“For the dead and the living, we must bear witness.”—Elie Wiesel
“To forget the dead would be akin to killing them a second time.”—Elie Wiesel
NOTE: This article tiers off my previous post dealing with my Uncle Fedor, and a postcard he mailed on his 14th birthday from Breslau, Germany. For most of my readers, I expect this article will be of limited interest, so briefly let me explain why I’ve written it. With the exception of my Uncle Fedor, I had never heard of the other people whose names appear on the postcard. I had low expectations when I started gumshoeing, so was pleasantly surprised when I figured out all their identities. I was even more delighted when I found pictures of the person to whom the card had been mailed. Sadly, I also felt an obligation to share with readers the fate of my great-aunt Charlotte Berliner, and in a small way remember that she once existed. And, finally, I wanted to tell about the various databases I checked to uncover the vital events of the named people.
In the previous Blog post dealing with my Uncle Fedor Bruck, readers will recall that on his 14th birthday on August 17, 1909, my uncle went on a hot-air balloon ride in Breslau (today: Wrocław, Poland). Along with “Alfred & Lotte,” all signed a card postmarked from a mail train, copied here (Figures 1a & 1b), addressed to “Fräulein Helene Rothe” and sent to the attention of “Martin Rothe” in Meseritz in the province of Posen, Prussia (today: Miedzyrzecz, Poland). This was the first time I came across the surname “Rothe” in my family research.
I had been told by my parents that members of my grandmother Else Berliner’s (Figure 2) family had immigrated to New York. While I’d never met them growing up, my parents had occasional contact with them in America. These included two of my father’s first cousins, Peter Berliner and his sister (Figure 3); Ilse’s husband, Walter Goetzel, was even a witness at my parent’s wedding. (Figure 4) Gradually, though, our families lost contact. Still, without too much difficulty I was able to find Peter Berliner’s ancestors, though too late to meet Peter who died in 2000. It was while researching him in ancestry.com, however, that I learned his parents were Alfred Berliner and Lotte Berliner, née Rothe, thus, the great-uncle and -aunt “Alfred & Lotte,” who, along with my Uncle Fedor, signed the card postmarked in 1909 from Breslau, Germany. Hence, the Rothe family is related to the Berliner family by marriage.
Figure 2-My grandmother Else Bruck, née Berliner (1873-1957)
During a visit to the Polish State Archives in Raciborz in 2014, I discovered the certificates for two of Alfred and Lotte Berliner’s three known children, Peter Berliner and his sister, Ilse Goetzel, née Berliner. Both of these documents confirmed that Lotte Berliner, née Rothe, was their mother.
I discovered additional information about my great-uncle Alfred Berliner from familysearch.org, the Mormon Church website. Microfilm roll 1184448, containing Jewish death records from Ratibor, confirmed Alfred died there on February 19, 1921, and that his wife Lotte Berliner was present. (Figure 5) Readers may remember Alfred Berliner was a brewer and the owner of the “M. Braun Brauerei” in Ratibor. Alfred was interred in the former Jewish Cemetery in Ratibor, and a photo of his tombstone exists among the photos archived at the Muzeum Raciborzu that I examined in 2015. (Figure 6)
While all these documents provided conclusive evidence of when and where Alfred Berliner died, I did not yet know his wife’s fate. Previously, I’ve made mention of the database: Östliche preußische Provinzen, Polen, Personenstandsregister 1874-1945 (Eastern Prussian Provinces, Germany [Poland], Selected Civil Vitals, 1874-1945). Not only was I able to locate Alfred and Lotte Berliner’s marriage certificate here (Figures 7a & 7b), but I also was able to find Lotte Berliner’s birth certificate (she was born Charlotte Henriette Rothe) (Figures 8a & 8b), that of two of her siblings, Helene Lina Rothe (Figure 9) and Curt Isidor Rothe (Figure 10), the names of her parents, Martin Rothe and Babette Pinner, and the death certificate of her father Martin. (Figure 11) Thus, with the historic documents found in the “Eastern Prussian Provinces” database, I was now certain that the 1909 postcard had been sent to Lotte Berliner’s sister, Helene Rothe, to the attention of Lotte and Helene’s father, Martin Rothe.
Figure 12-March 1964 passport picture of Helene Rothe to whom 1909 postcard was sent by her sister Lotte and brother-in-law Alfred Berliner
I previously mentioned I was able to locate descendants of Peter Berliner and his sister Ilse, in America. Through them, I even obtained photos of the Helene Rothe to whom the 1909 postcard had been sent. (Figure 12) I also learned a little about “Tante Lena,” as she was affectionately known; members of the Goetzel and Berliner families visited her a few times in Landau in der Pfalz, Germany, where she then lived. They learned that her husband, Dr. jur. (lawyer) Johann Alois Schönhöfer, a non-Jew, hid her in a basement and protected her throughout WWII, and that she emerged severely malnourished, with a deformed back. Knowing where Helene Rothe had lived, I contacted the Rathaus, basically City Hall, in Landau, and obtained a copy of her death certificate and learned she died there on January 17, 1981. (Figure 13)
Lotte Berliner was the last name on the 1909 postcard whose fate I had still to work out. When researching one’s Jewish relatives during the Nazi era, at some point one must consider they may have been murdered in the Holocaust, and search their names in the database of victims. Such was the case with my great-aunt Lotte Berliner. She is listed in Yad Vashem, as having been deported from Berlin, Germany to Auschwitz-Birkenau aboard “Transport 27, Train Da 13 on January 29, 1943,” arriving there a day later (Figure 14); whether Lotte relocated to Berlin after her husband’s death is unknown. A recently added feature on Yad Vashem allows users to view the route trains took to transport their victims to the extermination camps, in the case of my great-aunt Lotte, Auschwitz-Birkenau. (Figure 15)
NOTE: The last two Blog posts have dealt with three of my grandfather Felix Bruck’s sisters, two renowned personages and a third who gave birth to a well-known artist. My grandfather had two additional surviving siblings, both of whom fled Berlin during the Third Reich never to return, and their stories will be the subject of upcoming posts. However, in this Blog post, I will talk about my father’s oldest brother, Dr. Fedor Bruck, and, tell his life story and relate his compelling tale of survival in Berlin during the era of the National Socialists. This is a story I’ve looked forward to relating to readers on account of some of the historic figures who played a direct and indirect role in my uncle’s life.
As a child, my Uncle Fedor was interested in hot-air balloons. Among my father’s surviving personal papers, there exists a postcard sent by my uncle to his maternal aunt’s sister on his 14th birthday, that’s to say on August 17, 1909, when his aunt and uncle, Alfred & Charlotte (“Lotte”) Berliner, took him on a hot-air balloon ride in Breslau, Germany (today: Wrocław, Poland). (Figures 2a & 2b) By researching the names on the postcard, I was able to entirely reconstruct a branch of my family I had previously been unaware using the “Eastern Prussian Provinces” database cited above.
Beyond the names, however, the postcard is interesting for multiple reasons. It came from an association (“des Artillerie-Vereins 1908, Ratibor und Umgegund”) founded in 1908 by former artillery soldiers from Ratibor and the surrounding area; the club’s stamp appears in the upper right-hand corner of the card. The artillery association partially supported itself by offering hot-air balloon rides, and the balloon pilots, Ulrich Gaebel and Hans Zynwi (?), signed their names. The oval cancellation mark, “Breslau-Oderberg,” specifically indicates the postcard was stamped and postmarked aboard a mail train, traveling the 256 miles between these locations; such mail trains were apparently common in Germany until 1945. The photo was taken from a hot-air balloon at a height of 150 meters, and shows the new Town Hall in Leipzig, a city in Saxony 231 miles to the west of Breslau. “Luftschiffer,” printed on the backside of the postcard, refers to German airship (balloon) units.
My Uncle Fedor fought for the German Army in World War I, and was assigned to the 89th Infantry Division as part of their fire brigade. (Figure 3) For a time in 1916, he was stationed in the Ukraine on the Eastern Front. A postcard written by my Uncle Fedor during his deployment there also survives among my father’s personal papers. This one is one dated September 3, 1916, and was written by my uncle to his Aunt Franziska Bruck in Berlin, the famed florist, in which he proudly tells her he has been promoted to the rank of a non-commissioned officer. (Figures 4a & 4b) My uncle’s duties on the Front ended when he was wounded, wounds from which he fully recovered.
By 1921, my Uncle Fedor had obtained a dental license from the University of Breslau. He owned his practice in Liegnitz (today: Legnica, Poland) (Figure 5) from November 1924 through April 1936 (Figure 6), when he was forced out of business by the National Socialists. Already, by March 1932, they had relieved my uncle of his responsibilities as municipal school dentist (“Schulzahnarzt”) for schools in small communities surrounding Liegnitz (Figures 7 & 8); a Schulzahnarzt merely examined pupils‘ teeth, advising them on whether a followup with a dentist was required. There was widespread support among German dentists for the National Socialist ideology, so in expectation of their rise to power many dental organizations displaced their Jewish colleagues as a sign of “anticipatory obedience.“ Since my uncle could no longer practice dentistry in Liegnitz, he left for Berlin in 1936.
Figure 9-My Uncle Fedor with Irmgard Lutze, the married lady with whom he had two children
During his time in Liegnitz, my uncle had an illicit love affair with a married non-Jewish woman (Figure 9) by whom he fathered two children, my first cousins. As offspring of a Jewish man, this could have been dangerous to the children and their mother, but because the cuckolded husband never betrayed them both children survived into old age.
After leaving for Berlin, for a period of time at least, my uncle could still work there, though under very trying circumstances. He continued to have his own practice at Fasanenstraße 20 in Berlin-Charlottenburg for a while. However, as a result of the “Regulation for the Elimination of the Jews from the Economic Life of Germany,” after February 1939, my uncle had his dental license revoked. Only in November 1939 was he again certified, but then only as a “Zahnbehandler,” which meant he could only treat Jews and relatives.
Interestingly, the archives at the Centrum Judaicum Berlin show that during this period, specifically on June 11, 1939, he converted from Judaism at the Messiah Chapel in Berlin’s Prenzlauer Berg, Kastanienallee 22. My Uncle Fedor must still have believed even at this late date that conversion from Judaism would alter his fate.; my theory is that as a wounded veteran of WWI, it was totally inconceivable to him that the Germans would incarcerate or murder him.
Figure 10-My Uncle Fedor’s “Holocaust Badge” of the specific design that Jews living in Germany, Alsace, Bohemia and Moravia were required to wear during the Nazi era
For several months starting in March 1941, my uncle had the good fortune of managing the practice of a colleague preparing to emigrate, and then, again, in June 1941, he took over a well-equipped practice located in the Kürfurstendamm. As a result, for a period of time he was better off economically than other Jews still in Germany, although by January 1942, he had been permanently displaced from this last office by a National Socialist colleague. (Figure 10)
Eventually, in a letter dated October 12, 1942, my uncle was summoned by the Gestapo to present himself to an “age transport.” Realizing this was a death sentence, he fled to a friend in Berlin-Dahlem and went underground. Roger Moorhouse, in his book entitled “Berlin at War: Life and Death in Hitler’s Capital 1939-1945,” estimates that of the 11,000 Jews who went underground in Berlin during the war years of 1939-45, only about 1400 survived the war, of which my uncle was one. Time and again, Uncle Fedor had good fortune. When his friend, Dr. Sieber, was arrested on February 15, 1943, by the Gestapo in his presence, he miraculously escaped. In the ensuing months, my uncle found refuge with a cousin or hid in “green belts,” coal cellars, and parks.
Most helpful to him during his underground odyssey was a dentist by the name of Otto Berger, a right-minded individual who was adamantly opposed to National Socialism. (Figure 11) Berger somehow was able to illegally procure papers for Fedor in the name of Dr. Friedrich Burkhardt, matching my uncle’s own initials; without these papers, it is certain that Fedor would not have survived the war. In March 1944, both Berger and Fedor were among nine survivors from a group of 44 people who had sought refuge in a basement destroyed by Allied bombers. Following this narrow escape, for a short period Fedor again hid with his cousin before returning to live with Berger, first in Berlin-Zehlendorf, then in Berlin-Steglitz. The last apartment was destroyed by fire on the eve of the Russian capture of Steglitz on April 26, 1945.
The capture of this part of Berlin marked the beginning of the next phase of my uncle’s life. When Fedor had his own practice in Liegnitz, he trained as one of his dental assistants a woman named Käthe Heusermann, née Reiss. (Figure 12) After Fedor was forced to close shop in Liegnitz and move to Berlin, she too moved there, and from 1937 on, she was in the employ of Dr. Hugo Blaschke, Hitler’s American-trained dentist. (Figure 13) Following the Russian capture of Berlin, on May 4, 1945, Fedor visited his former dental assistant Käthe Heusermann in the Pariserstraße in Berlin-Wilmersdorf, and she encouraged him to apply to take over Dr. Blaschke’s dental office, which had only been lightly damaged. As a victim of National Socialism, he was entitled to such consideration.
Figure 13-Dr. Hugo Johannes Blaschke (1881-1959), Hitler’s American-trained dentist from 1933-1945
Dr. Blaschke’s dental office was located at Kürfurstendamm 213 (Figure 14), and was at the time situated in the Russian sector of Berlin. With the approval of the Russian commandant, Fedor Bruck was assigned Blaschke’s office and living quarters. Post-war Berlin phone directories for both 1946 (Figure 15) and 1948 list Fedor Bruck as a “Zahnarzt” (dentist) occupying these premises, as indeed he did until he left for America in 1947 (his name continues to show up in the 1948 phone directory even though he was no longer in Berlin).
My uncle’s former close association with Käthe Heusermann allowed him to become a “witness” to history. As Dr. Blaschke’s dental assistant, Käthe had always been present when Hitler was undergoing dental treatment. Because the dental records describing the work performed on Hitler had been lost or destroyed, Käthe Heusermann was questioned by the Russians and asked to give her opinion on the basis of memory whether the parts of the jaw found in the Reich Chancellery garden were those of Hitler. She recognized the dental work and affirmed they were indeed Hitler’s remains. Several days later, she conveyed this information to my uncle, which inadvertently placed him at risk.
Eventually, both Käthe Heusermann, and Dr. Blaschke’s dental technician, Fritz Echtmann, were captured by the Russians and imprisoned for some years. Stalin seemingly did not want any witnesses who could confirm Hitler’s fate, perhaps wishing to perpetuate the myth that Hitler had survived the war and was an ever-present danger. Since my uncle also knew of Hitler’s death, he too was in jeopardy of being kidnapped by the Russians, so, forewarned by the Americans, he decided to emigrate to the United States in July 1947.
Fedor Bruck never met Dr. Blaschke because he had already fled to the southern part of Germany by the time Fedor was assigned his dental practice. Blaschke was eventually captured and interrogated by the Americans, and imprisoned for a period of time. Fedor was able to salvage the abandoned dental records of some Nazis treated by Dr. Blaschke, although the records dealing with more prominent figures such as Himmler, Ley, Göring, Goebbels, and others were taken away by the Russians when they searched the premises. The salvaged records survive in the estate of Fedor’s grandson. (Figures 16a & 16b)
The events described above, including Fedor Bruck’s knowledge of some of these happenings, are documented in at least three books and one newspaper account. These include H.R. Trevor-Roper’s “The Last Days of Hitler,” Lev Bezymenski’s “The Death of Adolf Hitler,” and Jelena Rshewskaja’s German-language book “Hitlers Ende Ohne Mythos.”
Trevor-Roper’s book was initially published in 1947, and this edition makes no mention of Fedor Bruck. However, in the Third Edition of this book published in 1956, a lengthy introduction was added by the author. This was made possible by the release, in that year, of Russian prisoners whom Trevor-Roper had been unable to question during his initial inquiries in 1945. Fedor Bruck’s name and witness to the events described above are discussed on pages 32-33. In Lev Bezymenski’s book, the events are described on pages 53-57, and my uncle Dr. Bruck’s name is cited on page 53. Ms. Rshewskaja’s book mentions Dr. Bruck on page 120 and following. In addition, Fedor Bruck was visited on July 7, 1945, in the former office of Dr. Blaschke by three British correspondents, including William Forrest of the “News Chronicle.” Relying on the account provided by Fedor Bruck, William Forrest chronicled in an article published on July 9th the positive identification of Hitler’s remains.
Figure 17-My Uncle Fedor and my Aunt Verena Bruck, née Dick, on their wedding day on March 4, 1958
Like my father, my Uncle Fedor never again practiced dentistry after he arrived in America. In December 1952, Fedor Bruck became a citizen of the United States, and legally changed his name to Theodore A. Brook. He married for the first time on March 4, 1958. (Figure 17)
For a period of time after his arrival in American, my uncle worked as a night watchman in a church in the Upper Westside of Manhattan, although he eventually landed a job with the State of New York as a toll-collector on the Tappan Zee Bridge. (Figure 18) Unlike many Jews who’d been professionals in their countries of origin, my uncle never bemoaned the fact he’d had to change his vocation in America; I remember my uncle as a boundless optimist for whom the glass was always half-full. He loved his job as a toll-collector because it allowed him to engage in another of his lifelong passions, namely, coin collecting. His wife, my Aunt Verena, once recounted to me the time my uncle approached her about buying a coin book to identify valuable coins and estimate their worth. While she initially balked at the “extravagance“ of such an expense, she quickly changed her tune when my uncle regularly came home from his job with valuable coins exchanged for those of lesser value.
Figure 19-My Uncle Fedor on September 12, 1981, five months before he passed away
My Uncle Fedor passed away in Bronxville, outside New York City, in February 1982. (Figures 19, 20 & 21)
Figure 20-My Uncle Fedor astride a horse in Liegnitz in 1926 dressed as an “English Gentleman”
Figure 21-My Uncle Fedor astride a horse in Liegnitz in 1926 dressed as “Frederick the Great”
REFERENCES
Bezymenski, Lev
1968 The Death of Adolf Hitler: Unknown Documents from Soviet Archives. Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc. New York.
Brook, Richard
2013 Prinz von Preußen—Hotel rodziny Bruck. Almanach Prowincjonalny 1/2013 (17) (p. 58-73).
Lutze, Kay
2006 Die Lebensgeschichte des jüdischen Zahnarztes Fedor Bruck (1895-1982) Von Liegnitz nach New York. Zahnärztliche Mitteilungen 96, Nr. 10, 16.5 (p. 124-127)
Moorhouse, Roger
2010 Berlin at War. Basic Books. New York
Rshewskaja, Jelena
2005 Hitlers Ende Ohne Mythos. Neues Leben, Verlag. (120 ff.)
Trevor, Roper, H.R.
1947 The Last Days of Hitler. The Macmillan Company. New York.
1987 The Last Days of Hitler (Sixth Edition). The University of Chicago Press. Chicago (p. 32-33)
Note: The previous Blog post dealt with two of my renowned great-aunts, Franziska and Elsbeth Bruck, whose connection to Berlin is indisputable. This post discusses the third of four great-aunts on my paternal side who appears never to have resided in Berlin, but about whom I learned much from examining Franziska and Elsbeth’s personal papers archived at Berlin’s Stadtmuseum; for this reason, I will talk about her now. By contrast with her sisters, Hedwig was not a renowned personage, although I came to learn about one of her sons who was an exceptionally gifted and well-known artist who will be the subject of a future Blog post. On account of Hedwig’s renowned son, and because I was able to partially trace and reconstruct Hedwig’s life through archival records discovered in five different countries, her story is interesting. The far-reaching forensic evidence I found for this great-aunt speaks to my family’s diaspora and also informs the reader how they may need to approach their own family investigations.
REMINDER ABOUT FIGURES: HYPERLINKS ARE FOUND BELOW SOME FIGURES AND MAPS ALLOWING READERS TO OPEN THESE ITEMS IN A SEPARATE WINDOW AND VIEW THEM AT FULL SIZE
Figure 1-Hedwig Löwenstein, née Bruck (1870-1949)
Insofar as I remember, my father, Dr. Otto Bruck, never once spoke of his great-aunt, Hedwig Löwenstein, née Bruck (Figure 1), when I was growing up. Whilst I didn’t know it at the time, as a child, I met two of Hedwig’s three children, Jeanne (“Hansi”) and Heinz, in Nice, France. Nice is where my parents first met in the late 1940’s, and where I spent many summers with my maternal grandmother. Coincidentally, my mother was introduced to my great-aunt Hedwig after she started dating my father, but remembers only that she was a large woman.
I will relate the story of my great-aunt Hedwig chronologically, although how I learned what I learned was far from neat and linear. I first learned of Hedwig’s existence from the register of Jewish births from Ratibor, Germany, and found she was born there on March 22, 1870 (Figure 2); the Jewish records from Ratibor are now available on-line through familysearch.org. In 2014, when I examined the personal papers of Hedwig’s two sisters archived at Berlin’s Stadtmuseum, I only knew that Hedwig’s parents had given birth to eight children; I suspected two had died at birth or shortly thereafter, and nothing I’ve learned since refutes this.
Our next planned stop in 2014 after visiting Berlin’s Stadtmuseum was the Polish State Archives in Racibórz, Poland, where most birth, marriage, and death records from the 1870’s onward are archived. Among the documents I unearthed there was Hedwig’s Marriage Certificate where I discovered she was married in Ratibor to a Rudolf Löwenstein on September 17, 1899.
For readers who have accessed and studied vital event records, such as marriage certificates, you are well-aware they contain a wealth of valuable family information. Typically, they include the spouse and groom’s dates and places of birth; their religion(s); their occupations; their residence; the names and occupations of their in-laws; often, where their in-laws live and whether they are still alive; and the names of any witnesses. A copy of Rudolf & Hedwig’s two-page Marriage Certificate is attached here (Page 1 & Page 2), along with the translation of the document.
According to the Marriage Certificate, Rudolf Löwenstein was born on January 17, 1872 in a place then-called Kuttenplan, in the former Kingdom of Bohemia. (Figure 4) At the time, the Kingdom of Bohemia was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire; after WWI, Bohemia became the core part of the newly formed Czechoslovak Republic. On January 1, 1993, Czechoslovakia became two separate countries, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Since the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire following WWI, Kuttenplan has been known as Chodová Planá, Czech Republic. It is located in Western Bohemia and was once considered part of the Western Sudetenland, which was annexed in 1938 by the Nazis following the Munich Agreement because it had a predominantly German population.
Hedwig’s Marriage Certificate thus pointed me to a third country, namely, the Czech Republic, to learn more about she and her family. First, I contacted the City of Chodová Planá (mestys@chodovaplana.cz) asking them where I could obtain a copy of Rudolf’s birth certificate. They directed me to the town of Plzeň (called Pilsen in English and German) in Western Bohemia, who in turn sent me to the National Archives in Prague. The vital records for former Jewish communities are archived there, and are also available on-line:
Suffice it to say, the National Archives in Prague is efficient and helpful, so for any readers who may need to access Jewish records from the Czech Republic, the process is seamless. Not only was I easily able to obtain Rudolf Löwenstein’s birth register listing (Figure 5), but I was also able to retrieve that of his brother, Ernst Löwenstein (Figure 6), who was a witness at Rudolf’s wedding in Ratibor in 1899.
I later learned Ernst Löwenstein died in the Shoah. A “Page of Testimony” (Figure 7), submitted in 1990 to Yad Vashem by Ernst Löwenstein’s daughter, Charlotte Fišerová, indicates he was murdered in 1941 in the Łódź Ghetto in German-occupied Poland. I tried to locate descendants of Charlotte Fišerová, acting under the assumption she was no longer alive (this was entirely logical as her father was born in 1869), by contacting the “Ministerstvo Vnitra České Republiky,” or the Czech Department of Administrative Affairs; however, as often happens in countries with an authoritarian history, only direct relatives are entitled to access vital records.
I learned a few other interesting things from Hedwig and Rudolf’s Marriage Certificate beyond dates of events. First, at the time they got married in Ratibor in 1899, Rudolf was a “kaufmann” or “merchant” in Munich. Second, my grandfather, Felix Bruck, was one of the witnesses at his sister’s wedding. And, third, as just mentioned, Ernst Löwenstein was also a witness at his brother’s wedding. I suspected at least one or more of Hedwig and Rudolf’s children had been born in Munich, and eventually confirmed their oldest child, Fedor, was born there on April 13, 1901. At the time, I had yet to work out the order in which their three children had been born. (See table at the bottom of this post for the summary of vital events for Hedwig, her husband, her three children, and her brother-in-law.)
Aware of my great-aunt’s connection to Nice, France, and knowing her daughter Hansi Goff (Jeanne Löwenstein) had spent much of her life there, another planned stop in 2014 was l’Hôtel de Ville in Nice, basically City Hall, where many of the city’s recent administrative records are housed. The reason why Hedwig decided to relocate to Nice from Danzig after her husband’s death (see below) is unknown. Regardless, France was the fourth country where I was able to obtain vital record information on Hedwig Löwenstein and her immediate family. I clearly remember arriving at l’Hôtel de Ville early on a Monday morning before the office got busy, which, in retrospect, was a veritable stroke of luck. We were assisted by Monsieur Jean-Jacques Delmonte whose official title is “Pour le Maire, L’Officier de l’Etat Civil délégué” or “For the Mayor, the Registrar Delegate.” Because the bureau was relatively quiet, and because Monsieur Delmonte was impressed that I spoke fluent French, he set me loose in the room with the voluminous books containing death certificates while he collected and certified the other records I’d requested. This enabled me to unearth records I would not otherwise have found.
As naturally happens when foreigners emigrate elsewhere, their prenames and surnames are often changed. Thus, in the case of my great-aunt Hedwig’s “l’acte de décès,” or Death Certificate, she was identified as “Edwige Bruck”; while it made no difference in my great-aunt’s case, death registers and death certificates in Nice are alphabetized using a woman’s maiden name, which family researchers may not always know.
I was also able to find the death certificates for two of Hedwig’s three children, specifically, for Jeanne (“l’acte de décès”) and Fedor (“l’acte de décès”). Because the German “ö” with an “umlaut” in “Löwenstein” is typically written in English or French as “oe,” it would normally be filed under “Loewenstein”; however, in Fedor’s case, his name in the death register was inadvertently alphabetized under “Lowenstein” (Figure 8), a situation that almost resulted in my not finding his death certificate. During my visit to l’Hôtel de Ville in Nice, I uncovered death certificates for a few other individuals unrelated to my great-aunt and these will be the subject of future Blog posts.
Figure 9-Reception Bureau at Cimitiere Caucade
Having discovered my great-aunt Hedwig’s death record, I next inquired where she might be buried, operating under the assumption she’d been interred. I was directed to another branch of City Hall, La Mairie de Nice, specifically, the “Service De L’administration Funéraire.” Here, they graciously informed me that my great-aunt had been entombed at the Cimitiere Caucade (Figure 9), on the outskirts of Nice, and gave me the “Concession” or “tomb” number. Armed with this information, we next paid a visit to the graveyard, and quickly located my great-aunt’s headstone (Figure 10) in the Jewish section of the cemetery; her son Fedor Loewenstein’s headstone (Figure 11), his name correctly spelled, sits alongside that of his mother, although it is clear their bones are no longer interred. It is not uncommon for bones to be disinterred and placed in a charnel house if a family stops annual payments for tomb maintenance.
While Fedor’s headstone lies alongside that of his mother, I found no indication nor was I given any information on where his sister Hansi’s tomb might be located. Let me explain how I discovered what happened with Hansi’s remains. Among my great-aunt Elsbeth’s personal papers at the Stadtmuseum there exist letters from a married couple from Nice by the name of Erich and Mary-Jo Fischer, who, as it turns out, were Hansi’s best friends. My parents were acquainted with them through my father’s first cousin, and met them on a few occasions in Nice. At l’Hôtel de Ville in Nice, I obtained Erich Fischer’s “l’acte de décès,” so knew he was no longer alive. Because I did not find his wife’s death certificate, I thought she might still be alive though quite old. So, using the address I found on the letters sent to my great-aunt in Berlin from Nice, on the spur of the moment, my wife and I went to the address. Imagine our surprise when Mary Jo Fischer answered the door, still residing in the same apartment!! In 2014, she was 89 and her memory was beginning to fail. (Figure 12) While she clearly remembered my father’s cousin, the only other thing of note she mentioned was that she and her husband (Figure 13) had always intended to have Hansi buried alongside their family in “La Trinite Cimetiere” in Nice; unfortunately, her body was removed and cremated before this could happen. I had hoped that Mary-Jo would have photos of Hansi and her family, in particular of Rudolf Löwenstein, but this hope went unrealized.
Figure 12-Mary-Jo Fischer in 2014, Nice, FranceFigure 13-Mary-Jo Fischer’s late husband, Erich Fischer (1910-1991)
Jeanne Löwenstein’s (Hansi Goff)“l‘acte de décès” provided a key piece of information. It told me that she’d been born on September 9, 1902 in Danzig, at the time a part of West Prussia. After learning this, I actually found a photo she’d sent of herself to my father taken on March 8, 1929 in Zoppot (today: Sopot, Poland) in the Free State of Danzig. (Figure 14) With a known connection to Danzig, I checked familysearch.org for Jewish vital records from there, and found two pertinent rolls of microfilm. I made an educated guess they might contain information on when Hedwig and Rudolf’s third child was born, and also when Hedwig Löwenstein’s husband, Rudolf, died. I already knew from Danzig’s Address and Phonebooks from the 1920’s and 1930’s that Rudolf had owned a “Annoncen-Expedition und Reklamebüro” in Danzig, that’s to say, an office for placing advertisements. (Figure 15) Both of my educated guesses paid off handsomely. Roll number 1184407, including Danzig births between 1905 and 1939, listed Heinz Löwenstein’s birth as March 8, 1905 (Figure 16), while roll number 1184408, listing deaths in Danzig between 1889 and 1940, recorded the death of Hedwig Löwenstein’s husband, Rudolf, as August 22, 1930. (Figure 17) Because of the way registers were typically photographed by the Mormon Church, the most recent births are usually found first, and the oldest at the end. For this reason, I discovered Heinz’s birth listing on the very last line of the very last page of the register, having by then give up any hope of finding him listed! As an aside, I later learned the original birth, marriage and death records from Danzig were destroyed during WWII, making the microfilms the only surviving copies.
Figure 18-Two distant Bruck cousins, Ronny, left, from Alicante, Spain & Michael, right, from Haifa, Israel in 2014 in Hilden, Germany
Readers will learn in an upcoming Blog post about Hedwig’s younger brother, Wilhelm “Willy” Bruck; during the 1930’s, he was able to escape to Barcelona, Spain with his family. While seeking my great-uncle Willy’s descendants, early in 2014, I discovered distant cousins, one of whom named Michael Bruck lives outside Haifa, Israel. (Figure 18) Israel was the fifth country where I was able to locate information on Hedwig’s family, namely, for her son Heinz Löwenstein. Following WWII, and for reasons that remain opaque, Heinz moved to Israel, eventually winding up in Haifa. Many letters he wrote to his aunt Elsbeth Bruck survive and are archived at Berlin’s Stadtmuseum. In one letter Heinz writes that he has changed his name to “Hanoch Avinary.” Because the letter is typed, there is no mistaking Heinz’s Hebrew name. (Figure 19)
I enlisted Michael Bruck’s assistance to try and obtain Hanoch Avinary’s Death Certificate. I assumed this would be relatively straight-forward since I had both his Hebrew name and address in Haifa. This was not the case, although Michael eventually obtained a copy of Hanoch’s “Burial Certificate,” not to be confused with a Death Certificate, from the Chevra Kadisha in Haifa. Mysteriously, the Burial Certificate shows his name as “HANOCH AVNERI.” Much of the information on this certificate is either missing or incorrect, suggesting there was no next-of-kin to provide accurate information. I knew from my parents that Hanoch was never married. (Figure 20) Regardless, from the Burial Certificate, I was able to learn that Hanoch died on August 10, 1979, and was buried ten days later in the “Sde Yehoshua Cemetery” in Haifa. Obtaining death certificates in Israel for recently deceased individuals is restricted to direct descendants.
Much of Hanoch’s life remains a mystery to me although there are tantalizing clues I am still trying to track down. Clearly, Heinz survived WWII in France, either in captivity, as a member of the French Resistance, or both. Growing up, I heard Heinz would “intentionally” allow himself to be arrested by the Vichy French and taken to a detention center where he would help interned Jews escape. I have written to a French organization that retains a list of French Resistance members from WWII but they find no evidence that Heinz was a member; possibly, as a Jew, he was given an alias which may explain why no trace of him can be found. I suspect, but may never confirm, that Heinz’s decision to immigrate to Israel after the war may be tied to the role he played in France during the war and/or, possibly, to the Vichy government’s collaboration with Nazi Germany during WWII, which Heinz was a witness to.
As previously mentioned, among my great-aunt Elsbeth’s personal papers at Berlin’s Stadtmuseum are letters written by Hedwig’s daughter, Hansi Goff. Since many of these letters were typed, albeit in German, I retyped many into Google Translate trying to understand more about Hansi’s life. I had low expectations, but one letter that stood among all the others was written on October 30, 1946. Hansi’s brother, Fidel Löwenstein, the accomplished artist mentioned earlier, had passed away in Nice from Hodgkin’s Lymphoma on August 4, 1986. Several months later, Hansi wrote to her Aunt Elsbeth that one of Fidel’s paintings had posthumously sold for 90,000 French Francs. Aware this was a significant sum in those days, I contacted an acquaintance from l’Hôtel de Ville in Nice, asking how I might obtain a copy of Fidel’s obituary hoping to learn more about him. Realizing how curious I was about Fidel Löwenstein, she sent me links to several contemporary articles about him. Suffice it for the moment to say, what I have learned about Fidel has sent my family research in a direction I would never have anticipated. This story will be the topic of an intriguing future Blog post.
From knowing virtually nothing about vital dates and places for my great-aunt Hedwig and her relatives, by accessing archives in five different countries (Germany, Poland, France, Czech Republic, and Israel), I have now pieced together most of this information (this does not include the microfilm of Jewish vital records I accessed through the Mormon Church in Salt Lake City). I summarize what I learned in the following table:
NOTE: This Blog post will mark the beginning of a series of articles dealing with the Bruck family’s indelible connection to Berlin. My grandfather, his five siblings, along with my father, his two siblings and most of his cousins, as well as many extended family members lived in Berlin during the 19th or 20th centuries. A good starting point for this conversation begins with two of my great-aunts, their links to Berlin, and their eventual fates.
Figure 1-My great-grandfather, Fedor Bruck
On multiple occasions over the years, I have ordered from the Mormon Church in Salt Lake City, Utah, the three rolls of microfilm records for the town of Ratibor, Germany, where my father, Dr. Otto Bruck, was born in 1907. These rolls, once only available on temporary loan to local Mormon Family History Centers, are now accessible on-line through familysearch.org. One microfilm roll includes Jewish birth records covering the period from roughly 1817 through 1874. Here, I discovered that my paternal great-grandparents, Fedor Bruck (Figure 1) and Friederike Bruck, née Mockrauer (Figure 2), had seven children born in Ratibor, although I was aware of an eighth child whose birth record I eventually located in the Polish State Archives in Raciborz, as discussed in an earlier post. The oldest child was my grandfather, Felix Bruck, born in 1864, followed by Charlotte (born 1865), Franziska (born 1866), Elise (born 1868), Hedwig (born 1870), Robert Samuel (born 1871), Wilhelm (1872), and, finally, Elsbeth (born 1874). (Figure 3) Growing up, I rarely heard my father mention any of these great-aunts and-uncles, but I most definitely never heard Elise and Robert mentioned and have found no documentary evidence to suggest they survived into adulthood, so presume they died young.
Figure 2-My great-grandmother, Friederike Bruck, née MockrauerFigure 3-My great-aunt Elsbeth with her older brother, Wilhelm “Willy” Bruck
Many years ago, my now-deceased German cousin told me the personal things, mostly papers, of two of my renowned great-aunts, Franziska and Elsbeth Bruck, are archived at the Stadtmuseum (Figure 4), then located in Berlin. It wasn’t until 2014 that the museum, by then moved to Spandau on the outskirts of Berlin, had organized my great-aunts’ papers and that I could thoroughly review them. (Figure 5) Being particularly interested in my paternal grandfather and his five surviving siblings, as well as their respective offspring, my great-aunts’ documents provided an ideal point of departure for learning more about these relatives and beginning to unravel my family’s diaspora.
Figure 4-Stadtmuseum in Spandau, on the outskirts of BerlinFigure 5-My great-aunts Franziska & Elsbeth’s personal papers
The family items at the Statdtmuseum include academic papers, diaries, numerous professional and personal letters, family photographs, awards, and miscellaneous belongings. The articles of primary interest to me were naturally the family letters and photographs, particularly those from and showing people I had encountered growing up or had learned about from my father. The letters came in several forms: handwritten in Sütterlin; handwritten in standard German; typewritten in standard German; or occasionally hand-or-typewritten in English. My wife and I took high resolution photographs of all the letters and pictures for future reference, although, to this day, most have not been translated. However, I have transcribed a few of the typewritten letters written by one of my father’s first cousins using Google Translate, and, while the translations are horrid, I can understand the gist of the letters. The matters discussed are often mundane in nature, although on occasion I’ve uncovered a real gem, some of which will be the topics of future Blog posts.
It goes without saying that Franziska and Elsbeth’s personal papers are the basis of some of what I learned about them, but as relatively prominent personages, I have been able to supplement, albeit limitedly, their bios from other sources. Below I provide a succinct summary of their lives, inasmuch as I’ve uncovered, illustrated with items from the Stadtmuseum or places associated with them.
Figure 6-Franziska Bruck
Franziska Bruck (1866-1942) (Figure 6)
Franziska, born on December 29, 1866 in Ratibor, Germany, was the second daughter of the owners of Bruck’s “Prinz von Preußen” Hotel, Fedor and Friederike Bruck (the Bruck’s Hotel has been the subject of a previous post). Little is known of Franziska’s early years in Ratibor. Her father, Fedor Bruck, passed away in 1892 when she was 26 years old, so as one of the three oldest children, it is likely that along with her mother, and older brother and sister, they together ran the Bruck’s Hotel in Ratibor for a time.
Figure 7-My grandparents, Felix & Else Bruck, on their wedding day in 1894
Regardless, Franziska, along with her mother Friederike and her youngest sister Elsbeth, eventually left for Berlin in 1902, leaving the Bruck’s “Prinz von Preußen” Hotel in Ratibor to be managed by my grandfather and his wife, Felix and Else Bruck. (Figure 7) A February 1915 article, in a German journal entitled “Die Bindekunst,” featured Franziska and mentioned she had gotten her start in Berlin 10 years earlier, so roughly in 1905. She introduced into Germany a form of Ikebana, the Japanese art of flower arrangement, that was not initially taken seriously. It wasn’t until her first public show in 1907 at a special flower exhibition that her artistry and excellent taste began to be appreciated. And, in fact, a 1907 Berlin Address Book shows she was already in the flower business, first at Lützowstraße 27, and, no later than 1914, at nearby Potsdamer Str. 31a, both prestigious locations in central Berlin. By 1915, the Berlin Address Book shows she had both a “Blumenbinderei,” a flower shop, as well as a “Schule für Blumenschmuck,” a school where she taught her unique form of flower decoration. (Figure 8) By 1929, Franziska appears to have moved her flower shop and school to Charlottenburg in Berlin’s Westend, eventually running her shop from my aunt and uncle’s private home as the Nuremberg Laws took effect.
Family lore says the last German Emperor (Kaiser) and King of Prussia, who ruled until November 1918, was one of my great-aunt’s clients. There can be no arguing that Franziska had an illustrious cadre of clients. One of the pictures taken in her flower shop shows the last Crown Princess of Germany and Prussia, Princess Cecilie, touring her school. (Figures 9-10) Lyrical thank you letters (front & back of envelope, Page 1, Page 2, Translation) to Franziska from the renowned German poet, Rainer Maria Rilke, also survive indicating he too was an enthusiastic client of my great-aunt. My great-aunt wrote two beautifully illustrated books, one in 1919, entitled “Blumen and Ranken,” the second in 1927, called “Blumenschmuck,” that eloquently speak to her artistry and skill as a proponent of Ikebana.
Post 11-Prinzregentenstraße 75, Franziska Bruck’s last domicile in Berlin
The last year in which Franziska’s flower shop is listed in the Berlin Phone Directory is 1936, by which time my aunt Susanne Mueller, nee Bruck, and uncle Dr. Franz Müller had departed Germany. My great-aunt Franziska last lived at Prinzregentenstraße 75 (Figure 11), also in Berlin’s Westend, where she likely committed suicide on January 2, 1942 only days after turning 76 years of age, no doubt after she was told by Nazi officials to report for deportation. She is buried in the Weissensee Jewish Cemetery in East Berlin (Figure 12), and a stolperstein, or a small, cobble-sized memorial (Figure 13), recognizes her as a victim of Nazi oppression at her last known address.
As previously mentioned, my aunt Susanne Mueller, née Bruck, and her husband, Dr. Franz Müller, left Berlin in 1936 in favor of Fiesole, Italy, an Etruscan hill town just above Florence. My aunt and uncle’s 1931 Marriage License states that my aunt was a Managing Director in her aunt Franziska’s flower shop, suggesting my aunt and great-aunt were close to one another. According to family accounts, my aunt and uncle were able to emigrate to Italy through the intercession of the Italian Ambassador to Germany (1932-1935), Vittorio Cerruti. Perhaps, Elisabetta Cerruti (Figure 14), the beautiful Hungarian and Jewish wife of the ambassador, played some role in facilitating Susanne and Franz Müller’s emigration through contact they initiated in Franziska’s flower shop?
Figure 14-Elisabetta Cerruti, wife of Italy’s Ambassador to Germany, Vittorio Cerruti
Following my aunt and uncle’s departure from Berlin, my great-aunt Franziska Bruck went to visit them in Fiesole, Italy in 1937. I discovered at the “Archivio Comunale Di Fiesole,” that’s to say, the Communal Archive in Fiesole, a document entitled “Soggiorno degli Stranieri in Italia,” or “Stay of Foreigners in Italy,” dated October 11, 1937, granting Franziska a tourist visa good for two months. Given my great-aunt’s ultimate fate, one can only wonder how events might otherwise have played out had she abandoned her life in Berlin and stayed in Italy or emigrated elsewhere.
Figure 15-Elsbeth Bruck
Elsbeth Bruck (1874-1970) (Figure 15)
On the occasion of my great-aunt’s 95th birthday, the “Berliner Zeitung,” a Berlin daily founded in East Germany in 1945 that continued publication after German reunification, did a feature story on Elsbeth; this article provides some of my great-aunt’s own words to describe her life, which she documented in an unpublished autobiography. By her own admission, Elsbeth was the family’s black sheep, which ultimately lead to her being booted from the house. As the daughter of the owners of the Bruck’s Hotel, she chafed against their middle-class values and became an actress; by 1904, she was employed by the famous German movie director, Max Reinhardt. She had an out-of-wedlock child in 1907, a son that sadly passed away after only two-and-a-half months.
Elsbeth became a peace activist during WWI and joined the pacifist “Bund Neues Vaterland” (New Fatherland League), leading to her being charged with high treason and spying and jailed in 1916 and 1918. During the era of the Weimar Republic between 1918 and 1933, she was involved in many social, cultural and pacifist activities, and by 1931 she was a member of the managing committee of the pacifist “Universal League of Mothers and Educators.” By January 30, 1933, when Adolf Hitler was appointed Germany’s Chancellor, Elsbeth fled first to Heidelberg, then to Stuttgart, and finally in 1934 to Prague. Here, she was supported by a variety of aid organizations, including the Jewish relief committee and a committee set up exclusively to help pacifist refugees, augmented by a small stipend from the latter organization; by 1938, when it became evident that WWII would not come to a quick end, she was offered refuge by an English Quaker settlement and provided an exit visa from Czechoslovakia to England, where she rode out the war.
Figure 16-Walter Ulbricht, former East German head of state
Elsbeth did not return to Germany until 1946, at which time she settled in East Berlin. While Elsbeth’s ascent into the upper ranks of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) are unknown to me, there are a few clues as to her influence as a Communist apparatchik. One of my cousins accompanied her father to visit Elsbeth in East Berlin in 1969, and clearly remembers my great-aunt describing her role as “logopäde” to Walter Ulbricht (Figure 16), a German Communist politician and the East German head of state until his death in 1973. Having no idea as to the significance of this term, I had to turn to my German relatives to explain it to me. The literal translation is “speech therapist,” although there is no indication Mr. Ulbricht had a speech impediment, akin to the stutter suffered by King George VI of England, made famous in the movie “The King’s Speech.” Rather, Mr. Ulbricht was widely derided in West Germany at the time for his use of Saxonian colloquialisms, expressions no modern-day politician wishing to further his political career would today employ. Possibly, Elsbeth’s role was as advisor on elocution and public speaking. As an aside, Mr. Ulbricht is infamous for his lie, “Niemand hat die Absicht eine Mauer zu bauen,” or “no one has any intention to build a wall (between the East and West halves of Berlin),” uttered only days before construction of the Berlin Wall began overnight on August 13, 1961.
There are two other things that attest to the high esteem with which Elsbeth was regarded within the former GDR. First, she was awarded the “Vaterländischer Verdienstorden in Silber,” the “Patriotic Order of Merit in Silver,” for “special services to the state and to the society.” (Figure 17) Perhaps, equally impressive, Elsbeth is buried in East Berlin’s “Friedrichsfelde Socialist Cemetery” (Figure 18, 19), only feet away from the central obelisk of the “Memorial to the Socialists” (Figure 20); ten graves surround this central obelisk, including that of Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxembourg, founders of the German Communist Party, as well as that of the aforementioned Walter Ulbricht. Clearly, in death, Elsbeth is in lofty company.
Figure 18-Entrance to the “Friedrichsfelde Socialist Cemetery” where Elsbeth is buried
Figure 19-Elsbeth Bruck’s grave
Figure 20-The central obelisk, “Memorial to the Socialists,” in East Berlin’s “Friedrichsfelde Socialist Cemetery”
In upcoming Blog posts, I will often refer to discoveries emanating from a closer examination of my great-aunts’ personal papers and photographs. Some stories will provide telling indications as to the circle of friends and acquaintances with whom family members interacted, while others will chronicle the involved path I followed in uncovering more of my family’s history.
My father, Otto Bruck, arrived in America aboard the Queen Elizabeth in 1948, and eventually came to be known as Gary Otto Brook after he became a naturalized U.S. citizen. The first job my father had was working at Childs Restaurants near Times Square in Manhattan, which was one of the first national dining chains in the United States and Canada; it was a contemporary of the better-known Horn & Hardart and preceded McDonalds.
After a summer stint as a tennis pro at Grossinger’s Catskill Resort Hotel in 1949, my father went to work for one of his cousins, a gentleman by the name of Franz Mantheim Kayser (Figure 1), who then operated a small import firm. Franz and his then-wife, Catherine “Ulrike” Kayser nee Birkholz (Figure 2), had had one son born in 1938 in London, John Kayser. (Figure 3) After John Kayser’s mother passed away in 2005 in New Jersey, by then long married to another man, who had predeceased her, and known as Catherine Sterner, John asked whether I knew how we are related. At the time, I had absolutely no idea. John and I would return to the question in 2010. While the intervening years had given neither of us further insight, John thought our ancestral connection went back to Ratibor; he also told me his grandmother’s maiden name was “Elly Schueck,” which he thought might help unravel the mystery. So, armed with these seemingly opaque clues, I set myself to work.
Figure 2-John Kayser’s mother in 1992, then known as Catherine SternerFigure 3-John Kayser in 2014 in Berlin at the entrance to 22 Kaiserdam Strasse, near the apartment building his parents last lived before fleeing Germany in 1938
Figure 4-John Kayser’s great-grandfather, Adolph Schueck (photo courtesy Larry Leyser)
Until just this year, most microfilm records available from the Church of Latter Day Saints (LDS), could only be ordered and viewed for a limited time at a local Mormon-operated Family History Center, or physically examined at the main LDS Library in Salt Lake City. Over the years, I had ordered the Jewish records from Ratibor on several occasions, and eventually created a partial database of births, marriages and deaths of people of possible interest to me. After John Kayser told me his grandmother’s maiden name and our possible connection to Ratibor, I reviewed the database I’d created and, lo and behold, I found Elly Schueck’s name; she had been born in Ratibor on September 7, 1874, and her parents’ names were Adolf Schueck and Alma Schueck, nee Braun. (Figures 4, 5, 6) For me, this cracked the code because my own great-grandmother on my grandmother’s side was born Olga Braun, so I concluded John and I have an ancestral link related to the Braun family. The database I had created from the Jewish microfilm records also included the birth information for John Kayser’s great-grandmother, Alma Braun, born on June 12, 1851 to Markus Braun and Caroline Braun, nee Spiegel. Wanting to confirm all of this, I re-ordered the Jewish microfilm for Ratibor.
After receiving the relevant microfilm, I focused on Markus Braun (1817-1870) and Caroline Braun, nee Spiegel. Ultimately, I identified twelve children they had together, born between 1847 and 1860, and established that John Kayser and I are third cousins (i.e., our respective great-grandmothers were sisters). As an aside, Caroline Braun likely died before Markus Braun because he re-married a woman named Johanna Braun nee Goldstein, with whom he had two more children, including a son named Markus, who appears to have been born in 1870 shortly after the father Markus Braun died.
Figure 8-Postcard dated July 28, 1912 written by my great-grandmother Olga Berliner nee Braun, sister of Alma Schueck nee Braun, to my great-aunt Franziska Bruck (back)
Figure 9-My great-grandfather, Hermann Berliner, Ratibor brewery owner
My father’s surviving personal papers include a postcard dated July 28, 1912 (Figures 7, 8) written by my great-grandmother, the aforementioned Olga Berliner, nee Braun, to her niece Franziska Bruck in Berlin, the famed florist mentioned in earlier Blog posts. The postcard illustrates the brewery first owned by M. Braun in Ratibor. There exists a virtually complete listing of historic German breweries entitled “Das historische Brauereiverzeichnis der ehem. Ostgebiete und Polen,” which translates as “The historical breweries of the former Eastern Territories and Poland,” at the following URL: http://www.klausehm.de/Pagepolenr.html. Ostgebiete refers to the areas of Silesia, Pomerania, Brandenburg, and East and West Prussia. For Ratibor, there once existed 32 breweries, including one owned by “M. Braun,” and two connected to my great-grandfather, Hermann Berliner (Figure 9), his wife Olga Berliner, nee Braun, and their son, Alfred Berliner.
Ratibornow Raciborz
1a
Brauerei M. Braun
1622
Ratibornow Raciborz
1b
Herm. Berliner, vorm. M. Braun`sche Braunbierbrauerei
1910
Ratibornow Raciborz
1c
Brauerei Herm. Berliner, Inh. Alfred & Olga Berliner
1920
According to this database, the brewery owned by the original “M. Braun” dated to 1622 and appears to have been the second oldest in Ratibor after the “Ratiborer Schloßbrauerei Freund & Co.,” dated to 1567. (Figures 10, 11) Hermann Berliner, who died in 1910, owned the brewery originally held by “M. Braun.” His wife passed away in 1920, followed shortly thereafter by the death of their son, Alfred, in 1921. It’s unclear whether the brewery continued to be owned by either Braun or Berliner descendants following the deaths of Hermann, Olga and Alfred Berliner within a relatively short 11-year period.
There are a few things to observe from a close look at the front side of the postcard. (Figure 12) The business sign above the carriages reads “vorm. (=original owner) M. Braun.” By the time the photo was taken, prior to 1912 (the year the postcard was written), the brewery was already owned by Hermann Berliner as the “Berliner Brauerei, Ratibor” caption on the postcard tells us. Also, the carriage on the left has the name “H. Berliner” on its side, more evidence the brewery was already operated by Hermann Berliner and his descendants at the time the photo was taken.
Coupling the information from the postcard with data gleaned from both the microfilm of Jewish records and ancestry.com, one finds a gentleman named “Moises or Moses Braun,” coincidentally married to a Fanny Bruck. A definite link to Markus Braun has not yet been established although the years his children were born between 1843 and 1855 strongly suggests he may have been Markus Braun’s older brother. Moses Braun’s occupation at the time his first two children were born, respectively in 1843 and 1844, is “brauereipachter” or “tenant brewer”; this means that Moses Braun rented the house or factory where he had a license to produce beer. Interestingly, by 1849, his occupation was “partikulier,” or someone who lived without working, perhaps as a result of rental income. By 1853, his occupation is shown as “makler,” or estate agent, possibly a real estate agent or middleman of sorts. By contrast, Markus Braun is always identified as a “kaufmann” or businessman at the time of his children were born; perhaps, this included tenant brewer. In fact, on his son Markus Braun’s marriage certificate from 1900, long after the father had died, the father’s occupation was definitively specified as “brewery owner.” I surmise that the brothers together or sequentially operated the brewery, and, eventually, Markus Braun’s daughter Olga and her husband Hermann, and, ultimately, their son Alfred, inherited the operation.
The exercise I went through to pinpoint the family connection between John Kayser and myself revealed something unexpected. Again, utilizing the Jewish microfilm records from Ratibor, I identified another branch of the family who are descendants of Elly Schueck’s (John Kayser’s grandmother) sister, Auguste “Guste” Schueck. (Figure 13) The significance of this is that various surnames I heard my father mention while growing up in New York also had links extending back to Ratibor. I was eventually able to track this branch to Cleveland, Ohio, and many of the photos included in this Blog post come from the collection of Larry Leyser, a third cousin, once-removed. (Figure 14)
Figure 13-John Kayser’s great-aunt, Auguste “Guste” Schueck, with her granddaughter, Doerte Zweig (photo courtesy of Larry Leyser)Figure 14-Larry Leyser, my third cousin once-removed, and the great-grandson of Auguste “Guste” Schueck
Pressed on the matter, my father would never have been able to explain to me how all the various families that wound up in America after WWII were related to us nor would he have had any interest in doing so. Nonetheless, as an exercise in doing forensic genealogy, this has been endlessly entertaining finding the family connections to people living in America today whose roots go back to Ratibor, where the original brewer M. Braun first established his business in 1622. Going forward, I will touch on some of these people and their connections to my family, both in America as well as harkening back to Europe.
After my wife and I examined the records at the Polish State Archives in Racibórz, our English-speaking research guide, Ms. Malgosia Ploszaj, suggested we visit the site of the former Jewish Cemetery once located on Leobschützerstrasse [today: Wilczej Górze and Fojcik głubczycki streets] on the outskirts of Raciborz. (Figure 1) Knowing family members had
once been buried here, I was particularly intrigued to see their final resting place. Malgosia had already warned my wife and me that the Jewish Cemetery no longer exists as such but consists merely of ivy-covered pathways meandering through a forested area scattered with fragmentary pieces of headstones (Figure 2), a cemetery originally 5 acres in extent. Beyond the occasional piece of headstone, the only original element of the former Jewish cemetery is the front entrance gate.
According to the International Jewish Cemetery Project (IJCP), this cemetery served the Jewish Community from about 1817 until the last two burials were placed here, respectively, in 1940 and 1941; by their estimate, no more than 200 Jews remained at the time of the “Final Solution” in Ratibor in 1942. While it may ultimately have been the intention of the Nazis to systematically destroy all Jewish cemeteries, by the end of the Third Reich some were still left intact, including the one in Ratibor. The reasons for this are not entirely clear, although its location on the outskirts of town may partially explain why it was not destroyed. However, with no surviving postwar Jewish community to tend the graveyard, nature was in effect gradually reclaiming it. Consequently, by 1973, a decision was taken by the Communist authorities to, in the words of the IJCP, “decommission the cemetery [and allow] masons from the surrounding area . . .to reuse them [the headstones] in Catholic cemeteries.” IJCP describes the gravestones dating from the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries as “. . .black, white or pink marble or granite and sandstone. . .in traditional shapes or obelisks, boulders and more artistic forms with a wide array of decoration.” The inscriptions were a combination of Hebrew and German. Supposedly, following the Jewish cemetery’s decommissioning, it was used as a community garden.
Tangentially, I became intrigued about the destruction of Jewish culture. There is a widely circulated notion that once having exterminated the Jews, the Nazis planned a “Museum to an Extinct Race”; in 2015, while on a walking tour of WWII sites in Prague, our tour guide in fact brought this up. Prague is widely associated as the place where this museum was to be located because upwards of 100,000 Jewish liturgical, religious, historical, and archival objects were archived there at the Central Jewish Museum. Suffice it to say, the idea of such a museum is a myth and there never existed a Nazi plan to create such a museum. The phrase “Museum to an Extinct Race” was in fact coined by Jews following WWII. For readers interested in reading about this myth, I direct them to a video of a fascinating lecture given by Dale Bluestein, former Director of the “Memorial Scrolls Trust”: https://vimeo.com/120373842
In recent years, the Polish schools have apparently taken an interest in re-discovering their Jewish history. Malgosia showed me the product of one such endeavor, a booklet prepared by local students and published by the European Union, written in both Polish and German. This booklet is entitled in German “Vergessene Geschichte der Juden aus dem Ratiborer Lande,” which translates roughly as “Forgotten history of the Jews from the land of Ratibor.” (Figure 3) The cover page includes a hand-tinted drawing of the former Jewish synagogue, along with additional pictures inside showing the conflagration as it was destroyed on Kristallnacht, November 9-10, 1938.
Figure 4-Moorish-style Jewish synagogue as it looked in 1889 when it opened
Following Kristallnacht, the Moorish synagogue (Figure 4), which had originally been built in 1889, survived as a ruin until 1958, when Communist authorities demolished it.
Inside this publication are multiple photographs of the headstones of the former Jewish cemetery, amazingly, including one of my great-grandparents grave, Hermann Berliner (1840-1910) and Olga Berliner, nee Braun (1853-1920). (Figures 5, 6) Malgosia graciously obtained an original copy of this booklet for me, and explained that the majority of the headstones from the former Jewish cemetery were photographed before the gravestones were disposed of. It remains unclear whether these photographs were taken by a well-intentioned individual
Figure 6-My great-grandfather Hermann Berliner (1840-1910)
interested in documenting history, or by the Polish Security Services with some nefarious purpose in mind to further “torment” dead Jews and their descendants come back to reclaim stolen Jewish property.
The most remarkable thing, I came to discover, is that the original photographs of all the headstones from the former Jewish cemetery are archived at the Muzeum Raciborzu. (Figure 7) My wife and I learned of their existence too late to actually schedule a visit there in 2014, but immediately upon my return to the States that year, I contacted one of the curators at the museum and asked
Figure 7-Curator Adam Knura at entrance to Muzeum Raciborzu
if we could examine these photos on a subsequent visit; the archivist indicated this would present no problem. So, upon our return to Raciborz in 2015, again in the company of Malgosia, we examined and photographed all the pictures. (Figures 8, 9)
The curators at the museum have created an Excel spreadsheet with the names of all the people once interred at the Jewish cemetery, along with their dates of birth and death, where this information can be gleaned from the pictures. A copy of this database was given to me. Over the years, I’ve had occasion to compare the birth and death information obtained for a few individuals from the headstones with comparable information obtained from original birth or death certificates for these same people, and, interestingly, I’ve found some discrepancies not owing to archival errors but, ironically, to incorrect dates being inscribed in stone. One can only wonder whether surviving relatives “lost track” of the year their ancestors had been born. In any case, the Excel spreadsheet with the names of the entombed has provided a wealth of useful family history information.
The previously discussed booklet included a touching photo of “small” headstones once belonging to the graves of children who’d perished at birth or shortly thereafter. (Figure 10) I knew that my great-grandparents on my grandfather’s side had eight children but had only been able to track the fate of six of them. I was hoping these headstones would shed some light on the fate of the other two, but this was not to be.
Figure 1-Entrance to the “Archiwum Państwowe w Katowicach Oddział w Raciborzu“
In the previous Blog post dealing with the Bruck’s Hotel “Prinz von Preußen,” the hotel in Ratibor owned by the Bruck family for three generations, the reader learned about the “Archiwum Państwowe w Katowicach Oddział w Raciborzu” (“State Archives in Katowice Branch in Raciborz”) where civil records of births, marriages, and deaths from the 1870’s onward are to be found. (Figure 1) I explained to the reader the genesis of this situation, namely, that the Imperial Chancellor Otto von Bismarck and the liberal nationalists in Germany saw the existence of a Church loyal to the Pope as a threat to national unity, and, for this reason, sought to bring the Church under the control of the Prussian state. This conflict with the Church was known as the Kulturkampf (“Cultural Struggle“). Among other things, this resulted in mandating that births, marriages, and deaths be recorded as civil events. Consequently, today, a researcher is compelled to show up in person to access these records at the State Archives.
Figure 2-Ms. Malgosia Ploszaj from Rybnik, Poland examining the civil records at the State Archives in Raciborz
In the previous Blog post, I explained I’d been referred to an English-speaking Polish lady, Ms. Malgosia Ploszaj, who is studying the former Jews of her hometown of Rybnik, about a half-hour from Raciborz. Prior to our visit to Raciborz in May 2014, Malgosia had already visited the State Archives there and discovered the existence of an inch-thick portfolio of administrative documents related to management of the Bruck’s Hotel from about 1912 to 1928.; these have been discussed in the previous Blog post. When my wife and I visited Raciborz in May 2014, Malgosia accompanied us to the State Archives and helped us efficiently navigate the plethora of civil documents. (Figure 2)
My father’s older sister, Susanne, was born in Ratibor in 1904, and my father, Otto, three years later in 1907. (Figure 3) Once I understood their birth documents would not be among the Jewish religious records found on Mormon Church microfilms, it became a priority to find them with the civil records at the State Archives. I knew my father’s older brother Fedor had been born in 1895 in the nearby town of Leobschütz [today: Głubczyce, Opole Voivodeship, Poland], so had no expectation of uncovering his birth certificate. With Malgosia’s assistance, we were very quickly able to locate the birth records of both my father and my aunt. (Figure 4)
Figure 3-My Aunt Susanne, my father Otto and my Uncle Fedor as children in RatiborFigure 4-Birth Register (“Urodzenia”) for the period 1874-1902 found at the State Archives in Raciborz
Figure 5-My great-aunt Elsbeth Bruck, right, with her older brother Wilhelm “Willy” Bruck as children in Ratibor
I found several other original family documents at the Polish State Archives in Raciborz that ultimately provided context for artifacts in my possession, and also pointed me to other towns and countries to find additional historic family records. At the State Archives in Raciborz, I also found the Birth Certificate for my great-aunt, Elsbeth Bruck. (Figure 5) Previously, I’d located the birth record for Elsbeth’s seven older siblings, born to my great-grandparents Fedor Bruck and Friederike Bruck, nee Mockrauer, on the Jewish microfilm records from Ratibor, but was puzzled as to why I’d never found hers. When I eventually learned that Elsbeth was born in the midst of the Kulturkampf, it became obvious her record would be with the civil documents, which is where I ultimately found it and where I also discovered her given name was not Elsbeth but “Elisabeth.”
Figure 6-My grandparents, Felix “Lixel” Bruck and Else Bruck, nee Berliner, on their wedding day, February 11, 1894
A particularly interesting document I found was the marriage certificate for my grandparents (Page 1 & Page 2), Felix Bruck and Else Bruck, nee Berliner, dated February 11, 1894; prior to the discovery of this certificate, I didn’t know when my grandparents got married although I have photos of them on their wedding day. (Figure 6) This document was interesting principally because it provided context for an “erinnerung,” or remembrance, I’d found among my father’s papers. The name on the cover page of this remembrance, written in difficult-to-decipher Gothic font, said “Willy Bruck,” and was dated “February 11, 1894.” I incorrectly assumed it related to a ceremony or rite in honor of a relative who’d died on this date; unfortunately, I could think of no relative by this name who’d died on this day. After a German cousin recently examined this remembrance, all became clear. Felix’s younger brother was Wilhelm or “Willy” Bruck, and the remembrance I thought was a death announcement was actually an ode or poem Willy had written on the occasion of his brother’s marriage, “in brotherly love.” (Figure 7) While I never knew my grandfather, and my father only spoke sparingly of him when I was growing up, from this remembrance I also learned Felix’s nickname was “Lixel.”
Figure 7-Cover of remembrance poem written by Wilhelm “Willy” Bruck for his brother Felix’s wedding “in brotherly love”Figure 8-Wilhelm “Willy” Bruck standing next to his velocipede in 1889 in Ratibor, possibly the same bike his brother once fell off of
In the poem Willy Bruck wrote in honor of his brother Felix’s marriage, he teased his brother about a few incidents that occurred to him as a young lad, such as the time he threw a stone through an expensive window and when he fell off his velocipede. Coincidentally, among the family pictures is one of Willy Bruck himself standing next to his own velocipede, perhaps a hand-me-down from his older brother! (Figure 8)
In addition to the marriage certificate I found for Felix Bruck, I also located the marriage certificates for two of his younger sisters, Charlotte Mockrauer, nee Bruck (1865-1965) (Page 1 & Page 2), and Hedwig Loewenstein, nee Bruck (1870-1949) (Page 1 & Page 2). These historic documents are of interest primarily because they eventually helped me unravel the complete family tree for these branches of my family, and, in turn, lead to some compelling discoveries. In time, I will relate to the reader these tales which are rather involved and span multiple countries.
NOTE: This Blog post marks a transition from stories about Tiegenhof, the town in the Free State of Danzig where my father, Dr. Otto Bruck, was a dentist, to Ratibor in Upper Silesia, Germany [today: Raciborz, Silesian Voivodeship, Poland], the town where my father was born in 1907. The next series of posts will cover the Bruck family’s association and connection to Ratibor, although future posts will likely take me back to Tiegenhof, as I uncover more information about my father’s circle of acquaintances and friends there. This post will detail the Bruck family’s historic ties to Ratibor, but will also discuss the available documentary evidence, unearthed in both in Ratibor and elsewhere, that inspired and guided much of the research I later undertook related to my family.
NOTE ABOUT FIGURES: HYPERLINKS WILL BE FOUND BELOW SOME FIGURES AND MAPS ALLOWING READERS TO OPEN THESE ITEMS IN A SEPARATE WINDOW AND VIEW THEM AT FULL SIZE.
The Bruck family’s most enduring link to the former German town of Ratibor, Upper Silesia (Figure 1), was its long-standing ownership of the Bruck’s “Prinz von Preußen“ Hotel. (Figures 2, 3) Family control of the hotel appears to have extended through three generations, beginning no later than the mid-19th Century and continuing through the first quarter of the 20th Century. Samuel Bruck (1808-1863) (Figure 4) and his wife Charlotte Bruck, nee Marle (1811-1861) (Figure 5) were the original family owners of the Prinz von Preußen. In time, Samuel’s son, Fedor Bruck (1837-1894) (Figure 6) and his wife Friederike Bruck, nee Mockrauer (1836-1924) (Figure 7) took over the hotel. Following Fedor’s death in 1892, his widow Friederike, and two of her daughters, Franziska Bruck (1866-1942) and Elsbeth Bruck (1874-1970), ran the hotel. When Friederike, Franziska and Elsbeth left for Berlin in 1902, the hotel passed into the hands of the oldest of Fedor and Friederike’s children, Felix Bruck (1864-1927) (Figure 8) and his wife, Else Bruck, nee Berliner (1873-1927) (Figure 9), that’s to say, my grandparents. None of Felix and Else’s children ever managed the hotel, although I recall my father telling stories of working in the hotel as a young boy fetching wine from the cellar, a sommelier in training.
Figure 8-Felix Bruck (1864-1927)Figure 9-Else Bruck, nee Berliner (1873-1957)
There are indirect clues as to when Samuel Bruck acquired the Prinz von Preußen. Jewish birth records available for Ratibor on-line through the Mormon Church’s website at familysearch.org (Microfilm Roll #1184448), cover the period from approximately 1817 through 1874. Charlotte Bruck is known to have given birth to at least nine children between 1831 and 1849. Birth records of the time recorded the profession or occupation of the father, and in all instances for Samuel Bruck, either “Kaufmann” or “Handelsmann” (merchant, tradesman, or businessman) is documented; Samuel Bruck is known to have been a successful wood merchant before he purchased the Prinz von Preußen. By contrast, the birth records for his son, Fedor Bruck, always registered his occupation as “Gastwirt” or “Gasthofbesitzer” (innkeeper). This suggests that Samuel Bruck bought the Prinz von Preußen following the birth of his last child in 1849 after his career as a wood merchant.
While no longer in existence, the Bruck’s Hotel Prinz von Preußen once stood at Oderstraße 16 [today: ulica Odrzanska], at the corner of Oderstraße and Niederwallstraße [today: 3 Maja, Sawickiej, Podwale] (Figure 10), only a short distance from the River Oder. John Murray’s English-language “A Handbook for Travelers on the Continent,” a traveler’s guidebook published in 1850, touted the “Prinz von Preußen” as a very comfortable hotel; later editions characterized the hotel as the best one in Ratibor. At the time, a town of 6,000 inhabitants, Ratibor was described as an ideal place for persons traveling by rail between Breslau [today: Wroclaw,Poland] and Vienna, then part of the Austrian Empire, to spend the night. The journey by rail from Ratibor to Breslau was a six hour trip, while the train ride from Ratibor to Vienna took 12 to 13 hours.
Figure 11-King Leopold I of Belgium who spent a night at the Prinz von Preußen in 1853
The “Prinz von Preußen” must have been one of the most fashionable hotels to stay at in this part of Prussia because in a book on Ratibor, entitled “Geschichte der Stadt Ratibor“ by Augustin Weltzel, the author records that on May 10, 1853, King Leopold I of Belgium spent the night. (Figure 11) King Leopold I was a German prince who became the first king of the Belgians following their independence in 1830, and reigned between July 1831 and December 1865; he was the uncle of Queen Victoria.
A historian, Ms. Katrin Griebel from Zittau, Saxony, who has studied the surviving personal papers of Franziska Bruck (Figure 12) and Elsbeth Bruck (Figure 13) archived at the Stadtmuseum in Spandau outside Berlin, to which future Blog posts will be devoted, has gleaned some anecdotes about the Bruck family and the hotel from the personal papers of these two great-aunts. According to Ms. Griebel, the building occupied by the Bruck’s Hotel was the former palace of a marquis. Upon the nobleman’s death, the palace became known as the “Prinz von Preußen.”
Personal family papers also tell us that Fedor Bruck, son of Samuel Bruck, did not enjoy working in the hospitality industry, preferring to be a musician. He took violin lessons, and is reputed to have spent a goodly sum of money honing this craft. His daughter, Elsbeth Bruck, was an ardent socialist her entire life. When she was working in the Prinz von Preußen, she is reputed to have been engaged to a Polish cook working in the kitchen there. Her parents were not at all amused, and sent her to the Riesengebirge [today: Krkonoše (Czech), Karkonosze (Polish); mountain range in the north of the Czech Republic and the southwest of Poland] to “get some fresh air and clear her head.” Later, Elsbeth was an actress and peace-activist, and was imprisoned in Görlitz in 1916 and, again, in 1918, for her activism. When she lived in Munich, she gave birth out-of-wedlock to a child who died in infancy (Wolfgang Bruck’s Death Certificate No. 448). Her family is known to have disapproved of Elsbeth’s free-spirited lifestyle. During the Nazi era, she was in exile first in Czechoslovakia, then in London. After the war, she returned to Germany and spent the remainder of her life in the German Democratic Republic, formerly East Germany. She is buried in the Zentralfriedhof Friedrichsfelde in the former East Berlin, adjacent the “Memorial to the Socialists.” (Figure 14)
In March 2014, I attended a presentation, sponsored by the Jewish Genealogical Society of Los Angeles, by Mr. Roger Lustig, a specialist on genealogical records from the former Prussian state. Following his presentation, I contacted Roger, and narrated my family’s connection to Ratibor. I described the microfilm records I’d been able to find for Ratibor through familysearch.org, records very familiar to Roger, that broadly cover the period from 1814 to 1940, but indicated there appear to be gaps; I asked Roger whether some of the documents were to be found elsewhere or had been destroyed during WWII.
Figure 15-Entrance to the „Archiwum Państwowe w Katowicach Oddział w Raciborzu“
Because Roger also has ancestors from Ratibor, he was anxious to help me out. He made clear that most of the birth, marriage, and death records from Ratibor from roughly the 1870’s onward would be found in the “Archiwum Państwowe w Katowicach Oddział w Raciborzu“ (Polish State Archives in Raciborz) (Figure 15), that’s to say, as civil rather than religious documents. The basis for this situation is rooted in the 19th Century when the Roman Catholic Church was under frequent attack by liberal nationalists in Germany and elsewhere in Europe who saw the existence of a Church loyal to the Pope as a threat to national unity. The most hostile of these attacks on the Church took place in Germany, and was known as the Kulturkampf (“Cultural Struggle“). The Imperial Chancellor Otto von Bismarck sought to break the influence of the Catholic Church which he saw as a threat to the recently established German Empire. While the Kulturkampf was primarily a dispute between the Roman Catholic Church and the Prussian state, clearly, when recording of Catholic marriages and other vital events at a registry office of the state became mandatory, other religious denominations were affected.
In any event, the Church of Latter Day Saints, has not yet gotten around to making copies of the registers in the civil archives, so the only way to view them is to personally visit these repositories across Poland. My wife and I already had plans to spend thirteen weeks in Europe in 2014 visiting places from Poland to Spain associated with the Bruck family diaspora, so decided to incorporate another visit to Raciborz.
To facilitate my investigations, Roger offered to put me in touch with an English-speaking Polish researcher, Ms. Malgosia Ploszaj, who has spent many years researching the Jews from her hometown of Rybnik, located only a half-hour from Raciborz; he explained she could help me navigate the State Archives in Raciborz. Roger quickly sent Malgosia an email telling her about our planned visit and our interest in examining the archival records there. Within hours, Malgosia sent an introductory email offering her assistance during our upcoming visit. Since our scheduled trip to Raciborz was still several months away, Malgosia even offered to visit the Polish State Archives in Raciborz in advance to scope out what might be available on the Bruck family’s ties to Ratibor.
Imagine my surprise when barely a week later Malgosia recounted her visit to the State Archives, and told me she‘d found a portfolio of documents related to the Bruck’s Hotel “Prinz von Preußen,“ covering the period from roughly 1912-1928; needless to say, I was amazed such documents would have survived the destruction wrought by WWII. Eventually Malgosia photographed and sent me all these documents, and I forwarded them to German relatives who reviewed and gleaned interesting tidbits from them.
While most of the handwritten documents related to the Bruck‘s Hotel are penned in Sütterlin, the signatures, including several by my grandfather, Felix Bruck, are Latinized. The subject of the documents are primarily administrative, and record dealings with the local police who apparently handled such matters as approving extended business hours to accommodate returning WWI veterans; undertaking inspections of the hotel and recording violations; authorizing sale of alcoholic beverages; reviewing and approving proposed hotel renovations; and authorizing subleasing of the hotel’s restaurant under the auspices of the Bruck name.
Of particular interest in the portfolio are the hotel’s floor plans. (Figure 16) The hotel is known to have had two kitchens, one to prepare normal meals and another to deliver kosher fare to its Jewish guests. In published advertisements of the hotel, respectively, from 1925 (Figure 17), 1926 (Figure 18), and 1931 (Figure 19), numerous amenities were noted. These included 40 well-appointed hotel rooms with running warm and cold water, a conference room, an exhibition area, a secretarial pool, a hotel phone as well as a phone to call other parts of Germany, a first class kitchen, good cultivated wine and beer, “real” liquor, local access to hockey and tennis arenas and more.
It is not entirely clear when the Prinz von Preußen was sold by my grandfather, Felix Bruck. The archival dossier includes a August 1925 document in which the entrepreneur “Max Kunzer” is allowed to install a beer pressure device using carbolic acid rather than compressed air. However, by August 1926, the owner of record is a “Hugo Eulenstein” who requests and is granted permission to sell alcoholic beverages in the Bruck’s Hotel. Mr. Eulenstein‘s association with the hotel may have been brief. By 1931, the Bruck’s Hotel had a new “Geschaftsleitung” or “executive board,” headed by an “Ernst Exner,” formerly of the Sachs Hotel in Patschkau [today: Paczków, Nysa County, Opole Voivodeship, Poland].
The length of Mr. Exner’s ownership of the Bruck’s Hotel is unknown, although it is certain the Bruck’s Hotel was damaged in the latter throes of World War II by the Russian Army, although how badly remains unclear. One of the curators at the Muzeum Raciborzu sent me an outstanding photo of Ratibor’s main square, probably taken towards the end of the 1940’s or early 1950‘s, showing workers demonstrating around the Virgin Mary’s Column with St. Jacob’s Church seen along the right side; squarely in the center of the picture in the background can be seen the Bruck’s Hotel still standing tall. (Figure 20)
The decision to tear down the Bruck’s Hotel and other brick structures once located along Oderstrasse appears related to at least two things. While the structural integrity of the hotel may have been compromised during the war, it appears that Polish authorities were also looking to scavenge bricks throughout Poland to rebuild Warsaw and, perhaps, at the same time eradicate some traces of the German-era. Regardless, today the Bruck’s Hotel no longer stands and the cultural landscape of the area where it once stood looks vastly different.
Felix Bruck’s name appears in a 1916 Berlin phone directory, and shows him living in Berlin-Charlottenburg in the same area as his sister Franziska Bruck (Figure 12), a famous florist about whom more will be said in future posts. Even if the sale of the Bruck’s Hotel did not take place until the early 1920’s, quite possibly my grandfather had ceded management of the hotel to another family member or it was being co-managed with a potential buyer. Felix Bruck is known to have suffered from diabetes, a disease which may have been better treated in Berlin but which, ultimately, was the cause of my grandfather’s demise in 1927.
The Bruck’s Hotel “Prinz von Preußen” Hotel was probably referred to as either the “F. Bruck’s Hotel” or the “Prinz von Preußen.” This is borne out by silverware (knives, forks, spoons) in my possession, some of which have written on them “Prinz von Preußen,” and others which are inscribed with the name “F. Bruck’s Hotel.” (Figure 21) It seems likely that these items were taken as “souvenirs” by Felix and Else Bruck upon their sale of the hotel, and reflected the silverware in use in the dining room at that time. Regardless, the monogram of the three generations of Bruck family to have owned the hotel are reflected in the surviving silverware.
By now, readers have perhaps divined that where possible I enjoy illustrating my Blog posts with photos and artifacts related to the topic at hand that come from a variety of sources. In a future post, I’ll eventually relate to the reader the challenging process I went through to find two of my second cousins, that’s to say, my great-uncle’s grandchildren. Suffice it to say for now, that this great-uncle, Wilhelm Bruck visited his brother Felix at the Prinz von Preußen in Ratibor in June 1914, and wrote an endearing postcard to his wife Antonie „Toni“ Bruck who’d stayed behind in Berlin with their two children. (Figures 22, 23) A copy of this postcard was given to me by Wilhelm’s grandchildren after I eventually located them. The translation of this postcard can be found here.
1850 Handbook for Travelers on the Continent: Being a Guide Through Holland, Belgium, Prussia and Northern Germany, and Along the Rhine From Holland to Switzerland (Seventh Edition). John Murray, Albemarle Street. London (p. 437)
1856 Handbook for Travelers on the Continent: Being a Guide to Holland, Belgium, Prussia, Northern Germany, and the Rhine from Holland to Switzerland (Eleventh Edition). John Murray, Albemarle Street, London (p. 426)
Weltzel, Augustin
2010 Geschichte Der Stadt Ratibor (1861). Kessenger Legacy Reprints. Kessenger Publishing.
Among the people my father, Dr. Otto Bruck, was acquainted with in Tiegenhof, and may even once have considered good friends, were the owners of Tiegenhof’s Dampfmahlmuehle (steam-operated flour mill), Hedwig “Hedsch” Schlenger, nee Fenger (b. June 13, 1899, Tiegenhof, Free State of Danzig-d. June 3, 1982, Hannover, Germany) and her husband, Alfred “Dicken” Schlenger (Figure 1). Using the membership list in the Tiegenhofer Nachrichten, the annual periodical for former German residents of Tiegenhof and their descendants, I had the good fortune to locate Hedsch Schlenger’s grand-daughter, a delightful lady by the name of Beate Lohff, nee Schlenger (Figure 2), living in Meppen, Germany. Readers will recall from an earlier post that my father had recorded Hedsch Schlenger’s name by June 13th in his 1932 Pocket Calendar, a date Beate would later confirm was when her grandmother was born in 1899 in Tiegenhof.
Not only was I fortunate enough to locate Hedsch Schlenger’s grand-daughter, but I also had the indisputable “luck” to learn that Beate had inherited some of her grand-parent’s personal papers and surviving pictures, which Beate graciously shared with me. The pictures, some of which have been discussed and shown in previous posts, included people whom my father had once known, including two personal friends, Kurt Lau and Hans “Mochum” Wagner. Perhaps even more valuable was a 12-page diary Hedsch Schlenger had written covering the period from roughly September 1944 through August 1947 that I had translated into English; readers will correctly surmise this overlaps with the period when the Russians overran Tiegenhof and East and West Prussia and worked their way westwards towards the heart of Nazi Germany as the German war-machine collapsed. Hedsch Schlenger’s diary provides a fascinating, albeit limited, look at this period. The initial entry is dated June 1, 1945, with subsequent entries dated, respectively, June 24, 1945; July 22, 1945; August 29, 1945; May 1947 and August 1947. According to Beate Lohff (personal communication), a portion of Hedsch Schlenger’s diary has been lost and was likely destroyed.
In this Blog post, I have extracted several sections of Hedsch Schlenger’s diary to highlight contemporary personal and historic events; provided brief commentary on the events or people discussed; depicted some of the individuals mentioned; and, finally, illustrated, using a few of my father’s pictures, the areas through which Hedsch and her entourage likely passed. Since most of the people mentioned will be of scant interest to the reader, I will focus primarily on the broader contemporary historical events that Hedsch Schlenger touches on that readers may find more entertaining. The complete translated diary can be found under Historic Documents for anyone interested in reading it, although readers should be prepared to go through it with an Atlas in hand.
Hedsch Schlenger’s initial diary entry dated “Schwerin, June 1, 1945”: “By September 1944, we had survived 5 years of war. My husband [Alfred] passed away in August [1944] after being severely ill for 8 weeks; my 19-year-old son Eberhard was an aircraftsman in Breslau (today: Wroclaw, Poland) and only my second 13-year-old son Juergen was with me in Tiegenhof, where I lived with my mother-in-law in the mill and where my husband used to work as a mill merchant.”
Throughout her diary, Hedsch Schlenger refers to her mother-in-law as “Omama,” although her given name was “Martha Schlenger, nee Ruhnau.” More will be said about her fate later.
Hedsch Schlenger’s diary entry: “The Russians advanced further and further into East and West Prussia and on January 23, 1945, the first tanks appeared in Elbing [today: Elblag, Poland], 20km (ca. 13 miles east-southeast) away from Tiegenhof. At 8 in the evening we received the first order to evacuate. . . At 11 p.m. it was all cancelled as the danger should have been over, but at 5 in the morning the situation became very serious. . . It was the 24th, my husband’s birthday, when we left the beautiful mill site at 8:30 in the morning.”
On the road, we were soon driving in convoy and moved forward very slowly because of the ice. We drank hot coffee for the first time at 3 p.m. in Steegen [today: Stegna, Poland] (15km), and all the vehicles gathered at 7 p.m. . .in Nickelswalde [today: Mikoszewo, Poland] (25km). Our Wanderer (car) soon crossed the river on the ferry. . .”
Commentary: Steegen was a beach community north of Tiegenhof where my father often recreated (Figures 3 & 4). Nickelswalde was the major ferry-crossing point across the Weichsel River [today: Vistula], a ferry my father often took on his way to Danzig (Figure 5 & 6).
Hedsch Schlenger’s diary entry: “In Danzig, I met Ruth van Bergen. . .thanks to her, I went once more to Tiegenhof by car. Our house was completely occupied by soldiers and plundered. . .The mill was in use, which means new flour and whole grain were produced by means of an electric motor. . . Ruth van Bergen and I spent the night in [Tiegenhof] and one could hear shooting from the front-line, which was 8km away. The next day we drove back through Burnwalde [on the Weichsel], where another pig was slaughtered and packed for us to take. The ferry from Rothebude took 10 hours because the roads were full of convoys all the way to Danzig.”
I made it once more to Tiegenhof with Erna Baumfolk. . .That night we stayed with the Regehrs (uncle). . .In the afternoon, we drove back with the Wehrmacht. I had a feeling then that I will never see my home again. The cemetery was the only place that remained untouched. I will never forget that peaceful image amidst the war. Will I ever see my husband’s grave again?”
Commentary: The above describe Hedsch Schlenger’s last two visits to Tiegenhof from Danzig. Following the war, the Communist Government in Poland not only expelled most remaining Germans but also made a concerted effort to remove traces of German occupation, a pattern we see repeated in other cities and towns across the country. Consequently, while many German-era buildings still stand today in Nowy Dwor Gdanski, the cemetery where Alfred Schlenger and other Germans were once buried in Tiegenhof no longer exists.
Hedsch Schlenger’s diary entry: “The situation in Danzig became increasingly dangerous. The Russians reached Graudenz [today: Grudziądz, Poland], Schneidemühl [today: Piła, Poland] and were close to Dirschau [today: Tczew, Poland] and were close to Stettin [today:Szczecin, Poland]. If we stood a chance to go west by train we had to leave Zoppot [today: Sopot, Poland] (Figure 7) again. Many of our friends had left by ship but it was very difficult to get tickets; train tickets were hard to get. Philipsen, my brother-in-law, left on the “Gustloff” as boatman. The ship was torpedoed at the beginning of February near Leba [today: Łeba, Poland]. Most likely he died in the attack. My sister [Lisbeth] often went to Gotenhafen/Gdingen [today: Gydnia, Poland] to get some news but always in vain.
All of a sudden, Doempke, my brother-in-law, managed to get me 3 places on a hospital train, and on February 24th, my mother, Jürgen and I set out from Neufahrwasser [today: Nowy Port, Poland] towards an uncertain destination. There were 15 wounded in the carriage who arrived by boat from Königsberg [today: Kaliningrad, Russia] and were loaded onto the train. . .It was very cold in the compartment and it took us 3 days to get to Stettin [today: Szczecin, Poland] through Pomerania.
On the 27th we arrived in Bad Kleinen in Mecklenburg, where we got off the train. Then we travelled through Schwerin, Ludwigslust, Wittenberge and Neustadt (Dosse) to Rathenow. . . [roughly 45 miles northwest of Berlin]”
Commentary: Here Hedsch Schlenger identifies some places the Russians captured as they were closing in on Pomerania and West Prussia, and touches on one of the lesser known disasters of World War II, specifically, the torpedoing of the former cruise ship known as the Wilhelm Gustloff.
Hedsch Schlenger’s contemporary account details how the Russians were advancing into West Prussia and Pomerania from the South and East. Other informant accounts I’ve collected suggest the Russians were even backtracking East to capture pockets of German resistance they may have bypassed on their way West. Some readers may recall from my earlier Blog post dealing with “Idschi and Suse [Epp]” that their brother, Gerhard Epp, did not evacuate from near Stutthof until May 6, 1945, indicating this area east of Danzig was likely one of the last captured by the Russians. On Figures 8, 9 & 10, I have circled some of the places that Hedsch Schlenger mentions in her narrative as she travels from Danzig to the German State of Mecklenburg.
Elsewhere in her diary, Hedsch Schlenger identifies her sister by name, “Lisbeth,” without providing her married name. In the section quoted above, Lisbeth’s husband is merely identified as “Philipsen.” It was initially unclear to me whether this was her husband’s prename or surname. However, I was eventually able to locate a birth record from the Evangelical Church in Tiegenhof for a “Otto Wilhelm Max Philipsen,” a child that Lisbeth, nee Fenger, had with her husband which confirmed that “Philipsen” was Lisbeth’s married name and that she was married to Otto Philipsen. I even found Lisbeth Philipsen’s name and address in Bremen on a page in Alfred Schlenger’s Address Book, given to me by Alfred’s grand-daughter (Figure 11).
The “Philipsen” mentioned in Hedsch Schlenger’s diary is this Otto Philipsen who died when the Wilhelm Gustloff was sunk in the Baltic Sea by Soviet Navy submarines. An American scholar by the name of Cathryn J. Prince, has written a riveting account of this little-known disaster in a 2013 book entitled “Death in the Baltic: The World War II Sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff.” As the Russians were advancing from the East, Berlin made plans to evacuate upwards of 10,000 German women, children, and the elderly from West and East Prussia aboard a former cruise ship, the Wilhelm Gustloff. Sailing from Gotenhafen/Gdingen [today: Gydnia, Poland] through the icy waters of the Baltic Sea on January 30, 1945, the ship was soon found and sunk by Russian subs. An estimated 9,400 people lost their lives, six times the number lost on the Titanic!!
Hedsch Schlenger’s diary entries: “On April 12th, the Americans were already marching into Stendal [roughly 100 miles northwest of Berlin]. On this occasion, I wanted to leave Rathenow again for I did not wish to fall into the hands of the Russians. I did not flee from the East for that. . .
In the meantime, the Russians were getting closer and closer to Berlin, the Allied forces kept advancing from the West, and the Russians began new attacks even close to Stettin. They were now near Mecklenburg, and on May 1st, they were now no more than 20km away from Krakow am See [located in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Germany, and the place where Hedsch, her mother and her son had temporarily taken refuge with friends as she was writing her account].
My mother. . .still wanted to stay there [Krakow am See]. However, in the morning one of the soldiers advised us to get on the truck going in the direction of Schwerin and make our way to Lübeck. By 9 we had packed everything and set out again to flee from the Russians, who were supposed to reach Krakow by 12. They were constantly on our heels during our journey. The streets were lined with tanks again, between them were soldiers, wounded and prisoners—a bleak string of hardened people, who had lost their homes and their country.
And suddenly the war ended. . .
June 24th: We are still in Schwerin, although every minute there is a rumor that the Russians will occupy this part of Mecklenburg as well. Many people from Danzig walk around with Danziger coat-of-arms on their clothes, and the rumors are circulating that a Free City shall be established again. But they lack any foundation.
July 22, 1945: Since [June] 19th we’ve been in Rostock. The Russians replaced the English in Schwerin. . .”
Commentary: In the closing weeks of fighting in Europe, the Allied powers had actually pushed beyond the previously agreed occupation zone boundaries determined at the 1945 Yalta Conference by the “Big Three” (Russia, America, and Britain) on how to split up Germany following WWII. In the case of the Americans, they had sometimes pushed by as much as 200 miles beyond the agreed boundaries. So, after about two months of holding certain areas meant to be in the Soviet zone, which was clearly the case with Schwerin, the Allied powers withdrew during July 1945, which corresponds with Hedsch Schlenger’s account.
Clearly, there was an unrealistic expectation among some former residents of Danzig that a Free City would once again be established there, a situation that obviously never came to pass.
Hedsch Schlenger’s diary entry: August 29, 1945: “We are still in Rostock. The refugees from the East keep coming still. Amongst them was also the Schritt family from Zoppot [today: Sopot, Poland], who knew for sure that Omama [Hedsch Schlenger’s mother-in-law, Martha Schlenger] had died there. . Allegedly the Doempkes tried to take their own lives. . .
. . .Many have taken their own lives, like my mother-in-law in Zoppot, who [died and]. . .is buried in the garden at Heidebergstraße. The Doempkes. . .also took poison. . . “
Commentary: Here, Hedsch Schlenger learns that her mother-in-law, Martha Schlenger, nee Ruhnau (“Omama”) (Figure 12), died in Zoppot as did the Doempkes, her brother-and-sister-in-law.
Many Germans who decided to stay in West Prussia as the Russians were approaching in the closing days of WWII were either killed or eventually took their own lives; those that survived were later expelled or naturalized as Polish citizens. In the case of women who stayed, they were the repeated victim of rape by Russian soldiers. My father’s friend from Tiegenhof, Peter Lau, to whom an earlier post was devoted, told me that his aunt decided to stay in Danzig to protect her property only to eventually arrive in West Germany months later a shattered woman on account of her brutal treatment at the hands of Russian soldiers. Peter also recounted that German women took refuge in what was once Tiegenhof’s Käsefabrik (cheese factory), and what is today the Muzeum Zulawskie, as the Russians were approaching; after the town was captured, these women were systematically removed from the factory and repeatedly raped.
Hedsch Schlenger’s diary entry: August 29, 1945: “Recently I met a Mr. Kurt Schlenger who is a distant relative of ours. He lives here in Rostock; he’s married and is a distinguished violinist. They live in Massmannstraße 10, have an 18-year-old daughter who wants to become an artist. I even met a sister of this Mr. Schlenger, a widow named Mrs. Seidel, who lives in Tremsenweg 4. They are very nice people, but completely different to us. They are dark, small and not as handsome as our Schlengers.”
Commentary: This entry took some time to unravel. Hedsch’s husband Alfred had a brother by the same name, Dr. Kurt Schlenger, who coincidentally was also a musician (Figure 13). Readers may recall from an earlier post that this Dr. Kurt Schlenger, born on April 20, 1909, was mentioned in my father’s 1932 Pocket Calendar. I spent a considerable amount of time searching for a Kurt Schlenger from Rostock, Germany on ancestry.com who could be the “distant relative” to whom Hedsch was referring. Eventually, I found one Kurt Schlenger in Rostock, Germany, born on June 11, 1893, who is likely the relative in question; his marriage certificate shows he was born in Preußisch Holland (Prussian Holland) [today: Pasłęk, Poland], 46km or less than 30 miles from Tiegenhof.
From German refugees continuing to arrive from the East, Hedsch Schlenger was either able to re-encounter people she knew from West Prussia and Tiegenhof, including people my father also knew, or learn about people who’d decided to stay behind. The fate of those who stayed behind, however, is often unclear.
NOTE: The following story does not relate to my father’s time in Tiegenhof, nor directly to any of his friends and acquaintances from his time there. Rather, it is connected to a query forwarded to me by the Director of the Muzeum Zulawskie from an American woman, looking for information on one of her relatives that lived in Tiegenhof in the 1870’s. Because her query overlapped with some of my own research and sources, it provides insight on how one can sometimes also further other people’s family investigations.
In March of 2017, Marek Opitz, Director of the Muzeum Zulawskie in Nowy Dwor Gdanski, and President of the Klub Nowodworski, forwarded a request for information from a Ms. Lori Hill living in Bend, Oregon. Because Marek, in his own words, considers me “an ambassador to the United States,” referring Ms. Hill to me seemed logical. Lori was asking the Muzeum Zulawskie whether they could tell her anything about a relative of hers, by the name of “Rudolph Wilhelm Ludwig Dargatz,” who had lived in Tiegenhof in the 1870’s.
My initial reaction when I received this referral was simply to think I could provide little help since my own father’s time in Tiegenhof had been much later and short, stretching from April 1932 through perhaps June 1937, and he was unlikely to have known her relative. With this in mind, I briefly explained my father’s connection to Tiegenhof, and mentioned two books on Tiegenhof she might consider purchasing to learn about the town’s history. One, written by Marek Opitz and Grzegorz Gola, is simply entitled “Tiegenhof/Nowy Dwor Gdanski”; the second, authored by Gunter Jeglin, is entitled “Tiegenhof und der Kreis Grosses Werder in Bildern.”
I explained to Lori that in the course of doing my own research, I had written to many people whose names and addresses I found in the membership index of the “Tiegenhofer Nachrichten.” I told her about Mr. Hans Erich Mueller, the elderly German gentleman who’d grown up in Tiegenhof and identified the “Schlummermutter” by name, and suggested she might want to contact him. I also mentioned my father’s friend, Juergen “Peter” Lau, and how much he’d helped me. With these referrals, I naturally assumed I had done as much as I could for Lori.
Still, I couldn’t quite lay Lori’s query to rest, and continued to contemplate how else I might help. During my own investigations, Marek Opitz had passed along two Address/Telephone books for Tiegenhof, an Address Book from 1910 and a Phone Directory from 1943. I checked both for listings of “Dargatz,” and, much to my surprise, discovered an individual by the name of “Rudolf Dargatz,” spelled with an “f” rather than a “ph” at the end of the given name in the 1943 Tiegenhof Phone Directory. (Figure 1) In her initial query to Marek, Lori had mentioned that her Rudolph Dargatz had been in the plant nursery (“gartnerei”) business and there was or still is a “Haus Dargatz.” The Rudolf Dargatz in the 1943 Directory was identified as being in the business of “Gartenbaubetrieb,” or horticulture. It was logical to assume these two individuals were related.
The 1943 Phone Directory included an address for this business at “Schlossgrund 18,” today known as “ulica 3 Maja.” From having visited Nowy Dwor Gdanski on several occasions, my recollection is that “Schlossgrund” is one of the former German streets remarkably well-preserved and along which it is easy to relocate remaining structures from the German period. Having also been given a map of Tiegenhof from former times, I passed this along to Lori so she could orient herself as to where her relative’s horticultural business had once been located. (Figure 2)
It occurred to me that since Rudolf Dargatz lived in Tiegenhof at least as late as 1943, perhaps my father’s now-94-year-old friend Peter Lau might remember him. So, I called him, and Peter, whose mind is still very sharp, immediately remembered Mr. Dargatz, recalling he had been in the flower business, and remembering that his shop had been located along Schlossgrund. But, the reason why Peter had such a clear recollection of Mr. Dargatz is mildly amusing, namely, because he had a crush on his daughter, Liselotte! I think both Lori and I found it particularly intriguing that someone is still alive today who had known one of her Dargatz relatives.
Over the coming days, I continued to think back to my visits to Nowy Dwor Gdanski. I remembered that during our last visit there, my wife and I had spent the better part of a day walking the entire central part of the town taking photographs of all the remaining German-era structures. Comparing my pictures to ones I found in the two aforementioned books showing the “Haus Dargatz,” I quickly realized the structure still existed and that I had photographed and identified it (Figure 3); I immediately forwarded it to Lori telling her I clearly remembered that on one of two occasions when I walked by this house a woman was cleaning the windows of her apartment. I’m still not sure why this memory remains in my head.
Readers will recall from one of my earlier Blog posts a database brought to my attention by a German archivist, of births, marriages, and deaths of individuals from the former Eastern Prussian Provinces, entitled: Östliche preußische Provinzen, Polen, Personenstandsregister 1874-1945 (Eastern Prussian Provinces, Germany [Poland], Selected Civil Vitals, 1874-1945). Typing in “Dargatz” in the “search” query, I came up with 140 records with people by this name, two of which ultimately fit into Lori’s Dargatz family tree. Both related to an individual by the name of “Rudolph Wilhelm Dargatz,” who, coincidentally, happened to be one of the sons of the Rudolph Wilhelm Ludwig Dargatz Lori had initially asked the Muzeum Zulawskie about.
Readers may remember yet another Blog post in which I discussed what I’d learned about my father’s once-good friend, Hans “Mochum” Wagner, and the photo of him in his German military uniform given to me by a Ms. Beate Lohff, nee Schlenger. To remind readers, Beate is the grand-daughter of Alfred and Hedwig Schlenger, owners of Tiegenhof’s “Dampfmahlmuhle,” or steam-operated flour mill. Beate gave me a copy of her grandmother’s 12-page diary, written in German, covering Hedwig’s escape from Tiegenhof with her mother and younger son, as the Russians were closing in towards the end of WWII. I recently had this translated into English, and this diary provides a fascinating glimpse into the period from the perspective of Germans then forced to flee westward the advancing enemy they’d mercilessly persecuted on their way east. However, apparently, not all Prussian families chose to leave Tiegenhof, as noted in one of Hedwig Schlenger’s entry in April 1945, and Hedwig specifically mentions, among the families that chose to stay, the Dargatz family, parenthetically adding that no one knows what happened to these families. It may yet be that the ultimate fate of Lori’s Dargatz relatives may be uncovered but inasmuch as my own research is concerned, this is as far as I can take things.
