, he would have been around 34, seemingly old to be a foot soldier, although Peter Hanke found a secondary source which indicates about 30% of German soldiers were that age or older during WWI. To date, I’ve been unable to locate any primary birth, marriage or death records definitively related to Dr. Schimanski. This was a very common surname in Kreis Großes Werder, and in fact in the 1935 Danzig address book alone, there are 98 listings for Schimanski!
Several pictures among my father’s collection show Dr. Schimanski with who I think is his wife and three adult daughters. (Figure 14) Unlike most of his other pictures, he doesn’t identify the ladies by name but merely refers to them as Lieblinge, “darlings.” My dad clearly had a sweet spot for Dr. Schimanski’s family. Regardless, his pictures give no further clues I can pursue to determine the fate of Dr. Schimanski’s family.
The Totenkarte, death card, from the Heimatortkartei Danzig-Westpreußen database for Dr. Schimanski (Figure 15) indicates only he died in 1940. The information was reported by a Dr. Kurt Heidebrecht, who is listed in the Amtliches Fernsprechbuch für den Bezirk der Reichspostdirektion Danzig 1942 (Official telephone directory for the district of the Reichspostdirektion Danzig 1942) as a Rechtsanwalt u. Notar, lawyer and notary (Figure 16), just as Dr. Schimanski was. I assume Drs. Heidebrecht and Schimanski were once colleagues. Peter Hanke was able to find a Heidebrecht living in Hamburg, Germany who may be a descendant of Kurt Heidebrecht. I’ve written a letter to this person hoping he is related and may be able to tell me what happened to Dr. Schimanski and his family. Watch this space for further developments.
Note: In this post, I relate the story of uncovering multiple copies of a family portrait rendered in the Biedermeier style in what I estimate was the early 1830’s.
During a recent email exchange with my 92-year old third cousin, Agnes Stieda née Vogel (Figure 1), subject of several earlier posts, I casually mentioned other topics I want to eventually write about on my Blog. This includes one illustrious branch of my Bruck family, the von Koschembahrs, about which more is said below. This prompted Agnes to tell me in passing she has a family portrait of them hanging in her apartment in Victoria, Canada. A short while later she sent me several photos. (Figure 2) They show a touching depiction of two children, one holding a rabbit, painted in what I would learn was the Biedermeier style. Agnes quickly added this is a revered painting within her family.
Other than knowing it portrayed two von Koschembahr children, no doubt from the period when the Biedermeier style was in vogue in Germany between 1815 and 1848, Agnes had no further information as to the painter, the subjects, nor the exact year it was painted. Obviously curious whether the painting or the boy and girl might be known to other members of my extended family, I decided to send a copy of the photo to another of my German third cousins, Kurt Polborn. (Figure 3) He is a close descendant of the von Koschembahrs, and I thought he might recognize the artwork. And, indeed he did. He promptly told me they depict Leopold von Koschembahr (1829-1874) (Figure 4), and his slightly older sister, Mary von Koschembahr. Judging from the approximate age of the children, and Leopold’s year of birth, 1829, I estimate it was done in the early 1830’s, well within the timeframe the Biedermeier style was popular.
Let me briefly explain to readers how my Bruck family is related to the von Koschembahrs. The first-generation owner of the family hotel, the Bruck’s “Prinz von Preußen” Hotel in Ratibor [today: Racibórz, Poland], the town where my father was born in 1907, was Samuel Bruck (1808-1863) (Figure 5), my great-great-grandfather. Ownership of the hotel was acquired by his son, Fedor Bruck (1834-1892), my great-grandfather. (Figure 6) Fedor’s youngest brother was my great-great-uncle Wilhelm Bruck (1849-1907), (Figure 7) who married a baroness, Margarete “Grete” Mathilde von Koschembahr (1860-1946) (Figure 8), sometime before 1885; Leopold and Mary von Koschembahr were, respectively, Grete’s father and aunt. The term “von” is used in German language surnames “either as a nobiliary particle indicating a noble patrilineality,or as a simple preposition used by commoners that means of or from.” On account of his wife’s noble patrilineality, Wilhelm Bruck added her surname to his upon marriage. Thus, in Germany, this branch of the family was known as “Bruck-von Koschembahr,” but upon their arrival in America they completely dropped the Bruck surname. Suffice it to say, this complicates the family tree.
During my conversation with my third cousin Kurt Polborn who’d identified the von Koschembahr children, he mentioned in passing the painting belongs to his aging von Koschembahr uncle, Clemens von Koschembahr, living in Ohio. Clemens is about to turn 94 and is the grandson of Wilhelm Bruck-von Koschembahr and the sole surviving child of Gerhard von Koschembahr (1885-1961) (Figure 9) and Hilda Alexandra von Zeidlitz und Neukirch (1891-1954), who immigrated to America in 1938 with their 13 children. (Figures 10a-b, 11) Kurt’s claim that the family portrait of the von Koschembahr children is still in the family, while entirely reasonable, left me puzzled. (Figure 12) What then is the version owned by Agnes, an original or a copy? I would add that Clemens, being told that another version of this family portrait exists, was quite surprised.
Things got even more puzzling when I probed into this more. Agnes remembered having visited her cousin Klaus Pauly (Figure 13) in Germany and hanging in his house was yet another copy of this same painting! Curious as to how many copies of this painting might exist, I immediately sent an email to Klaus’s son, Andi Pauly (Figure 14), whose name I’ve often mentioned. The existence of this copy, at least, could be explained. During one of Klaus’s visits to see Agnes, he’d greatly admired the painting and tried to talk her out of it. Agnes, naturally, was unwilling to part with this family heirloom, but, Klaus, undeterred, photographed the “original,” and upon his return home turned it into a full-size photo which he framed. Problem solved!
Still, the existence of two seemingly high-quality versions of the Biedermeier-style portrait is intriguing. It seems unlikely the von Koschembahrs would have allowed the original to leave the family, so I’d argue that version is the one owned by Clemens von Koschembahr. Admittedly, while I can only gauge this from low resolution images, it would seem the older looking of the two copies is also that one. Unfortunately, neither copy of the paintings is signed; Kurt explained this was not uncommon in paintings done of royals and aristocrats of the time, where the “star,” so to speak, was the king, queen, or noble. The creates an obvious problem where originals can easily be forged and claimed as authentic. Absent a professional side-by-side comparison, the question of which is the original portrait will remain an open one. Things, though, could get even more confusing should yet more high-quality versions of this portrait emerge from other members of the family! This may not be as implausible as it sounds given the endearing quality the von Koschembahr artwork possesses and the possible desire by others to have had their own copies.
Note: In this post, I discuss how I’m related to two living Brucks I’ve known for half-a-dozen years, and how I inadvertently stumbled on the answer and responded to their question, “Where’s the smoking gun?”
This story begins in 1951. Soon after I was born, my parents received a congratulatory note from my father’s uncle, Wilhelm “Willy” Bruck, then living in Barcelona, Spain. (Figure 1) As a boy, I would later meet my great-uncle’s daughter Eva in New York when she came to visit the family but never realized who she was. (Figure 2) Though I met her only once, I remember her fondly because she gave me an old silver coin I still cherish (i.e., readers will recall I’ve been a lifelong coin collector). Because of my father’s rather dismissive attitude towards family, except for his beloved sister Susanne murdered in Auschwitz, naturally he lost contact with most of his relatives. Thus, when I began my forensic investigations into my family, I was left to reconstruct and find family descendants on my own, years after my father was gone and might have helped.
Aware some family members had wound up in Barcelona, I began my search there vaguely cognizant my great-uncle Willy may have had grandchildren. To remind readers, I discussed the search for my great-uncle and his descendants in Posts 32 and 33. Since this remains one of my all-time favorite family quests, I will briefly remind readers how I met the two Brucks, first cousins to one another, as what can only be characterized as serendipity. I thought perhaps my great-uncle’s grandchildren, my second cousins that’s to say, might live in Barcelona. I started by checking the White Pages for Barcelona and found nary any Brucks there. I expanded my search to all of Spain and discovered 14 listings. I immediately did the calculus, and said to myself, “No problem, I’ll write to all of them!” And, this is in fact what I did in late 2013.
Many weeks passed with no responses. Then, early one Saturday morning, I received a call from a gentleman in Haifa, Israel by the name of “Michael Bruck.” I had no known relatives there so was intrigued why this namesake was calling. He quickly explained I’d written to his first cousin Ronny Bruck in Alicante, Spain inquiring about my great-uncle Willy. Aha! Michael is the family genealogist, so Ronny forwarded him my letter, ergo his call. I must share one other alluring aspect of this story that corroborates what Branch Rickey, the brainy former General Manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers, once said: “Luck is the residue of design.” That’s to say, luck doesn’t just happen, you create the circumstances to get lucky. For those who may be familiar with the postal service in Spain, they’ll know it’s notoriously unreliable. The letter I sent to Ronny inquiring about my great-uncle Willy not only arrived safely, but it arrived in his mailbox on his 65th birthday, making him believe some unknown cousin from America was sending him well-wishes! The stars were obviously properly aligned.
All my letters to the Brucks residing in Spain had included a photo of my great-uncle, and Michael immediately noted the family resemblance (Figure 3), even though he’d never come across Wilhelm Bruck’s name in connection with his own research. In 2014, my wife and I had already planned to spend 13 weeks in Europe visiting places associated with my family from northeastern Poland to southern Spain, so I suggested we all meet in Spain. Meeting there was not possible, so Ronny suggested Germany instead, and Michael and his wife joined us from Israel. Thus, in 2014, we met in person at the home of my first cousin. (Figures 4-5) Despite our in-depth respective knowledge of our family trees, over the years, Michael and I could never pinpoint how closely or distantly we are related.
Fast forward to the present. My previous post told the story about obtaining the complete roster of students who were enrolled in the Ratibor Gymnasium, high school, between its opening in 1819 and 1849; Ratibor is the town in Upper Silesia where my father was born in 1907, and where many Brucks hail from. Among the first-year students who attended the Ratibor Gymnasium upon its opening were two brothers, Isaac and Samuel Bruck. (Figures 6a-b) As I told readers in Post 73, Samuel Bruck is my great-great-grandfather, and is known to me. (Figure 7) His brother Isaac was completely unfamiliar to me, so I casually checked on ancestry.com and MyHeritage, to no avail. Not expecting to find anything through a Google search, I nonetheless checked Isaac’s name there. Imagine my surprise, then, when I was “kicked” into a query that had been posted by Michael Bruck in 2012 on Genealogy.com inquiring about him. (Figure 8)
As followers can read, Michael asked the genealogical community for information on Isaac Bruck and his wife Caroline Stolz from Ratibor; he went on to say that their daughter Marie Friederike Bruck married David Isaac there on the 29th of June 1857, and that Friederike was Michael’s great-great-grandmother. Upon seeing Michael’s message, it immediately became clear how we’re likely related. While I qualify the previous statement, there is absolutely no question in my mind how Michael, Ronny, and I are related. We are fourth cousins once removed. Let me briefly review the evidence, again by reference to primary source documents as in the previous post.
To remind readers what I said in Post 73, in the Ratibor Gymnasium Album, the names “Isaac Bruck and Samuel Bruck” occur in succession and are “bracketed” together with their unnamed father’s profession identically described as “Arrendator,” leaseholder. (Figures 6a-b) From a condensed family tree developed by my uncle Dr. Fedor Bruck reproduced here (Figure 9), I know that Samuel’s father was Jacob Nathan Bruck and that by association, so too is Isaac’s father. To me, the names in association with one another and their father’s profession being the same is “the smoking gun,” the answer to the question Michael and Ronny once posed.
The marriage register listing of Michael’s great-great-grandmother Marie Friederike Bruck to David Isaak dated the 19th of June 1857 survives and can be found on LDS Microfilm Roll 1184449. (Figure 10)
Below is a transcription and a translation of the marriage register listing for Isaac(k) Bruck’s daughter and her husband.
Register No.
Datum
1857
Vor & Zuname
Bräutigam
Gewerbe
Wohnhaft
Name der Braut
& ihrer Eltern
Gewerbe
Wohnhaft
(Register Number)
(Date
1857)
(First & last name of the groom)
(Occupation,
Residence)
(Name of the bride)
(& her parents’ occupation & residence)
GERMAN
113
29.6
David ISAAK, 32 Jahre, Sohn d[es] zu Wrirtzen verstorb[enen] Handelsmanns Hirsch ISAAK & der dort lebenden Ehefrau Cheinchen geb. CASPER
Handlungskommis, Berlin
Marie Friederike BRUCK, Ratibor, 24 Jahre
zu Altendorf verstorb[ener] Sattlermeister / p. Kaufm[ann] Isaak BRUCK & Ehefrau Caroline geb. STOLZ, Ratibor
ENGLISH
113
29 June
David ISAAK, 32 years old, son of the merchant Hirsch ISAAK, who died in Wrietzen, and his wife Cheinchen née CASPER, who lives there
Clerk, assistant or commercial employee, Berlin
Marie Friederike BRUCK, Ratibor, 24 years old
Died in Altendorf, master saddler / p. businessman Isaak BRUCK & wife Caroline née STOLZ, Ratibor
As readers can see, in the far-right column, Marie Friederike’s parents are identified, Isaak (spelled with a “k”) Bruck and Caroline Stolz, with a notation that Isaak died in Altendorf, a suburb of Ratibor (Figure 11), obviously before his daughter got married in 1857.
The town where the groom comes from is incorrectly spelled “Wrietzen,” when it should have read “Wriezen.” It’s a town in the district Märkisch-Oderland, in Brandenburg, Germany.
One final point. Some may wonder, as I did, why Michael and Ronny’s surnames are Bruck when this originates in their matrilineal line. (Figure 12) Michael explained that some of David and Marie Friederike Isaac’s children were in the clothing business in Berlin and owned several shops there in the late 19th and early 20th centuries; on account of persistent anti-Semitism, they started to use their mother’s maiden name. One of David and Marie Friederike’s sons, Max Isaac and his wife, formally applied to the Berlin authorities to use the Bruck name permanently on the 3rd of November 1919, evidence of which survives. (Figure 13)
It’s satisfying to have figured out how Michael, Ronny, and I are related, albeit in the scheme of things, it’s not seemingly a near ancestral link. That said, I maintain close ties with Michael and Ronny, and we regularly communicate. Furthermore, Ronny, by dint of his familiarity with Sütterlin, the German saw-toothed script briefly taught in schools there, has translated numerous family documents penned in this writing. This has enormously furthered my family research.
Note: In this post, I discuss a recently obtained list of students who attended Ratibor’s Gymnasium, or high school, between its opening in 1819 and 1849, and facts I’ve gleaned from this registry. While I expected a linear unfolding of the ledger’s contents and information, in some ways it has turned into a game of three-dimensional chess, as I’ll explain. This post also provides an opportunity to lay out the exacting approach I try and take to make a case for ancestral connections relying on primary source documents.
One of the most exciting moments doing forensic genealogy occurs when you discover a copy or original historic document with the names of your ancestors, particularly when the names are those of your oldest known relatives. As a former archaeologist, this is analogous to unearthing an artifact that was last handled by a human hundreds if not thousands of years ago. The context in which an artifact or document is found is key to properly interpreting its significance.
Last year, Mr. Paul Newerla, my friend from Ratibor, retired lawyer and current writer of Silesian history, mentioned that 2019 marked the bicentennial of Ratibor’s Gymnasium, or high school, still used today as a commercial school. To remind readers, Ratibor is the town where my father, Dr. Otto Bruck, was born in 1907. In Post 60, using background information provided by Mr. Newerla, I discussed the high school’s history and a publication Paul found archived at the British Museum written by the school’s first director, Dr. Carl Linge, entitled “Denkschrift über die feierliche Eröffnung des Königl. Evangel. Gymnasium zu Ratibor am 2. Juni 1819. . .,” “Memorandum on the solemn opening of the Royal Evangelical High School in Ratibor on June 2, 1819. . .” (Figure 1) This publication, printed in 1820, included a list of names of all first-year attendees, including two members of my Bruck family with only the initials of their forenames written in elaborate Gothic script, read by Paul as “S. Bruck” and J. Bruck.” (Figure 2) Based on the intimate knowledge of my family tree, I concluded these stood for Samuel Bruck (1808-1863) and Jonas Bruck (1813-1883), brothers who are shown as the children of Jacob Bruck in an abridged typed family tree developed by my Uncle Dr. Fedor Bruck. (Figure 3)
Typically, attendance at Gymnasiums begins between the ages of 10 and 12, give or take a year, so Samuel’s attendance in 1819 when he would have been 11 years old makes sense. However, his brother Jonas’s attendance in 1819, when he was only six years old seems implausible, unless he was exceptionally precocious. Absent any other incontrovertible evidence, however, this is the preliminary conclusion I came to in Post 60, namely, that Jonas Bruck had attended the Ratibor Gymnasium at a very early age.
Naturally, I became curious whether the original ledger of student names upon which Dr. Linge’s publication was based still exists, whether it is in the Polish State Archives in Racibórz or possibly curated by the Muzeum Racibórzu. Paul explained that because an existing commercial school now occupies the buildings of the former high school (Figure 4), some of the original records are retained there. In the recent past, there had apparently been some discussion about transferring the remaining ledgers to the archive or museum but for unknown reasons these negotiations ended acrimoniously.
Paul offered to contact the commercial school and inquire about the student ledgers, which he knew to have existed at one time because a colleague had shared some pictures of the “Album,” as it is referred to. Paul was recently granted access to the Gymnasium’s records. This turned out to be a frustrating exercise because the school was unable to initially locate the Album of student names for the period 1819 to 1849, even presented with irrefutable evidence of its existence in the form of pictures; Paul even checked the school’s archives, to no avail. Dispiritedly, Paul left his name and number, and asked them to call him if the Album was ever found.
Paul was not optimistic the ledger would turn up. He’s related some horror stories how nearby Polish and Czech Republic parishes have on occasion burned Kirchenbücher, church books, Kirchenmatrikeln, the roll or register of parishioners, and Pfarrmatrikel, parish matriculations, related to former German occupants of the area simply because none of their descendants live locally anymore. To use another archaeological analogy, it’s like pillaging a cultural site, ripping a page from prehistory, so to speak. So, it came as a pleasant surprise when several weeks after Paul’s visit to the former Ratibor Gymnasium he received a call telling him they’d finally located the Album in question. Paul promptly visited the commercial school and took pictures of the entire ledger of students covering the period 1819 through 1849, roughly 90 pages worth of material, which he sent me. (Figure 5)
I’ve been a coin collector much of my life and going through all the pages of the Ratibor Gymnasium Album was comparable to sorting through a cache of pennies in search of pre-1959 wheat chaff coppers. While the names of family members I discovered were relatively few, the information corresponding to each ancestor has provided multiple avenues for further investigation. The challenge is making sense of ancestral connections for people who lived 170 to 200 years ago in the context of what was a very large Bruck family at the time. As I mentioned at the outset, it’s a bit like playing three-dimensional chess
In the table below, I summarize the family data I gleaned from the Ratibor student ledger. Then, I examine using available primary source documents how or whether these people are or may be related.
SUMMARY OF FAMILY NAMES FROM RATIBOR GYMNASIUM ALBUM, 1819-1849
Readers will note that Isaac and Samuel Bruck’s names are listed in succession and bracketed, and the profession of their father is identical, an “Arrendator,” a leaseholder (i.e., holding property by lease). Thus, I assume they were brothers, although I had no prior knowledge of Isaac. Samuel Bruck (1808-1863) (Figure 7) was my great-great-grandfather, and I have photos of both he and his wife, Charlotte Bruck née Marle (1809-1861), later in life. Samuel purchased the family hotel in Ratibor, the Bruck’s “Prinz von Preußen” Hotel, around the middle of the 19th Century, following a career as a wood merchant.
My uncle Dr. Fedor Bruck produced an abbreviated typed family tree (Figure 3) that includes the names of Samuel Bruck and his brother Jonas (more on him later), shown to be the sons of Jacob Bruck and his wife Maria Aufrecht. From primary source documents, Jacob (Jakob) Nathan Bruck, his complete name, and Maria Aufrecht are known to have had other children. LDS microfilm roll 1184449 for Ratibor documents the birth of a daughter named Rebecka on the 10th of January 1815. (Figure 8) The same microfilm roll also documents the marriages of three of Jacob’s daughters, Wilhelmina, Dorothea, and Fanny, respectively, in 1814, 1817, and 1822 (Figure 9); the mother is not identified but I presume is Maria Aufrecht. And, yet another primary source document identifies Jacob Nathan Bruck as the father of a son named Marcus Moritz Bruck who married Nanette von Aldersthal in 1836 in Berlin at the age of 36 (Figure 10); again the mother is not named but I presume is Maria. So, from various sources, I can reasonably document that Jacob Nathan Bruck likely had at least eight children (i.e., Wilhelmina, Dorothea, Fanny, Marcus Moritz, Isaac, Samuel, Jonas, and Rebecka).
Let’s move on to Isaac and consider what primary sources are available for him. With the original Ratibor Gymnasium Album for 1819-1849 in hand, and with Isaac Bruck’s full name written out, I am now certain the initial for Isaac’s forename in Dr. Carl Linge’s 1820 publication referenced above was mistakenly recorded as a “J.” rather than an “I.” This led me to initially conclude that Jonas had attended the high school at the precocious age of 6. Not the case.
Isaac’s age at the time he attended the Ratibor Gymnasium in 1819 is stated as 13. Given that the Gymnasium Ratibor Album records students’ names starting on the 11th of May 1819, I generally place Isaac’s birth in the early part of 1806, though it could certainly have been in the latter half of 1805. I discovered a family tree on MyHeritage that gives an Isaac Bruck’s exact date of birth as the 9th of November 1805 in Breslau. However, upon locating the original birth register listing for this individual in the LDS microfilm for Breslau (LDS Roll 1184380, page 34 of 594), I found the listing is for someone named ISAAC BRUG. (Figure 11) Conceivably, an alternate spelling for “Bruck” in the early 19th Century could have been “BRUG,” but because the father is identified as “abr. Meyer Brug,” I’m dubious this is the same Isaac. I’m convinced Isaac’s father was Jacob Nathan Bruck because of his association in the student ledger with the name “Samuel Bruck,” whose father was assuredly Jacob. This is another example of something I rail about, the need to be cautious about adopting and replicating information found in other family trees without confirming the source of the data.
Years ago when I did a basic Google query on Isaac Bruck, I stumbled upon an intriguing announcement in Volume 18 of the “Amtsblatt für den Regierungsbezirk Marienwerder (Official Gazette for the Marienwerder District),” dated the 26th of May 1828 about him. (Figures 12a-b) There is no question the announcement relates to my ancestor as he is said to have come from Ratibor, and his age of 22 in 1828 coincides with my estimate of how old he would have been then had he been born between 1805 and 1806. It seems, the Security Services from the West Prussian town of Graudenz issued a bulletin in May of 1828 alerting the police authorities to arrest Isaac Bruck after he had gone AWOL or escaped from the local penitentiary. He was described as Jewish, 22 years old with black and curly hair, a black beard, a normal sized mouth, having an oval chin and face, of average stature, 5 feet 2 inches, with a scar on his right forearm from a horse bite. Whether Isaac was ever brought to justice remains unknown.
Several other primary sources from Ratibor make mention of Isaac Bruck and his wife Caroline Bruck née Stolz, who is identified as the daughter of Joachim Meyer Stolz. The birth register for Ratibor records Isaac and Caroline gave birth to a daughter named Fany on the 28th of December 1833 (Figure 13), who according to one of my cousins supposedly died in 1834. Isaac and Caroline’s divorce is recorded on the 19th of July 1835, and gives the name of Caroline’s father as “Joachim Meyer Stolz.” (Figure 14) Yet a third primary source from 1835, claiming that Caroline and Isaac are then living separately, states Isaac remarried a woman named Charlotte Leopold; this same document gives the names and dates of birth of Isaac and Caroline’s two other children, Marie born on the 27th of June 1832, and Heinrich on the 6th of January 1835. (Figure 15) Caroline Bruck née Stolz’s death certificate records her death in Berlin on the 24th of January 1875, and claims she was born in 1803 in Rawitsch [today: Rawicz, Poland]. (Figures 16a-b)
The Ratibor Gymnasium Album records Heimann’s enrollment on the 4th of April 1823, when he was 11 years old, placing his birth around 1812. Some ancestral trees claim his full name was “Heinrich Hermann Heimann Bruck.”
The Ratibor Gymnasium Album states that Heimann’s father was a “Destillateur,” a distiller, unlike Isaac and Samuel’s father, who, as mentioned, was an “Arrendator,” a leaseholder. Given that Jacob Nathan Bruck had so many siblings, it’s possible some lived in Ratibor, and that Heimann was one of Jacob’s nephews rather than his son. There is insufficient data to conclusively determine Heimann’s relationship to Jacob Bruck.
A Jonas Bruck, whose father was also a “Destillateur,” a distiller, was enrolled in the Ratibor Gymnasium on the 21st of April 1824, when he was 10 ½ years of age. Once again, the question of whether this Jonas was the son of Jacob Bruck or the son of one of his brothers or cousins is subject to debate. Let me explain.
The Jonas Bruck who was the son of Jacob Nathan Bruck and the father of the famed dentist Dr. Julius Bruck, discussed in Post 68, is buried in the Jewish Cemetery in Breslau; his dates of birth and death are thus known (i.e., b. 5 March 1813-d. 5 April 1883). (Figure 19) In April 1824, when Jonas was enrolled, he would already have been 11 years of age, not 10 ½ as noted. This, and the fact that the father of the Jonas who was enrolled in the Ratibor Gymnasium in April 1824 was “Destillateur” would suggest this is possibly not Jacob’s son. No way to be sure.
Marcus (Markus) Braun was enrolled at the Ratibor Gymnasium on the 19th of May 1829 at the age of 12 ½. Marcus, my great-great-grandfather, a Brauereipachter, or tenant brewer, was the subject of Post 14. He is known to have been born in 1817, and his age in 1829 confirms this.
Oscar (Oskar) Bruck was registered as a student at the Ratibor Gymnasium on the 22nd of May 1845. By this year, the precise date of birth of students rather than their age was recorded, and Oscar’s birth is noted as the 8th of October 1832, which corresponds with data available to me elsewhere (i.e., the Pinkus Family Collection at the Leo Baeck Institute). Oscar Bruck was my great-great-uncle.
On the 3rd of January 1846, a Heimann Bruck from another generation is enrolled at the Ratibor Gymnasium, and his father was “Sattlermeister,” or saddler. His date of birth is noted as the 26th of December 1833. It’s not clear how he’s related to Jacob Nathan Bruck. Figure 15 indicates that Isaac Bruck and Caroline Bruck née Stolz had a son named Heimann, born on the 6th of January 1835, so presumably the parents of the Heimann born on the 26th of December 1833 were someone other.
My great-grandfather Fedor Bruck (Figure 24), brother of Oscar Bruck, was enrolled at the Ratibor Gymnasium on the 27th of April 1848. His date of birth is recorded as the 30th of September 1834, which again corresponds with data available in the Pinkus Family Collection at the Leo Baeck Institute.
In preparing this Blog post, I conferred with one of my fourth cousins. He has in his possession a memoir written by his great-aunt Bertha Jacobson née Bruck, great-granddaughter of Jacob Nathan Bruck, claiming he was one of 17 children and had 12 children of his own with Maria Aufrecht!! One family tree manager, now deceased, has precise vital data on Jacob’s dates and places of birth and death (b. 18 February 1770, Pschow-d. 29 June 1832, Ratibor), as well as the birth years of a few of his children, but cites no source. Given the very precise dates and places, I’m inclined to believe they’re authentic, but I can’t independently confirm this, so I reserve judgement as to their accuracy.
Given the large number of potential ancestors Jacob Bruck may have had and the likelihood that names repeated themselves within and across generations, it’s difficult to pinpoint the relationship among all the Bruck members who attended the Ratibor Gymnasium absent more primary source documents.
In closing, I cannot emphasize strongly enough that many of the family history stories I relate on my Blog would be impossible without the generous assistance of a cadre of researchers and genealogists who offer their help free-of-charge simply because they derive a vicarious “high” from doing so. Obtaining the help of local historians and researchers, particularly native speakers, is especially valuable as they often have knowledge of historic documents, not yet automated, that an outsider, like myself, would be unaware of. The mere existence of my Blog, albeit of limited interest to most of the world, attracts enough attention by people in a position to further my ancestral investigations and allows me to relate some of my tales. To these named and unnamed people I’m eternally grateful.
Note: In this Blog post, I discuss a few Bruck family Cabinet cards, photographic prints mounted on card stock, originating from several photo studios once located in Ratibor, Prussia, and Berlin.
The inspiration for this post came in part from a reader who inquired about the Helios photo studio in Ratibor [today: Racibórz, Poland] where her mother had worked during the 1930’s, and partially from some family photographs mounted on card stock with the names and locations of Ratibor and Berlin photo studios imprinted on the front or back.
In time, I would learn these photographs are referred to as Cabinet cards (Figure 1), which got their name from their suitability for display in parlors—especially in cabinets. This was a style of photograph first introduced in 1863 by Windsor & Bridge in London, that was a popular medium for family portraits. The Cabinet card, 108 mm by 165 mm (4 ¼” by 6 ½”) in size, gradually superseded the smaller carte-de-visite, 64 mm by 100 mm (2 ½” by 4”), which was introduced in the 1850s. The popularity of the Cabinet card waned around the turn of the century, particularly after the introduction of the photographic postcard (Figures 2a-b), but they were still being produced right until the First World War.
The name of the photographic studio is often imprinted on Cabinet cards under the photograph; typically a lithographic design covers most of the photo backing. Many designs incorporate attractive graphics, including medals or awards the studio supposedly won at some exposition or competition, or perhaps a medal of merit or excellence that was awarded by a European monarch. Sometimes, there is even an indication that the photographer or studio was the “official” photographer of a named monarch.
I always try to assist readers if possible, particularly if our respective ancestors originate from the same town; this sometimes presents an opportunity to learn more about the town’s history and its people, possibly obtain an alternative perspective, and often provides ideas for future Blog stories. Answering readers typically involves my consulting with more knowledgeable individuals. So, having never heard of the Helios photo studio the reader had asked about, I turned to my friend Mr. Paul Newerla, retired lawyer and current Silesian historian from Racibórz, for help. Paul sent a postcard of Langestraße, the street in Ratibor along which the Helios studio had once been located with the studio name circled (Figures 3a-b); he also included a page from a 1936 Ratibor Address Book listing existing photo studios with a larger advertisement for the “Photo-Helios.” (Figure 4) And, finally, in responding to the reader, I attached a section of a 1927 Ratibor map circling the approximate location of the studio.
More recently, I’ve turned my attention to the few Cabinet cards in my collection with the names and addresses of Ratibor and Berlin photo studios. These are often the most endearing and charming photos of my nearest relatives, specifically, my grandfather (Figure 5), along with my father (Figure 6) and his two siblings. (Figures 7-9) My ancestors literally seem to leap out from the picture and come to life.
The Cabinet cards depicting my family originate from three Ratibor studios, “J.D.P. Platz Kunst-Institut (Art Institute)” (Figure 10); “Oskar Krispien” at Oberwallstraße 10 (Figure 11); and “Alfred Schiersch” at Wilhelmstraße 12 (Figure 12); and two Berlin studios, “W. Höffert” with two locations, Leipziger Platz 12 and Unter der Linden 24 (Figure 13); and “V. Scheurich” at Friedrichstrasse 2017 in Berlin S.W. (Figure 14)
Curious whether I could learn more about these studios, I again turned to Mr. Newerla for help on the ones in Ratibor. In response to my query, Paul sent the list of existing photo studios from Ratibor Address Books for three years, 1889 (Figures 15a-b), 1923 (Figures 16a-b), and 1938. (Figures 17a-b) The 1889 directory showed J.D.P. Platz was located at Oberwallstraße 8, while the 1923 and 1938 directories indicated “Helios” or “Photo-Helios,” owned by Hans Ogermann, the studio the reader had asked me about, at Lange Straße 10. Alfred Schiersch was also listed in the 1923 and 1938 directories but shown to be at two different addresses, Oberzborstraße 8, then Eisenbahnstraße 3. None of the directories listed Oskar Krispien.
In addition to pages from various Ratibor Address Books, Paul sent me a link to “The Museum of Family History, Education and Research Center,” a virtual (Internet-only), multimedia, and interactive creation designed to help people learn more about modern Jewish history. Within this virtual museum is a link at “www.fotorevers.eu” to The Museum of Family History’s collection of over 3500 photos. This Polish and German language website documents by city the activities of photographers and their studios in the years 1850-1914; for Ratibor, it includes Jozef Axmann, Atelier Helios, and Platz Ph. (Figure 18), while for Berlin, W. Höffert is shown to be in multiple cities.
The Cabinet card depicting my grandparents around the time they got married in 1894 was taken at the W. Höffert studio (Figure 19), which on the reverse side of the card lists locations in seven German cities though more are known. (Figure 13) A different Cabinet card picturing only my grandfather at about the same age was taken at the “V.Scheurich” studio in Berlin. (Figure 20) Possibly, both photos were made in Berlin, although the wedding picture could certainly have been taken in Breslau, closer to Ratibor. However, the fact that neither picture was taken in Ratibor made me wonder where my grandparents married. Both were born in Ratibor and owned the Bruck’s family hotel there; additionally, I have a poem written by my grandfather’s brother, Wilhelm “Willy” Bruck, in honor of his brother’s wedding on the 11th of February 1894 that was printed in Ratibor, strongly suggesting my grandparents were married there. Yet, I had not previously found their wedding certificate at the Polish State Archives in Racibórz on two previous visits.
Knowing exactly the day my grandparents got married, I scoured the Landesarchiv Berlin database for their names but came up empty. Once again, I asked Paul Newerla whether he could check at the Polish State Archives in Racibórz for their wedding certificate on the off-chance I missed it, and sure enough he found it with ease. Possibly, my grandparents honeymooned in Berlin, and had their wedding photos taken there.
The reverse side of the Cabinet card from W. Höffert states: “Königlich Sächs., Königlich Preuss., Hof Photograph Sr. Königlich Hoh., Hof Photograph des Prinzen von Wales.” (i.e., Royal Saxon., Royal Preuss., Court Photographer Sr. Royal Dynasty Hohenzollern, Court Photographer of the Prince of Wales) In addition, there are three medals of merit or excellence illustrated on the Cabinet card. (Figure 13)
In the case of the Cabinet cards picturing my grandparents and their three children, since I know their vital statistics, they do not add to my knowledge of when specific events may have taken place or when they were born. However, for readers who may not have this information for their ancestors, knowing that Cabinet cards were in vogue between roughly 1866 and ca. 1914 may help narrow the window of time for which ancestral information is sought.
“War is the only game in which both sides lose.”—Walter Scott
“There’s no honorable way to kill, no gentle way to destroy. There is nothing good in war. Except its ending.”—Abraham Lincoln
Note: This post is Part II about my father’s married Protestant friends from Danzig whom he befriended in the early 1930’s, and further information I recently uncovered about them and the fates of their relatives.
In Part I of this Blog post, I somewhat unrealistically anticipated I would uncover much more information on precisely how my father’s Protestant friends from Danzig, Ilse and Gerhard Hoppe (Figure 1), met their gruesome ends there, respectively, in 1940 and 1941. This expectation was based on the fact I was able to locate their daughter Gisela Hoppe (as I will refer to her throughout this post), born in 1939, through a German government-connected friend. It turns out Gisela survived the war and is still alive and living in Wildeshausen, Germany, having recently turned 80. This friend gave me an address and Gisela’s married name, so I naively assumed getting in touch with her would be relatively straight-forward. This was not the case.
Let me give readers a little more background before relating what I was able to learn. Peter Hanke, the gentleman affiliated with “forum.danzig.de,” whom I’ve mentioned in recent posts, offered to write a letter on my behalf to Gisela. He volunteered to help because he’d earlier attempted to find out more about Gerhard and Ilse Hoppe from the Polish State Archives in Malbork, thinking perhaps they would have their death certificates. He learned such documents were destroyed by fire at the end of WWII by invading Russian troops, so the search became moot. I explained in Part I of this post I stumbled upon Gerhard and Ilse Hoppe’s death certificates independently in ancestry.com, as well as their 1932 marriage certificate showing they wed in the Marienkirche in Marienberg [today: Malbork, Poland]. (Figures 2a-b) Upon finding these documents, I sent them to Peter suspecting he’d be interested.
Knowing Gisela’s married name and residence, I initially asked Peter if he could call her on my behalf; her phone number, so he was told, was unlisted, so he offered to write to her instead. I drafted a letter, which Peter translated and mailed in early November 2019. Both of us expected an almost instantaneous response given I’d included a few photos of Gisela’s parents from the early 1930’s and offered to share all 22 pictures from my father’s collection. I assumed this would be of great interest to Gisela since her parents had died when she was just a toddler and her memories of them would obviously be very vague or non-existent. Still, we heard nothing.
By around the middle of November, it became apparent we might not hear from Gisela at all. Regular readers know I’m persistent. I began to consider Gisela Hoppe no longer lives in Wildeshausen and tried to determine this by sending an email to the Stadt Wildeshausen, the City of Wildeshausen. Writing to City Hall is an approach I’ve successfully used in the past. Still, weeks went by without a response. Unwilling to admit defeat, I asked one of my German cousins whether she could call the Stadt Wildeshausen to check on my email; the City brusquely asked her to call back at another time. Instead, my cousin called Wildeshausen information, and was given the name and number of a person with Gisela’s married surname, whom she called. Likely, this was Gisela’s elderly husband who appeared to be somewhat confused by my cousin’s call. He led my cousin to believe Gisela had returned to Poland and gave my cousin the name and number of a Polish woman in Wildeshausen who might know her whereabouts; my cousin spoke with this lady, but she could add nothing.
In retrospect, I’ve concluded Gisela visited family in Poland and was gone from Wildeshausen for several weeks when I first wrote, because finally, on December 11, 2019, Peter Hanke received an email from her confirming the receipt of my letter. Both of us were elated to have finally established contact. She does indeed still live in Wildeshausen, and naturally my letter came as a big surprise. One of Gisela’s observations was how much the young picture of her father (Figure 3) reminded her of her brother, Rudi, who died young. My independent research has not uncovered traces of this brother. More on this below.
Having at last established contact with Gisela Hoppe and continuing to use Peter Hanke as an intermediary because of Gisela’s limited English, I emailed her all my father’s pictures of her parents. She was grateful to receive these as most family pictures of her parents were lost and left behind in the frantic escape from Danzig as the Russians were approaching.
I sense I’ve opened a portal into a very painful part of Gisela’s life she would prefer to forget. As sensitively as possible, let me explain what I’ve learned. In the waning days of the war, Ilse Hoppe’s sister, Gisela’s aunt Margot, with three children of her own, wanted to take Gisela and her brother Rudi with them as they escaped the approaching Russians. Anna Hoppe, their grandmother, who was their legal guardian with her husband Otto Hoppe after their parents’ deaths, refused to let them go. This brought Gisela and her brother a great deal of misery because the arriving Russians destroyed the supplies of insulin which quickly resulted in their grandmother’s painful death from diabetes. Their grandfather Otto found them but was already ill at the time, from an unspecified cause. For reasons that are unclear, he left them alone in Danzig, and ultimately, they were sent by the Poles to Berlin where they were adopted by various foster families. Eventually, they were reunited with family and raised by their grandmother’s niece who found them through the “German Red Cross Tracing Service.”
Gisela’s older brother, Rudolf Otto Richard Gerhard Hoppe, called “Rudi,” was born on the 2nd of April 1938. He committed suicide on the 9th of January 1965 in Göttingen, Germany where both he and Gisela were students, reasons unclear. Growing up, Gisela’s relatives told them about their parents. Ilse committed suicide apparently on account of postpartum depression, by cutting her wrists, though her death certificate notes she cut her carotid artery. Her father Gerhard accidentally died trying to adjust the blinds in their apartment without realizing the living room window was open causing him to fall to his death (Figure 4); this would account for the traumatic injuries noted on Gerhard’s death certificate. So, while the deaths of Gisela’s parents were macabre, it would seem no foul play was involved.
Translation of Dr. Gerhard Hoppe’s death notice published by the German Dental Association:
“On July 27, 1941, our professional comrade, the Dentist Gerhard Hoppe passed away suddenly. We lose in him an always helpful, good, and upright workmate, whose memory we will cherish.
Danzig, 28th July 1941, German Dentists, Chamber of Dentists, Dr. Manteuffel”
As noted in Danzig telephone books of the time (Figure 5), Gisela and her family lived on the second floor at Karrenwall 5 (Figures 6a-b), above the police station on the ground floor. (Figure 7) Gisela’s grandmother Anna Hoppe would threaten to take she and her brother to the police if they slid down the wonderfully smooth railing in the apartment.
Readers will understand my hesitancy in further exploring the war and post-war events in Gisela’s life given the tumult she’s experienced. Trite as this sounds, it’s fair to say war claims victims on all sides though one can hardly equate the tragic deaths of two non-combatant Protestant Germans to the Holocaust.
Note: In this post I recreate what may have happened on one day of my father’s life, the 22nd of August 1930, when he was a dental apprentice in the Free State of Danzig in the practice of Dr. Fritz Bertram.
Growing up, my father infrequently spoke of the roughly seven years between 1930 and 1937 when he lived in Danzig [today: Gdansk, Poland] (Figure 1) and Tiegenhof [today: Nowy Dwór Gdański, Poland] in the Free State of Danzig. No doubt my father would have characterized these years as the halcyon days of his life because he led a charmed life, albeit briefly. He took multiple pictures, which survive, of his time in the Żuławy region, the alluvial delta area of the Vistula River in the northern part of what is today Poland, so I can often precisely pinpoint where he was and what he was doing on specific dates. But I want to focus on one day in 1930, the 22nd of August, a Friday, no pictures of which exist, which was the day of a tragic family happening. To relate this tale, and it may be nothing more than a fictional, imagined account, I must begin in the present.
In earlier posts, I’ve introduced Mr. Peter Hanke, a gentleman I became acquainted with through an online forum, “forum.danzig.de.” Peter has tracked down historic documents I would have been unlikely to find on my own and been particularly helpful solving mysteries on the fate of some of my father’s family, friends, and acquaintances. This post is about one such puzzle.
Recently, Peter and I were discussing one of my great-uncles, Robert Samuel Bruck (1871-1887), who I thought had died as a child in Ratibor, Germany [today: Racibórz, Poland], only to eventually learn that he bafflingly died in Braunschweig, Germany, 445 miles west-northwest of Racibórz, as a teenager. I learned of Robert’s survival to adolescence from a page in the Pinkus Family Collection (Figure 2), archived at the Leo Baeck Institute, which I shared with Peter. The mention of Braunschweig caught Peter’s attention because this town is located only 21 miles southwest of where Peter lives near Wolfsburg, Germany.
Another name caught Peter’s attention on this same page, namely, that of Rudolf Löwenstein, my great-aunt Hedwig Bruck’s husband, who it was noted died on the 22nd of August 1930 in Danzig. (Figure 2) To remind readers, in Post 16, I was able to confirm Rudolf Löwenstein’s death on this date in the Mormon Church’s microfilm records for Danzig, Microfilm Roll No. 1184408. (Figure 3) Peter was unable to locate Rudolf’s death certificate in online records from Danzig but was curious whether I’d be interested in having him seek other documents related to Rudolf; I told him I was, particularly since I had no idea how Rudolf had died. Naturally, I assumed it was of natural causes, which I soon learned was not the case. Having strangely been unable to find Rudolf Löwenstein’s death certificate, Peter presciently wondered whether he might have died somewhere other than Danzig.
In a very short time, by accessing Danzig Address Books available online, Peter was able to track Rudolf and his family’s addresses and occupations between 1903 and 1933, summarized below:
1903—Director of the tobacco factory RUMI—Weidengaße 48
1904—Merchant—Weidengaße 48 (with a widow LÖWENSTEIN)
1905-1907—Merchant, representative of the advertising expedition Rudolf Mosse and Paul Stabernick, Heilige Gastgaße—Weidengaße 48 (Figure 4)
Peter’s findings related to Rudolf’s fate transcend what the Danzig Address Books of the day reveal. He was able to track down four newspaper accounts from two newspapers, the “Danziger Allgemeine Zeitung (DAZ)” and the “Volksstimme,” from August 23rd and August 25th, the days immediately following Rudolf’s recorded death date.
TRANSCRIPTION
(“Danziger Allgemeine Zeitung (DAZ)” article from Saturday the 23rd of August 1930) (Figure 7)
In der Nähe von Friedrichsdorf bei Iglau stützte, wie aus Prag gemeldet wird, Freitag nachmittag 4 Uhr ein Flugzeug ab, das auf der Strecke Prag-Preßburg verkehrte. In dem Flugzeug befanden sich 13 Personen, von denen bei dem Absturz vier auf der Stelle getötet wurden. Von den schwer verletzten Personen sind kurz nach der Einlieferung in das Iglauer Krankenhaus vier weitere gestorben. Ferner sind zwei Passagiere schwer und einer leicht verletzt worden. Unter den Getöteten befindet sich der Ingenieur Bernhard EIMANN aus Dresden. Das Flugzeug war vom Typ Ford und stand bei den tschechoslowakischen staatlichen Aerolinien seit Frühjahr vorigen Jahres in Dienst. Es vermochte 14 Passagiere und zwei Mann Besatzung zu fassen. Das Flugzeug ist anscheinend in eine Gewitterzone geraten.
Die Flugzeugkatastrophe bei Iglau hat nach neueren Meldungen 10 Todesopfer gefordert, da von den im Krankenhaus eingelieferten Verletzten sechs gestorben sind. Unter den Toten befinden sich zwei Ausländer, außer dem bereits genannten Ingenieur EIMANN aus Dresden, ein Passagier namens Ködenstein aus Dänemark. Man vermutet, dass der Pilot im Sturm die Orientierung verlor, unter die Wolken herabging und das Flugzeug infolge eines Windstoßes abglitt. Ein Teil des Flugzeugs bohrte sich in die Erde ein, der andere geriet in Brand.
TRANSLATION
“Passenger plane crashed
10 deaths
As reported from Prague, a plane, which operated on the Prague- Preßburg route, crashed near Friedrichsdorf near Iglau, at 4 o’clock on Friday afternoon. The plane contained 13 people, four of whom were killed immediately in the crash. Of the seriously injured, four others died shortly after being transferred to the hospital in Iglau. Two passengers were also seriously and one slightly injured. Among those killed is engineer Bernhard EIMANN from Dresden. The plane was of the Ford type and had been in service with the Czechoslovakian state airlines since spring of last year. It was capable of carrying 14 passengers and two crew members. The plane apparently got into a thunderstorm zone.
According to recent reports, the air disaster near Iglau has claimed 10 lives, as six of the injured who were hospitalized have died. Among the dead are two foreigners, apart from the already mentioned engineer EIMANN from Dresden, a passenger named Ködenstein from Denmark. It is suspected that the pilot lost his orientation in the storm, went down under the clouds and the plane slipped as a result of a gust of wind. One part of the plane drilled into the ground, the other caught fire.”
TRANSCRIPTION
(“Volksstimme” article from Saturday the 23rd of August 1930) (Figure 8)
10 Tote bei einem Flugzeugunglück
Flugzeug stürzte auf ein Dach – Die Orientierung verloren
Am Freitagnachmittag um 4 Uhr verunglückte bei Iglau auf dem Wege nach Preßburg im Sturm ein Passagierflugzeug der staatlichen Fluggesellschaft. 10 Personen fand den Tod.
Das Flugzeug flog zunächst in großem Sturm und Regen. Bald nach dem Start stieß der Flugzeugführer auch noch auf dichten Nebel, so dass er die Orientierung verlor. Unterdessen wurde der Sturm immer heftiger. Die Maschine wurde hin und her geworfen und schließlich zu Boden geschleudert. Hier verfing sie sich in einem Baum, der umgerissen wurde. Dem Flugzeugführer gelang es noch einmal, die Maschine hochzureißen. Der Versuch einer Notlandung mißglückte jedoch. Das Flugzeug stürzte auf das Dach eines Hauses, fiel um und explodierte. Vier Personen verbrannten, 6 wurden durch den Aufschlag tödlich verletzt. Unter den Opfern der grausigen Katastrophe befindet sich auch der Dresdner Ingenieur Bernhard EIMANN. Der Pilot fand ebenfalls den Tod.
Die Unglücksmaschine wurde vor drei Monaten von Ford aus Amerika bezogen. Sie verfügte über Sitzplätze für 14 Personen und versah den Verkehr zwischen Prag und Preßburg.
TRANSLATION
“10 dead in a plane crash
Airplane crashed onto a roof – Lost orientation
On Friday afternoon at 4 o’clock on the way to Bratislava a passenger plane of the state airline was involved in an accident near Iglau. 10 people were killed.
The plane first flew in a heavy storm and rain. Soon after take-off, the pilot also encountered dense fog so that he lost his orientation. Meanwhile the storm became more and more violent. The plane was tossed back and forth and finally flung to the ground. Here it got caught in a tree that was knocked down. The pilot managed to pull the plane up once more. However, the attempt of an emergency landing failed. The plane crashed onto the roof of a house, fell over and exploded. Four people were burned, six were fatally injured by the impact. Among the victims of the gruesome catastrophe is the Dresden engineer Bernhard EIMANN. The pilot was also killed.
The crashed aircraft was purchased by Ford from America 3 months ago. It had seats for 14 people and provided traffic between Prague and Bratislava.”
TRANSCRIPTION
(“Danziger Allgemeine Zeitung (DAZ)” article from Monday the 25th of August 1930) (Figure 9)
Zu dem schweren Flugunfall bei Iglau, über den wir Sonnabend berichteten, werden folgende Einzelheiten bekannt: Der auf dem Flug von Preßburg nach Prag verkehrende große, dreimotorige Eindecker geriet kurz vor Iglau in eine schwere Gewitterböe, weshalb sich der Pilot gezwungen sah, eine Notlandung vorzunehmen. Aus bisher noch nicht ganz geklärter Ursache, wahrscheinlich durch ein plötzliches Umspringen des Windes, überschlug sich aber der Apparat, noch ehe er den Boden erreicht hatte. Die schwere Maschine stürzte auf ein von Arbeitern bewohntes Haus, durchschlug das Dach und zerstörte auch einen Teil des Mauerwerks. Der Aufprall war so heftig, dass im Augenblick des Aufschlags eine Explosion des Benzintanks erfolgte.
In wenigen Sekunden war die Maschine in ein Flammenmeer gehüllt. Das Feuer griff auch trotz des starken Regens auf das Hausdach über. Die Feuerwehr löschte den Brand und versuchte die Passagiere aus ihrer furchtbaren Lage zu befreien. Die Hilfe kam jedoch zu spät. Von den 13 Insassen des Flugzeugs konnten vier nur mehr als verkohlte Leichen geborgen werden.Die Identität dieser vier Toten konnte noch nicht festgestellt werden.
Ein Danziger bei der Iglauer Flugzeugkatastrophe tödlich verunglückt
Wie wir erfahren, ist bei dem Flugzeugunglück in Iglau (Tschechoslowakei) auch ein Danziger Kaufmann, der Inhaber einer hiesigen Announcen-Expedition, Rudolf LÖWENSTEIN, ums Leben gekommen.
TRANSLATION
“The air disaster at Iglau
The following details are known about the serious air accident at Iglau, which we reported on Saturday: The large, three-engined monoplane flying from Bratislava to Prague was caught in a heavy gust of thunder shortly before Iglau, forcing the pilot to make an emergency landing. For reasons not yet fully explained, probably due to a sudden change in wind, the plane overturned before it reached the ground. The heavy machine crashed into a house inhabited by workers, punctured the roof and also destroyed part of the masonry. The impact was so violent that at the moment of impact the petrol tank exploded.
In a few seconds the machine was enveloped in a sea of flames. The fire also spread to the roof of the house despite the heavy rain. The fire brigade extinguished the fire and tried to rescue the passengers from their terrible situation. But help came too late. Of the 13 passengers on the plane, four were recovered as charred bodies, but the identity of the four dead could not yet be determined.
A man from Danzig was killed in the Iglau air disaster
As we learn, the plane accident in Iglau (Czechoslovakia) also killed a merchant from Danzig, the owner of a local advertising expedition, Rudolf LÖWENSTEIN.”
TRANSCRIPTION
(“Volksstimme” article from Monday the 25th of August 1930) (Figure 10)
Bei der Flugzeugkatastrophe in Iglau – Tragisches Ende eines Besuchs in der Heimat
Die Flugzeugkatastrophe bei Iglau, über die wir am Sonnabend ausführlich berichtet haben, hat ein elftes Todesopfer gefordert. Der Kaufmann Rudolf LÖWENSTEIN, der Vater des bekannten, augenblicklich in Paris lebenden Danziger Malers Fedja LÖWENSTEIN, ist seinen Verletzungen erlegen.
Rudolf LÖWENSTEIN, der im 59. Lebensjahr stand, war auf dem Heimflug von Prag nach Danzig. Er hatte eine Geschäftstour in die Tschechoslowakei unternommen und damit einen Besuch seines Heimatortes Johannisbad verbunden. Der Rückflug nach Danzig sollte bereits einige Tage früher erfolgen, wegen des ungünstigen Wetters aber wurde der Start auf Freitag verschoben. Am Nachmittag erfolgte dann das furchtbare Unglück, das zu den schwersten Flugzeugkatastrophen überhaupt zu rechnen ist.
Vorläufig ist noch unbekannt, wie das Unglück geschah. Man nimmt an, dass das Flugzeug vom Blitz getroffen wurde. Die Machine stürzte auf das Dach eines Hauses, fiel um und explodierte.
Vier Personen verbrannten und sieben Passagiere, darunter Rudolf LÖWENSTEIN, wurden durch den Aufschlag tödlich verletzt. Die Leiche Löwensteins wird nach Danzig überführt und hier beigesetzt werden.
TRANSLATION
“Danzig merchant killed in accident
At the airplane disaster in Iglau – Tragic end of a visit to the home
The air disaster at Iglau, which we reported on in detail on Saturday, has claimed an eleventh life. The merchant Rudolf LÖWENSTEIN, the father of the well-known Danzig artist Fedja LÖWENSTEIN, who is currently living in Paris, succumbed to his injuries.
Rudolf LÖWENSTEIN, who was nearly 59 years old, was on his flight home from Prague to Danzig. He had gone on a business trip to Czechoslovakia, which included a visit to his hometown of Johannisbad. The return flight to Danzig should have been a few days earlier, but due to the unfavorable weather, the start was postponed to Friday. In the afternoon, the terrible accident occurred, which is one of the most serious aircraft disasters ever.
It is not yet known how the accident happened. It is assumed that the aircraft was struck by lightning. The plane crashed onto the roof of a house, fell over and exploded.
Four people were burnt and seven passengers, including Rudolf LÖWENSTEIN, were fatally injured by the impact. Löwenstein’s body will be transferred to Danzig and buried here.”
According to the contemporary newspaper accounts, Rudolf Löwenstein, who at the time of his death was almost 59 years old, was on his way home to Danzig. The flight on which he was killed was flying from Preßburg, Czechoslovakia [today: Bratislava, Slovakia] to Prague, when it went down near a town called Iglau. (Figure 11) Rudolf had gone on a business trip to Czechoslovakia, which included a visit to his hometown of Johannisbad [today: Janské Lázně, Czech Republic]. The plane he was on got caught in a heavy rainstorm. Soon after take-off, the pilot became disoriented on account of dense fog, and attempted an emergency landing near Iglau. Possibly due to wind shear, the plane overturned before it could land, crashed into the roof of a house, and exploded; 11 of the 13 passengers aboard were killed. The plane was of a Ford type, possibly a Ford Trimotor 5-AT-B. (Figure 12) Production on this model started in 1925 by the companies of Henry Ford and ended on June 7, 1933. Designed to hold 15 to 17 passengers, it was intended for the civil aviation market, but also saw service with military units.
Let me move on to where my father may have been on the 22nd of August 1930 when his uncle Rudolf was killed. My father received his dental accreditation from the University of Berlin’s Zahnheilkunde Institut, Dentistry Institute, on the 31st of May 1930. This was followed by two brief dental apprenticeships, first in Königsbrück, in the Free State of Saxony, Germany, then in Allenstein, Germany [today: Olsztyn, Poland], the latter of which ended on the 17th of August 1930 (Figure 13); Allenstein is only a little more than 100 miles southeast of Danzig so he likely returned there by train after this apprenticeship.
My father did not establish and open his own dental practice in Tiegenhof [today: Nowy Dwór Gdański, Poland] until the 9th of April 1932. In the interim, he apprenticed with a dentist in Danzig, Dr. Fritz Bertram (Figure 14), and likely stayed with his Aunt Hedwig and Uncle Rudolf in Danzig, and possibly two of their three children living at home.
The plane Rudolf Löwenstein was flying was reported to have gone down at around 4pm on the 22nd of August; already by the following day, the two Danzig newspapers had reported on the tragedy. Thus, it’s likely my father’s uncle was expected home the evening of the 22nd of August, and that the family had already been notified or learned of the plane crash that ultimately resulted in Rudolf’s death. Clearly, ninety years after the incident, it’s impossible to know exactly how events played out on that day and when the family eventually learned of Rudolf’s tragic accident but it’s likely my father was present when the family heard about what had happened; it’s not clear from contemporary news accounts whether Rudolf was killed instantly or not. The fact Peter Hanke has not found Rudolf’s death certificate in Danzig may possibly mean it is to be found in the Czech Republic.
As an aside, while I have multiple photos of my great-aunt Hedwig and her three children (Figure 15), and know all their vital statistics, regrettably, I have no known pictures of Rudolf Löwenstein. None of Hedwig and Rudolf’s children bore any offspring, though two were married, so it’s been difficult to track down where their personal papers wound up after their deaths. So, for the moment, Rudolf remains faceless.
Note: In this postscript, I present additional documentary evidence confirming some of Dr. Julius Bruck’s descendants survived the Holocaust and made their way to England.
Dr. Julius Bruck (1840-1902) and his wife Bertha Bruck née Vogelsdorf (1843-1917) (Figure 1) had two sons and two daughters born between 1864 and 1872, all of whom were dead by 1937. The youngest son, Dr. Walter Wolfgang Bruck (1872-1937) (Figure 2), was the last to die. He and his wife, Johanna Bruck née Graebsch, had two daughters, Hermine and Renate, their fates unknown to me. One of my fourth cousins told me Hermine was born and died in 1924 in Breslau, Germany [today: Wrocław, Poland] and knew only Renate was also born there on the 16th of June 1926; there were unconfirmed rumors Renate had immigrated to England. As discussed in Post 68, independently, I found Johanna and Renate Bruck’s names in the “German Minority Census, 1939,” showing both were still alive in 1939, living in Breslau, and giving their ages. (Figure 3)
Operating under the assumption the connection to England had some veracity, I searched for a Renate Bruck there. I explained to readers in the original post that on ancestry.com I discovered a Renate Bruck listed in a Willesden, Middlesex, England marriage register, indicating she wed a man there named Harry E. Graham in October 1948. Uncertain this was really Dr. Julius Bruck’s granddaughter, I ordered the marriage certificate from the United Kingdom’s General Register Office (GRO) and confirmed Renate Graham was indeed the surviving daughter of Dr. Walter Wolfgang Bruck. (Figure 4) The certificate showed that both Renate Bruck and Harry Graham had previously been married.
Knowing now that Renate Bruck had survived the Holocaust, and somehow immigrated to England after 1939, I theorized that her mother might also have made it there since I found no indication in Yad Vashem she’d perished in the Holocaust. I searched for Johanna Bruck in MyHeritage hoping I might find new clues there, and indeed found a very promising lead. I discovered a Johanna M.E. Bruck living in Barnet, Hertfordshire, England, born around 1885, who died between January and March 1963, at the age of 78 (Figure 5); I already knew from Johanna Bruck née Graebsch’s first wedding in 1905 to Dr. Renner that she’d been born on the 10th of April 1884, and the difference by one year of her birth seemed insignificant (i.e., 1885 vs. 1884). I checked the distance between Willesden, where Renate Bruck married in 1948 for the second time, and Barnet, where this Johanna Bruck died, and found it was only 44 km apart, or 27 miles, so it was reasonable to assume these people might be related.
I’ve previously explained to readers that for a long time I erroneously assumed the information in ancestry.com and MyHeritage replicates itself, but recently discovered this is not the case. By this time, I was virtually positive this Johanna Bruck was Renate’s mother. I returned to the UK’s General Register Office database and searched for a Johanna Bruck who died in the first quarter of 1963. There, I found a listing for a Johanna M.E. Bruck, and ordered this woman’s death certificate. It arrived a few weeks later, and confirmed what I’d already strongly suspected, namely, that Johanna was indeed the widow of Dr. Walter Wolfgang Bruck (Figure 6); she died of early cardiac failure, a result of ovarian cancer. Thus, I’d finally solved the mystery of where and when Dr. Walter Wolfgang Bruck’s widow had died.
But I was not yet completely satisfied. I still had not figured out when Renate Bruck might have died, so I returned to ancestry.com. There, I uncovered evidence of yet a third individual Renate Bruck had wed, a man named Gary Newman who she married in 1956. (Figures 7a-b) There was also a fleeting reference on a family tree in ancestry that a Renate Newman had died in England on the 3rd of March 2013. (Figure 8) With an actual year of death, I located a death certificate in the UK’s General Register Office database corresponding to this lady. (Figure 9) Naturally, I ordered a copy of this document, which arrived in just the last few days. Any lingering doubt I might have had that this was Dr. Walter Wolfgang Bruck’s daughter was dispelled when I saw the maiden name “Bruck” on the certificate with her known date of birth, the 16th of June 1926. (Figure 10) Her cause of death was specified as esophageal cancer. She’d been an interior designer during her working years, while her husband had been a commodity broker.
At the time of her death in 2013, her son, Nicholas Francis David Newman, was attendant. Thinking I might finally have found a living descendant of the esteemed Dr. Julius Bruck from Breslau, I first tried looking for him under births in UK’s General Register Office database but discovered this index of historic births goes only until 1916; remember that Renate married her third husband in 1956 so Nicholas’ birth would obviously postdate 1916. The GRO database does, however, include death records until 1957, and, then again between 1984 to the present; oddly, death records between 1957 and 1991 are not available. Knowing Nicholas Newman was still alive when his mother passed away in 2013, I searched death records for the brief period from then to now. Not expecting to find anything, I was astonished to discover his death was recorded in the first quarter of 2016 when he would have been only 55 or 56 years of age. (Figure 11) I’m awaiting arrival of Nicholas Newman’s death certificate, as I write, hoping I might finally find a living descendant of Dr. Julius Bruck, four generations removed. To date, I’ve been unable to resolve the question of whether Renate Bruck might have had additional children with her third husband, or possibly children by her second husband, Harry Graham. The search continues.
Note: I continue with a series of postscripts to earlier Blog posts to catch readers up on findings I’ve made since publishing the original stories. In this brief postscript, I discuss rare “artifacts” from my renowned great-aunt Franziska Bruck’s blumenschule, flower school, in Berlin which readers have generously sent me.
My great-aunt Franziska Bruck (Figure 1), the renowned Berlin florist (Figure 2), killed herself on the 2nd of January 1942 in Berlin-Charlottenburg, probably a few days before she was ordered to report for deportation. Likely not having access to Veronal and Scopolamin-Entodal, the most commonly used poisons of the time, she gruesomely ended her life by hanging. By committing suicide, Franziska wanted to avoid the fate of her Jewish neighbors, others of whom were soon deported.
In April 2019, I was contacted through my Blog by a Ms. Karin Sievert of the “Stolpersteininitiative Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf,” requesting information on my great-aunt Franziska and her siblings (see table at the bottom of this post for vital statistics on my great-aunt and her immediate family). To remind readers, the Stolpersteine project, initiated in 1992 by the German artist Gunter Demnig, commemorates people who were persecuted by the Nazis between 1933 and 1945 (e.g., Jews, Sinti, Roma, political and religious dissidents, victims of “euthanasia,” homosexuals, Jehovah Witnesses, etc.). Stolpersteine, or “stumbling stones,” are concrete blocks measuring 10x10cm (i.e., 3.9 in x 3.9 in) which are laid into the pavement in front of the last voluntarily chosen places of residence of the victims of the Nazis. Their names and fate are engraved into a brass plate on the top of each Stolperstein.
Like many unmarried women of the time, Franziska Bruck sublet an apartment located at Prinzregentenstraße 75 in Wilmersdorf. (Figure 3) By virtue of a Nazi law from 1939 voiding tenant protections for Jews, she’d already been forced to move from there to Waitzstraße 9. (Figure 4–“Arolsen Archives–International Center on Nazi Persercution“) This law stipulated that apartment leases could be terminated without notice and Jews had to find a new place to live within days or were quartered with other similarly displaced Jews. In the case of my great-aunt Franziska, in 2011, the Berlin Stumbling Stone Initiative Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf installed a stone in front of her last home at Prinzregentenstrasse 75. (Figure 5)
Ms. Sievert learned of my family history blog from one of her colleagues and requested my assistance in compiling a brief biography of my great-aunt. I was most happy to assist and provide family photographs. Readers can remind themselves by referring to the original post that I included a photo taken in Franziska’s flower shop showing the last Crown Princess of Germany and Prussia, Princess Cecilie, touring her Blumenschule, flower school. (Figure 6) Supplementing information I provided, Karin did her own research and purchased a postcard from a dealer of the same visit taken at a slightly different angle. (Figure 7) In addition, Karin also found an original advertisement for Franziska’s “Schule für Blumenschmuck,” taken from a “Daheim-Kalendar 1915,” home calendar from 1915. (Figures 8-9) As Franziska’s descendant and namesake, Karin graciously and generously gave me both rare family artifacts. I was enormously touched by this kind gesture.
I would be remiss in not acknowledging another magnanimous deed done by an Italian lady my wife Ann and I befriended at a bus stop in Florence, Italy, in 2014. Like me, our friend, Giuditta Melli (Figure 10), is of Jewish ancestry, and her great-uncle was murdered by the Italian Fascists during WWII in Florence. Giuditta is aware of my great-aunt’s books on flower binding and gardening (Figures 11-12), as well as her floral art featured in important art magazines of the time. (Figure 13) Franziska’s floral work was patterned on Ikebana, the Japanese art of floral arrangement. Giuditta, a potter by profession, created and sent me a replica of a Japanese vase like ones featured in my great-aunt’s floral creations. (Figure 14) This was another enormously kindhearted act that reminds me that while Franziska died under tragic circumstances, her memory and work live on. (Figure 15)
Note: In this post, I relate the forensic work I undertook to learn the fate of Franz Pincus/Pauly, husband of Lisa Pauly, one of Germany’s “silent heroes” during WWII. Franz Pincus and my uncle Dr. Fedor Bruck were second cousins, and though Franz died in 1941 before my uncle was forced “underground” in 1942 by the Nazis, Franz’s widow sheltered my uncle for periods during his 30 months in hiding.
On February 3, 1947, Elisabeth “Lisa” Pauly née Krüger, one of my uncle Dr. Fedor Bruck’s protectors in the course of his thirty months spent “underground” eluding the Nazis in Berlin during WWII, wrote a letter of reference for him. (Figure 1) In this recommendation, Lisa Pauly mentioned that her husband had died in 1941, without naming him or specifying a cause of death. By referring to the Pauly Stammbaum, family tree (Figure 2), I was able to figure out her husband was Franz Pincus, although for a very long time I was uncertain this was really Lisa Pauly’s spouse. As I explained to readers in the original post, I was only able to confirm “Franz Pincus” and “Franz Pauly” were the same person by systematically going through 1920’s and 1930’s Berlin Address Books checking both names residing at the same address. Employing this approach, as discussed in the original post, I eventually found a “Franz Pincus” living at Deidesheimer Str. 25 in Friedenau in 1928 (Figure 3), and by 1930 discovered a “Franz Pauly” residing at that same address. (Figure 4) For whatever reason Franz changed to using his mother’s maiden name, though both Pincus and Pauly were Jewish.
Having uncovered Lisa Pauly’s husband’s name from the Pauly Stammbaum, I next turned to ancestry.com to see what more I might learn. As alluded to in the previous paragraph, I found Franz Pincus/Pauly listed in multiple Berlin Address Books in the 1920’s and 1930’s. I also found a family tree on ancestry.com providing his purported place and date of birth, in Posen, Germany [today: Poznan, Poland] on the 23rd of October 1898 (Figure 5a); this same tree showed that Franz Pincus’s sister, Charlotte Lieselotte “Lilo” Pincus, had been born in Posen on the 30th of December 1895. (Figure 5b)
When I stumbled upon a picture of Franz and Lilo as children, attending the 1901 wedding of their aunt Maria Pauly to Alexander “Axel” Pohlmann [see Post 57], where Franz looks decidedly older than his sister (Figures 6a-b), I knew Franz and Lilo’s year of births were incorrect. This allows me to reiterate a point I’ve repeatedly made to readers to question vital data found in family trees on ancestry and elsewhere unless you have the original documents to corroborate dates. So, while I was able to conclude Franz and Lilo Pincus were not born, respectively, in 1898 and 1895, I had not yet resolved in what year they’d been born.
I then remembered the Pinkus Family Collection [See Post 44] archived at the Leo Baeck Institute in New York which is accessible online. Thinking this might include a chart with Franz and Lilo Pincus’s names, along with that of their parents, I scoured the online documents, and eventually stumbled on a page with all their names. (Figure 7) This page confirmed what I had suspected, namely, that their years of birth had been transposed. It turns out, Franz Pincus was born in 1895, and his sister Lilo in 1898; the family tree on ancestry.com, however, correctly noted their respective dates of birth, the 23rd of October for Franz, and the 30th of December for Lilo. This same page also noted Lisa Pauly née Krüger’s place and date of birth, in Berlin on the 20th of December 1890. With the help of Mr. Peter Hanke, affiliated with “forum.danzig.de,” I was able to track down copies of both Franz and Lilo Pincus’s original birth certificates. (Figures 8-9) So far, however, I’ve been unable to pinpoint which borough in Berlin Lisa Pauly was born so have not found her birth certificate.
Having located Franz Pincus’s birth certificate, I now set out to try and find his death certificate. From the 1947 letter of recommendation his wife Lisa had written for my Uncle Fedor, I only knew he’d died in 1941, and assumed to begin with that he had died at Maßmannstraße 11, where he and Lisa Pauly resided at the time in the Steglitz Borough of Berlin. I erroneously assumed locating his death register listing in the Landesarchiv Berlin database would be relatively straight-forward; I was sorely disappointed.
At the risk of sounding pedantic, let me explain to readers how and where I was eventually able to locate Franz Pincus’s death register listing. This requires reviewing findings I discussed in Post 48, the publication describing Dr. Ernst Neisser’s final days in September-October 1942 in Berlin after he and his cousin Luise Neisser, with whom he lived, were told to report to an old age transport. To remind readers, the elderly Ernst and Luise Neisser opted to commit suicide rather than report for deportation. Because Luise died immediately after taking poison, I easily located her death register listing under the records of Berlin-Charlottenburg, but I was unable to find Ernst’s name listed in the records of this Berlin borough. Ernst, I later learned from a letter his daughter wrote in 1947, lingered for several days before dying, so I reckoned he might have died in another borough. I eventually figured out the only place in Berlin where Jews could still receive medical attention by 1942, or where they were brought to die in case of “failed” suicide attempts, was the Jüdisches Krankenhaus Berlin, the Berlin Jewish Hospital, in the Wedding Borough of Berlin. Having worked this out, I was then able to find Ernst Neisser’s death register listing under records for 1942 in the Wedding Borough and order his death certificate from the Landesarchiv Berlin.
In trying to track down Franz Pincus’s death register listing, I decided to apply the same logic and “assume” he might also have died in the Wedding Borough of Berlin for unknown reasons. Obviously, I had no way of knowing then whether Franz Pincus’s death ultimately was from a “failed” suicide attempt, war wounds, fatal disease, or natural causes. Nonetheless, my logic turned out to be sound, and, as in the case of Ernst Neisser, I located Franz Pincus’s death register listing under 1941 in the Wedding Borough. (Figures 10a-b) Naturally, I ordered a copy of Franz’s original death certificate uncertain what new information it might include.
Franz’s typed death certificate arrived several weeks later. (Figure 11a) My cousin translated the form and it included several new pieces of information. (Figure 11b) Franz had been given the added middle name of “Israel” as was required of all Jewish-born males during the Nazi era. It confirms he died on the 2nd of August 1941 in the Berlin Jewish Hospital of a ruptured appendix. And, at the bottom of the certificate, it shows he’d gotten married on the 12th of May 1928 in Berlin’s Friedenau Borough, or so my cousin and I both read.
Armed with a new vital event to check out, I again immediately turned to the Landesarchiv Berlin database trying to locate Franz Pincus and Elisabeth Krüger’s marriage register listing. Surprisingly, I was unable to find it even though the precise date and number of the certificate, Nr. 241, were furnished. I’ve previously encountered this situation, even with exact dates and specific Berlin boroughs in hand, where it is not always possible to track down listings of vital events. The reason for this is not clear to me.
Just in the last few days, collecting and organizing newly acquired information for this post, I reexamined Franz’s typed death certificate hoping something new might reveal itself, and indeed it did. While the marriage year clearly seemed to be 1928, I began to question whether the typed “8” might not be a “3,” so checked the marriage listings under “K” (for Krüger) for 1923 and was rewarded by finding Elisabeth Krüger and Franz Pincus’s names in the Berlin-Friedenau Landesarchiv database. (Figures 12a-b) I’ve now ordered and await the actual marriage certificate but detected a notation in the register that Franz Pincus changed his surname to Pauly, a footnote obviously made some years after Franz got married.
A recent check in MyHeritage for Franz Pincus yielded a “German Minority Census, 1939” form which corroborates some of the aforementioned information, namely, Franz’s dates of birth and death, and he and his wife’s ages and residence in Berlin-Steglitz in 1939. (Figure 13) The information from MyHeritage was late in coming and might have short circuited other searches I did.
Franz Pincus’s sister, Charlotte “Lilo” Pincus, I discovered from ancestry.com rode out the war in Scotland; as a German foreigner, she was briefly interned before being released and allowed to teach. (Figure 14) She returned to Berlin after the war. A small metal sign bearing her name has been placed at the Christus-Friedhof in Mariendorf, Berlin, showing she died on the 6th of September 1995. (Figure 15)
From time to time, I stumble across a family letter or diary mentioning the people about whom I write. In writing this post, I recalled a brief mention of Franz and Lilo Pincus in a letter Suse Vogel née Neisser, daughter of the Dr. Ernst Neisser discussed above, wrote in 1972 to her first cousin, Klaus Pauly. (Figure 16) Klaus developed the Pauly Stammbaum, and he asked Suse Vogel’s assistance in identifying some of the people in the picture taken at Maria and Axel Pohlmann’s 1901 wedding. This included Franz and Lilo Pincus (Figure 17), and translated below is what Suse Vogel wrote about them:
“. . .The remaining little dwarfs bottom left: the upper one is obviously Franz Pincus-Pauly, below probably his sister Liselotte (is she calling herself Charlotte now?) I confess that I disliked her since childhood contrary to the nice ‘Blondel,’ her brother. And I was in agreement about that with bosom friend Aenne. Later, but long before Hitler-times, I declared to myself that Franz and Lilo were raised by their father strictly positivist. To my childish horror they did not ‘believe’ in anything. So, they were a priori ‘without faith, hope and love’ – sounds very presumptuous, but that’s how I felt as a young girl.”
While Suse Vogel’s words are not particularly complimentary, the mere fact I could find anything written about Franz and his sister, provides a fleeting glimpse into these long-gone ancestors and brings them to life in a small way.
