Note: This post is about Elisabeth “Lisa” Pauly née Krüger, one of my Uncle Dr. Fedor Bruck’s “silent heroes,” who hid him in Berlin during WWII for periods of his 30-month survival “underground.” Having learned she was married to my uncle’s cousin, I discuss how I worked out their exact relationship in what was on my part a clear case of over-thinking their consanguinity.
Among my uncle’s surviving papers are two declarations, pledged under oath, identifying people who provided life-saving support to my Uncle Dr. Fedor Bruck (Figure 1) during the 30 months he lived “underground” in Berlin during WWII. My uncle’s trying ordeal began in October 1942 when friends warned him the Gestapo was preparing to pick him up for “questioning,” detainment which would have led to his deportation to a concentration camp and certain death; straightaway, he went into hiding to avoid arrest. The declarations written, respectively, on January 19, 1947 and February 3, 1947, were basically intended as letters of reference for the Americans. They attested to my uncle’s “good character” and provided a brief chronology of how and with whose help he’d survived underground. A little context is necessary.
As discussed in previous Blog posts, almost immediately after the war ended, my Uncle Fedor applied to what he described as the “pertinent authorities,” presumably the Russians in this case, for permission to take over the office and apartment of Hitler’s former dentist, Dr. Hugo Blaschke, which had survived the war unscathed. (Figure 2) Permission was granted in early May 1945. While my uncle’s situation may have seemed comparatively secure at the time, he’d apparently been warned by the Americans that he was at risk of being kidnapped by the Russians on account of his knowledge of Hitler’s fate, which Stalin sought to conceal. My uncle no doubt realized his danger since both Blaschke’s dental assistant, Käthe Heusermann, and Blaschke’s dental technician, Fritz Echmann, both of whom he knew, had been taken away by the Russians in 1945, not to reappear again in the West for many years. While my uncle maintained his dental practice in Blaschke’s former office until around July 1947, the declarations written in January and February 1947 strongly suggest my uncle was, so to speak, working on an exit strategy earlier.
One of the two affidavits provided to the American authorities on behalf of my Uncle Fedor was written by Elisabeth “Lisa” Pauly née Krüger. (Figures 3a-b) She mentioned how she hid him in her home for brief periods during the war and described her kinship as the wife of my uncle’s cousin; Lisa did not provide her husband’s name but only wrote he died in 1941, cause unknown. I first came across Lisa Pauly’s name in 2014 when I visited the Stadtmuseum in Spandau, outside Berlin, to examine the archived papers of two of my renowned great-aunts, Elsbeth Bruck and Franziska Bruck. There, I discovered a letter written by my grandmother, Else Bruck née Berliner, on February 2, 1947, mailed from Fayence, France to my great-aunt Elsbeth in Berlin care-of Lisa Pauly living at Maßmannstraße 11 in the Steglitz borough of Berlin. (Figure 4) Ultimately, this address proved to be useful for learning how long Lisa Pauly may have lived; more on this later.
Let me digress for a moment. In Post 33, I discussed the extraordinary lengths to which I went to finding two of my second cousins, born in Barcelona, but living outside Munich, Germany. Once I had established contact with one of these second cousins, Antonio Bruck, he connected me to a third cousin, Anna Rothholz, who in turn put me in touch with yet other third cousins, brothers Peter and Andreas “Andi” Pauly. This was a fortuitous development. Peter and Andi gave me a detailed hand-drawn Pauly family “Stammbaum,” family tree, developed by their father years before these could be created on-line. While I was still a long way from figuring out the hereditary connection between Lisa Pauly’s husband and my Uncle Fedor, this Stammbaum eventually paved the way for working this out, although not without some missteps.
As readers can see in Figure 5, a “Lisa” is highlighted, shown married to a “Franz” who died in 1941. Based on the affidavit Lisa Pauly had written in 1947, logically, I knew this was she and her husband. My confusion stemmed from the fact that Lisa’s husband was the son of Dr. Oscar Pincus and Paulina Charlotte Pauly, presumably named Franz Pincus. I continued my search, convinced there had to be a different Lisa who’d married a Pauly. After many fruitless months, I eventually began looking for her in Family Trees in ancestry.com. I finally found her on a tree listed as “Lisa Krüger,” born in the year 1890. (Figure 6) As discussed in Post 39, the tree is entitled “Schlesische Jüdische Familien,” Silesian Jewish Families. There is a notation in German on this tree that Lisa Krüger was married to a Franz Pincus, born in Posen [today: Poznan, Poland] on October 23, 1898, and that he went by the surname “Pauly.” I then realized my Uncle Fedor and Franz Pauly were second cousins, grandsons of sisters (Figures 7 & 8), and understood how badly I’d misconstrued their kinship. This was clearly a case of my over-thinking things and ignoring what the Pauly Stammbaum had clearly indicated.
Why Franz Pincus decided to change surnames and take his mother’s maiden name is unknown. Since both names are clearly Jewish and neither would have afforded an advantage in the Nazi era, I assumed Franz’s decision was made before the Nazis ever came to power. And, I was able to prove this using Berlin Phone Directories available on ancestry.com. Franz Pincus apparently changed his surname to “Pauly” between 1928 and 1930. A 1928 Berlin Phone Directory (Figure 9) lists a “Franz Pincus” living at Deidesheimer Str. 25 in Friedenau in the southwestern suburbs of Berlin, but by 1930 “Franz Pauly” is living at this address. (Figure 10)
As mentioned earlier, I knew from the affidavit Lisa had written and the letter my grandmother had written to my great-aunt in 1947, addressed to Lisa, that she resided at Maßmannstraße 11 in the Steglitz borough of Berlin. I searched both Lisa and Franz’s names in ancestry.com and found him listed at this address in Berlin Phone Directories between 1936 and 1940 (Figure 11), the year before he died. Beginning in 1966 and continuing through 1977 (Figure 12), Lisa’s name appears at the same address, suggesting the apartment building survived the war and that Lisa had lived there continuously, possibly from 1936 onwards. The disappearance of Lisa Pauly’s name from Berlin Phone Directories after 1977 may coincide with her approximate year of death. As we speak, I’m working to obtain Lisa’s death certificate from the Bürgeramt Steglitz to confirm when she died.
I’ve been able to learn almost nothing more about Lisa and Franz Pauly. While Peter and Andi Pauly have numerous Pauly family photos, they have none of either of them. It’s an enduring mystery to me how Lisa Pauly avoided deportation to a concentration camp given that at least three of her husband’s Pauly aunts were murdered in the camps along with their husbands and some of their children.
In the subsequent post, I will tell readers about other silent heroes who enabled my uncle to survive his 30 months underground in Berlin during WWII, inasmuch as I’ve been able to work this out.
Note: In this post, I discuss a vague similarity between some family trees and an archaeological dating technique, known as dendrochronology, that is, tree-ring dating.
Regular readers may recall me mentioning how my formal training as an archaeologist, which is what I did professionally, has been enormously useful in doing forensic genealogy. The inspiration for this story is drawn from archaeology, specifically, an archaeological dating technique known as dendrochronology, that’s to say, tree-ring dating. Admittedly, with slightly flippant intent, in this Blog post, I touch on a parallel between family trees and dendrochronology, and briefly explain the technique to provide the necessary context. Regardless of whether readers accept the notion of any connection between these matters, perhaps, they may come away with a better understanding of how this technique is used in archaeology.
For some time now, I have been researching one of my Uncle Dr. Fedor Bruck’s cousins, Elisabeth “Lisa” Pauly née Krüger, who will be the subject of the subsequent post. Lisa Pauly helped my Uncle Fedor survive during his 30 months “underground” in Berlin during WWII. I have a copy of a letter of recommendation she wrote on behalf of my uncle in 1947, along with a separate letter of reference written by a couple who also assisted my uncle during his years in hiding that mentions Lisa Pauly. Despite having these letters and having found Lisa Pauly listed in Berlin Phone Directories between 1966 and 1977 at an address she is known to have lived at in the Steglitz borough of Berlin, I had until recently been unable to learn anything more about her.
Faced with this hurdle, I turned to “Family Trees” in ancestry.com, and, finally, found her on a tree listed as “Lisa Krüger,” born in the year 1890. The title of the family tree in which I discovered her name is “Schlesische Jüdische Familien,” translated as “Silesian Jewish Families.” Because I utilize the free institutional version of ancestry at my local library, it is not possible for me as a non-member to contact family tree managers; only members can send messages to other ancestry affiliates. Consequently, I asked a friend of mine who volunteers at the Los Angeles Jewish Genealogical Society whether she could send an email on my behalf. She graciously agreed to do this, and within a day, the family tree manager responded and invited me as a “Guest” to the “Schlesische Jüdische Familien.” I was thrilled with this development.
I immediately opened the tree, and, to my amazement, discovered it includes 52,000 plus names!! To provide some context, my family tree has about 500 names. While seemingly faced with the daunting challenge of deciphering the connection between specific people in the larger tree and my own, I rationalized I might finally be able to discover the relationship between myself and people whose names I recognized if I could somehow find the names of one or more people on both trees. I naively assumed all the names on the Silesian family tree would be bound together like tango partners on a dance floor. I was sadly mistaken. Instead, I discovered that what I thought was one large tree with all people interrelated was instead branches of discrete Jewish families from Silesia. It was at this moment that a less-than-perfect archaeological analogy came to mind, namely, “dendrochronology.”
Dendrochronology, literally the study of tree time, is a multi-disciplinary science that provides accurate and precise dating information based on the analysis of patterns of tree rings, also known as growth rings. It burst into the national consciousness with the publication in December 1929 in National Geographic of an article by an astronomer from the University of Arizona, Andrew Ellicott Douglass, detailing his 15-year endeavor to date archaeological sites in the American Southwest. In the first half of the 20th Century, Douglass had established the Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research at the University of Arizona with the intent of better understanding cycles of sunspot activity; he had reasoned that changes in solar activity would affect climate patterns on earth, which would subsequently be recorded by tree-ring growth patterns.
Prior to publication of Douglass’ article, archaeologists had no idea, for example, how old Puebloan archaeological sites and cliff dwellings found in the Four Corners region of the United States were; archaeologists had estimated they were 2000 years old when tree-ring dates later confirmed they were only about 800 years old. When archaeologists realized sites were younger than previously thought, they were forced to change their interpretations about the rate of development of prehistoric societies in the American Southwest.
Tree rings or annual rings are the result of new growth in the vascular cambium, the layer of cells nearest the bark. Each year trees create a layer of new wood under the bark. In temperate climates, generally, one ring marks the passage of one year in the life of the tree. Critical to tree-ring dating, trees of the same species from the same region tend to develop the same patterns of ring width during any given period. Thus, researchers can compare and match these patterns ring-for-ring with patterns from trees of the identical species which have grown at the same time in the same locale (and therefore under similar climatic conditions). Chronologies can be built up when one can match tree-ring patterns of the same species from one tree to another in the same geographic area. It is this pattern that can be used for dating purposes whenever a piece of wood is preserved, such as in an archaeological site; matching wood from prehistoric and historic structures to known chronologies developed from tree-ring data is referred to as “cross-dating.” [NOTE: “Cross-dating” refers BOTH to “a method of establishing the age of archaeological finds or remains by comparing them with other finds or remains which sometimes have known dates” as well as to “a method of pattern matching a tree’s growth signals of unknown age (floating chronology) to that of a known pattern that is locked in time (master chronology).”]
Critical to the imperfect analogy I am drawing between family trees and tree-ring dating is this concept of a “floating chronology” versus a “fully anchored and cross-matched chronology.” A floating chronology is a tree-ring sequence whose beginning and end dates are not known. Thus, in the case of the Silesian family tree, the 52,000 plus individuals in it cannot directly be connected to one another in any linear sense, they’re “floating,” so to speak, branches of distinct Jewish families from Silesia. This contrasts with what’s dubbed a “fully anchored chronology,” where the beginning and end dates of a tree-ring sequence that has been established are known. In this instance, my own family tree where every person can linearly be connected to every other person in the tree would be so characterized.
In the case of trees and tree-ring sequences, a fully anchored chronology extends back 8500 years for the long-lived bristlecone pine in the western United States, and for the oak and pine in central Europe going back 12,460 years. Just as archaeologists are frustrated when they can’t cross-date a piece of wood from an archaeological site to a fully anchored chronology, genealogists are similarly disappointed when they are unable to connect branches of seemingly related families from the same general area with identical or familiar surnames. In the case of my own family, I know multiple living people with the Bruck surname whose linear connection to myself can’t be drawn. While, admittedly, not a perfect analogy, I argue there is some parallel between family trees where all individuals cannot be connected and floating chronologies that cannot be anchored in time.
In closing, I would emphasize one final point. Lisa Pauly, my uncle and father’s cousin who I began this post discussing, appears in both my family tree and the “Schlesische Jüdische Familien” family tree. However, because I can’t directly connect her on the Silesian tree to people with recognizable surnames, such as other Brucks, Berliners, Holländers, etc., I’m unable to determine how she is related to them, and, by extension, how I’m related to them. More forensic work is necessary.
Note: In this post, I discuss the evidence for my father’s, Dr. Otto Bruck, conversion to Christianity from Judaism, confirmation of which I recently came upon completely inadvertently.
Growing up, my father, Dr. Otto Bruck, never discussed being born into the Jewish religion. If my memory is correct, I think I first learned about it when I was visiting my maternal grandmother in Nice, France as a child. At the time, we were walking through Vieux Nice, when she turned, pointed to a building, told me that’s where my father worked as a dentist after WWII, and mentioned he was Jewish; it would be many years before I understood the significance of all this. Regular readers may recall I discussed my father’s time in Nice after the war in Post 26 and touched on the fact that he was not legally permitted to practice dentistry in France because he was “apatride,” stateless. He was eventually caught and fled to America before he could be brought up on charges that were eventually dropped by the French authorities.
Because religion was not a part of my upbringing, I never gave much thought to it, although, ironically, I was eventually baptized as a Roman Catholic in Lyon, France on August 2, 1957, when I was six years old. (Figure 1) Given the events my father had lived through, it made sense to him I should have a religion. It’s always puzzled me, however, why my father thought that being baptized would afford me any protection if a future anti-Semitic political entity gained power and decided, as the Nazis had, that anyone with two Jewish grandparents is a Jew. Puzzles without answers.
Given my father’s casual attitude about many things, including relatives and religion, it’s not surprising that much of what I’ve learned about such matters has involved a lot of effort. Because my father considered himself German rather than Jewish, it would have made sense to me if he had converted to Christianity from Judaism. But, as I just remarked, because of my father’s casual attitude, it would also not have surprised me if he’d never made the effort to formally convert. Regardless, I’d never previously been able to find definitive proof either way.
The archives at the Centrum Judaicum Berlin include documentation that my father’s brother, Dr. Fedor Bruck, converted from Judaism at the Messiah Chapel in Berlin’s Prenzlauer Berg, Kastanienallee 22 on June 11, 1939, very late indeed. Similarly, the Centrum Judaicum Berlin retains archival records for my Aunt Susanne’s husband, Dr. Franz Müller, who converted much earlier, on November 25, 1901, but still lost his teaching position at Humboldt University many years later, in 1933.
I’m unaware of any comprehensive database that includes the names and records of Jewish converts in Germany. However, since conversion records survive at the Centrum Judaicum for both of my uncles, and since my father attended dental school in Berlin, I began the search for proof of my father’s own conversion here; they found nothing although it was suggested that knowing the specific church where he might have converted could prove useful. Knowing my father had also apprenticed in Danzig [today: Gdansk, Poland] for a short period after graduating from dental school, I contacted the archives there, again to no avail. The other place I reckoned where my father might have converted to Christianity was the town where he was a dentist between April 1932 and April 1937, Tiegenhof [today: Nowy Dwor Gdanski, Poland], although I had no idea at the time where to begin looking for such records.
I’ve learned, it was not uncommon beginning in the last half of the nineteenth century for German-Jews to convert to Christianity as a means of assimilating into German society. A virulent wave of anti-Semitism that had emerged in Germany in the 1880s may have been another factor in the decision of some Jews to convert.
I remember, as a child, my father talking about his time in Tiegenhof and how he drank heavily in those days. Multiple pictures from my father’s days there exist showing him visibly inebriated. (Figure 2) My father was by no means an alcoholic, and he justified his heavy drinking as “necessary to fit in.” I’ve mentioned in earlier posts that my father was an active sportsman, particularly an excellent tennis player. It’s highly likely there were barriers to becoming a member of the various sports and social organizations in Tiegenhof to which my father belonged, religion no doubt being one of them. Thus, I have concluded that if my father did not convert to Christianity before he arrived in Tiegenhof, the provincial mores of this small town may have necessitated he do so here. That said, until recently, I’d been unable to find any evidence my father ever converted.
Few of my father’s papers survive, but one document that has caught my attention only because it included the names of two members of the Joost family. (Figure 3) Readers must understand that on account of all the Tiegenhof-related documents, books, and address directories I’ve perused over the years, many family surnames are now extremely familiar to me; such was the case with the surname “Joost.” In reviewing this document, I was absolutely convinced it was a dental invoice because at the top of the paper it included my father’s name and identified him as a “zahnarzt,” a dentist. Still, it seemed odd my father would have saved only one invoice among the many he’d no doubt written over the years as a dentist.
Setting aside this anomaly, I began to research in various databases the Joost names I found on the paper in question. As readers can see, towards the bottom left side is written “Alb. Joost,” while on the bottom right side is written “f. Alb. Joost Kathe Joost.” From ancestry.com, I discovered there lived a “Schneidermeister,” a tailor, in Tiegenhof, by the name of “Jacob Albert Joost,” born on July 27, 1865, who died on January 23, 1937. The profession was passed on to his son, “Alfred Albert Joost,” born on June 4, 1898 (Figure 4-5), who died on February 18, 1975; he was married to Käthe Großnick. (Figure 6) The existence of the father and son tailors was confirmed by various Tiegenhof Address Books. (Figures 7-10) Because both father and son had Albert in their name, I was uncertain whether the presumed dental work had been done on the father or son.
To resolve this confusion, I asked one of my cousins to decipher the document. I learned the document was a receipt not for dental work, as I’d thought, but for payment of a church tax. Like in Germany and several other European countries, in the Free State of Danzig, where Tiegenhof was located, members of the Protestant or Catholic Churches were compelled to pay a church tax of 7.5% of their income. In 1936, my father was obviously a member of the Evangelische Kirche in Tiegenhof (Figures 11-14), and his annual tax amounted to 90 Guilden 90 Pfenninge; he was permitted to pay his obligation in four installments. The first payment of 22 Guilden 74 Pfenninge was made on October 6, 1936, and it was receipted by “Alb. Joost,” while the second and third installments were made on December 29, 1936. Kaethe Joost was the authorized representative of Albert Joost, so the “f” in “f. Alb. Joost Kathe Joost” stands for “fuer,” “for” or “in place of,” indicating she signed the receipt in lieu of her husband. The last installment would have been due on March 15, 1937, a payment my father is unlikely to have made because by then he would no doubt have been expelled from the Church for being of the “Jewish race.” By mid-1937, my father had left Tiegenhof.
Having found the clear-cut proof that my father had converted to Christianity and knowing he’d been a member of Tiegenhof’s Evangelical Church, I contacted Mr. Peter Hanke from the Danzig Forum asking him whether conversion records for this church still exist. He told me he’d never found such records, and that they’d likely not survived the turmoil of WWII. This was disappointing but hardly unexpected.
Interestingly, Peter did find a brief reference to Albert Joost in Vol. 36 of the “Tiegenhofer Nachrichten,” the one-time annual journal for former German residents of Tiegenhof and their descendants. In German it says: “Bei Joost war fruehmorgens um 4 Uhr Licht, um diese Zeit arbeitete er bereits in seiner Werkstatt; um 9 Uhr abends war immer noch das Petroleumlicht in der Werkstatt zu sehen. Der war einer von den Tiegenoertern, die ich nie in einem Gasthaus gesehen habe, aber jeden Sonntag im blauen Anzug in der Kirche.” Translated: “Joost was already at work at 4 a.m. in the morning. At 9 p.m. the kerosene lamp could still be seen in his workshop. That man was one of the “Tiegenoerter,” never seen in a tavern but come Sunday always wore a blue suit to church.” Possibly, Albert Joost was the “tithe collector” with his wife for Tiegenhof’s Evangelical Church.
Proof of my father’s conversion to Christianity came in a most roundabout way. As mentioned, it’s highly unlikely his actual conversion document survived WWII, but the important thing is that my father’s attempt to assimilate into German society ended in failure and he was still forced to flee to save himself.
Note: This postscript about my great-aunt Margareth “Greta” Brauer née Berliner details the substantial amount of new information I’ve learned about her and her family in the few short months since I published the original post in September 2018. In the process, sadly, I also learned when and where she died.
Aware of a Puerto Rican connection to my great-aunt Greta Brauer’s family and frustrated I had been unable to learn what happened to her after 1933, I recently did an Internet query on the member of her family I knew had lived there, namely, “Till Brauer.” However, given the cataclysmic events associated with Hurricane Maria in September 2017, I had scant expectations I would be able to locate much less connect with any member of the Brauer family; on the contrary, I expected anyone from the family who’d survived the Hurricane to have decamped for an unknown destination on the U.S. Mainland, as many Puerto Ricans did. So, it came as an enormous surprise when I quickly discovered a “Till Brauer Mongil” (Figure 1), operating a charter fishing business out of Carolina, Puerto Rico, which lies immediately east of the capital San Juan. His website stated he was no longer in business, but because it had once been an active operation, an email address was provided. I immediately sent a message with tempered expectations, but within less than an hour, surprisingly, I received a response from Till Brauer asking me to call him. I immediately did.
Till Carl Brauer Mongil, born in 1959 in Puerto Rico, it turns out, is the great-grandson of Greta Brauer, and my third cousin once-removed. As we speak, Till has contracts to conduct inspections related to cleanup and reconstruction of Puerto Rico’s infrastructure resulting from Hurricane Maria, and is extremely busy. Understandably, we’ve had only one opportunity to communicate, so all I’ve learned is from a brief phone conversation. Still, I was able to pick up enough information to correct and supplement what I discussed in Post 34.
In my original post I included a picture of three generations of Brauer taken in 1933 in Neubabelsberg, near Spandau, outside Berlin. The photo, reprinted here, shows my great-aunt Greta, her daughter-in-law, Herta Brauer, and her grandson Till as a baby. (Figures 2a-b) I also showed an image taken in Calvia, Mallorca in 1966, similarly reprinted here, showing a son Oliver holding a young daughter named Margarita. (Figure 3) I mistakenly concluded that Till Brauer and Oliver were one person, but, in fact, Ernst and Herta Brauer had these two sons. This was my first error, but not my only one. Till Carl Brauer Mongil, I learned, is the son of the Till Brauer shown in the 1933 photograph. To remind readers, in Spanish-speaking countries, newborns are given two surnames, that of their father and mother, thus the “Brauer Mongil” attached to Till’s name.
Briefly, let me discuss some of the documents and Passenger Manifests I found for Ernst and Herta Brauer’s family on ancestry.com and connect these to some of what Till Brauer told me.
The names of Ernst, Herta, and Till Brauer, along with that of a Yutta Maria Muenchow clearly traveling with them, are listed on a “Manifest of Alien Passengers” bound for New York City aboard the Spanish linerSS Marques de Comillas that departed Lisbon, Portugal on February 22, 1941; this document showed their last permanent residence prior to leaving Europe had been Rome. (Figure 4) A “Record of Aliens Held for Special Inquiry,” shows the arrival of these four people in New York on March 12, 1941. (Figure 5) The title of this manifest suggests the Brauer family was separated from passengers disembarking in New York; a notation in the upper right-hand corner of this document confirms the family’s stay in New York was brief as they were “transshipped to Santo Domingo [Dominican Republic] on the SS Coamo (Figure 6) on March 20, 1941.” And, this comports with a third Passenger Manifest showing the entire family leaving New York City on March 20, 1941 aboard this passenger ship. (Figure 7) An Immigration & Naturalization Service (INS) file, dated May 2, 1941, lists the entire family having traveled aboard the SS Marques de Comillas. (Figure 8) Finally, another Passenger Manifest shows Ernst Brauer traveling alone to San Juan, Puerto Rico from Ciudad Trujillo, Dominican Republic on October 7, 1947 aboard a Pan Am flight. (Figure 9)
The four Passenger Manifests and the INS file generally confirm what Till Carl Brauer (to distinguish him from his father Till Brauer) related. Till Brauer was married to a Puerto Rican woman, a circumstance that eventually allowed the Brauers to settle in Puerto Rico, although not before first living in the Dominican Republic for several years by choice or necessity; Ernst and Herta’s son, Oliver, was born there, and judging from the various Passenger Manifests I found, it appears the Brauers lived in the Dominican Republic no longer than seven years, though Till Carl claims it was about four years.
Till Carl Brauer explained that Herta Brauer’s maiden name was “Stadach,” and that she had previously been married to a Karl Ferdinand Hermann Münchow (Figure 10), by whom she had had a daughter, Yutta Maria Münchow. (Figure 11) Thus, the “mysterious” Yutta Maria who traveled with the Brauers was Herta’s daughter by her first marriage.
As explained in Post 34, in ancestry.com I located a document titled “Report of the Death of An American Citizen,” for Ernst Hanns Brauer showing he passed away in Calvia, Mallorca on May 19, 1971. (Figure 12) I found no corresponding form for Herta Brauer, and, in fact, the Social Security Death Index recorded her address at the time of death in August 1983 as San Juan, Puerto Rico (Figure 13); I assumed she had died there. Till Carl told me that in truth both Ernst and Herta died in Mallorca. The circumstances that lead the Brauers to relocate there are connected to historical events in the United States during the late 1960’s. Readers will recall that at the time America was ramping up its presence in Vietnam. The compulsory draft would have made both Till and Oliver eligible to be called up since Puerto Ricans are citizens of the unincorporated territory of the U.S. Opposed to the war, and not wanting their sons to be drafted, the Brauers left the country. It’s clear that neither parent ever relinquished their American nationality, and, both sons, had dual American-German nationality; Oliver ultimately died in Germany, place unknown. Till Carl was unable to tell me anything about the daughter Oliver is shown holding in a 1966 picture of the two of them.
The thing I had most wanted to find out from Till Carl was when and where Greta Brauer, his great-grandmother, died, but he didn’t know. I began to despair finding out. On this note, Till Carl and I ended our conversation with a promise on my part to send him all the documents I’d uncovered related to his family.
In compiling all this evidence, but convinced I’d already examined the various Holocaust victims’ databases, I decided to double check for Grete Brauer before sending all the family documents to Till Carl Brauer. For reasons that are unclear, I had never found or simply overlooked my great-aunt’s name in these databases but this time I found her and confirmed she died in the Theresienstadt Ghetto on November 24, 1942 (Figure 14), an all too familiar ending with Jewish relatives whose deaths remain unsolved during the Nazi era.
Following my brief conversation with Till Carl, I exchanged an email with Larry Leyser, my third cousin once-removed whom I’ve alluded to in other posts. I told him in passing I’d spoken to one of our relatives in Puerto Rico, and, a short time, later he sent me a picture and a clipping from a Puerto Rican newspaper asking whether it had anything to do with the people shown or mentioned. Incredibly, it did. The photo and newspaper article were scanned from a horde of items Larry had borrowed from one of his cousins, curiously included in this stash, and set aside as people to be identified later. Simply because I mentioned Puerto Rico, Larry sent these documents to me on the off-chance they might be connected to what I was working on. The picture shows Herta and Ernst Brauer book-ended by their two sons, Oliver on the left, Till on the right along with a family friend, on the day of Till’s wedding. (Figure 15a-b) Herta and Ernst Brauer are rightmost in the newspaper picture, involved, as they were most of their lives, in dance and theater. (Figure 16)
One final thing. My still-living 89-year old mother, who knew my grandmother, Greta Brauer’s sister, says my grandmother never mentioned having an older sister. What, if anything, to make of this omission is unclear.
Note: This post details how the family of a Greek girl who my Aunt Susanne’s stepson and his wife, Peter & Ilona Muller-Munk, sponsored through the “Save the Children Federation” in the 1950’s and 1960’s contacted me through my Blog.
When I launched my family history Blog in April 2017, I expressed hope that in addition to acquiring and passing on information about historical events my family lived through, I might also learn about other people to whom I’m related or people who met or were influenced by family members. This post is the story of such an encounter.
For readers who are new or infrequent visitors to my Blog, let me review and provide some brief context that was included or alluded to in Post 22. My Aunt Susanne Müller née Bruck was the second wife of Dr. Franz Müller, who was 33 years her elder. By his first marriage to Gertrud Munk, my Uncle Franz had two children, Peter Muller-Munk, born on June 25, 1904, and Margit Mombert née Müller-Munk, born on September 23, 1908; my aunt was born on April 20, 1904, so was close in age to her two step-children.
Peter Muller-Munk (Figure 1) has been described as a “brilliant silversmith and a pioneering industrial designer and educator.” He studied as a silversmith at the University of Berlin and came to America in 1926. He worked briefly from 1926 to 1928 as a silversmith for Tiffany & Co. in New York City, before opening his own metalworking studio in Greenwich Village with the financial help of his father. He moved to Pittsburgh in 1935, to accept a teaching job at the Carnegie Institute of Technology as assistant professor in the first American university B.A. program in industrial design. In 1938, he opened his first consulting office in Pittsburgh, and by 1944 resigned from Carnegie Tech to form Peter Muller-Munk Associates (PMMA).
PMMA’s work touched on virtually all aspects of industrial design and was especially influential in the realm of consumer goods. Peter Muller-Munk designed compacts, hand mirrors, hedge shears, steam irons, thermostats, valves, hearing aids, gas pumps (Figure 2), refrigerators, cooking utensils, heavy machinery, ballpoint pens, lathes, soup vending machines, airplane interiors, and much more. In 1959 he won one of the first ALCOA industrial design awards. Notably, U.S. Steel hired PMMA to work on the general aesthetic design of the Unisphere, the centerpiece of the 1964 New York World’s Fair. (Figures 3a-b) Peter Muller-Munk’s most famous piece was his 1935 Art Deco Normandie pitcher, named after the French ocean liner SS Normandie that launched that year and designed after the liner’s prow. This iconic work was even featured on an American postage stamp released in 2010. (Figure 4)
As a curious aside, Peter Muller-Munk paid to have the umlaut in his surname removed. For this reason, in this post, his father and sister’s names have an umlaut but Peter’s does not.
Peter got married to Ilona Marion Loewenthal Tallmer in October 1934. (Figure 5) Their relationship was deemed scandalous because when Ilona got involved with Peter, she was still married to Albert F. Tallmer and was the mother of two young sons, Jerry and Jonathan. Albert and Ilona’s divorce was exceedingly bitter and resulted in Albert being awarded sole custody of the children over their “adulterous” mother. As an interesting aside, Albert Tallmer’s paternal grandfather, William Thalhimer, founded the Thalhimer’s department store in Richmond, Virginia in 1842, an esteemed chain that at its peak operated dozens of stores in the southern United States.
For a comprehensive biography of Peter and Ilona’s professional and personal life, readers are directed to the very readable book entitled “Silver to Steel: The Modern Designs of Peter Muller-Munk” by Rachel Delphia and Jewel Stern. Sadly, Ilona Muller-Munk committed suicide on February 12, 1967 for reasons that are unclear. Devastated by his wife’s death, Peter also committed suicide about a month later, on March 13, 1967. (Figure 6)
In June of this year, I received an interesting email from Mr. Anthony Karabetsos, a gentleman living in Sydney, Australia. Anthony had found mention of Peter Muller-Munk in my Blog. Unbeknownst to me, Peter and Ilona had been sponsor parents through the “Save the Children Federation,” and had sponsored and regularly visited Anthony’s mother, Polytimi “Poly” Ratta (also spelled “Rattas”), in Greece during the 1950’s and 1960’s. Poly had never known Peter and Ilona’s surname, and only recently rediscovered a letter Peter had written to her on February 21, 1967 (Figure 7); having found Peter and Ilona’s surname on this letter, Poly and her family began looking for any of their descendants to thank them personally for their influence on her choice of career in the fashion industry, which has spanned 50 years.
As readers can see, the letter Peter wrote to Poly, which the family graciously copied for me, was written only nine days after Ilona’s suicide and several weeks before Peter took his own life; the letter, perhaps because it is only two sentences long, poignantly captures the pain he is feeling.
In addition to sending me a copy of the letter, Anthony also sent me copies of pictures showing Peter and Ilona vacationing in Greece and with Poly. With the family’s permission, I attach a few of these images below.
It was clear from Anthony’s initial email, that his mother had lost touch with Peter following Ilona’s death, so I sadly informed them Peter had himself committed suicide only weeks later. Since Peter and Ilona had no children together, I referred Anthony and Poly to Ms. Jewel Stern, the researcher from Coral Gables, Florida, who has studied and written extensively about Peter Muller-Munk. Ms. Stern eventually referred the family to Ms. Rachel Delphia, Jewel’s co-author on the book about Peter. I also told Anthony about Ilona’s children by her first marriage, though I already knew both her sons, Jerry and Jonathan Tallmer, were deceased. Jerry Tallmer (Figure 8), as it turns out, was a renowned critic of “The Village Voice” in its early days, and, later, the New York Post drama critic; interestingly, Jerry was the creator of the award for Off Broadway theater, the Obie. Jerry greatly respected Peter Muller-Munk, considered him his stepfather, and wrote glowingly about him.
In time I learned more about Poly’s relationship with Peter and Ilona Muller-Munk and their influence on her choice of career. Poly’s father’s best friend knew about the “Save the Children Federation,” and suggested she apply. She first met Peter at about age 8, when he came on his own to Greece during Easter. For the occasion, Peter wanted to buy Poly a present and she choose a small chocolate Easter egg. Wanting to get her something more, he bought her a red dress and new shoes (Figures 9a-b), and took her to lunch at the hotel he was staying at. It was perhaps around this time that Peter and Ilona offered to adopt Poly, thinking that her widowed mother was struggling raising four young children, but Poly’s mother demurred. Peter and Ilona visited together in 1963 (Figures 10, 11 & 12) with one of Ilona’s grandchildren, Mary Ellen (the family has asked me to refrain from posting any pictures of Mary Ellen), when Poly was 16 or 17 and the two immediately bonded.
Peter had wanted Poly to finish her education, but after watching her own sister obtain a nursing degree and then not be permitted to work as a nurse because of her short height, Poly instead decided to work in the garment industry which was flourishing in Greece at the time. When Poly mentioned to Peter and Ilona (Figure 13) wanting to get into the fashion industry, they were so excited they paid for her to learn to become a pattern maker. Eventually she became a qualified patternmaker, and after marrying her husband in 1967 and moving to Australia for a better life, they created a huge clothing manufacturing business in Australia that at one time employed 200 machinists. They had their own label, called Backstage Clothing, and, at one point, even manufactured denim for the Australian branches of Levis and Wrangler.
During our email exchanges, I suggested to Anthony he might want to purchase the book that Rachel Delphia and Jewel Stern wrote about Peter Muller-Munk. This book was published in 2015 to coincide with the opening of a special exhibit at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh in 2015 commemorating Peter Muller-Munk’s career and showcasing some of his innovative works. And, in fact Anthony gave his mother this book on her birthday this year! (Figure 14)
But the story does not end here. Anthony asked for help in tracking down any of Ilona’s descendants by her first marriage to Albert Tallmer. Anthony did an Internet query and found siblings Matthew and Abby Tallmer, who I would later learn were the twin children of Jerry Tallmer, Ilona Muller-Munk’s son. Aware of Jerry’s connection to New York City, I started looking there for phone numbers. I was unable to find a listing for either Matthew or Abby in New York City, although Directory Assistance gave me the names of the only two Tallmers listed in Manhattan. Clearly not a common surname, I obtained numbers for both. The second person I spoke with, Jill Tallmer, turns out to be the granddaughter of Ilona Muller-Munk, or “Noni,” as she was known to the family, and the younger sister of the Mary Ellen who met Poly in 1963. Success!
Curious as to who I am and why I was calling, Jill even mistook me at one point for a lawyer. Still, after a series of back-and-forths, I eventually established my bona fides. Jill, it turns out, knew the name Poly Ratta(s), and told me about when her recently-deceased sister, Mary Ellen, was taken in 1963 on vacation by Peter and Ilona Muller-Munk to Greece and met Poly; later, they apparently became pen pals. Some of the photos Anthony Karabestsos had sent after first contacting me, taken in 1963, show Poly and Mary together. Jill went through her own family’s photos and discovered additional images of Poly and her family, taken in Agia Varvara (Figures 15-16), a western suburb of Athens. (Poly’s family originally hails from Valtesinikon, Arkadhia, Peloponnisos, Greece.) Anthony and Poly were naturally thrilled when I passed along what I’d discovered, and immediately established phone contact with Jill Tallmer; they even have tentative plans to meet in person.
Beyond the satisfaction of having brought together families through my Blog who’d long ago lost touch, I also got access to photos of a few objects that Jill and her family own designed by my Aunt Susanne’s stepson, Peter Muller-Munk. These include a goblet with family names and dates (Figure 17), as well as a spectacular ring with a wolf’s head. (Figure 18) The names on the goblet were all familiar ones, and include those of my Uncle Dr. Franz Müller, his daughter Margit Mombert née Müller-Munk and her husband, Franz Mombert, who will be the subject of a future Blog post.
Mr. Paul Newerla, retired lawyer and Racibórz historian, graciously shared with me maps of the “Ratiborschen fürstenthums” (Ratibor principality) and Kreis (district) Ratibor in the Śląsk (Silesia) region going back to 1750, well before the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik was built. The towns surrounding and/or adjacent the place where the sugar factory would eventually be located already existed. For the visually-oriented readers, I’m including maps from three time periods, 1750 (Figure 1), 1825 (Figures 2a-b), and 1923 (Figures 3a-b), with the towns and villages mentioned in the text circled. The 1923 map shows the location of the “Zucker” in relation to the nearby villages.
REVISIONS MADE ON OCTOBER 21, 2018 BASED ON COMMENTS PROVIDED BY MR. PAUL NEWERLA
Note: This article is about the sugar factory located in Woinowitz, a small village outside Ratibor, that was co-owned by Adolph Schück and Sigmund Hirsch. These men were married to sisters, Alma and Selma Braun, great-great-aunts of mine and children of Markus Braun, owner of the M. Braun Brauerei in Ratibor. Below I briefly examine the history of the sugar factory in a regional context.
Post 14 was about the Brauereipachter, tenant brewer, Marcus Braun, my great-great-grandfather who owned one of the oldest breweries in Ratibor [today: Racibórz, Poland]. (Figure 1) Markus had a dozen children by his first wife, Caroline Spiegel, then another two by his second wife, Johanna Goldstein. (see the table at the bottom of this post for details on Markus’s 14 children) Earlier, I told readers I am related to numerous cousins in America through Markus and Caroline Braun’s descendants. Two of Markus and Caroline’s children, Alma and Selma Braun, married men who were partners in the Zuckerfabrik, sugar factory, located in the village of Woinowitz [today: Wojnowice, Poland] (Figure 2), just outside Ratibor. Alma Braun (Figure 3) was married to Adolph Schück (Figure 4), and Selma Braun to Sigmund Hirsch.
The sugar factory still stands today (Figure 5), and part of my purpose in writing this post was to determine, if possible, the circumstances surrounding its closure, sale and/or possible confiscation during the Nazi era. In compiling this narrative, I again consulted Paul Newerla, retired lawyer and Racibórz historian, whom I’ve discussed in earlier posts (Figure 6); he has written extensively about the history of Racibórz and Śląsk (Silesia). His books and questions I asked him form the basis of much of what I write, although any mis-representations or mis-interpretations are entirely my responsibility.
The fertile lands surrounding Ratibor produced a lot of sugar beet that were processed in at least four local sugar factories, the one in Ratibor proper, along with ones in Woinowitz [today: Wojnowice, Poland]; Groß Peterwitz [today: Pietrowice Wielkie, Poland]; and Bauerwitz [today: Baborów, Poland]. (Figure 7) All were built along the railway line running between Ratibor and Leobschütz [today: Głubczyce, Poland] constructed in 1856, that was extended to Jägerndorf [today: Krnov, Czech Republic] in 1895. The railway was critical for the transport of the sugar beet to the plants, and, subsequently, for the transport of the refined product to the various makers of the much sought-after chocolate and candy produced in Ratibor.
The sugar factory in Woinowitz (Figures 8a-b), which is the subject of this post, was built by the company Adolph Schück & Co. G.m.b.H. (“Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung”); the American equivalent of a G.m.b.H would be a limited liability company (LLC), meaning the owners (Gesellschafter, or members) of the entity are not personally liable or responsible for the company’s debts.
Mr. Newerla has been unable to discover exactly when the Woinowitz sugar factory was built. The railway between Ratibor and Leobschütz, which opened on November 1, 1856, already existed at the time the factory was built, and the nearest railway station at the time was “Woinowitz”; thus, the sugar factory was referred to by this name although it was closer to the town of Schammerwitz/Schammerau [today: Samborowice, Czech Republic]. Interestingly, Mr. Newerla discovered a postcard illustrating both the Woinowitz railway station, thus named, and the sugar factory, but with the postcard, perhaps aptly, labelled as “Schammerwitz.” (Figure 9)
On November 20, 1895, the railway line from Ratibor was extended to Troppau [today: Opava, Czech Republic], with stops in Ratibor, Woinowitz, Kranowitz, Kuchelna, and Troppau. (see Figure 7) At this time, the Woinowitz railway stop was renamed Mettich [today: Lekartów, Poland] (Figure 10), but the sugar factory retained its original name; this station still exists today. (Figure 11) When the railway line was extended in 1895, a bus stop was built in Woinowitz, along the railway line. This bus stop then became Woinowitz, and the railway station Mettich, although referred to as “Bhf (station) Weihendorf” on a 1941 army map.
According to Paul Newerla, Adolph Schück’s sugar factory ceased production in the 1920’s, well before the Nazi era. Readers should know that from 1742 until 1871, Woinowitz was part of Prussia, and thereafter part of the German Reich until 1945; it was only after WWII that Woinowitz became a part of Poland.
As previously alluded to, in the 1920’s, there existed four sugar factories between Ratibor and Leobschütz: Ratibor, Woinowitz, Groß Peterwitz, and Bauerwitz. Mr. Newerla sent me a letterhead from the sugar factory in Groß Peterwitz, “Landwirtschaftliche Zuckerabrik-Aktien-Gesellschaft” (Figure 12), along with a postcard of this same factory identifying it by then as a “Flachsfabrik,” flax factory. (Figure 13) It seems that in 1925 the factory was prohibited from processing sugar by order of the Zuckerfabrik in Bauerwitz and was acquired by the “Oberschlesischen Flachs-Industrie G.m.b.H. zu Groß-Peterwitz,” and converted into a flax factory. The reasons for the closure of the sugar factory in Woinowitz are unknown, but the existence of four factories within 15 miles suggests they were unprofitable, and that consolidation was necessary.
According to Paul, there existed, in fact, six local sugar factories, factoring in a fifth one in Polnisch Neukirch [today: Polska Cerekiew, Poland], and a sixth in Troppau [today: Opava, Czech Republic]; the latter was part of Austria until 1918, then later belonged to Czechoslovakia.
Let me digress briefly to discuss the sugar factory located in Ratibor. It was built in 1870 by a Julius Zender along the Oder River, near the railway tracks. In 1896, this sugar factory became the “Ratiborer Zuckerfrabrik G.m.b.H.” with the largest number of shares being held by Karl Max Fürst von Lichnowsky (born Kreuzenort, Upper Silesia [today: Krzyżanowice, Poland], 8 March 1860 – died Kuchelna, 27 February 1928); the Lichnowsky’s were a Czech aristocratic family of Silesian and Moravian origin documented since the 14th Century. At the time, the Ratiborer Zuckerfrabrik processed 20,000 tons of sugar beet a season and employed 500 people.
Karl Max, Prince Lichnowsky is relevant to our story because not only was he part owner of the Ratibor sugar factory, but he also owned shares in the sugar factory of Adolph Schück & Co. G.m.b.H. The Lichnowsky’s had aided in the construction of the railway line from Ratibor to Kuchelna and Troppau in 1895, so were later given permission to develop a train connection from Troppau to Grätz, where the Lichnowsky’s had a grand palace. When Kuchelna, Karl Lichnowsky’s headquarters, eventually became part of Czechoslovakia in 1920, Lichnowsky chose to retain his German citizenship.
Beyond Lichnowsky’s contribution to the expansion of local transportation, and advancement of the sugar industry in Silesia, he is better known as Ambassador to Britain beginning in 1912. Prior to the outbreak of WWI, Prince Lichnowsky was one of the few German diplomats who sought to prevent the war. He warned Kaiser Wilhelm II that in the event of war, England would align itself against Germany, as ultimately happened. Lichnowsky’s assessments were withheld from the Kaiser. After declaration of war, he was regarded as responsible for the unfavorable situation. He wrote several articles and pamphlets defending himself and reproaching the German politicians for not having pursued “realpolitik” (i.e., politics or diplomacy based primarily on considerations of given circumstances and factors, rather than explicit ideological notions or moral or ethical premises), which eventually resulted in his being expelled from the Prussian government in July 1918.
Regrettably, none of Paul Newerla’s research, which has included examination of the Lichnowsky family papers, has so far shed any light on the ultimate disposition of the sugar factory. As previously mentioned, Paul says the sugar factory was shuttered in the 1920’s. However, this differs from what Adolph and Alma Schück’s descendants were told. Larry Leyser is my third cousin once-removed (Figure 14), and his great-great-grandmother, Alma Braun, was married to Adolph Schück. Larry’s family claims that following Adolph’s death in 1916, and Sigmund Hirsch’s demise in 1920, one of Adolph’s son, Dr. Erich Schück (Figure 15), assumed control of and continued to run the sugar factory and other family businesses. During the Nazi era, Erich was approached by the Nazis, and given a low-ball offer on the business, which he rejected. Ultimately, the business was seized, the family lost everything, and Erich committed suicide.
However, an alternate story circulates, namely, that some unscrupulous member of the family sold the business and absconded with the proceeds. Blame here has squarely been placed on Sigmund Hirsch’s wife, Selma Braun; the problem with this theory is that Selma Braun pre-deceased her husband by four years, in 1916, when the sugar factory was assuredly still in operation and likely run by her husband after Adolph Schück’s death that same year. In the absence of any proof of sale document, one may never know exactly whether the sugar factory was confiscated or sold, and, if so, by whom.
When my wife and I visited the existing factory in May 2014, we were immediately approached by a watchman who demanded to know what we were doing. (Figure 16) Paul Newerla, whom I’ve previously told readers is a retired attorney, assisted the current “owner” of the sugar factory purchase it from the Polish Government; how the government came to own the factory remains unclear. According to Paul, the owner has the “proper” papers. The factory was once the headquarters of a magazine, and is now used to store chemicals to treat crops.
Larry recently had the good fortune to access photos and documents from one of his cousins that he scanned and shared with me. Included within this trove were copies of eleven obituaries about Adolph Schück (Figures 17a-17k), who passed away on November 3, 1916 in Ratibor.
I asked another one of my cousins to summarize these, and they give us a good measure of Adolph. (Figure 18) Little is written about the sugar factory proper, except that Sigmund Hirsch was his partner. However, we learn that Adolph had been on Ratibor’s City Council from 1879 until 1901, and from 1890 onward was the Chairman of the City Council. He was also the speaker of its Budget Committee (Haushaltsausschuss); his business acumen lent itself well to carefully managing the city’s expenditures and keeping taxes in check for a long time.
Adolph was very active in the Jewish community. One obituary, from an association that aided the city’s destitute Jews, praised Adolph upon his death . On his 75th birthday, a delegation from the City of Ratibor came to his home in Ratibor to present him with flowers. More than 40 people showed up on his birthday, half of whom had worked for him more than 25 years. (Figures 19a-b) He used this occasion to give all his employees cash bonuses. His workers acknowledged his lofty standards and hard work. When he died, the entire Ratibor City Council attended his funeral. One of the obituaries is unusual in that it was written by two of Adolph Schück’s servants, Albertine Kudella and Klotilde Fuss, suggesting Adolph’s staff held him in high regard.
Figure 19b, the backside of the postcard showing a lineup of employees who worked in the Woinowitz sugar factory, gives me an opportunity to make a connection to an individual discussed in Post 25, specifically, Fritz Goldenring who died in the Shanghai Ghetto on December 15, 1943. The postcard, dated November 20, 1909, was addressed to him, care-of his uncle Paul Goldenring living in Berlin. At the time, Fritz would have been seven years of age. The postcard was sent to Fritz by his maternal grandfather, Sigmund Hirsch, who thanked Fritz for the well-wishes on his birthday; Sigmund’s birthday was November 18, 1848. Readers can read the German transcription and the translation. (Figure 22)
____________________________________________
NAME
DATE & PLACE OF BIRTH
DATE & PLACE OF DEATH
COMMENT
MARKUS BRAUN CHILDREN WITH CAROLINE b. SPIEGEL
Leo Braun
July 4, 1847
Ratibor, Germany
UNKNOWN
Married Frida Burchardt on 9/8/1883 in Berlin.
Julie Braun
March 4, 1849
Ratibor, Germany
UNKNOWN
Married to Nathan Goldstein. Nathan & Julie Braun had three children:
Gustav (b. 1/27/1869-d. _)
Max Markus (b. 2/3/1871-d._)
Ernst (b. 9/19/1873-d. 1941)
Adolf Braun
May 14, 1850
Ratibor, Germany
UNKNOWN
Immigrated to America & became US citizen.
Alma Braun
June 5, 1851
Ratibor, Germany
March 25, 1919
Ratibor, Germany
Married to Adolph Schück (b. 7/5/1840-d. 11/3/1916). Adolf & Alma Schück had three children:
Auguste (“Guste”) (b. 1/26/1872-d. 10/5/1943)
Elly (b. 9/7/1874-d. 4/28/1911)
Erich Schück
Olga Braun
July 23, 1852
Ratibor, Germany
August 23, 1920
Ratibor, Germany
Married to Hermann Berliner (b. 5/28/1840-d. 9/3/1910). Hermann & Olga were buried in the former Jewish Cemetery in Ratibor. Hermann & Olga Berliner had three children:
Margareth Auguste (b. 3/19/1872-d.__)
Else (b. 3/3/1873-d. 2/18/1957)
Alfred Max (b. 11/6/1875-d. 2/19/1921)
Fedor Braun
August 27, 1853
Ratibor, Germany
UNKNOWN
Jenny Braun
June 7, 1855
Ratibor, Germany
May 12, 1921
Breslau, Germany
Married to George Pinoff (b. 3/2/1844-d. 9/3/1914). George & Jenny are buried in the Jewish Cemetery in Wroclaw, Poland.
Selma Braun
July 11, 1856
Ratibor, Germany
July 11, 1916
Ratibor, Germany
Married to Sigmund Hirsch (b. 11/18/1848-d.10/14/1920), partner with his brother-in-law Adolph Schück in the sugar factory in Woinowitz. Sigmund & Selma were buried in the former Jewish Cemetery in Ratibor. Sigmund & Selma Hirsch had three children:
Robert (b. _-d. 1943)
Henrietta (b. 2/8/1873-d. 7/29/1955)
Helene (b. 3/25/1880-d. 1/1968)
Julius Braun
July 11, 1857
UNKNOWN
Emma Braun
June 7, 1858
Ratibor, Germany
January 17, 1904
Ratibor, Germany
Married to Nathan Zweig (b. 5/1/1851-d. 8/12/1921). Nathan & Emma had two daughters who perished in the Holocaust:
Elizabeth (b. 3/20/1885-d. 10/9/1944)
Susanne (b. 3/2/1890-d. 7/18/1943).
Hermine Braun
May 23, 1859
Ratibor, Germany
September 20, 1921
Ratibor, Germany
Married to Siegfried Zweig (b. 8/25/1855-d. 1/7/1932). Siegfried & Hermine had a daughter and a son:
Magdalena (b. 11/14/1886-d. _)
Hans (b. 8/23/1889- d. 9/12/1929).
Hugo Braun
August 7, 1860
Ratibor, Germany
UNKNOWN
Married to Hildegard Köhler (b. 2/9/1875-d. _) on 5/30/1896. Hugo & Hildegard had two children:
Anna-Marie
Peter
MARKUS BRAUN CHILDREN WITH JOHANNA b. GOLDSTEIN
Eugenia Wanda Braun
April 21, 1869
Ratibor, Germany
October 25, 1918
Breslau, Germany
Never married
Markus Braun
May 23, 1870
Ratibor, Germany
UNKNOWN
Married to Eva Wondre (b. 11/10/1871-d._) on 12/11/1900.
“I should like someone to remember that there once lived a person named David Berger.” (David Berger in his last letter, Vilna 1941, quoted from www.yadvashem.org brochure)
NOTE: This post examines the fate of some of the Jewish residents and guests who stayed at the Villa Primavera in Fiesole, Italy, between roughly March 1937 and September 1938, the period during which my aunt Susanne Müller née Bruck co-managed the property as a bed-and-breakfast with a Jewish emigrant formerly from Austria and Germany, Ms. Lucia von Jacobi. Investigating what became of the guests who stayed at the Villa Primavera during this time wound up upending my preconceived notion that the boarders were all Jewish emigrés permanently fleeing Germany.
Surviving historic records archived at the “Archivio Storico Comunale,” the “Municipal Historic Archive,” in Fiesole, place my aunt Susanne and my uncle Dr. Franz Müller’s arrival there in about March 1936, and their departure in mid-September 1938. Beginning approximately a year after their arrival, that’s to say, in March 1937, and continuing until they left for France in mid-September 1938, registration logs from the Villa Primavera record numerous guests. I was surprised at the large number of visitors who stayed there, mostly Jewish, and just assumed my aunt and uncle hosted them as they tried to escape Europe and Nazi persecution. While I eventually came across a reference indicating my aunt and Ms. Jacobi had run the Villa Primavera as a bed-and-breakfast, explaining the multiple boarders, this did not initially alter my view that the Jewish guests had already permanently fled Germany, Austria, Belgium, and Switzerland, never to return.
To remind readers, during Italy’s Fascist era, all out-of-town visitors to Fiesole and elsewhere were required to appear with their hosts at the Municipio, or City Hall, provide their names and those of their parents, declare their occupation, state when and where they were born, show their identity papers, give their passport numbers, divulge their anticipated length of stay, and complete what was called a “Soggiorno degli Stranieri in Italia,” or “Stay of Foreigners in Italy.”(Figure 1) As readers will rightly conclude, collecting this information represented a vast invasion of privacy, although forensic genealogists can glean an enormous amount of useful ancestral data. While virtually all the Soggiorno forms state the reason for the guest’s visit as “turismo,” tourism, I concluded this was a “cover” for their real purpose, planning their escape to America or elsewhere. There can be little doubt in examining the Soggiorno forms that most guests were educated and accomplished people of means, likely with good personal and professional contacts elsewhere in the world who could sponsor them and help them obtain travel visas. That said, this did not ensure that Jews were able to obtain such outside help or even intended to leave Europe.
With the Soggiorno forms and Fiesole registration ledgers in hand, using ancestry.com, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and Yad Vashem Holocaust victims’ databases, as well as general Internet queries, I set out to try and determine the fate of as many of the guests of the Villa Primavera as possible. With respect to my own family, I already knew what had happened to them, in particular that my beloved aunt Susanne (Figure 2) and my great-aunt Franziska Bruck (Figure 3) had both died in the Holocaust; similarly, I already knew that one of my first cousins twice-removed, Auguste “Gusti” Schueck (Figure 4), had died in the Theresienstadt Ghetto in Czechoslovakia on May 28, 1943. But, I was very curious whether other individuals who had passed through the Villa Primavera suffered a similar fate or managed to find sanctuary elsewhere. The findings upended my preconceived notion that the guests at the Villa Primavera were on a one-way journey out of Europe at the time they stayed in Fiesole.
Below is a table, alphabetically-arranged, of the Jewish residents and boarders who stayed at the Villa Primavera between March 1937 and September 1938, with comments as to their destiny, where discovered. Below the table, I highlight a few individuals, discussing some interesting things I’ve learned about them, including pictures, where found.
NAME (NATIONALITY)
DATE & PLACE OF BIRTH
DATE & PLACE OF DEATH
COMMENT
Argudinsky née Fleischer, Elisabetta (UNKNOWN)
11/24/1873 Reichenbach, Germany
Unknown
Destiny: Unknown
Bachrach née Bachmann, Elvire (SWISS)
9/15/1872 Karstein
Unknown
Destiny: Unknown
Baerwald née Lewino, Charlotte Victoria (GERMAN)
8/6/1870 Mainz, Germany
3/16/1966 St. Gallen, Switzerland
Destiny: Immigrated to America, died in Switzerland (Figure 5)
Berend, Eduard (GERMAN)
12/5/1883 Hannover, Germany
1973 Marbach, Germany
Destiny: Left Germany in 1939, returned after WWII
Bergmann née Neufeld, Amalie (GERMAN)
4/16/1881 Posen, Germany
Unknown
Destiny: Unknown
Brieger née Elias, Else (GERMAN)
2/19/1888 Posen, Germany
Unknown
Destiny: Unknown
Bruck née Berliner, Else (GERMAN)(Figure 6)
3/3/1873 Ratibor, Germany
2/16/1957 New York, NY
Destiny: Immigrated to America
Bruck, Eva (GERMAN) (Figure 7)
8/19/1906 Barcelona, Spain
8/15/1977 Ainring, Germany
Destiny: Immigrated to Spain, died in Germany (Figure 8)
Bruck, Franziska (GERMAN)
12/29/1866 Ratibor, Germany
1/2/1942 Berlin, Germany
Destiny: Suicide victim of the Holocaust
Bruck, Otto (GERMAN) (Figure 42)
4/16/1907 Ratibor, Germany
9/13/1994 New York, NY
Destiny: Immigrated to America
Cohnnée Pollack, Caroline (GERMAN)
Unknown
Unknown
Destiny: Unknown
Cypres, Jacques (BELGIAN)
10/29/1904 Antwerp, Belgium
Unknown
Destiny: Immigrated to America (Figure 9)
Donath, Ludwig (GERMAN)
3/6/1900 Vienna, Austria
9/29/1967 New York, NY
Destiny: Immigrated to America
Donath née Camsky, Maria Josefa (GERMAN)
8/20/1902 Vienna, Austria
4/21/1975 Vienna, Austria
Destiny: Immigrated to America, returned to Austria after her husband’s death
Elias, Dr. Carl Ludwig (GERMAN)
9/19/1891 Berlin, Germany
1942 Auschwitz, Poland
Destiny: Murdered in Auschwitz
Fleischner née Schoenfeld, Gabriele Ann Sophie (AUSTRIAN)(Figures 10a &b)
10/12/1895 Vienna, Austria
9/22/58 Massachusetts
Destiny: Immigrated to America, died Gabriele Anna Fleischner-Lawrence
Fleischner, Dr. Konrad George (AUSTRIAN)(Figures 11a& b)
10/12/1891 Vienna, Austria
9/1963 Massachusetts
Destiny: Immigrated to America, died Conrad Lawrence
Goldenring, Eva (GERMAN)
10/29/1906 Berlin, Germany
12/1969 Wilmington, DE
Destiny: Left Germany for France & Spain; eventually immigrated to America
Goldenring, Fritz (GERMAN)
9/11/1902
12/15/1943 Shanghai, China
Destiny: Left for Shanghai where he died in the Shanghai Ghetto
Goldenring née Hirsch, Helene (GERMAN)
3/25/1880 Ratibor, Germany
1/12/1968 Newark, NJ
Destiny: Left for Chile & eventually immigrated to America
Grödel, Emilie (GERMAN)
Unknown
Unknown
Destiny: Unknown
Hayoth HAYDT, Dr. Eugen (GERMAN)
4/19/1906
Metz, France
Unknown
1/17/1973
Sydney, Australia
Destiny: Unknown
Arrived in Sydney, Australia on 2/6/1939 aboard the ship “NIEUW HOLLAND”;
Died as Alvin Eugene Werner Haydt or A.E.W Haydt
Hayoth HAYDT née Winternitz, Lilly (GERMAN)
8/12/1908
Vienna, Austria
Unknown
2/4/1997
Sydney
Destiny: Unknown
Arrived in Sydney, Australia on 2/6/1939 aboard the ship “NIEUW HOLLAND”
Heilbronner, Dr. Paul Milton (GERMAN) (Figures 12 & b)
11/22/1904 Munich, Germany
4/6/1980 Santa Barbara, CA
Destiny: Immigrated to America, died as Paul Milton Laporte
Heilbronnernée Wimpfheimer, Sofie (GERMAN) (Figures 13a & b)
3/18/1876 Augsburg, Germany
3/26/1965 Los Angeles, CA
Destiny: Immigrated to America, died as Sofie Broner
Herz, Dr. Phil. Emanuel Emil (GERMAN)
4/5/1877 Essen, Germany
7/8/1971 Rochester, NY
Destiny: Immigrated to America (Figure 14)
Herz née Berl, Gabriele (GERMAN)
4/26/1886 Vienna, Austria
1957 Rochester, NY
Destiny: Immigrated to America
Hirschfeldt née Wolff, Katharina (GERMAN)
4/16/1866 Berlin, Germany
Unknown
Destiny: Unknown
Jacobi née Goldberg, Lucia von (GERMAN)
9/8/1887 Vienna, Austria
4/24/1956 Locarno, Switzerland
Destiny: Fled to Switzerland where she died after WWII
Kleinmann née Lewensohn, Gretchen (GERMAN)
12/31/1894 Hamburg, Germany
Unknown
Destiny: Unknown
Kleinmann, Dr. Phil & Med. Hans (GERMAN)
9/28/1895 Berlin, Germany
Unknown
Destiny: Unknown
Kleinmann née Luvic, Sophie (GERMAN)
11/27/1863 Memel, East Prussia
Unknown
Destiny: Unknown
Kuhnemund née Goldschmidt, Helene Ida (GERMAN)
3/15/1901 Berlin, Germany
Unknown
Destiny: Unknown
Leven née Levÿ, Johanna (GERMAN)
6/25/1866 Koenigshoeven, Germany
7/2/1942 Theresienstadt Ghetto, Czechoslovakia
Destiny: Murdered in Theresienstadt Ghetto
Leyser née Schueck, Auguste (GERMAN)
1/26/1872 Ratibor, Germany
10/5/1943 Theresienstadt Ghetto, Czechoslovakia
Destiny: Murdered in Theresienstadt Ghetto
Locker, Dine Martha (POLISH)
Unknown
Unknown
Destiny: Unknown
Maass, Margarete (GERMAN)
2/16/1880 Friedberg, Germany
Unknown
Destiny: Unknown
Matthias, Julius (GERMAN)
5/15/1857 Hamburg, Germany
5/16/1942 Hamburg, Germany
Destiny: Died in Germany during WWII
Müller, Dr. Franz (GERMAN) (Figure 15)
12/31/1871 Berlin, Germany
10/1/1945 Fayence, France
Destiny: Left for Italy & France, where he died
Müller née Bruck, Susanne (GERMAN) (Figure 42)
4/20/1904 Ratibor, Germany
~9/7/1942 Auschwitz, Poland
Destiny: Murdered in Auschwitz
Nienburg née Niess, Emmy (GERMAN)
8/16/1885 Berlin, Germany
Unknown
Destiny: Appears to have died in Germany after WWII
Oppler née Pinoff, Gertrude (GERMAN)
1/13/1876 Görlitz, Germany
3/9/1952 Frankfurt, Germany
Destiny: Died in Germany after WWII; (granddaughter of Marcus Braun, subject of Post 14)
Rosendorff, Friederike Elfriede (GERMAN)
11/28/1872 Berlin, Germany
Unknown
Destiny: Appears to have died in Germany after WWII
In the case of several people associated with the Villa Primavera, including my aunt and uncle (Figure 17), Lucia von Jacobi (Figure 18), and Charlotte Baerwald, their intent had been to stay in Fiesole “per sempre,” forever. In the case of most guests, however, their anticipated length of stay typically varied between a few weeks and two months.
Eduard Berend (Figure 19) was an eminent editor of the works of Jean Paul (1763-1825), a German Romantic writer. After fighting in WWI, Berend pursued an academic career, but on account of anti-Semitism, he was rejected as a teacher at three German universities. In 1927, the Preußische Akademie der Wissenschaften, the Prussian Academy of Sciences, eventually commissioned him with the historic-critical edition of the works of Jean Paul. By 1938, he had completed 20 of the 32 planned volumes, works that established Jean Paul as one of the most important writers of German classicism, alongside Goethe and Schiller. Still, he was dismissed by the Prussian Academy in 1938. Soon thereafter he was sent to the concentration camp of Sachsenhausen, and was only released on the condition that he leave Germany immediately.
Prior to WWII, Eduard Berend had developed an unlikely friendship with a Heinrich Meyer, a Goethe scholar at the Rice Institute in Houston with Nazi sympathies. Desperate, Berend turned to Meyer for help in December 1938. In spite of Henrich Meyer’s Nazi leanings, which landed him in prison in Texas in 1943 and ultimately got him fired, Meyer secured an affidavit for Berend to leave Germany for Switzerland where he even supported Berend financially. After the war, Berend continued his work on Jean Paul. He went back to Germany in 1957, and by the time of his death in 1973, had completed twenty-eight volumes.
The passport on which Eduard Berend traveled to Switzerland in 1939 was different than the one on which he traveled to Fiesole in May 1937, comparing the number on the Soggiorno form (Figure 20) with that on his 1939 passport, found on the Internet. (Figure 21)
Franziska Bruck
I was able to procure a copy of my great-aunt Franziska Bruck’s death certificate from the Landesarchiv Berlin. (Figure 22) The certificate states the gruesome way in which she killed herself on January 2, 1942, “selbstmord durch erhängen,” suicide by hanging, no doubt after being told to report to an old-age transport for deportation. (Figure 23)
In previous posts, I’ve explained to readers that beginning in 1937-38, all German Jewish men had to be called “Israel,” and all German Jewish women had to be called “Sarah”; these names were added to official birth, marriage and death certificates. Readers will note that on my great-aunt’s death certificate, the name “Sara” has been added.
My great-aunt Franziska spent two months at the Villa Primavera between September and November 1937. I’ve often wondered what her fate might have been had she not returned to Berlin. I can only surmise that like many Jews, she was either in denial as to what might happen upon her return, or her options for leaving Germany were limited.
Ludwig Donath (Figures 24a & b) and his wife, Maria Donath née Camsky (Figures 25a & b), were among the last German Jewish guests at the Villa Primavera, staying for no more than a month in July-August 1938. Ludwig Donath was a famous character actor (Figures 26 & 27) who’d had a distinguished career on the stages of Vienna and Berlin, before leaving Nazi Germany in 1933. He and his wife arrived in Hollywood via Switzerland and England, departing from Liverpool for New York in February 1940. Donath appeared in many American films, with at least 84 credits to his name, and was often typecast as a Nazi in films from 1942. (Figure 28) He was briefly blacklisted in the 1950’s for alleged left-wing connections, but resumed steady television work in 1957 for the remainder of his life.
Carl Ludwig Elias was born in 1891 to a distinguished art critic, Dr. Julius Elias, who was instrumental in promoting French Impressionism in Germany. Likely because of his father’s connections with the art world, an oil portrait of “Carl Ludwig Elias 7 ¼” by Lovis Corinth was painted in 1899. (Figure 29) Carl Ludwig was a lawyer in Berlin and immigrated to Norway when the Nazis came to power. Nonetheless, after the Nazis invaded Norway in December 1940, he was captured and deported with 500 other Jews from Denmark to Auschwitz in 1942, where he was murdered.
Helene Goldenring visited the Villa Primavera on two occasions, for about a month between May-June 1937, and, again, between December 1937 and January 1938 for two months. Both of her children, Eva and Fritz Goldenring, who’ve been discussed in earlier posts, were also guests on separate occasions. Helene’s name appears in a Berlin phone directory as late as 1940 (Figure 30), indicating she returned to Germany after her sojourns in Fiesole. At some point, she seems to have joined her brother, Dr. Robert Hirsch, in Chile, before eventually immigrating to America in 1947 after his death, where she reunited with her only surviving child, Eva. (Figure 31)
In May 2021, I was contacted by Ms. Tamara Precek, a most delightful Czech lady who has resided in Barcelona, Spain for the past 20 years. She is researching the Winternitz families that lived in Prague around 1850, of whom Lillian Haydt née Winternitz is descended. Tamara asked me to send her the “Soggiorno degli Stranieri in Italia” forms for Eugen (Figure 43) and Lillian (Figure 44), suspecting I had misread their surnames. Indeed, I had mistaken HAYDT as “Hayoth.”
Tamara has recently been able to learn what happened to them after their brief stay at the Villa Primavera. They managed to immigrate to Australia, arriving there on the 6th of February 1939 aboard the ship “NIEUW HOLLAND.” Dr. Eugen Haydt changed his named to Albin (Alvin) Eugene Werner (Warner) Haydt (A.E.W. Haydt) but was still generally known as Eugene Haydt. He was a tradesman, and died on the 17th of January 1973; his wife may have worked with him, and passed away on the 4th of February 1997. They appear not to have had any children.
Ms. Precek even found a picture of the apartment building where they resided in Sydney. (Figure 45)
Ms. Jacobi co-managed the Villa Primavera as a bed-and-breakfast with my aunt Susanne. She fled Fiesole in 1938 in favor of Switzerland, leaving everything behind, including her personal papers, which were miraculously found in Florence and saved by a German researcher in 1964, Dr. Irene Below (see Blog Post 21 for the full story).
Johanna Leven stayed at the Villa Primavera for the first two months of 1938, but clearly returned to Germany after her stay. She was eventually deported from Mönchengladbach, Germany to the Theresienstadt Ghetto in then-Czechoslovakia, where she perished in 1942. (Figure 32)
Julius Matthias was among the oldest guest to have stayed at the Villa Primavera, being almost 80 when he visted there between March and April 1937. After his days in Fiesole, he returned to Hamburg, Germany, where he died on May 16, 1942, seemingly of natural causes (i.e., senility, broncho-pneumonia). His death certificate (Figure 33) states he was a non-practicing Jew, although this fact would not have prevented him from being deported to a concentration camp. His death certificate assigned him the name “Israel” to identify him as a Jew.
Paul Schoop was born in 1907 in Zurich, Switzerland, one of four accomplished offspring (with Max Schoop (b. 1902); Trudi Schoop (b. 1903); Hedwig “Hedi” Schoop (b. 1906)) of a prominent family. Paul’s father, Maximilian Schoop, was the editor of Neue Zurcher Zeitung and president of Dolder Hotels. Paul (Figure 34) came to America in September 1939, and eventually joined his three siblings in Van Nuys, California. He was an accomplished composer, concert pianist and conductor, first in Europe and later in America. Paul’s brother-in-law was Frederick Maurice Holländer (Figures 35a & b), the famed composer and torch song writer, who’d once been married to one of Paul’s sister, Hedi Schoop. (Figures 36a & b)
I surmise the reason the Schoop children came to America is because of greater economic and professional opportunities rather than on account of Nazi persecution.
Jenny Steinfeld’s tale is a poignant one. Her name appears with that of her son, Paul Steinfeld, on an April 1937 manifest of boat passengers bound from Bremen, Germany to New York. (Figure 37) A scant five months later, between September and November 1937, she is a guest at the Villa Primavera, clearly having come back from America. Jenny eventually returns to Berlin, and on August 27, 1942 commits suicide there, yet another victim of Nazi persecution. (Figure 38) As with my great-aunt Franziska, who too returned to Berlin from Fiesole, one wonders why Jenny walked back into the maws of death.
This post deals only in passing with my immediate and extended Bruck family. For this reason, it involved considerably more forensic research, as most of the guests at the Villa Primavera were previously unknown to me. Still, learning more about these people was important to me. In some small way, as the Holocaust victim David Berger wrote in 1941, I hope I have honored and recognized a few other Jewish victims of Nazi persecution so they are not forgotten.
Regular readers will know the enjoyment I derive making connections between people and events related to my family. One of my German first cousins, once-removed, Kay Lutze, is friends with an Anja Holländer, living in Amsterdam, Netherlands. (Figure 39) Anja is related to Frederick Maurice Holländer, the brother-in-law of Paul Schoop, who stayed at the Villa Primavera. In assembling this involved Blog post, I recollected this fact and also that Anja claims a relationship to my Bruck family. I asked Kay whether he knew the relationship, and he could only tell me that the mother of a Holländer named LUDWIG HEINRICH HOLLÄNDER was a Bruck. Curious about this, I researched this man on ancestry.com, and, indeed, discovered various historic documents that confirm the distant relationship of the Holländer family to my Bruck family. Ludwig’s mother was HELENE HOLLÄNDER née BRUCK (1812-1876), who I think is my great-great-great-great-aunt; Helene was married to a BENJAMIN HOLLÄNDER (1809-1884). I discovered his death certificate (Figures 40a & b), along with that of their son Ludwig (1833-1897). (Figures 41a & b)
Note: My paternal grandmother, Else Bruck née Berliner, had an older sister, Margareth Berliner, the evidence of whose survival beyond birth is examined in this post.
Berliner was the maiden name of my grandmother, Else Bruck (Figure 1), born on March 3, 1873, in Ratibor, Germany (today: Racibórz, Poland). According to Jewish birth records for Ratibor, available from familysearch.org, my grandmother had two siblings, an older sister MARGARETH AUGUST BERLINER, born on March 19, 1872 (Figure 2), and a younger brother, ALFRED BERLINER, born on November 6, 1875. All three children were the offspring of my great-grandfather, HERMANN BERLINER, and his wife, OLGA BERLINER née BRAUN. (Figure 3)
As discussed in Post 14, Olga Berliner was one of twelve children the brauereipachter (tenant brewer) MARCUS BRAUN had with his wife CAROLINE BRAUN née SPIEGEL. Through the names and dates of birth of all of Marcus’s children, I was able to establish connections with descendants of Marcus Braun, distant cousins living in America whose names I’d heard about growing up. Thus, I was aware of and came to learn of Alfred Berliner’s three children with his wife CHARLOTTE ROTHE, first cousins of my father; readers may recall, Charlotte Rothe died in the Holocaust and was the subject of Post 18. Alfred died in 1921 in Ratibor and was once buried in the Jewish Cemetery there. (Figure 4)
Oddly, no one in my family ever mentioned my grandmother’s older sister Margareth Berliner, so after learning of her, I assumed she had died at birth or shortly thereafter; this would not have been unusual at the time.
Fast forward to this past summer when I visited my first cousin’s son in Hilden, Germany, who inherited my uncle Fedor Bruck’s personal papers and pictures. On the off-chance they might contain family items of interest, I asked if I could peruse these items. Cached among the photos was one labelled on the back as a GRETE BRAUER. (Figure 5a-b) This caught my attention because during my visit in 2014 to the Stadtmuseum, where the personal papers of two renowned great-aunts, Franziska and Elsbeth Bruck, are archived, I discovered multiple letters sent to my great-aunt Elsbeth in East Berlin from Calvia, Mallorca by HANNS & HERTA BRAUER. The letterhead on some letters read “DR. E. H. BRAUER,” and they were variously signed “Ernst,” “Hanns,” and “Ernst & Herta.” Elsbeth’s archived materials also include photos the Brauer family sent her, though none of Grete Brauer. Until I found Grete’s photo, I had assumed the Brauers were family friends of my great-aunt.
As I said, the photo of Grete in my uncle Fedor’s surviving papers was captioned. In one handwriting was written “Three generations: Grete-Herta-Till & Neubabelsberg 1933”; Neubabelsberg is located near Spandau, on the outskirts of Berlin. Then, in what was unmistakably my uncle’s shaky handwriting, he had added: “Aunt Grete Brauer (mother’s sister with her daughter-in-law and grandson).” This was an “aha!” moment because I knew then that my grandmother’s sister had indeed survived into adulthood and had lived at least as late as 1933, making her 61 years of age at the time. This is the first concrete evidence I’d come across confirming Margareth’s “existence.”
Armed with this new information, I turned to ancestry.com. I found a surprising number of documents and information on the Brauer family there, although notable gaps still exist. In combination with the photos and letters from the Stadtmuseum, I’ve been able to partially construct a family tree covering four generations.
Among the documents found were birth certificates for two of Margareth Brauer’s sons. An older son, KURT BRAUER, was born on July 7, 1893 (Figure 6), in a place called Cosel, Prussia (today: Koźle, Poland), located a mere 20 miles north of Ratibor, where Margareth was born; the younger son, ERNST HAN(N)S BRAUER, was born on August 9, 1902 (Figure 7), also in Cosel, Prussia. The birth certificates provided the father’s name, SIEGFRIED BRAUER. Given the proximity of Cosel and Ratibor, I thought some Brauers might have been buried in the Jewish Cemetery in Ratibor, and, indeed, I discovered Kurt Brauer died in 1920 and was buried there, and that a photo of his headstone exists. (Figure 8)
Also, once buried in the Ratibor Jewish Cemetery was a young girl named THEA BRAUER, born in 1911 who died in 1919. Whether or how she might be related to Margareth and Siegfried Brauer is unclear, but a poor photo of her headstone also survives.
Siegfried Brauer’s death certificate (Figure 9) states he was born in approximately 1859 in a place called “Biskupitz County Hindenberg” (today: Zabrze, Poland, near Katowice), and died at 67 years of age, on February 5, 1926 in Cosel, Prussia; he appears to have been a Judicial Councilman. Interestingly, his death was reported by a HILDEGARD BRAUER, who I initially thought was his daughter-in-law, the aforementioned “Herta”; because no maiden name is given, I now think Hildegard was another of Siegfried & Margareth’s children. A 1927 Address Book for Cosel, Prussia lists Siegfried’s widow (“witwe” in German) Margareth still living there. (Figure 10)
Margareth & Siegfried’s son, Ernst Hanns Brauer (Figure 11), eventually became an American citizen, and died on May 19, 1971 in Calvia, Mallorca, Spain (Figure 12), where he’s buried. He and his family traveled to Puerto Rico in 1941 (Figures 13 & 14), where they appear to have ridden out the war there before moving to Mallorca. Oddly, a 14-year old girl named YUTTA MARIA MUENCHOW was in their company when they traveled to Puerto Rico; her connection to the Brauer family is unknown. Ernst’s wife, HERTA LEONORE BRAUER, maiden name unknown, was born on February 4, 1904 in Neumünster, Germany, and passed away in August 1983 in San Juan, Puerto Rico. (Figure 15) According to letters Ernst and Herta sent to my great-aunt, their son, alternately referred to as “TILL” or “OLIVER,” born in 1933, was married to an unnamed Puerto Rican woman, and they had a daughter MERLE-MARGARITA, born 1966. (Figure 16) The fate of Oliver, his wife, and their daughter is unknown.
These vital statistics merely highlight the large amount of data available from ancestry.com on the Brauer family.
Still, so far, I’ve been unable to determine when and where my great-aunt Grete died, someone who for the longest time was an ethereal figure. I tried one other thing attempting to ascertain her fate. I turned to the Mallorca White Pages to search for Brauers possibly still living there. I found a KERSTEN BRAUER living in a community only 22 miles north of Calvia, where Ernst Brauer is buried. I was firmly convinced I’d found one of his descendants. I was able to reach her by phone, after having carefully translated my questions into Spanish. Amusingly, I’d barely introduced myself in tortured Spanish, before Ms. Brauer impeccably asked, “do you speak English?” What a relief! Reaching Ms. Brauer was a veritable stroke of luck as she hails from Switzerland and spends only short periods in Mallorca. Nonetheless, originating from Switzerland and given that her name is spelled “Bräuer” (pronounced “Breuer”), makes it exceedingly unlikely she is distantly related to my great-aunt.
The letters Ernst and Herta Brauer wrote to my great-aunt Elsbeth spoke of their public work in Mallorca, and even included a newspaper clipping. (Figure 17) Herta was working on a novel as well as building up the ballet school in Palma de Mallorca, while Ernst was play-writing and making connections with local members of international high society, such as the English writer Robert Graves settled in Deià, Mallorca. (Figure 18) One letter from 1967 (Figure 19) spoke about two Englishmen visiting Mallorca looking for two ballerinas from Herta’s ballet school to appear in a movie starring Michael Caine and Anthony Quinn, who did in fact collaborate on at least three different movies. Ernst did some translations of the German poet Rainer Maria Rilke’s works that were performed in Mallorca, while their son, Oliver, had a minor role in a movie starring Roy Black, the famous German schlager singer and actor. No mention is made of Grete in any of Ernst and Herta’s letters from Mallorca, so we can safely assume she was no longer alive.
The last year we can assuredly place my great-aunt Grete in Germany, 1933, would have been a very perilous time for Jews. Whether she escaped Germany with the rest of her family, died before the mass arrest of Jews there, or was deported on an age-transport to a concentration camp is unknown. More forensic work is required to answer these queries.
Part of the appeal for me in doing forensic genealogy is finding connections between people and places, sometimes in the most unexpected fashion. Case in point. One place in Europe my wife and I like to recuperate during our family pilgrimages is a town called Velden along the Wörthersee, a lake in the southern Austrian state of Carinthia, a place my parents first took me to as a young boy. Imagine my surprise this year when we were strolling along the lake and discovered a bust of Roy Black (1943-1991) in Velden. (Figure 20) Knowing that Roy Black was of German origin, I could not imagine why he was being celebrated in southern Austria. As it turns out, in the last years of his short life, Roy had a comeback as singer and leading actor of the hit TV show “Ein Schloß am Wörthersee (known internationally as “Lakeside Hotel”; literally “A Castle on Lake Wörthersee”).” Small world!
In the previous post, I described to readers how I went about finding my grandfather’s younger brother, Wilhelm “Willy” Bruck (1872-1952), as well as his wife, son and daughter-in-law. Starting with the knowledge that my great-uncle wound up in Barcelona, Spain and sent a congratulatory card from there to my parents in 1951, shortly after I was born, I began there. From the FamilySearch’s “International Genealogical Index” I knew my great-uncle Willy’s wife, Antonie Bruck née Marcus, had pre-deceased him by ten years in Barcelona, dying there in 1942; clearly, 1942 was the latest they would have arrived in Spain, and likely sooner. I assumed my great-aunt and -uncle had gone to Barcelona to escape the Nazis, although the circumstances of how they were able to immigrate to Spain was a complete mystery.
In Post 32, I explained how I obtained the Certificados de Defunción, death certificates, for my great-uncle Willy (Figure 1), and his son Edgar-Pedro (Figure 2) during a visit in 2014 to two bureaus in Barcelona, the Cementiris de Barcelona, S.A. and the Registro Civil de Barcelona; other than learning that payments for keeping them and their wives interred were current, the Cementiris refused to give me names of next of kin. Instead, they suggested I write a letter explaining my interest in contacting them, and they would forward my request asking if the next of kin were willing to share their contact information. In fact, I tried this approach upon my return to the States in 2014, ultimately to no avail, although I strongly suspect the Cementiris never contacted my relatives.
But, I’m getting ahead of myself. As previously explained, following my visit to the Cementerio de Montjuïc in Barcelona to visit the tomb of my great-uncle Willy and his family (Figure 3), I returned to the Registro Civil de Barcelona hoping to obtain documents for additional family members. I had the good fortune to encounter a very helpful English-speaking lady there who spent several hours researching records for possible relatives. She eventually gave me copies of various birth, marriage and death certificates for five individuals, the relationship and significance of which would take me several months to figure out. I didn’t realize it at the time, but one of these documents was the key to locating my great-uncle Willy’s grandchildren. Just to be clear, none of these certificates provided names of next of kin.
Readers may recall from Post 15 that the personal papers of two of great-uncle Willy’s renowned sisters, Franziska Bruck and Elsbeth Bruck, are archived at the Stadtmuseum in Spandau, a suburb of Berlin. Earlier in 2014, my wife and I spent two days there examining and photographing all the documents and pictures. (Figure 4) Among my great-aunt Elsbeth’s papers, I discovered multiple pictures that her brother Willy had sent from Barcelona of himself (Figure 5), his children, Eva (Figure 6) and Edgar Pedro, his daughter-in-law Mercedes and her family (Figure 7), and his grandson Antonio. (Figure 8) The captions on these pictures allowed me to partially piece together the family tree. I was able to match some pictures to a document I’d obtained at the Registro Civil de Barcelona, notably the Certificado de Matrimonio, marriage certificate, for Edgar Pedro Bruck Marcus and Mercedes Casanovas Castañé, married June 24, 1945. (Figures 9a-c & 10) I was also able to relate theCertificados de Nacimiento, birth certificates, to their two children, Antonio Bruck Casanovas, born 1946 (Figure 11), and Margarita Bruck Casanovas, born 1948. (Figure 12) To remind readers, in Spain, at birth, an individual is given two surnames, that of his mother and father. Again, none of these documents allowed me to determine whether great-uncle Willy’s grandchildren were still alive, or where they might be living.
The break-through in finding my great-uncle Willy’s grandchildren came during Thanksgiving 2014. My wife was out-of-town with her family, so I set myself the task of re-examining the documents I’d been given at the Registro Civil de Barcelona. When reviewing the birth certificate for Antonio Bruck Casanovas, I noticed something I’d previously overlooked, specifically, a notation that had been added in the upper-left-hand corner on October 26, 1983 indicating he’d gotten married to a woman named Ingeborg Prieller née Wieser in 1982 in a place called “Haag-R.F.A.” (Figure 13) Having no idea where Haag is, and what “R.F.A.” stood for, after researching these places, I quickly determined that Haag is in Bavaria, and that “R.F.A.,” is Spanish for “República Federal de Alemania,” the German Federal Republic. This was the first concrete evidence I had that one of my great-uncle Willy’s grandchildren had at least for some period lived in Germany and might still be there.
I made this discovery on a Sunday, I clearly remember. I immediately searched to find out whether this small town of approximately 6,500 inhabitants has a Rathaus, a town hall, where I could inquire about Antonio Bruck. I learned they do, and without delay sent them an email inquiring about my second cousin, laying out what I knew. Incredibly, by the following morning, the Rathaus confirmed the information I had uncovered on Antonio Bruck’s birth certificate was correct and that he still lived in Haag; this was the good news, the bad news was they couldn’t give me his contact information. Fortunately, the gentleman at the Rathaus offered to call Antonio and explain that a cousin from America was trying to reach him. By Tuesday, my second cousin Antonio had sent me an email explaining his consternation at being phoned by Haag’s Rathaus, asked to appear in person at their offices, and told I was trying to get in touch with him. Antonio wasted no time contacting me. So, only two days after figuring out that one of my second cousins was living in Germany, we’d miraculously established contact.
Let me briefly digress and touch on something that may be of passing interest to some readers. Given my persistence, it’s likely I would eventually have figured out another way to get in touch with my second cousins, although there’s no guarantee of this. The 1983 marriage notation on Antonio’s 1946 birth certificate simplified my search. What makes this notation on Antonio’s Spanish birth certificate notable is that he was married in Germany, but this information was somehow conveyed to the Spanish authorities in Barcelona. In my years of doing forensic genealogy, I’ve come across multiple examples where marriages and even divorces are noted on German birth certificates, but this is the only instance I’ve come across where such a notation crosses country borders, this in the time before the European Union. For people doing research on their ancestors, it pays to look for notations on vital documents, particularly on German birth certificates, that may inform when and where their relatives got married. While Antonio’s birth certificate includes this information, the birth certificate of his sister Margarita, also married in Germany, contains no such reference.
Once Antonio and I connected, we began a lively exchange of emails. (Figure 14) I learned a lot more about my great-uncle Willy and his family and widened my circle of previously unknown relatives who I eventually contacted. From the International Genealogical Index, I already knew that my great-aunt and -uncle had married in Hamburg on April 2, 1904 (Figure 15). Once Antonio confirmed that Wilhelm and Antonie’s children, Edgar and Eva, had been born respectively, in 1905 and 1906, in Barcelona, I wrote to the woman who’d helped me at the Registro Civil de Barcelona, asking for copies of their birth certificates. She remembered me, and in February 2015, sent me their Certificados de Nacimiento. (Figures 16a-b & 17a-b)
It turns out, Antonio’s grandfather had been an electrical engineer for AEG, Allgemeine Elektricitäts-Gesellschaft, a company established in Berlin 1893 that went defunct in 1996. Among other things, AEG was involved in the installation and generation of electrical power and transmission lines, and, as technical director at AEG, my great-uncle was sent to Barcelona in 1905 to supervise the set-up of electrification and street illumination in Barcelona. (Figure 18) As noted, Wilhelm and Antonie’s two children were born in Barcelona, where the family stayed until 1910 (Figures 19 & 20), whereupon they returned to Berlin.
The family’s association with Spain no doubt saved their lives during the rise of the National Socialists. It appears after Hitler’s ascendancy to power in 1933, the family returned to Barcelona at least until the start of the Spanish Civil War in 1936, although the family’s chronology during this period is at best confusing. It seems that Wilhelm and Antonie returned to Germany for a short period, because in 1937 they were given the choice by the Nazis of attending a re-education school to learn to become “better” Germans or leaving the country; they decided to relocate to Antwerp, Belgium.
At the outset of the Spanish Civil War, Edgar left for Geneva, Switzerland, but, unable to find work there, went to Paris soon after. Between 1937 and 1941 he was in France, living in Paris and Bordeaux, before eventually being incarcerated at the French detention center of Condom. Since France and Germany were at war, and Edgar was a German national, he was arrested. Seemingly, it was only the persistent efforts of Wilhelm that got Edgar released, whereupon he rejoined his family in Barcelona in 1941. It’s likely that once the Spanish Civil War ended on April 1, 1939, Wilhelm and Antonie returned to Barcelona from Antwerp.
Let me briefly digress again and draw the readers attention to a very common notation added to the birth and/or marriage certificates of German Jews during the Nazi period. (Figure 21) As previously mentioned, my great-uncle Willy and his wife Antonie Marcus were married in Hamburg, Germany on April 2, 1904. Below is the translation of their marriage certificate:
N.172
Hamburg, the 2nd of April 1904
In front of the below signed registrar appeared today because of their marriage:
1.) the chief engineer Wilhelm Bruck, known because of his birth certificate, lutheran religion, born on the 24th of October 1872 in Ratibor, living in Barcelona, son of the in Ratibor deceased innkeeper Fedor Bruck and his wife Friederike born Mokrauer, living in Berlin.
2.) Antonie Marcus, known because of her birth certificate, lutheran religion, born on the 13th of July 1876 in Altona, living in Hamburg, Heimhuderstreet 60/2, daughter of the in Altona deceased merchant Hirsch (called Harry) Marcus and his wife Adele born Hertz, living in Hamburg.
And on the right-hand side is written:
Nr.172
Hamburg, the 11th of march 1940
Antonia Bruck born Marcus, living in Barcelona Calle Balmes, has received the additional Christian name “Sara”.
Nr. 172
Hamburg, the 29th of April 1940
Wilhelm Bruck, living in Barcelona, has received the additional Christian name “Israel”.
In the next two additions on the right-hand side is written that those two additional names “Sara” and “Israel” are no longer valid
from the date of 22nd of July 1948
The certificate states that Wilhelm and Antonie were Lutherans though both were considered Jewish by the Nazis. As such, in March and April 1940, respectively, the Nazis gave them the additional names of “Sara” and “Israel,” identical names given to all female and male Jews during this period, names rescinded in writing after WWII. The Nazis even recorded the street in Barcelona on which my great-aunt and -uncle lived, Calle Balmes, presumably useful information had they ever invaded Spain. As an aside, according to my second cousins, because they were Lutherans, a major branch of Protestant Christianity, neither was able to attend “normal” schools in predominantly Catholic Spain so, instead, they were schooled at the “Lycée Français.” For this reason, in 1955 Edgar and his family returned to Germany so his children could attend regular public schools
Antonio put me in touch with additional relatives living in Munich and Berlin. One woman was a Dr. Anna Rothholz, a third cousin I eventually learned. (Figure 22) Anna, in turn, referred me to other third cousins, including the Pauly family. This was of particular interest, as a woman named Lisa Pauly helped my uncle Dr. Fedor Bruck survive in Berlin during WWII. One deceased Pauly cousin developed a very detailed “Stammbaum,” family tree, which I was given, but unfortunately this still does not explain how Lisa Pauly is related to the Bruck family.
I’ve mentioned in previous posts my father’s penchant for being dismissive of family. Not only did he lose touch with most, but he lost track of how they passed away. Case in point, I was always told Wilhelm’s daughter, Eva, whom I met in 1967 in New York, had committed suicide. In fact, she died of laryngeal cancer in 1977 in Ainring, Germany. (Figure 23) There is an interesting anecdote related to her death. She had wanted to be interred with her family at the Cementerio de Montjuïc in Barcelona, but an administrative hang-up prevented this. The Spanish kept telling the family the Germans should just ship the body to Spain, but the Germans refused to do this without something in writing, something the Spaniards never provided. Thus, Eva was buried in Germany against her wishes.
My wife and I eventually met my second and third cousins on a trip to Germany in May 2015. (Figure 24) Margarita, Antonio and I all brought family pictures, including of people we were unable to identify, but, between us, we eventually figured out who most were; they would later scan and send all the family pictures they inherited from their father and aunt. One particularly interesting identification was of Wilhelm’s wife, Antonie, who entirely unbeknownst to me, had worked in my great-aunt Franziska Bruck’s flower school in Berlin. (Figure 25) Stories of other people shown in the family pictures will be the subject of future posts, as they led me to other discoveries.
