POSTSCRIPT ADDED ON MAY 18, 2021 IN RED AT THE BOTTOM
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
—Edmund Burke—
“Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little.”
—Edmund Burke—
Note: This post is about a non-Jewish instrument maker named Matthias Eugen Walter Mehne, the first husband of Renate Bruck, daughter of my famed ancestor, Dr. Walter Wolfgang Bruck. Matthias’ courage during the era of the National Socialists rightfully entitles him to be called a “silent hero.” Silent heroes are Jewish men and women who resisted National Socialist persecution, and those who helped them to do so.
There is a lot of “connective tissue” to this Blog post, so to speak. I draw upon information collected mostly in the last few months that occasioned incremental discoveries about Matthias Eugen Walter Mehne, who I will henceforth refer to as “Matthias Mehne.” He was Renate Bruck’s (1926-2013) first husband; she was the sole surviving daughter of my famed ancestor, Dr. Walter Wolfgang Bruck (1872-1937), and his wife, Johanna Bruck née Gräbsch (1884-1963). (Figure 1) As a result of my recent findings, I am compelled to revise Blog Post 68 to rectify conclusions I came to springing from incomplete information or erroneous inferences.
Given the gradational way by which I typically learn about various of my ancestors, it is often impossible for me to recall what I learned when. Nevertheless, I will try in the case of Matthias Mehne.
Ironically, I initially became aware of Renate Bruck’s first husband about two years ago upon obtaining a copy of her marriage certificate to her second husband, Henry Ernest Graham. Renate married Henry on the 18th of October 1948 in Willesden, Middlesex, England, and their marriage certificate identified both of their previous spouses. At the time, I misread Renate’s first husband’s name simply as “Eugen Walter Mehne,” failing to clearly see his first name was “Matthias.” (Figure 2) As readers will see, this was a grave oversight.
Knowing that Renate Bruck had been born in 1926 in Breslau, Germany [today: Wrocław, Poland] and that she was already on her second marriage at 22 years of age, I assumed she had met and gotten married to Matthias Mehne in Breslau at a young age. In retrospect, given the disruptions wrought by WWII and Renate’s status as half-Jewish, this is not necessarily a given and in fact appears not to have been the case.
In Breslau address books I found a “Eugen Mehne” listed between 1908 and 1934 (Figures 3a-b), and a “Eugen Walter Mehne” for 1935, 1936, and 1939; I assumed they were the same person. I also found a birth certificate for an “Albert Eugen Mehne” (Figures 4a-b) but since he was born in 1883 and would have been 43 years Renate’s elder, I ruled him out as her husband. Given the trend to incorporate father’s forenames into their son’s name, I falsely concluded that Eugen Mehne was the son of Albert Eugen Mehne, and Renate’s first husband. This made sense at the time since I could not find information on a Eugen Walter Mehne, i.e., Matthias Mehne, or so I thought.
I would eventually learn that Eugen and Albert Eugen were the same person. This should have been obvious to me from the start given I found a 1907 marriage certificate for Albert Eugen Mehne (Figures 5a-c), meaning the Breslau address book listings for Eugen Mehne from 1908 until at least the mid-1930’s would have been those for the father born in 1883. Regardless, I did not initially make the connection. As mentioned above, Breslau address books for 1935 (Figure 6a), 1936 (Figure 6b), and 1939 (Figure 6c) list a “Eugene Walter Mehne” who, I thought was the father Eugen Mehne, but now realize was the son Matthias Eugen Walter Mehne. This was in fact the first documentation I found on the son, although I did not realize it at the time. None of the Breslau address books list both the father and son in the same directory; what to make of this is unclear. I forgive readers for being as confused as I was. Let us move on.
This is where things stood until January of this year when I received two riveting emails following one upon the other. The first came from a Dr. Kate Kennedy, who is a writer and broadcaster, and the Associate Director for Oxford’s Centre for Life-Writing (Figure 7), after she stumbled upon Post 68 where I initially mentioned Albert Eugen Mehne. Kate proceeded to tell me a fascinating story. She is currently writing a book about a series of journeys she has taken across the globe following the trail of instruments that have a particular story to tell. One instrument Kate is researching is a missing cello that belonged to an Anita Lasker-Wallfisch that was taken from her before she was sent to Auschwitz when she lived in Breslau. Ms. Lasker-Wallfisch, born in 1925, survived the Holocaust, and is still alive as of this writing. According to Dr. Kennedy, the instrument maker Walter Matthias Mehne rescued the cello after Anita was arrested and may have given it to a judge to keep it safe for the duration of the war, although Anita is unsure of this. Regardless, to this day, the cello remains missing, and Dr. Kennedy is on a quest to track it down.
Setting aside my own confusion as to the Mehne names, Kate correctly presumed that Matthias Mehne was the son of Albert Eugen Mehne, as it was a father/son luthier business. She also told me they inhabited a shop on the corner of Tauentzien Platz in Breslau in the center of town with red violin-shaped signs inside their store, and that they refused to display a picture of Hitler, a most courageous act in the era of the National Socialists. I will return to the subject of the Mehne and Lasker-Wallfisch families below, but first I want to mention the second email I received in January.
This correspondence came from Dr. Tilo Wahl, the incredible findings of which have been the subject of my two previous posts, Posts 99 and 100. Buried within the album of photographs and documents once belonging to my esteemed ancestor, Dr. Walter Wolfgang Bruck, was a photograph (Figure 8) and article (Figures 9a-c) about Renate Bruck’s first husband, whom she did not identify by name. Still, the undated German newspaper article which I painstakingly retyped into my go-to online translator, DeepL, confirmed that he went by the name “Matthias Mehne” and at the time the article was written lived in the Berlin borough of Wilmersdorf; comparing his picture taken in Berlin in 1947-1948 with Renate to the one in the news article, it is clear it is the same person. Only at this moment did I reexamine Renate’s 1948 marriage certificate and realize that her first husband’s complete name had been “Matthias Eugen Walter Mehne” (see Figure 2) and that he went by the name “Matthias Mehne”; it became obvious then that Albert Eugen Mehne had to have been his father.
Having found virtually no other information on Matthias Mehne, I turned to my German friend, Peter Hanke, the “Wizard of Wolfsburg,” for help. (Figure 10) Peter did not disappoint. He found that Matthias’s father relocated to Gelsenkirchen, Germany in the federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia, approximately 500 miles directly west of Wrocław, Poland, probably before or after WWII; Eugen Mehne is listed in a 1955 Gelsenkirchen Address Book. (Figure 11) I would later learn Albert Eugen Mehne died in Gelsenkirchen in 1963. As for Matthias Mehne, Peter discovered that he was born in 1908, had supposedly died in 1960, and was also known as “M.E.W. Mehne.” Knowing Matthias had once lived in Berlin, I did an Internet search trying to confirm his death but came up empty.
Aware of the connection between the Mehne and Lasker families from before the war, I shifted my attention to researching Anita Lasker. Not surprisingly, given Anita’s incredible journey as a world-renowned cellist and Holocaust survivor, I uncovered a biography she wrote in 2000 entitled “Inherit the Truth” in which she acknowledged Walter Matthias Mehne’s courage on Kristallnacht, November 9-10, 1938. Quoting:
“. . .My father [Alfons Lasker] escaped arrest on that notorious Kristallnacht (night of the shattered glass), as it became known, on 9th November thanks to the courage of a great friend of ours, Walter Matthias Mehne, a violin-maker in Breslau. He was not a Jew, and he deliberately ignored the fact that the streets were crawling with members of the Gestapo looking for Jews. He climbed the stairs to our flat, took my father with him, and drove him around the town in his car for the rest of the day. He could easily have been stopped and found himself in an embarrassing and highly dangerous position. The courage of a man like Mehne is all the more noteworthy since he was a well-known figure in Breslau. His premises—it was a ‘father and son’ business—were situated on the first floor of a building on the Tauentzien Platz, right in the centre of town. It was at once recognizable from its red violin-shaped signs which hung in the windows. It was much more a meeting point for musicians than a mere shop, and a great many of those musicians were committed Nazis. Notwithstanding this, the Mehnes were steadfast in their refusal to hang up a picture of Hitler inside, although that was expected of every good citizen.
They also refused to hang out a swastika on the various ‘flag days.’ It all made them instantly suspect. But they would not yield an inch. They disapproved of what was happening and were not afraid to show it. Both father and son conducted themselves in a manner which can only be called exemplary. They were some Germans—sadly not enough of them—whose behavior was beyond reproach.
At that particular moment I was not at home but in Berlin, where I had been sent to study the cello. . .”
To some, Matthias Mehne’s actions on Kristallnacht may seem like a “little” gesture in the context of Edmund Burke’s quote cited at the outset of this post, but if other Germans had acted as heroically as Matthias Mehne acted who knows how many more Jews would have been saved from the Holocaust. Unquestionably, Matthias Mehne was a “silent hero” during the Nazi era.
In acknowledging Matthias Mehne’s courage, I was reminded of a visit my wife and I made to the “Munich Documentation Centre for the History of National Socialism.” The museum opened in 2015 as a place to learn about the crimes of the Nazi era and how Hitler’s party rose to power. It is built on the site of the Brown House, which was the Nazi’s Munich headquarters. In any case, there are many memorable pictures on display there, including one I will not forget. It shows an enormous crowd of people at a speech being delivered by Hitler all giving the Nazi or Sieg Heil salute except for one bold individual standing in this sea of ardent fascist supporters with his arms down. Bravery can be a lonely odyssey.
In researching this post. I stumbled upon an article from “The Observer,” dated the 9th of November 2013, marking the 75th anniversary of Kristallnacht. Entitled “Cellist’s tribute to the ‘unsung hero’ who saved his grandfather on Kristallnacht,” the article documents a friendship that remarkably continues today between the Mehne and Lasker-Wallfisch families. In 2013, the retired cellist Anita Lasker-Wallfisch joined her renowned cellist son, Raphael Wallfisch, in Austria to play an assortment of music that was regarded as taboo by the Nazis, ranging from Felix Mendelssohn to Erich Korngold; the selection of Vienna, Austria as the site of the concert was no accident because, as Anita said, “. . .Austria has been slower than Germany to come to terms with its part in the Nazi atrocities.” Incredibly, the program coordinator for the concert event was Bettina Mehne (Figure 12), Matthias Mehne’s daughter by his second marriage!
In the 2013 news article, Anita Lasker-Wallfisch acknowledged wanting the concert event to be a tribute to the “unsung hero” [Matthias Mehne] who protected her father on Kristallnacht. She is quoted: “Mehne did not flinch. He was very nice, a family friend, and was totally against the establishment. He didn’t even have a picture of Hitler in his lovely shop–a meeting place in Breslau—which everyone was supposed to have. His reaction that night was all the more remarkable because he was so well known in town.” As for Bettina Mehne, she grew up hearing the story of how her father had protected Anita’s father, Alfons Lasker, on Kristallnacht.
Thinking Bettina Mehne might have some prominence, I learned she is associated with an entity known as “Keynote Artist Management,” and found her email on their website. Hoping I might reach her and learn more about her father’s first wife, I sent her a note. Fortunately, my email caught Bettina’s attention and she graciously responded the following morning. She recognized Renate Bruck’s name and mentioned that Matthias had spoken highly of her. Bettina told me her father passed away in 1991, not in 1960 as I had been led to believe.
A “Vogelsdorff Family Tree” I found on ancestry claims Renate and Matthias Mehne got married in 1945; Vogelsdorff was Renate’s paternal grandmother’s surname so the source is credible. (Figure 13) Since Renate married her second husband in 1948, her marriage to Matthias Mehne would not have lasted long, a fact Bettina confirmed. According to Bettina, Renate and Matthias were engaged before the war. The German news article about Matthias states he was a prisoner of war in England. Bettina promised to ask her mother, still living, whether she might know more about her father’s first marriage and get back to me.
Given that Dr. Walter Bruck played the cello, it is likely he was acquainted with the Mehnes’ music store and would have met his daughter’s future first husband before he died in 1937. We may never know.
A potential future source of information about Renate’s life is her own diary that Dr. Walter Bruck’s twin granddaughters, Francesca and Michele Newman (Figure 14), incredibly just discovered and are sending me. Once translated, this should make for a fascinating read; I have recently learned from Renate’s lifelong friend Countess Ina Schaesberg (Figure 15) that Renate and her mother spent the entire war in Germany, not in England as I had initially surmised, in a building that survived Allied bombing. Since Renate was apparently engaged to Matthias Mehne before the war, the possibility exists that Renate and her mother lived with the Mehne family in Berlin during the war. Stay tuned!
In conclusion, I will simply say the fact that Renate Bruck’s first husband was alternately known as “Eugen Walter Mehne,” “Matthias Eugen Walter Mehne,” “M.E.W. Mehne,” and “Matthias Mehne” complicated my investigations.
REFERENCES
“Junger Meister des Geigenbaues.” Nacht-Despeche, 1950.
Almost immediately after publishing this post, I was rewarded with some new information.
I sent the link of my post to Ms. Bettina Mehne. The timing was fortuitous because she had just spoken with her mother in Berlin about Renate and Matthias. Sadly, while her mother could not add anything new, she reminded Bettina of two silver trinkets Matthias Mehne had received from Dr. Walter Bruck, along with a small silver goblet bearing Renate’s name, dated 1927. These items are now in Bettina’s possession, but it is her intention to give them to Renate’s twin daughters. I think this is very touching.
This indirectly answers another question I had, namely, whether Matthias ever met Dr. Walter Bruck. Walter died in 1937 when Renate was only 11 years old, clearly before Renate and Matthias became engaged. Possibly the trinkets were given to Matthias during professional dealings he had with Walter, or Matthias acquired the items from Renate after they got married. Regardless, it is remarkable that after all these years, these personal items will wind up with Walter’s descendants. I think this would make him happy.
Bettina also told me that none of her father’s family lived in Berlin during the war, so clearly Renate and her mother Johanna did not live with them at the time. It was only after the war when Renate and Matthias were married that all three briefly lived together.
My Blog post about Matthias Mehne caught the attention of Dr. Regina Stein (Figure 16), a provenance researcher (mostly for museums) in Berlin. Regina is currently doing a lot of research in Berlin address books. Voluntarily and generously, she searched through them for the violin maker Matthias Mehne, and put together two pages of address information for him for the years 1943-1990. Among the listings Regina found is one for Renate Mehne in a 1949 Berlin address book, shown living in the Wilmersdorf borough of Berlin at the same address as her husband. (Figures 17a-b) The 1949 address book listings must reflect the prior year’s residence because by late 1948 Renate was already married to her second husband and living in England.
As to the newspaper article about Matthias Mehne, Dr. Stein told me it comes from the “Nacht-Despeche,” an illustrated evening newspaper in Berlin that appeared from 1950 onwards. Regina thinks the article may have been published in 1950, but “after lockdown” will confirm this by consulting microfilm.
I cannot emphasize strongly enough how helpful and generous people whom I have never personally met have been in furthering my ancestral investigations. I am enormously grateful for their contributions and assistance.
Note: In this post, I explore and document the connection between my renowned ancestor, Dr. Walter Wolfgang Bruck, and Germany’s last imperial family, that of Kaiser Wilhelm II.
When formulating my Blog posts, I am acutely aware I am writing about people connected to or associated with members of my family to whom most readers are unrelated. For this reason, I try and frame the stories within a broader historical and cultural context which may be of greater interest to subscribers. Even though many of the events I write about involve people who lived during the Nazi era, which narrowly includes the period from 1933 to 1945, I hope followers will agree this tragic period in history is endlessly fascinating and obviously transcends my own family’s stories.
In perusing the photos of the personal effects belonging to Dr. Walter Wolfgang Bruck (Figure 1), my second cousin twice removed, given to me by Dr. Tilo Wahl, I came upon a surprising array of materials chronicling a friendship between Walter and the family of Kaiser Wilhelm II (1859-1941), Germany’s last emperor. I decided to investigate this connection by having the documentary evidence translated and researching when the bond may have begun and how long it continued. As readers will be able to judge for themselves, some of my findings are conjecture, others are more firmly grounded in the records I found.
Let me start by reviewing what I have been able to establish of Dr. Walter Wolfgang Bruck’s military service during WWI (Figure 2), at which time I surmise a relationship between Dr. Bruck and Kaiser Wilhelm II may have begun. According to contemporary newspaper accounts published in 1925 on Walter’s 25th year anniversary as dental lecturer at the University of Breslau, “During WWI, from October 1914 to August 1917, Walter headed a dental department at the fortress hospital in Breslau, and in 1917 went to Bucharest, where he worked as a consulting dentist for the Romanian military administration and later in the same capacity worked at the high command of the so-called von Mackensen Army Group.” Multiple photographs from Walter personal papers confirm his presence on the Eastern Front during WWI (Figures 3-4) and show him socializing with members of Germany’s high command.
There is a suggestive account in one of the articles I translated as to Walter’s administrative acumen and dental skills which may explain how he came to the attention of upper echelon German military officers and the German Kaiser, “If the suggestions made by Walter in his writings as early as 1900 had succeeded, things would have been better at the beginning of the war for the dental supply of our army. For three years in a large dental department in the Wroclaw hospital, Bruck was able to prove that dental care, as he always thought it should be provided, can be carried out very well.”
Another quote from a contemporary news account alludes to Walter’s cutting-edge dental practices, “He [the speaker] particularly emphasized his [Walter’s] contribution to the introduction of porcelain filling and mentioned that the book Bruck wrote about it had been translated into Russian and English. The speaker also remembered Bruck’s numerous efforts to introduce dental care in the army, including oral hygiene, and mentioned that one of his works had been translated into no less than eight languages. Prof. Euler also mentioned that Bruck had been active as a writer in other fields such as prosthetics and dentistry with success and announced that he intended to hold lectures in the future in the fields of social dentistry and the history of dentistry.” Sadly, I know, from having visited a museum exhibit in Essen, Germany, that the horrific injuries sustained by soldiers during WWI led to the development of advanced prosthetics and facial and maxillary reconstructions following the war.
Regardless of when Dr. Bruck’s dental skills came to the attention of the German government and military command, he would certainly have been known to them because he was at the forefront of his field and in demand.
Let me tell readers a little about Walter’s personal life. In researching when and where Walter’s older sister, Margarethe Prausnitz née Bruck (Figure 5), was born and died, I found an ancestral tree showing Walter had been married before he married Johanna Bruck née Gräbsch, the mother of his two children. This came as quite a surprise to me. According to this source, the name of Walter’s first wife was purportedly Margarethe STUTSCH.
I have repeatedly told readers that unless I can locate primary source documents, I am hesitant to believe what I find in other people’s trees. Case in point. While I was eventually able to confirm Walter had indeed previously been married, I learned his first wife’s maiden name was SKUTSCH not Stutsch, complicating my search. Sadly, I found that Margarethe Skutsch, born the same month and year as Walter, was murdered in Theresienstadt in 1942.
I unearthed two primary source documents confirming Margarethe’s connection to Walter Bruck. The first was her Theresienstadt death certificate (Figure 6), very rarely completed post-mortem for Jews who died there, giving her married name. The second was the 1907 death certificate for Margarethe’s mother, Berta Skutsch née Grosser, at which Walter was a witness. (Figure 7) A picture from around 1917 shows Margarethe and Walter seated at an outside picnic table with the Grand Duke of Oldenburg and his wife (Figure 8), indicating they were still married at the time. Walter’s biography which abruptly ends around 1894-94 gives no indication he was married before he left for America to attend the Baltimore College of Dental Surgery, so the duration of his first marriage is unknown.
Let me briefly digress and tell readers a few relevant facts about Kaiser Wilhelm II to provide context for some of the documents and photos found among Dr. Walter Bruck’s papers. Wilhelm II reigned as the German Emperor from the 15th of June 1888 until he was forced to abdicate on the 9th of November 1918, following some crushing defeats on the Western Front during WWI that led to the collapse of Germany’s war efforts. Following his abdication, on the 10th of November, Wilhelm went into exile in the Netherlands, which had remained neutral throughout WWI. He purchased a country house in the municipality of Doorn, known as Huis Doorn, and moved there in May 1920. This was to be his home for the remainder of his life.
Wilhelm was first married in February 1881 to Princess Augusta Victoria of Schleswig-Holstein, with whom he had seven children. She died in April 1921. The following year Wilhelm met Princess Hermine Reuß of Greiz. It happened when one of her sons sent birthday wishes in January of 1922 to the exiled German Emperor Wilhelm II, who then invited the boy and his mother to Huis Doorn. Wilhelm found Hermine extremely attractive, greatly enjoyed her company, and found they had much in common, both having been recently widowed. By November 1922, they got married in Doorn over the objections of Wilhelm’s monarchist supporters and children.
I will briefly return to Wilhelm and Hermine later. First, however, I want to mention a few vital events in the lives of Walter and his second wife, Johanna Bruck née Gräbsch. Then, I will discuss the documents and photos among Walter’s personal effects that establish there existed a bond between he and the last German monarch and his family.
Dr. Walter Bruck married his second wife, Johanna Bruck née Gräbsch, on the 22nd of December 1922. On the 18th of January 1924, Johanna gave birth to their first daughter who sadly passed away less than two months later, on the 10th of March. This daughter was named Hermine, and it is believed and reasonable to assume she was named after Kaiser Wilhelm II’s second wife.
Walter and Johanna’s second daughter, Renate Stephanie Gertrude Bruck (Figure 9), was born on the 16th of June 1926. Among the personnel effects belonging to Walter that Dr. Tilo Wahl acquired from Walter’s grandson is a children’s book, entitled “Alpenblumenmärchen” (Alpine Flower Fairy Tales) by Ernst Kreidolf. The book was given to Renate by Princess Hermine Reuß with the dedication: “Meinem lieben Renatchen/zu Weihnachten 1928/Hermine” (i.e., To my dear Renatchen/for Christmas 1928/Hermine). (Figures 10a-b)
Other documents and photos pre-dating 1928 prove an earlier connection between Wilhelm and Walter’s families. Dr. Wahl purchased two of Walter’s guest books where visitors signed, dated, and often left personal messages upon their departure from Walter’s stately home at Kaiser Wilhelm Platz 17 (later Reichpräsidentenplatz/Hindenburg Platz). (Figure 11) In carefully perusing these guest registers, I noticed that “Hermine Kaiserin (Empress) Wilhlem II” signed one of them on “23 IV 23” (23rd April 1923). (Figures 12a-b)
On Dr. Bruck’s 25th year anniversary as dental lecturer at the University of Breslau, the former Kaiser sent a personal congratulatory “Brieftelegramm” (i.e., mail telegram) on the 14th of February (Figures 13a-d), followed by a personal note from Empress Hermine on the actual date of the event, the 25th of February 1925. (Figures 14a-d) The latter message naturally acknowledged Walter Bruck’s lengthy tenure, but also indicated an intent to come to Silesia for dental treatment.
It is not clear whether Walter was also Wilhelm’s personal dentist though this is a reasonable assumption. An entire page of photos in Walter’s scrap book indicates Walter and Johanna visited the Emperor and Empress at Huis Doorn in September 1925 (Figure 15), possibly to attend to Wilhelm’s dental needs. During this visit Walter took a photo of his wife Johanna surrounded by Wilhelm, Hermine Reuß, two of Hermine’s daughters, Princess Henriette of Schönaich-Carolath and Princess Hermine Caroline of Schönaich-Carolath, Major General Konrad Wilhelm Gustav Hermann Graf Finck von Finckenstein (1862 – 1939), and others. (Figures 16a-b, 17)
Another brief digression. For regular readers, I owe you a huge “Mea Culpa!” In Post 65, I tried to work out who was the unnamed Bruck standing amidst the Kaiser, Hermine Reuß, and their entourage. Several years ago, I obtained the identical picture, captioned otherwise, from a different branch of my extended family so never worked out that the “W.B.” who initialed the photo was Walter Bruck and that his wife was in the photo. (Figures 18a-c) In this instance my powers of deduction abjectly failed me.
From a brief note dated the 4th of October 1925 sent from Huis Doorn, Walter had obviously sent a copy of the aforementioned photo to Wilhelm because his staff acknowledged receipt of the picture and said His Majesty had found the photo to be “excellent.” (Figures 19a-b) As an aside and as mentioned in Post 99, I have shared images of all of Dr. Bruck’s personal papers and photos with Ms. Renata Wilkoszewska-Krakowska, Branch Manager of the Old Jewish Cemetery in Breslau where Walter’s father and grandfather are interred. Renata noted the high quality of Walter’s photographs so checked a publication mentioning Walter Bruck written by professor of dentistry at the University of Wrocław, Prof. Barbara Bruziewicz-Mikłaszewska, and learned he had run the Photography Department at the University of Breslau. My esteemed ancestor was indeed a man of eclectic interests.
It is unclear from Walter’s surviving papers how long the personal friendship between Kaiser Wilhelm’s family lasted nor how long he continued as Empress Hermine’s dentist before the rise of the National Socialists would have made this impossible. There is no indication in Walter’s personal biographical account that he was raised in a Jewish home; on the contrary, several passages from Walter’s memoir state he attended or was taught in Catholic or nondenominational schools and I have long suspected he converted to Christianity like many German Jews at the time did. As students of history know all too well, this would not have afforded him any protection in the Nazi era.
There is direct evidence the Nazis tried to remove Walter Bruck from his teaching post at the University of Breslau following their ascension to power in 1933. This proof does not come from Walter’s papers but from another source. I remind readers that in Post 99 I included a photo taken on the Eastern Front during WWI of Walter Bruck riding in an open car with General Field Marshall August von Mackensen and their respective wives. (Figure 20)
Dr. Tilo Wahl found the following passage in Mackensen’s biography, entitled “Zwischen Kaiser und ‘Führer’: Generalfeldmarschall August von Mackensen,” written by Theo Schwarzmüller, specifically discussing Walter Bruck and Mackensen’s intervention on his behalf:
GERMAN
“. . . An Rust (Anmerkung: preußischer Kultusminister) wandte sich Mackensen auch im Fall von Professor Walther Bruck aus Breslau, eine internationale Kapazität der Zahnmedizin. Wegen jüdischer Abstammung wurde ihm die Lehrbefugnis entzogen, obwohl er sie seit Kaisers Zeiten besaß und schon sein Vater an der Universität Breslau gelehrt hatte. Bruck war evangelisch getauft, christlich erzogen, “immer national” und als Arzt am AOK [=Armeeoberkommando] Mackensen ausgezeichnet, wie er hilfesuchend versicherte. Zunächst lehnte Rust unter Hinweis auf die Gesetze ab, wonach Juden keine Beamten mehr sein dürften. Allerdings galten für Kriegsteilnehmer auf Wunsch Hindenburgs vorerst Ausnahmen. Nach “nochmaliger Prüfung” wurde nach mehreren Monaten Bruck die Lehrbefugnis wieder erteilt, was Mackensen ihm telegrafisch mitteilen konnte. Insgesamt verloren im Dritten Reich mehr als 1000 Hochschullehrer, vor allem Juden und Demokraten, ihre Stellung. Dadurch büßte Deutschland seine führende Position in den Naturwissenschaften ein. Auch der alte NS-Kämpfer Rust, von Hitler bald zum Reichsminister befördert, propagierte die arische Universität, was Gelehrte wie Albert Einstein und Fritz Haber vertrieb. Für Bruck engagierte sich Mackensen, weil dieser eine ihm nahe, deutschnationale Gesinnung vorweisen konnte.“
ENGLISH
“. . .Mackensen also turned to Rust [NOTE: Prussian Minister of Culture, Bernard Rust] in the case of Professor Walther Bruck from Breslau, an international authority in dentistry. Because of his Jewish descent, his teaching license was revoked, although he had held it since the time of the Kaiser and his father had already taught at the University of Breslau. Bruck had been baptized a Protestant, had been raised a Christian, had ‘always been national,’ and had distinguished himself as a physician at the AOK [NOTE: Army High Command] Mackensen, as he helpfully asserted. At first, Rust refused, citing the laws that Jews could no longer be civil servants. However, at Hindenburg’s [NOTE: German general and statesman Paul von Hindenburg] request, exceptions applied for the time being to war veterans. After ‘reconsideration,’ after several months, Bruck was again granted the teaching license, which Mackensen was able to inform him of by telegraph. In total, more than 1000 university professors, mainly Jews and democrats, lost their positions in the Third Reich. As a result, Germany forfeited its leading position in the natural sciences. Even the old Nazi fighter Rust, soon promoted to Reich Minister by Hitler, propagated the Aryan university, which drove away scholars such as Albert Einstein and Fritz Haber. Mackensen became involved with Bruck because the latter could demonstrate a German-national outlook close to his own.”
There is another astonishing document included among Walter’s personal papers that Dr. Tilo Wahl brought to my attention. It is a letter sent by the University of Breslau’s curator, “Der Kurator de Universität und der Technischen Hochschule” (the curator of the university and the technical college) to Walter, dated the 24th of April 1936. (Figures 21a-c) The curator revoked an earlier ruling declaring Walter was no longer a Professor which had effectively removed him from his teaching position. As Tilo aptly points out, humiliatingly, the letter is lacking any form of salutation.
Notwithstanding Walter’s ties to the former Kaiser, August von Mackensen, and other high-ranking German officials, there can be no doubt that Walter would have seen their interventions as anything other than a temporary reprieve from Nazi persecution. Given Kaiser Wilhelm and Kaiserin Hermine’s well-known anti-Semitic views, it is highly unlikely either would have interceded on Walter’s Bruck’s behalf had he lived beyond 1937 and been arrested or deported. Wilhelm held the Jews responsible for the two world wars. As to Wilhelm’s views on Nazism, he hoped the Nazis’ early successes would lead to the restoration of the Hohenzollern monarchy, with his eldest grandson as the fourth Kaiser. Hermine actively petitioned the Nazi government for this on her husband’s behalf. For his part Hitler felt nothing but contempt for Wilhelm, blaming him for Germany’s greatest defeat, and the petitions were ignored.
Notwithstanding his disdain for the Kaiser, Hitler was not averse to using the occasion of Wilhelm’s death on the 4th of June 1941 several weeks before the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union for political advantage. Hitler wanted to bring Wilhelm’s body back to Germany for burial to demonstrate to the Germans the direct descent of the Third Reich from the old German Empire. However, Wilhelm had made it clear that he did not want his body returned to Germany until the monarchy was restored, and his wishes were respected. However, Wilhelm’s request that the swastika and other Nazi regalia not be displayed at his funeral was ignored.
One final thought. Dr. Wahl purchased Walter’s appointment book from his grandson in 2013 and copied it for me. Walter’s calendar shows that in April 1937, the month following his death, Walter still had patients scheduled. (Figures 22a-b) Based on my own father’s experience in his dental practice in Tiegenhof [Nowy Dwór Gdański, Poland], also in 1937, as the Nazis ramped up their anti-Jewish measures, his clients disappeared. I have no doubt Walter saw his once amazing life rapidly slipping away. Barring an unknown medical condition, I am more convinced than ever that Walter took his own life on the 31st of March 1937 to protect his wife and half-Jewish daughter. (Figure 23)
Note: Beginning with this post, I embark on a series of articles about my distinguished second cousin twice removed, Dr. Walter Wolfgang Bruck (1872-1937), and his family. By virtue of a fortuitous contact with a German doctor, Dr. Tilo Wahl (Figure 1), I obtained copies of hundreds of images of private papers, photos, and personal effects once belonging to Dr. Bruck. These items offer insights into my relative’s remarkable life including photos of people in my ancestral tree whose likenesses I never expected to find. In this and subsequent posts, I describe the circumstances by which Dr. Wahl obtained these things and some of what I have learned from them.
Increasingly, the inspiration for Blog posts comes from readers, typically from individuals descended from or acquainted with some of the people I have written about. This post stems from such an encounter and involves my renowned ancestor, Dr. Walter Wolfgang Bruck (Figure 2), formerly from Breslau, Germany [today: Wrocław, Poland]. Additionally, in recent days, I was contacted by Dr. Bruck’s twin granddaughters who I had not long ago learned had immigrated to Australia in the 1990’s but knew no way of contacting. Amazingly, they stumbled upon my Blog while I was in the midst of writing this post!
Ms. Madeleine Isenberg, my friend affiliated with the Jewish Genealogical Society of Los Angeles (JGSLA), once shared an article she wrote in 2012 for AVOTAYNU about helping a family decimated by the Holocaust reconstruct its history. As I was preparing this post, I recalled a quote from Madeleine’s article that seems relevant to this story on the nature of luck vs. fate: “Once I asked my cousin, the Chief Rabbi of England, Lord Jonathan Sacks, what he thinks about ‘coincidence versus beshert (predestination).’ His immediate response was, ‘There’s no such thing as coincidence, it’s all beshert.’” Another quote I have cited in previous posts by Branch Rickey, the former brainy General Manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers, may also be apt. He used to say, “Luck is the residue of design.” Regardless of whether the ensuing tale is the result of chance or destiny, a remarkable convergence of events resulted in learning about personal items once belonging to one of my ancestors and obtaining copies of all of them.
Let me provide some context. Dr. Walter Bruck (1872-1937) and I are second cousins twice removed. Walter’s grandfather, Dr. Jonas Julius Bruck (1813-1883), was my great-great-granduncle. Walter’s father was Dr. Julius Bruck (1840-1902), a noted dentist I wrote about in Post 68. Drs. Jonas and Julius Bruck and their respective wives, Rosalie Marle (1817-1890) and Bertha Vogelsdorff (1843-1917), are all interred in a restored tomb in the Old Jewish Cemetery in Wrocław, Poland. (Figures 3a-b)
Dr. Walter Bruck was married to a Johanna Elisabeth Margarethe Gräbsch (Figure 4), a non-Jew. Following Walter’s death in 1937, she remained with her half-Jewish daughter Renate Bruck in Breslau for a time until it became too dangerous in the era of the National Socialists. In Post 83, I described the great lengths to which I went to discover what happened to Johanna and Renate Bruck and eventually learned they immigrated to England and died there. It is not clear whether Johanna and Renate moved directly to England or relocated elsewhere to Germany first; I have found a fleeting reference whose source I can no longer recall suggesting they may first have lived in Erfurt, Germany in the state of Thuringia at the address Dammweg 9. (Figure 5)
Walter Bruck’s widow never remarried but through documents I obtained from the United Kingdom’s General Register Office and elsewhere, I learned she died in 1963 (Figure 6), and that Renate Bruck married three times and died in Ramsholt, Suffolk, England in 2013. (Figure 7) According to Renate’s death certificate, her son, Nicholas Francis David Newman, an offspring of Renate’s third marriage, was present when she died. Hoping to contact him, I scoured the GRO database, and sadly discovered he killed himself in 2015. His death certificate, which I also obtained (Figure 8), gives no indication he was ever married nor had any children. The trail thus ran cold, and I naturally assumed this would be the end of things. Good fortune would dictate otherwise.
Recently, through my Blog’s Webmail, I received an intriguing message from a German general practitioner named Dr. Tilo Wahl including several photographs. What promptly caught my attention were the attached pictures of Tilo Wahl sitting alongside Nicholas Newman (Figure 9), Dr. Walter Wolfgang Bruck’s grandson. Knowing Nicholas had committed suicide in 2015, I assumed these photos had to have been taken shortly before his death. After responding to Dr. Wahl, he would explain the circumstances of his meetup with Nicholas Newman eight years earlier.
Dr. Wahl is a member of the Association of Phaleristics. Unaware of what this term means, I learned it originates from the Greek mythological hero Phalerus (Greek: Phaleros) and the Latin phalera (“heroics”) and is an auxiliary science of history and numismatics which studies orders, fraternities, and award items, such as medals, ribbons, and other decorations. Tilo explained his interest in phaleristics stems from a childhood fascination with recent history and military history, which evolved into collecting Prussian decorations; later, his collecting interest expanded, and he began purchasing groups of awards belonging to individuals, which, in his words, convey a vivid personal history about the former owner.
It turns out that in around 2013, Tilo purchased at auction the medals once belonging to my distinguished ancestor, Dr. Walter Wolfgang Bruck, from Walter’s grandson, Nicholas. Following the transaction, they met in person. To help provide context for the medals he had bought, Nicholas allowed Tilo to photograph many of Dr. Bruck’s personal papers and photographs and sold him other personal effects once belonging to his grandfather.
In the case of Dr. Bruck’s medals, it was clear to whom they originally belonged as they came with documentation. Tilo would later explain to me there exist old annual periodicals (e.g., “Handbuch für den Preußischen Hof und Staat” (a printed guide of the Royal Prussian court and administration); “Ranglisten der Königlich Preußischen Armee” (rank lists of the Prussian Army)) that were once published where persons in official positions and/or of higher rank were mentioned along with the decorations they were awarded. Clearly, for personalized medal groups Tilo purchases that come without attribution, these handbooks are most useful.
Once Tilo has the name of a person connected to a medal group in his collection, he tries to find out as much as possible about them, especially the circumstances under which the individual received the decorations. A collector friend of Tilo’s, knowing of his interest in the Bruck family, informed him of my Blog, and he contacted me through Webmail. This resulted in Dr. Wahl generously sharing with me hundreds of images of medals, papers, letters, telegrams, personal items, photographs, guest registers, etc. belonging to Dr. Bruck.
Among the items shared was a 19-page biography about Dr. Bruck’s ancestors and his early years. I enlisted the assistance of a German friend, Julia Drinnenberg, who recruited her brother-in-law to translate this typed document; I want to acknowledge Julia’s relative, Max Raimann, for his generous assistance translating Walter’s memoir. Unfortunately, the biography only goes as far as around 1894-1895 but it includes some entertaining snippets. It also has fleeting references to a few of Walter’s ancestors that provide a narrow firsthand account of mutual relatives about whom I knew little or nothing. Below I quote at length from his narrative and include a few parenthetical clarifications on some of what Walter reminisces about:
I was born on Sunday, the 4th of March 1872. I was the fourth of my parents’ children. At the time, my father was a private lecturer at the University of Breslau, where he later became the professor Dr. med Julius Bruck.(Figure 10) My mother was born Bertha Vogelsdorff. (Figure 11) At the time, we lived at Schweidnitzerstadtgraen 9, which is now the ‘Café Kaiserkrone.’
My eldest sister Gertrud died in infancy. My next sister was Margarethe. (Figure 12) She married Dr. Wilhelm Prausnitz (Figure 13), who was private lecturer in Munich. In this position he was awarded the ‘Pettenbkopferpreis’ for his research on the ability of rivers to cleanse themselves. He later became ‘Sanitätsrat’ [roughly translatable as ‘Medical Consultant’] and Director of the Hygienic Institute at the University of Graz [Austria].
I was the youngest child and want to describe my career. But first I would like to give some more information about the Bruck family. Our family lived for more than 200 years in Silesia. I was told that my great-grandfather owned a brewery. There were no further details that I could find out about him.
A brief footnote. Based on my knowledge of the Bruck family tree, I think Walter Bruck’s great-grandfather was Jacob Nathan Bruck (1770-1832), born in Pschow, Germany [today: Pszów, Poland] who died in Ratibor, Germany [today: Racibórz, Poland]. Jacob was married to Marianne Aufrecht, allegedly born in 1776, place unknown. Given my family’s connection to Ratibor and its association with the brewery and hospitality industries there, it is reasonable to assume these are Walter’s great-grandparents. Portraits of neither are known to exist.
Continuing.
However, I remember my grandfather on my father’s side [Dr. Jonas Julius Bruck] (Figure 15), though I was only eleven years old when he died. He was an excellent physician and dentist by the standard of the times. He published several scientific works, one of which was a textbook on dentistry which had already two editions. He was a leading figure in his field and was made a member of the Imperial Leopoldian-Carolingian Academy of Science in Halle (‘Kaiserlich Leopoldinisch-Carolinschen Akademie der Wissenschaften in Halle’), a special honor at the time.
Dr. Jonas Bruck’s brother, Dr. Moritz Bruck, worked as physician in Berlin and was the author of a book, ‘Über die Asiatisch Cholera’ (About the Asian Cholera).
Disappointingly, Walter Bruck makes no mention of my great-grandfather, Samuel Bruck (Figure 16), the middle brother of Dr. Moritz Bruck and Dr. Jonas Bruck. Samuel was originally a wood merchant before purchasing the Bruck’s “Prinz von Preußen” Hotel in Ratibor in the mid-19th century, owned for three generations by my ancestors.
From the time of my grandfather all male members of the family turned to academic professions. This resulted through four generations in a desire for education that was a special mark of our family. With two exceptions, the female members of the family also married men with an academic education. This indicated a desire to continue living in the atmosphere in which they had been raised.
My father’s brothers should also be mentioned. Dr. Adalbert Bruck (Figure 17) was an ‘Amtsgerichsrat’ [Court Judge] and Professor Dr. jur. Felix Bruck (Figure 18) was a ‘Geheimer Justizrat’ [Privy Councilor of Justice].
About the family Vogelsdorff from which my mother is descended there is not much I can write. One of my mother’s brothers, Ludwig Vogelsdorff, acquired great wealth being a wholesaler in velvet, silks, and ribbons in Germany. As a result of inflation and the incompetence of his son and son-in-law there is not much left of the fortune.
My childhood passed like that of most children from our class. There is not much I can tell. I supposedly had a wet nurse who liked cheese and alcohol. This did not apparently have a lasting influence on me since I do not have a particular craving for cheese or alcohol. On the contrary, I have always been moderate as far as alcohol consumption.
I like to recall one episode from my earliest childhood that took place at the so-called summer camps (Sommerquartiere). We moved to the camps during the summers when it got warmer. I have two particularly vivid memories. One of them took place in the Parkstrasse that was owned by Herr Quickert. Around a yard were arranged small houses, opposite which stretched an old unkept garden. In this building, which survives today unchanged, we lived. On another occasion we lived on a plot of land close to the Fürstenbrücke (bridge) on a large plot of land. That plot belonged to the banker family Alexander who were friends of my parents. On the day of our move there, I gave my parents an unpleasant surprise by falling off a swing while they were unpacking. Being sick I had to be put to bed immediately. The Parkstrasse was connected to the town by a horse drawn tram.
There is another pleasant memory of my grandfather [Dr. Jonas Julius Bruck] I like to recall. After lunch he would visit my father Dr. Julius Bruck’s office on Schweidnitzerstrasse opposite the theater. My late brother [Friedrich Wilhelm Bruck] and I went to meet him on the esplanade. If we were on time, we were invited to the Viennese café on the corner of Taschenstrasse and Neue Gasse. It was owned by the Cloin brothers and was so far as I know the first Viennese café in Breslau.
My grandmother [Rosalie Marle] (Figure 20) came from the family Marle, a renowned family from Upper Silesia. I still vividly remember her slipping us sweet morsels to which she was also partial. My grandfather had to keep a strict diet due to his frequent and severe bouts of gout. My grandmother died suddenly at the Café Pupp in Karlsbad [then-Czechoslovakia], while there with my Uncle Felix to enjoy the waters.
My grandfather died in 1883. He had just turned 70. Every year he got from the warden of the esplanade the first chestnuts, an unfailing remedy against gout. He always carried them in his pocket.
After these first childhood years which passed without any remarkable events, ‘real life’ began.
School Years
I entered [school] at the then-popular ‘Wanckelsche Knabenschule’. . .The headmaster was Herr Beisenherz. It was tradition that before his birthday a collection of money was made from all the classes. The profit was used to increase the silver treasure of the family Beisenherz. In return we were treated to streusel cake and hot chocolate on his birthday.
After that period, I became a pupil at the ‘Königliches Freidrichsgymnasium,’ founded by Frederick the Great, which was situated in the Karlstrasse and had a second access from the Schlossplatz. This access was very convenient because it shortened the trip from our flat quite considerably. Also the Schlossplatz was a favorite battle ground for fights with the pupils from the Realgymnasium. Brawls between both parties took place there.
The Friedrichsgymnasium had always been the school of choice for the family Bruck. My father and his brothers went to school there, so it was taken for granted that me and my brother Fritz were going there too. The staff there was quite a queer mixture.
The form master’s name in my first year was initially called Inowrazler, later Inow, and by the time I became his pupil he was known as Jahnow. His son was an Air Force officer who was shot down during WWI. Then we had a Professor Scharnweber, who had already survived several strokes which should in fact have disqualified him from teaching. Then we had a Professor Hirsch with a body like a flagpole and reddish hair that reached nearly to his shoulders. He greased it flat to the sides of his head. He wore glasses that sat at the tip of his nose. He had protruding lips and you would hardly call him a beauty. He wore a winter coat over his vest in summer as well as in winter. When someone had not done his exercises properly, he called out, ‘Sit down, you get a Noll!’ (he wanted to say ‘Null’ or zero). Therefore we nicknamed him ‘Papa Noll.’ He lived with his family near the school. His short, fat wife was an English woman, who often treated us to her singing.
Then there was the limping Professor Menzel and a Professor Michael who always carried a bunch of keys in his hand. During lessons he often pressed clenched fists against the first pupil’s desk. This was an invitation for us to wet the outer edge of the desk with ink. Thus his fingers were always black at the end of the lesson.
In the first years of school I was a good student which delighted my parents and teachers. That changed and my grades diminished, so I was assigned a private tutor, candidate of medicine Leo Wolf. He later became a physician in Metz and after WWI moved to Wiesbaden. He was not a particularly gifted tutor, a fact I used to my advantage. He was lame and walked with a certain rhythm with a stick. When I was in my ‘study’ on the third floor and heard him coming up the stairs, I would climb on the tile stove. When he finally arrived, I started negotiations concerning my homework. I stayed upon the stove until he had met all my demands.
Because my tutor was a romantically minded man, we would read the classics together. I was so enamored of Körner and Schiller that I decided to become a poet too. I even wrote a drama, ‘The End of the Orsini,’ unfinished, which is regrettably lost to posterity. If I obtained an acceptable grade on tests at school, I could attend a performance of a classic play at the theater. The first drama I saw was ‘Zriny’ by Körner. I was so thrilled by the performance I learned whole passages by heart. I can still recite them. My love for the German classics made me plan to study literature. Alas, that plan was never fulfilled.
I was made to dislike school because of the teachers, most of whom were old men, probably senile, who did not know how to kindle any interest in the subjects they were teaching. Thus, my grades slumped despite being gifted.
Before I continue describing my schooling, I would like to recount a little episode which happened during my fifth form in school. An eclipse was expected. Our class was to watch it from Crossen an der Oder, the town where my mathematics teacher was born. My father had given me a gold ten-mark coin. I spent some of it on several glasses of Kümmel (a caraway seed brandy) in a shop opposite the hotel. I must have arrived home in not quite a sober state. In the morning I turned up to watch the eclipse in my brand-new summer coat. Because of the overcast weather we did not get to see much of the eclipse. I was somewhat apprehensive about the reception at home because my coat had been stolen. Against all expectations my parents made light of the affair. When the garment turned up again, the good atmosphere at home was restored. A boy waiter at the hotel had stolen the coat when he noticed I was not quite sober.
Music was important in my parents’ home. My father played the organ quite masterfully. So it was destined I would play an instrument, the violin. At the time in Breslau there existed a music school, von Henschel in the Büttnerstrasse, where I was to learn the basics of playing a violin. It remained at the basics because playing the violin was just not my cup of tea. So I started to take cello lessons. My late brother had played the cello, so there was no need to buy a new instrument. Lessons were given by the then very popular cellist Heyer, with whom I took lessons until he hit me across my fingers with the cello bow. My next teacher was the first cellist of the Breslauer Ochesterverein Josel Melzer, with whom I made great progress and achieved acceptable ability.
My preference for German literature was promoted through a reading circle, where we read the classics with each person reciting a different role. We met each Sunday. The members of this circle have in large part been very successful in life. Fritz Gradenwitz became mayor in Kiel, Victor Loewe ‘archivrat’ (Keeper of the State Archive) in Breslau, Walther Freund the head physician of the Breslau Hospital for Infants, Fritz Leppman ‘medizinalrat’ (medical officer) in Berlin and Fritz Juliusburg Professor.
We would convene meetings in ‘Frey’schen Garten’ on Breiten Strasse. Participants included Christian Morganstern, Friedrich Kayseler, and occasionally Otfried Förster, the neurologist who later achieved international fame.
These glorious times ended abruptly when my grades fell through the pastimes my father characterized as ‘shenanigans.’ I was sent to live with my father’s former house tutor, Oberlehrer Bernhardt, in Striegau [32 miles west of Breslau] in 1887. I can still clearly remember my arrival in this beautifully situated town. On a sunny January Sunday it was bitterly cold, and an old-fashioned vehicle brought me and my parents to the house of the coppersmith Rückert on Jauerstrasse. The family Bernhardt lived on the first floor. With trepidation I accompanied my parents to the railway station, and I was left in a strange town.
Bernhardt was a great man, gifted as a poet, jovial, and an unparalleled educator. I followed him with all the enthusiasm of a 15-year-old, and we became the best of friends notwithstanding the large difference in age. As his wife was a high-minded person who made his life difficult, he seemed to enjoy my company. We went for long walks, made occasional detours to ‘Mutter Katzler,’ which his wife was not to know about. There we ate a big chunk of garlic sausage. Our walks usually ended at his local tavern as he was not averse to alcohol.
While I did not exactly harvest laurels in Breslau, I became quite a good student in Striegau, where the standards were not as exacting. The headmaster of the Progymnasium favored me and held me up especially in German language as a quintessential student. He was particularly taken with my ‘Lesetagebuch’ (a reading diary as a method of promoting reading) in which I entered quotations from the classics. And the poor, and in part dull, Striegauer students had to keep such a diary as well. But as they were not sure the purpose of a quotation these diaries often were unintentionally comical.
My cello playing continued in Striegau. The Kantor of the Catholic Church, a friendly old gentleman, gave me lessons. Alas, my stay in Striegau was only of a short duration. As the school was a Progymnasium, it did not have the last two years of a Gymnasium.
I next attended the Gymnasium in Jauer [39 miles west of Breslau]. My time there is not among my fondest memories though some amusing incidents took place. The headmaster was an excellent teacher though rather religious. Every day we had prayers before our lessons. Every fortnight we had to partake in a service in the beautiful old Friedenskirche. Overall he was quite a strange person. He kept a hedgehog as a pet. He still wore an upturned collar, which was kept in place by a tie, a long black frock coat, and wore his eyeglasses so he could peer over them at you.
The food was not very good, especially on Wednesdays, when ‘Bierfleisch’ (literally ‘beer meat’) was served. This was the mixed remains of the entire week, beer, beef tallow, etc. It was the fiendish invention of the Frau Direktor, the headmaster’s wife, and spread its undefinable odor in all rooms of the school. On Wednesday afternoon there were no lessons. To compensate for the dreadful meal, after lunch we headed straight for the baker von Fliegener on Marktstrasse for coffee and cakes. Near the station there was a pub where we played billiards and passed the time.
In our boarding house, it was a tradition to pilfer a bottle of ‘Haase-Exportbier’ every night. In the hall of the headmaster’s flat there was a cupboard with this noble beverage. We had a key to this cupboard, so naturally we helped ourselves.
Professor Armbuster, our Greek and German teacher, was a terrible person whose wrath I incurred. He resembled a faun [a man with a goat’s horns, legs, and tail] with a scraggly beard, who was squat of stature, had evil looking eyes and a monstrous mouth, and of course wore spectacles. He wanted to get his revenge on me for some misdemeanor I had committed during a Greek lesson. In the sixth form we had to deliver presentations of Greek texts in German. While translating Herodutus, I had used a cheat sheet from which I delivered my translation, unaware that Professor Armbuster had the same cheat sheet on his desk. As a punishment I was compelled to deliver an essay on a book by Herder that was completely incomprehensible for a sixth form student. The first difficulty was obtaining a copy of the book. With a lot of trouble I got it through the local bookstore. Professor Armbuster probably expected me to turn to him for advice on how to proceed but I refused to give him the satisfaction. Instead I produced such an idiotic essay my fellow students were hard put not to burst out laughing during my presentation. The whole performance was such a disaster, the professor chased me from the pulpit and was so mad I thought he would strangle me.
But my time in Jauer finally came to an end. By then I had given up the idea of studying literature and turned to studying dentistry. I had been encouraged by my father and grandfather. My father qualified as a professor with the later famous anatomist Waldeyer as a physician and dentist. In 1871 he became a private lecturer in dentistry at the medical department of the University of Breslau. With his own money he founded the first dental university institute in Germany. He supported it until it was nationalized in 1890. With nationalization, the teaching was divided into three parts. Professor Carl Partsch became the head of the surgical department. Dr. Wilhelm Sachs, an exceptionally capable and well-known dentist, became head of the division for conservation. And my father became head of the division for dental prosthesis. By then he had been promoted to full professor.
My father published a series of scientific essays which quickly earned him a reputation in professional circles. He invented the stomatoscope for examining oral cavities and the urethroscope for examining the bladder. In all standard textbooks on urology he is mentioned as a pioneer in this field.
The dental institute which for economic reasons was called ‘provisional’ was housed in unbelievably primitive rooms in a flat on Feldstrasse. The furniture consisted of the equipment from my father’s private practice, by far not up to date anymore, and old stuff the university wanted to get rid of. It stayed there from 1890 until 1901, when it was moved into the university’s former eye clinic. This is where it still is now (1936). In spite of the deficient accommodations a lot was achieved there, and I received an excellent education.
Sachs had good connections to Austria. Thus, many colleagues came to Breslau as the training of dentists in Austria left much to be desired. I got on quite well with Sachs. My undeniable manual dexterity piqued his interest, and I learned a lot from him. Later, we became good friends. For a short time I joined the ‘AkademmischZahnärztlichen Verein’ (Academic Dentists Club). But I did not feel comfortable there, so I resigned from the club.
Twice I took part in some academic fencing. Once I mauled a chap named Levin quite badly while I did not even get a scratch, a feat known as ‘unberücht abstehen’ (stab untouched). In another encounter with a student named Ziegel from Görlitz I was scarred on the forehead.
On the 30th of November 1892 I passed my state examination in dentistry with the grade ‘gut’ (good). While studying I did not have much fun. My father insisted strictly that I occupy myself either as observer in his surgery or work in the laboratory. This I had to do everyday after working in the clinic of Carl Partsch which took place in the morning. It got much worse after I passed my exam for which I am grateful to this day.
Following my exam I worked in my father’s clinic until I was called up for military service. This was a one-year enlistment that began on the 1st of October 1893. I joined the artillery regiment von Peucker. We lived in the barracks in a house [in Breslau] on a corner, first with the widow Zeidler and later one floor below with the widow Mischke. I quite enjoyed a soldier’s freedom of life. The first battery to which I was assigned enjoyed a great reputation. The commander, Hauptmann Braune, was a benevolent superior with a gigantic mustache. Though I would not claim special soldierly merits my equestrian abilities must have been satisfactory, as I was selected as so called ‘Teten’Reiter’ (head rider), an important position in my company. At the time, I became a private first class. On the 1st of July I was promoted to sergeant. It was with great pride that I carried the golden insignia on my collar and cuffs walking down the Schweidnitzerstrasse. My promotion to sergeant marked the end of my military career.
After my year of military service, I returned to work in my father’s practice, and diligently learned English. Because of the advances of American dentistry, my father wanted to send me to America for further education. My English tutor, Mr. Dance, equipped me with a good mastery of the English language. With the aid of a warehouse catalog, he taught me the names of all objects depicted. The ‘Baltimore College of Dental Surgery’ was the oldest institution of its kind and considered to be the best. It was decided that I would take a postgraduate course there.
Regrettably, Dr. Walter Bruck’s biography abruptly ends here. I have quoted at length from his memoir for several reasons. Rarely do I come across my ancestors’ firsthand accounts of their lives, so Walter can assuredly much better relate his personal story than I can. His academic grounding in literature imbue his accounts with levity and amusement, even though much is likely lost in translation. Walter comes across as a gentleman with a pleasant, waggish humor. His accomplished father and grandfather were clearly influential in Walter deciding to become a dentist rather than study literature. Finally, his encounters with renowned academicians and fellow students who would later go on to become very accomplished highlight the intellectual milieu in which he grew up and was educated.
As mentioned, Dr. Wahl sent me dozens of images of papers, news articles, and photos from Dr. Bruck’s personal effects that shed further light on his life. February 28, 1925 marked the 25th anniversary of Walter’s appointment as lecturer in dentistry at the University of Breslau and at the same time his resignation from the position as head of the department at the Dental Institute. On this occasion, a celebration took place lecture hall of the Dental Institute to mark Dr. Bruck’s tenure and many accomplishments.
His photo album include dozens of telegrams, letters, and personal notes Walter received marking the “Dozenten Jubiläum,” lecturer’s anniversary. His scrap book also contains contemporary newspaper accounts of the event that provide a chronology of major events in his life. (Figure 21) Walter obtained his license to practice dentistry in 1892, enrolled in the Baltimore College of Dental Surgery in 1895 where he obtained the degree of Doctor of Dentistry in 1896. In 1900 he succeeded his mentor Professor Wilhelm Sachs as teacher of dentistry and department head at the University of Breslau’s Dental Institute and became a member of the dental examination board. In 1908 he obtained the title “Professor” and in 1912 was awarded the silver medal by the Central Association of German dentists. During WWI, from October 1914 to August 1917, Walter headed a dental department at the fortress hospital in Breslau, and in 1917 went to Bucharest, where he worked as a consulting dentist for the Romanian military administration (Figures 22a-c) and later in the same capacity worked at the high command of the so-called von Mackensen Army Group. (Figure 23) In 1919, he became a member of the commission for the dental doctoral examination board, and in 1920 received his PhD. in medicine. In 1921, he received the lofty title of “extraordinary Professor,” then from October 1923 to October 1924 he was the Deputy Directory of the Dental Institute at Breslau University.
As mentioned, Walter’s “Jubiläum” took place in 1925 but no newspaper accounts postdate this time than can inform us about his later life. Some materials exist from which inferences can be drawn, but, in the interest of abbreviating what is already a lengthy post, I will tell more of Walter Bruck’s personal life in future publications. However, a few other things are worth mentioning here.
During Dr. Wahl’s meetup with Nicholas Newman in 2013, he learned about and spoke to Renate’s best friend growing up, a German countess named Ina Gräfin von Schaesberg née Weinert (b. 19 Mar 1926, Breslau). Thinking I would be interested in speaking with her, Tilo called her and happily learned she is very much alive. Tilo put me in touch with Ina, and ever since we have had a very lively and productive exchange. (Figure 24) Like many Germans escaping the advancing Russians towards the end of WWII, Ina and her family were able to salvage very few mementos when they fled Breslau in 1945; however, among the items Ina managed to save are a few pictures of she and Renate Bruck as children, which Ina graciously shared with me. One was taken at Renate’s 10th birthday party on the 16th of June 1936. (Figure 25) Another, of the two of them performing in a school play, shows Ina dressed in black playing the role of a prince, and Renate dressed in white as a princess. (Figure 26)
Ina shared a particularly interesting rumor about Walter which I am inclined to believe is true. Walter died at the relatively young age of 65, and the scuttlebutt circulating at the time was that he committed suicide; he apparently did this to save his non-Jewish wife and half-Jewish daughter from being persecuted and/or murdered and having their property confiscated by the Nazis, a fate that inevitably awaited them. In future posts I will have more to say about Walter’s religious upbringing.
Towards the outset of this post, I mentioned to readers the coincidental email I received only this week from Nicholas Newman’s twin sisters after they stumbled on my Blog. I knew of their existence solely because Ina had mentioned them to me but had no expectation of finding them because they had immigrated to Australia in the 1990’s leaving no trace I could find. Ina could only recall their first names, Francesca and Michele. Regardless, as we speak, I am in the process of learning more about them as well as their grandfather from some of his memorabilia and dental equipment they retain; these may overlap with what Tilo already sent, assuming the twin girls inherited Nicholas’s belongings after he died. Almost immediately after hearing from Francesca and Michele Newman, I sent Ina an email letting her know. Like me, she was thrilled. She went to her photo album and retrieved some endearing images from October 1966 when Ina went with her two boys, Friedrich and Philipp, to visit Renate and her three children in Elstree, outside London. (Figure 25) Stay tuned for further developments!
Note: In the second installment of Post 98, I will briefly tell readers about some of the historic vital event documents I found related to Roberto Hirsch’s ancestors, focusing on ones from the mid-to-early 19th century that allowed me to trace Roberto’s ancestry seven generations back to the mid 18th century. As readers will see, some of these records are challenging to decipher.
Roberto Hirsch (Figure 1), to remind readers, is the great grandnephew of Sigmund Hirsch (Figure 2), former co-owner of the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik. As I discussed in part 1 of this post, Roberto contacted me through Webmail and filled in details on a few of his ancestors I have previously written about. He gave me enough details to uncover vital event documents on some, which I supplemented by finding records on others Roberto did not know about.
As discussed in part 1, Roberto’s grandparents, Hermann Hirsch (1876-1943) and Ida Hirsch née Sollinger (1874-1944) (Figure 3), were murdered in Theresienstadt during the Holocaust. Roberto thought his grandfather had only two siblings, Sofie Hirsch (b. 1875) (Figure 4) and Karl Hirsch (b. 1879) (Figure 5) and knew Karl like his parents had been murdered in the Shoah; according to Yad Vashem, tragically, Sofie was also killed during the Holocaust. (Figure 6) Additionally, it turns out Hermann Hirsch had yet another sibling Roberto was unaware of, Bernhard Hirsch (b. 1877). (Figure 7) I suspect this sibling may have died at a young age but have not found proof of this.
Roberto obviously knew of his great-grandfather Jakob Hirsch (1842-1905) (Figure 8) and great granduncle Sigmund Hirsch (1848-1920). Again, Jakob and Sigmund had a third sibling Roberto did not know of, also named Bernhard Hirsch (1836-1888). (Figure 9)
I was able to establish a connection between Roberto’s ancestors and the city of Karlsruhe in the German state of Baden-Württemberg through records I initially found for Ratibor, Germany [today: Racibórz, Poland] rather than for Karlsruhe. Let me explain.
Prior to being contacted by Roberto Hirsch, I knew when Sigmund Hirsch had died and even have a picture of his headstone from the former Jewish Cemetery in Ratibor. (Figure 10) One of the Ratibor microfilms available through familysearch.org, the Mormon Library’s online database, Family History Library (FHL) microfilm 1184448 records his date of death as the 15th of October 1920. (Figure 11) It took me a while to realize the death register is organized according to the Hebrew calendar. Thus, the page with Sigmund Hirsch’s name is entitled “Marcheschwan,” which is “Heshvan,” covering the months of October-November. This comports with Sigmund’s known death inscribed on his headstone as the 14th of October 1920. Similarly, for Sigmund’s wife, Selma Hirsch née Braun, who I knew from the same headstone died on the 11th of July 1916, I found her name under the Jewish month of “Tamus” or “Tammuz” (Figure 12), encompassing the months of June-July. Below, I discuss another surprising discovery I made on FHL microfilm 1184448.
The key to unraveling Roberto Hirsch’s lineage was discovering his great-grandparents’ marriage certificate on ancestry.com. Jakob Hirsch (Sigmund’s brother) and his wife, Auguste Hirsch née Hirsch from a different branch of the Hirsch family, were married in Karlsruhe, Baden-Württemberg, Germany on the 30th of July 1874. (Figure 13) German marriage certificates typically provide a wealth of information, including the age and the date and place of birth of the espoused, along with the names of the parents, including the maiden names of the mothers. While I cannot read or speak German, the handwriting is crisp enough that I could make out the key vital information.
Jakob Hirsch, I learned, was 31 years of age at the time of his marriage, was born in Carlsruhe (former spelling of Karlsruhe), and his parents were Emanuel Hirsch and Jette (short for Henriette) née Ettlinger. Jakob’s wife, Auguste, was 25 when she married, was born in Ilvesheim, Baden-Württemberg, Germany, and her parents were Löb Hirsch II and Johanna née Herz. Armed with this new information, I quickly found Emanuel Hirsch’s death certificate showing he died on the 25th of March 1880 in Karlsruhe.
Jakob’s 1874 marriage certificate was the first solid evidence I found for his father’s full name, Emanuel Hirsch. As a related aside, Roberto shared an 1879 letter written in the old German script “Sütterlin,” signed by “E. Hirsch,” with separate sections addressed to his other son Sigmund and daughter-in-law Selma Hirsch née Braun. What makes this letter so quaint is that Sigmund married Selma without introducing her to his parents. This meant he did not have permission to marry her, in those days a big affront in Jewish families. Regardless, Emanuel Hirsch’s 1879 letter graciously welcomed Selma to the family.
Initially uncertain what might have happened to Sigmund and Jakob’s parents, Emanuel Hirsch and Henriette Hirsch née Ettlinger, I re-examined FHL microfilm 1184448, thinking they might have died in Ratibor. What I discovered surprised me. Under the Jewish month of “Nissan” or “Nisan,” covering March-April, I found both their names in Ratibor’s death register. (Figure 14) Under the column titled “Beerdigungsort,” or burial place, they are both shown however to have been buried in Karlsruhe. In Emanuel’s case, his listing under March comports with the month of his death; however, in the case of Emanuel’s wife Henriette, from her death certificate which I also found, she is known to have died in August. Why both names are listed in the Ratibor death register when they are known to have died in Karlsruhe is a bit of a mystery; I assume it is because their son Sigmund was connected to Ratibor. These towns are more than 575 miles apart.
Regardless, the findings discussed firmly established a link to Karlsruhe and Ilvesheim in Baden-Württemberg, Germany for Roberto Hirsch’s family. I returned to familysearch.org, hoping to find Jewish microfilm for one town or the other, and was rewarded in both instances. Finding these records was the ultimate step to documenting Roberto’s lineage.
As previously mentioned, Emanuel and Henriette Hirsch’s three sons, Bernhard, Jakob, and Sigmund were born, respectively, in 1836, 1842, and 1848. These dates narrowed the “window” to search for birth records in Karlsruhe. From their death records, I knew Bernhard and Jakob were born in Karlsruhe, and assumed Sigmund had also been born there.
Bernhard (Figures 15a-b), Jakob (Figures 16a-b), and Sigmund’s (Figures 17a-b) birth register listings are all found on FHL microfilm 1256447 for Karlsruhe. Without knowing beforehand their actual or approximate years of birth, it is quite unlikely I would have located their listings. Given how indecipherable the text is, as readers can see for themselves, knowing what to search for was the key to finding the listings. At a minimum, birth registers give the name and date of birth of the newborn and the names of the parents.
The most challenging listing to read was that of Bernhard Hirsch. Literally, I thought I could read four words out of five lines, namely, “Mutter Jette geb. Ettlinger” (circled) translated as “Mother Jette née Ettlinger.” The surname “Hirsch” written in the margin (circled), though now recognizable to me, was initially indiscernible. My go-to German friend, Peter Hanke, transcribed and translated all three birth register listings for me, along with the other documents illustrated and discussed below.
Having confirmed Bernhard was born in 1836, I turned my attention to finding his parents’ marriage register listing in Karlsruhe. While they might possibly have gotten married after Bernhard’s birth, I assumed they would have married before 1836. Again, after much hunting, I eventually found Emanuel Hirsch and Jette Ettlinger got married on the 27th of May 1834. (Figures 18a-b) Both Emanuel and Jette’s parents were named on this document, information that allowed me to track Roberto’s maternal ancestors yet another two generations as the table below illustrates.
Having gleaned what I could from the birth and marriage register listings for Karlsruhe, I next turned my attention to FHL microfilm 1271220 containing Jewish records for Ilvesheim, in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. Located approximately 39 miles north of Karlsruhe, this is where Roberto’s great-grandmother Auguste Hirsch née Hirsch was born around 1849 according to her 1874 marriage certificate (discussed above). Again, after much scrutiny, I found her birth register listing showing “Gustel,” short form for Auguste, was born on the 14th of January 1849. (Figures 19a-b) As readers can see from the translation, Auguste’s parents are identified, Löw Hirsch and Jeannette née Herz, which gave me further names to check out.
As mentioned in the first installment of Post 98, Roberto Hirsch, while born in 1944 in Santiago, Chile has lived in Bonn, Germany for the last 50 years. Prior to WWII, his grandfather Hermann Hirsch owned a well-known department store in Bonn shown in part 1 of this post. When Roberto reached out to me, he told me he thought Hermann had been born in Freiburg im Breisgau, Baden-Württemberg, Germany, about 85 miles south-southeast of Karlsruhe. From Hermann’s birth certificate, I ascertained he was actually born in Karlsruhe. (Figure 20)
Roberto confirmed his family’s association with both cities. He accessed and sent me address books for Karlsruhe from 1840 (Figure 21), 1855 (Figure 22), and 1874 (Figure 23), and one from Freiburg from 1887 (Figure 24) with listings for his family. The 1840 and 1855 Karlsruhe address books identify his great-great-grandfather Emanuel Hirsch as a “schneider,” a tailor. The 1874 Karlsruhe address book by then lists Emanuel as a “partikulier,” a ship owner who works for larger shipping companies, and his son Sigmund as a “kaufman,” a tradesman; clearly, at some point, Sigmund Hirsch moved to Ratibor and became co-owner of the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik there. The 1887 Freiburg address book lists Roberto’s great-grandfather Jakob Hirsch also as a “kaufman.”
As regular readers may have noticed, I have started including a table of vital statistics for the people discussed in my posts sourcing the vital data. This may seem unimportant, but I consider it relevant given all the erroneous data found on ancestral trees. As an example, in the case of Roberto Hirsch’s great-grandfather, I found a family tree stating Jakob Hirsch was born around 1843. I located the birth register listing for this Jakob, and it is clear to me this was a different person with the same name. While generally dismissive of trees with basic errors, after studying the inscrutable vital records for Karlsruhe and Ilvesheim, I can easily understand how genealogists might make honest mistakes. Naturally, this assumes researchers have tried to track down primary source documents, my benchmark for accuracy.
ROBERTO HIRSCH’S SIMPLIFIED FAMILY “TREE” BACK SEVEN GENERATIONS
Note: In this post I relate the story about a German gentleman born in Santiago, Chile in 1944 and now living in Bonn, Germany, Mr. Roberto Hirsch, who is the great grandnephew of Sigmund Hirsch, the co-owner of the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik outside Ratibor, Germany [today: Racibórz, Poland]. Roberto contacted me through my Blog and filled in gaps in my understanding of the fate of some of his ancestors, adding nuance, color, and some fascinating context to a horrific period in history. I will not pretend to readers I can do justice to Roberto’s family story, nor tell a comprehensive story. Rather, I will highlight aspects that augment the story of some people I have previously written about or examine lesser-known facts of my extended family’s survival during WWII.
In multiple earlier posts, I have spoken at length about the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik (sugar factory) (Figures 1a-b), located outside Ratibor, Germany [today: Racibórz, Poland], the town where my father was born in 1907. Prior to the forced sale of the plant during the Nazi era, the business was co-owned by Adolph Schück (1840-1916) (Figure 2) and his brother-in-law Sigmund Hirsch (1848-1920). (Figure 3) Adolph and Sigmund were married to sisters, and they and their wives died in Ratibor and were interred there in the former Jewish Cemetery.
Given the general inaccessibility of records from Jewish ancestors who wound up in South America, it is always gratifying when surviving descendants with connections there send me messages. Such was the case when I was contacted by Roberto Hirsch, born in Santiago, Chile in 1944 but living in Bonn, Germany for the past 50 years. For context, he explained that his great-grandfather, Jakob Hirsch (1842-1905) (Figure 4), was one of Sigmund’s older brothers, and that he was married to Auguste Hirsch née Hirsch (1849-1935). (Figure 5)
Roberto told me ample stories and gave me enough enticing clues about some of his ancestors that it sent me down one of the deepest rabbit holes I have ever climbed into seeking primary source documents, my gold standard for accuracy. As readers will learn in the second part of this two-part Blog post, I accessed historic records on Roberto’s ancestors that were practically indecipherable. Fortunately, my German friend, Peter Hanke, the “Wizard of Wolfsburg,” confirmed they were pertinent and translated them. Including Roberto’s generation, I have incredibly now found seven generations of his family, going all the way back to 1739!! For Jewish families, this covers a long span.
Sigmund Hirsch was married to Selma Braun (1856-1916), one of 14 children the Ratibor brewery owner Markus Braun (1817-1870) had with two wives. Sigmund and Selma had three children, Helene “Lene” Goldenring née Hirsch (1880-1968), Robert Hirsch (1881-1943), and Henrietta “Frieda” Mamlok née Hirsch (1883-1955). (Figure 6) Prior to being contacted by Roberto Hirsch, I had already learned the fate of all three children. From Lene Goldenring’s (Figure 7) post-WWII German compensation file, I knew she had died in 1968 in Newark, New Jersey, that her brother Robert perished in Valparaiso, Chile in 1943, and that her sister Frieda had passed away in Montevideo, Uruguay in 1955. (Figure 8)
Among the relatives Roberto first told me about was his namesake, Robert Hirsch, Sigmund’s middle child. Robert had studied electrical engineering in Berlin but had unspecified problems there, so his parents arranged to send him to Spain to work for AEG, “Allgemeine Elektricitäts-Gesellschaft.” The company was founded in 1883 in Berlin by Emil Rathenau, and according to Roberto, the Rathenau had ties to the Hirsch family from Ratibor. Possibly a business relationship existed between the families connected to the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik and maybe this facilitated Robert Hirsch obtaining a position as general manager for AEG in Bilbao, Spain? So far, I have been unable to find the thread.
Robert Hirsch was not the only member of the Hirsch family to find refuge in Spain before or during WWII. In Post 27, I talked at length about Robert’s niece, Eva Zernik née Goldenring (1906-1969) (Figure 9), who made her way to Madrid after walking away or escaping from the French detention center in Gurs, France. As I pointed out in Post 27, security at Gurs was lax, and because Eva spoke impeccable French, she likely managed to cross the nearby Spanish border illegally using money she had squirreled away to bribe human smugglers. She remained in Madrid until 1947 when she emigrated to America.
Roberto Hirsch’s parents, Fritz Hirsch (1908-2006) and Margarete Hirsch née Janzen (1914-1992), also made their way to Spain. Prior to the ascendancy of the Nazis, it had been envisioned that Fritz would take over the family fashion business in Bonn, established by his father Hermann Hirsch (1876-1943) (Figures 10-11) at the turn of the 20th Century; named “Wittgensteiner,” this store was famous throughout Germany for its fine apparel from England, France, and elsewhere. (Figures 12a-d) After it quickly became apparent the store would be expropriated by the Nazis, Fritz escaped to France to join his older brother Kurt Hirsch (1905-1993) (Figures 13-14) who had tried to establish a new life in Paris after his PhD. was revoked by the Nazis in 1933. Like my own father, Kurt joined the French Foreign Legion, but unlike my father who was shipped to Algeria, Kurt remained hidden in the south of France until 1945, eluding the German occupiers for five years and experiencing innumerable adventures.
Because Fritz’s residence permit in France only allowed for a three-month stay, he tried to get to Spain. There he knew some people with whom he had studied in Bonn that had good connections to Spanish Government officials. Through this channel, Fritz obtained an unlimited residence permit for Spain. Several months later Roberto’s mother, only 21 at the time, left Germany by train and joined her future husband there. Roberto’s mother, incidentally, was Protestant, and, on account of her relationship with Fritz Hirsch, was considered by the National Socialists as a “Judenliebchen,” a Jew’s lover, strictly forbidden under Nazi law.
Roberto tells a few fascinating stories about his parents’ time in Spain.
Roberto’s parents lived mostly in small towns in the northern part of the country. In the mid-1930’s, Spain was a cultural and social backwater with limited outside contacts. Arriving speaking not a word of Spanish and having no money Fritz still managed to land himself a job as a traveling salesman selling office supplies. Armed with only a small dictionary, he traveled around his sales district, speaking his broken Spanish to comical delight and endless derision. Nonetheless, the Spaniards, a joyful people by nature, were so amused by the situation, they bought more supplies than they needed. Thus, Fritz was able to provide for himself and his wife.
Roberto’s parents were in touch with Robert Hirsch during their four-year stay in Spain between 1935 and 1939. By virtue of Robert’s position as general manager for AEG, he had more freedom of movement, which allowed all to meet periodically. Based on Roberto’s aunt’s surviving address book, Fritz Hirsch lived for a time in Bilbao. (Figure 15) Given that Robert, Fritz, and Margarete’s stays in Spain overlapped with almost the entirety of the Spanish Civil War, which began on the 17th of July 1936 and ended on the 1st of April 1939, I was particularly curious how the conflict might have affected their lives.
Roberto relates one amusing story about an unnerving encounter his mother had towards the beginning of the Spanish Civil War. At the time, at least in northern Spain, the conflict was a low-key affair. Young men from opposing sides would gather in an open field and start shooting at one another with their ancient and off target rifles; neither side could afford more accurate arms, so damage and injury was limited. One day Roberto’s mother was returning from shopping and came upon this scene. Suddenly, a voice shouted, “stop shooting, the lady wants to pass.” And the boys did precisely this, allowing her to walk through with trembling knees, whereafter the same voice shouted, “now we can continue!”
According to Roberto’s parents, the conflict became more gruesome when the Germans, Italians, and Soviets began to send troops and more sophisticated arms. At the time, Fritz and Margarete lived in a small town not far from Guernica. Students of history know this town was the scene of an infamous April 26, 1937 bombing, the first aerial bombing by the German Luftwaffe carried out at the behest of Francisco Franco’s Nationalist faction; the number of casualties ranged from about 150 to more than 1600, depending on which faction was reporting. This incident was the inspiration for Pablo Picasso’s famous painting “Guernica.”
At some point, Roberto’s father had to renew his German passport and was forced to visit the German consulate in Bilbao, which was evidently staffed by Nazis. While Fritz’s passport was eventually renewed, it did not happen before anti-Semitic epithets were hurled at him and he was told that Berlin would be informed of his whereabouts. I have on occasion uncovered vital documents for some Jewish ancestors with their location outside of Germany noted. Roberto’s story is independent confirmation that this in fact took place, ostensibly because the Nazis expected one day to invade these yet unoccupied countries and round up Jews living there. No doubt, Fritz and other Jews living in Spain were worried about this eventuality.
As the Spanish Civil War intensified and Franco’s forces captured larger cities, Roberto’s parents moved further west towards Portugal. Approaching the end of their stay in Spain in 1939, Roberto’s parents lived in La Coruna, the capital of Galicia in the northwest of Spain by the sea, in a zone already captured by Franco. (Figure 16) Each morning, they could hear shooting on the nearby beach as Franco’s forces executed Republican prisoners.
It was at this moment that Roberto’s parents decided to flee Spain. One day they told their neighbors they were traveling to Portugal for the weekend and took with them only two suitcases. Using $3,000 they had saved over the years, they left for Lisbon. Upon their arrival, they started visiting the various consulates trying like thousands of other Jewish refugees there to obtain an exit visa. Everywhere, they were turned down until they visited the Chilean Embassy. Upon their arrival, the Ambassador was out, so a young staffer received them and started flirting with Roberto’s attractive mother; she reciprocated, and this miraculously resulted in Roberto’s parents being granted a visa for Chili. Within a week, by April 1939, they had boarded a ship bound for Buenos Aires, Argentina, a transit point. (Figures 17a-f)
Upon Fritz and Margaret Hirsch’s arrival in Santiago, Chile in June 1939, they were met by Robert Hirsch. (Figure 18) Roberto knows nothing about Robert’s departure from Spain and eventual emigration to Chile. Robert was apparently living with a Spanish woman named Carmen to whom he left a large sum of money upon his departure. Robert’s sister, Helene Goldenring née Hirsch, would eventually also go to Chile via an unknown route from Germany. While I already knew that Robert had died in Valparaiso, Chile on the 7th of October 1943, Roberto explained that his namesake had committed suicide because of a severe persecution complex. This resolved yet another unanswered question I had.
Helene Goldenring lived not with her brother Robert in Valparaiso but with Roberto’s parents (Figures 19-20) in Santiago until she left for America on the 3rd of July 1947 (Figure 21), never having learned to speak any Spanish. Oddly, after her departure, Roberto’s parents never again heard from her.
As to some of Roberto’s relatives who did not escape from Europe, I will briefly relate the heartbreaking story of Roberto’s grandparents, Hermann Hirsch (1876-1943) and Ida Hirsch née Sollinger (1874-1944). (Figures 22-23) Erroneously concluding the Nazis would have no interest in them because of their age, like many other elderly Jews, they consciously decided to stay in Germany. However, by 1939, Hermann and Ida were forced to move to a special house for Jews in Bonn where they paid high prices for water, electricity, and gas. Most of their money had been confiscated, and only a small sum remained from which paltry monthly withdrawals could be made. Around this time their son Fritz began corresponding with his parents from Santiago, Chile, retaining carbon copies of his letters. By 1941, Roberto’s grandparents were again forced to move, this time to a convent in Bonn where the nuns had been evicted. The posts came to a stop in June 1942, when his grandparents were deported to Theresienstadt.
Roberto graciously shared with me the last correspondence the family ever received from his grandmother. (Figure 24 a-c) It is an exceptional document, a typed postcard written on the 20th of December 1943 from Theresienstadt to Roberto’s family in Geneva. Dictated by Ida Hirsch who was already nearly blind, she wrote that her husband had died of cardiac arrest; the family would later learn from survivors his real cause of death had been suicide, which it was forbidden to write. Preposterously, Ida’s postcard was first sent by the Nazis to Berlin to the “Oberkommando der Wehrmacht” to be censored before being forwarded to Geneva, as though an elderly blind woman could divulge military secrets. It is astonishing the Nazis would allow Jewish internees of the concentration camps any communication with the outside world.
I am profoundly grateful to Roberto for sharing some of his family’s stories, pictures, and documents. I like to think this has been a mutually beneficial exchange since I have uncovered additional ancestors of which he was unaware including their fates. Roberto’s grandfather had three siblings, only two of which he knew about; the three he knew about were all murdered in the Holocaust, and the fate of the fourth has yet to be worked out.
In the second installment of Post 98, I will describe and illustrate some of the historic documents I recovered from various sources related to Roberto Hirsch’s family that have allowed me to track a few of his relatives to the 18th Century.
_________________________________________
VITAL STATISTICS OF SIEGMUND HIRSCH AND HIS RELATIVES
NAME
EVENT
DATE
PLACE
SOURCE
Sigmund Hirsch (self)
Birth
18 November 1848
Karlsruhe, Baden-Württemberg, Germany
Family History Library Karlsruhe Microfilm Roll 1256447 (p. 441 of 748)
Death
14 October 1920
Ratibor, Germany [today: Racibórz, Poland]
Headstone from former Jewish Cemetery in Ratibor, Germany [today: Racibórz, Poland]; Family History Library Ratibor Microfilm Roll 1184448
Selma Hirsch née Braun (wife)
Birth
11 July 1856
Ratibor, Germany [today: Racibórz, Poland]
Headstone from former Jewish Cemetery in Ratibor, Germany [today: Racibórz, Poland]; Family History Library Ratibor Microfilm Roll 1184449
Death
11 July 1916
Ratibor, Germany [today: Racibórz, Poland]
Headstone from former Jewish Cemetery in Ratibor, Germany [today: Racibórz, Poland]
Helene Goldenring née Hirsch (daughter)
Birth
25 March 1880
Ratibor, Germany [today: Racibórz, Poland]
Helene Goldenring’s Hesse, Germany Post-War Compensation File
Death
12 January 1968
Newark, New Jersey
Helene Goldenring’s Hesse, Germany Post-War Compensation File
Note: In this post I relate the story of retracing my steps to prove to my distant Uruguayan cousin the existence of his great-aunt and -uncle’s daughter whom he knew nothing about. His great-uncle was a noted art historian Curt Glaser in Berlin who like many Jews in the Nazi era suffered the loss of his profession and more.
The last several months have been among the most prolific periods learning new things about my extended family, primarily from people searching for their ancestors and stumbling upon my Blog. By having more than 400 categories by which my post could potentially turn up in an Internet search, an approach incidentally not recommended by web designers, many people have come upon my writings. In coming weeks, I will relate some of the mysteries I have been able to unlock because of recent reader emails, including an extraordinary communication I received from one individual which resulted in obtaining hundreds of photographs and documents about one of my renowned Bruck relatives who was born and raised in Breslau, Germany [today: Wrocław, Poland]. But this is a story for another day.
The current post stems from a note I received from a delightful Uruguayan man, Eduardo Castro (Figure 1) and an ensuing discovery I made about his family. This gentleman is a fourth cousin once removed as it happens, and he learned about my blog from his aunt and another mutual cousin, Danny Alejandro Sandler. (Figure 2) Eduardo’s aunt, Bettina Basanow née Meyer, was born in Vacaria, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil but has lived in Denver, Colorado for more than 50 years. In Post 90, I related the story of trying to locate Bettina and her siblings in Porto Alegre, Brazil, where her parents had emigrated to escape the Holocaust. Thinking Bettina and her family still lived in Brazil, I spent many fruitless months trying to track them down there. My much more social media savvy cousin Danny Sandler eventually located Bettina in Denver and put us in touch.
I have periodically told readers about the difficulty of finding evidence of one’s Jewish ancestors who emigrated to South America to escape certain death in Europe during WWII. While I have been assured that certain South America countries are notorious record keepers, not unlike the Germans, most of these records have not yet been automated making online searches for documentary evidence from there difficult. For this reason, it is always immensely gratifying when descendants of people who emigrated to South America find me through my Blog, as in Eduardo’s case. I often learn the fate of some of their ancestors as well as the indirect route some may have taken to get to South America. In a subsequent post, I will relate the story of one such venture. But, again, this is a story for another day.
Shortly after Eduardo and I began our exchanges, I invited him as a “guest” on my family tree. After catching several errors and sending me images of his immediate family, he became curious about a daughter his great-aunt Maria Johanna Dorothea Clara Glaser née Milch (Figure 3) had with her renowned husband Curt Glaser (Figure 4) named Eva Glaser that I include in my tree. Eduardo had never heard about this daughter so asked me for the source of my information.
Periodically I find myself in the awkward position of being asked to substantiate the existence of a previously unknown ancestor to a member of the family more closely akin to them than I am. I understand this situation. Had someone ever told me that my father had an older brother born in 1900, as he in fact did, that I knew nothing about, I would have scoffed. Obviously, why would my father never have told me this? In the case of this uncle, I only learned of his existence when I visited the “Archiwum Państwowe w Katowicach Oddział w Raciborzu” (“State Archives in Katowice Branch in Raciborz”) and found verification of his birth in 1900 and of his death less than a year later.
In any case, Eduardo Castro would certainly have better knowledge of Eva Glaser as they would have been first cousins once removed. Because I had failed to make a note of where I had found the place and date of her birth I was forced to try and retrace my steps, making new discoveries along the way.
Fortunately, I quickly rediscovered Maria and Curt Glaser’s respective “Declaration of Intention” dated the 16th of October 1941 in New York (Figures 5-6) stating their aim to become citizens of the United States and reside permanently herein. Asked on this form to indicate the number of living children, and their name, sex, date and place of birth, place of residence, both had written “Eva(f) July 22, 1935 born at (sic) Switzerland resides at (sic) Switzerland.” This was confirmation that Eva had indeed existed even though nowhere on this form did it state that Eva was born in Ascona, Switzerland, as I had written on my family tree.
Thinking I had perhaps come across Eva’s place of place in an article about her famous father, I did a Google query on him, and found a fleeting reference to her.
First, let me briefly tell readers about Eva’s father Curt Glaser (1879-1943) as his was an interesting story reflective of the fate of many Jews living in Germany during the 1930’s. Curt was born on May 29, 1879 in Leipzig, Germany, the son of a Jewish family. Almost immediately after receiving his M.D. in 1902, he began a second degree in art history, a topic that had always interested him. At the same time, he also became active as an art critic and began to write reviews on the Berlin art scene, an activity that lasted over 30 years. On the 12th of August 1903, he married Elsa Kolker (1878-1932) (Figures 7a-b), daughter of the Ambassador Hugo Kolker, converted to Protestantism, and received considerable income from the family properties.
Curt received his Ph.D. in 1907 writing his dissertation on Hans Holbein the Elder. By 1909, Curt’s museum career had begun when he was appointed curator of the prints and drawings division (Kupferstichkabinett) at the Berlin Museum (Staatliche Museen Berlin) where he significantly expanded its collection of modern and contemporary art. In parallel to his professional acquisitions on behalf of the Kupferstichkabinett, starting around 1910, with the support of his father-in-law, Hugo Kolker, Elsa and Curt began to build a significant art collection that included, among others, the works of Vincent van Gogh, Henri Matisse (Figures 8a-c), and Pablo Picasso, as well as valuable prints by artists like Honoré Daumier and Adolph von Menzel.
The Glasers placed a significant emphasis on acquiring the works of Edvard Munch, a lifelong friend whom Glaser had supported. (Figures 9a-b) A special friendship existed between the Glasers and Munch, who painted portraits of Elsa alone as well as of the couple. (Figure 10) The Glasers had the most extensive collection of his works in Berlin.
Curt Glaser clearly supported other artists as evidenced by at least two paintings he commissioned from the German artist Max Beckmann (1884-1950). (Figures 11-12) In addition, Henri Matisse painted Elsa Glaser on several occasions.
In October 1924, Glaser became the Director of the Staatliche Kunstbibliothek (State Art Library) in Berlin, whereupon he recast the library as an art historical research library. By July of the following year, the Glasers had moved into a civil service apartment where their art collection was also displayed and where they held important art salons throughout the late 1920’s. (Figures 13-17)
Elsa Glaser passed away at the age of 54 in 1932, a loss that deeply affected Curt and that he expressed in personal letters to Edvard Munch. After the National Socialists rose to power, in the spring of 1933, Glaser was placed on leave from the Kunstbibliothek because of his Jewish ancestry, his prominence, and no doubt because of his approach to collecting art deemed degenerate by the Nazis. At the same time, Glaser was compelled to relinquish his apartment. Around this time, he found happiness anew with Eduardo Castro’s great-aunt Maria Milch, whom he married on the 30th of May 1933. (Figures 18a-b) Even before he was forced to retire in September 1933, he had auctioned off large parts of his collection, home furnishings, and art library, much of it at depressed prices.
Curt and Maria went into exile in June 1933, going first to Paris, then to Ascona, Switzerland, making the birth of their daughter Eva there plausible. In a reference I happened upon entitled “Curt Glaser Report: III. Summary of the Historical Facts,” the unnamed author writes: “Between 1936 and 1938/1939, the Glasers stayed repeatedly in Florence with their daughter, who was born in 1936,” known, however, to have been born in July 1935. At the time, Curt was likely researching the history of the Renaissance in Florence, a topic he later published a manuscript about.
It is an interesting coincidence that my own uncle and aunt Dr. Franz Müller and Suzanne Müller née Bruck’s stay on the outskirts of Florence almost exactly coincided with that of the Glasers. I like to imagine they may have met. Regardless, as the unnamed author previously quoted wrote: “In 1941, the Glasers emigrated to New York without their daughter and moved in 1943 to Lake Placid. . . He died on November 23, 1943.” (Figures 19-21)
The reason the Glasers left their daughter behind nagged at me. Trying to determine why this might have been, I turned to Geni.com. Here I found mention of her, indicating she had died in 1943, thus, at 7 or 8 years of age. I contacted the Profile Manager of the tree and asked where he uncovered this information. He sent a very gracious reply with a link to an article dated the 20th of March 2020 from “Basellandschaftliche Zeitung” (English: Basellandschaftliche Newspaper), or “bz,” a Swiss Standard German language daily newspaper. The article entitled “Curt Glaser case: The squaring of the cultural circle: an agreement has been reached in the Glaser case” (Mensch) discussed the restitution agreement that had been reached between Curt Glaser’s heirs and the Art Commission of the Basel Art Museum, which was one of the primary beneficiaries of the depressed prices Curt received for his art collection auctioned off in 1933.
Buried within this article was the following paragraph: “Glaser had no direct descendants. His first marriage to Elsa [née Kolker (1878-1932)], with which he had built up his collection, remained childless. His only daughter Eva, who had been born with a trisomy-21 impairment, also died as an eight-year-old child in Arlesheim, when Curt Glaser and his second wife Maria were already in exile in the USA.” Trisomy-21 is the most common form of Down syndrome, caused by an extra copy of chromosome number 21.
In conclusion, the chance to track down why Curt and Maria Glaser may have left their daughter behind when they moved to America in 1941 was only possible because of the prominence of Curt Glaser and the multiple articles written about him. Eva’s impairment is the likely explanation for why her parents chose to leave her in Switzerland, perhaps thinking she would receive better care there. Leaving Eva behind must have been a bitter pill to swallow for Curt and Maria. Interestingly, both Curt and his daughter died the same year, 1943. (Figure 22)
CORRECTIONS & AMENDMENTS MADE ON 8TH MAY 2023 BASED ON COMMENTS PROVIDED BY A READER, FRANK WEBSTER-SMITH
Note: This post is a follow-up to Post 95 in which I discussed the sad fate of my great-grandfather’s niece, Charlotte Bruck, my first cousin twice removed. In this post, I talk about her first husband, Walter Edward Stavenhagen, to whom she was married for only four years (1906-1910) and with whom she had her only two children. Thanks to my German genealogist friend, Peter Hanke, I was finally able to determine when and where Walter died; Peter put me in touch with a Swiss gentleman, Achim Bucher-Stavenhagen, whose deceased wife was the granddaughter of Walter’s youngest brother, Herbert Frederick Stavenhagen. While only related to my family by marriage, the scope and breadth of the Stavenhagen family primary source documents I obtained from Mr. Bucher make the telling of this story compelling.
When writing Blog posts, I often begin by reviewing primary source documents relevant to the people or topic I am writing about. These are mostly written in German, and in the interest of accuracy and completeness, I sometimes ask my German friends or relatives to transcribe and/or translate original certificates, hoping for additional clues. I followed this process in writing the current post, and inadvertently wound up solving the mystery of what happened to Walter Edward Stavenhagen, first husband of Charlotte Bruck (Figure 1), my first cousin twice removed. While doing this, I obtained a trove of primary source documents, many of which are only tangentially relevant to the story I am about to relate.
Before my recent discoveries, the date and place of birth of Charlotte Bruck’s first husband, Walter Edward Stavenhagen, were already known to me from the Mecklenburg-Schwerin or Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (i.e., Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania), Germany 1900 census I found on ancestry.com (Figure 2a); the Stavenhagens originally hailed from Mecklenburg-Strelitz, a territory in Northern Germany. The 1900 census states Walter was born on the 1st of September 1876 in Calais, France.
As discussed in Post 95, on ancestry, I also found Walter Stavenhagen and Charlotte Bruck’s marriage certificate, showing Walter lived in Eichwerder [today: Dąbrowa, Poland] near Soldin, Germany [today: Myślibórz, Poland] (Figure 3) and stating they were married in Berlin on the 3rd of May 1906. Following their marriage, the couple lived on Walter’s estate in Eichwerder, where their two sons, Frederick Wilhelm and Hans Joachim (Figure 4), were born. A notation on their marriage certificate indicates Walter and Charlotte were divorced on the 19th of May 1910 (Figure 5); according to family accounts, the cause of Walter and Charlotte’s divorce stems from Charlotte’s postpartum depression or bi-polar disorder after the birth of her second son and Walter’s suspected spousal abuse. Charlotte obtained custody of her two boys, who never again saw their father, and eventually decamped to America where she sadly spent much of the remainder of her life in mental institutions because of schizophrenia.
Jay Dunn née Lorenzen, Walter and Charlotte Stavenhagen’s granddaughter, sent me primary source documents suggesting Walter stayed in Eichwerder following his divorce. Jay obtained these documents from a German archivist showing that, respectively, in 1911 (Figure 6a), 1919 (Figure 6b), and 1923 (Figure 6c), Walter was the best man for three weddings that took place on his estate in Eichwerder.
On ancestry I was able to locate a list of passengers including Walter’s name showing he travelled from Hamburg, Germany to Grimsby, England on the 22nd of May 1924 (Figure 7), presumably to visit family or conduct family business; this document states his German occupation as “gutsbesitzer,” estate owner, logically. Prior to my recent discoveries, the last physical evidence I could find of Walter’s whereabouts was another passenger list showing he again left from Hamburg, this time headed to Leith, England, on the 20th of August 1929 (Figure 8); then he is listed as farmer, for all intents and purposes the same occupation. Both the 1924 and 1929 Hamburg passenger lists confirm Walter’s date of birth as the 1st of September 1876
Having found nothing further on Walter Stavenhagen in ancestry in my general search, I next turned to a collection accessible there, namely, “Germany and Surrounding Areas, Address Books, 1815-1974” (“Adressbücher aus Deutschland und Umgebung, 1815-1974).” Two old address books exist for Soldin, one for 1925, another for 1931. Neither includes a listing for Walter Stavenhagen even though both directories would logically have covered the period when he could still have been living near Soldin. Unfortunately, neither address book specifically includes the community of Eichwerder where Walter owned his estate even though Eichwerder and Soldin are only a few miles apart.
Knowing of Walter’s association with Soldin, Germany, today Myślibórz, Poland, I next contacted the “Archiwum Państwowe w Gorzowie Wielkopolskim” in Gorzow, Poland, where I was told German records from Soldin, Germany are archived. They graciously informed me their office only contains vital records covering the period between 1874 and 1917, obviously preceding Walter’s death; for land and property records, they referred me to the “Archiwum Państwowe w Szczecinie” in Szczecin, Poland, located 55 miles north of Eichwerder or Dąbrowa. I was hoping the old German “Grundbuch,” in which titles and actions related to land and property were registered, might still exist for Walter’s estate but they claimed not to have it. My previous experience trying to obtain the “Grundbuch” for a family-owned business outside Ratibor, Germany [today: Racibórz, Poland] suggests these may be stored in courthouses rather than archives but are definitively not available online.
I was curious whether the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (i.e., Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania), Germany 1900 census with Walter Stavenhagen’s date and place of birth might yield additional clues. (see Figures 2a-c) Thus, I asked my German genealogist friend, Peter Hanke, whether he could transcribe this document. I humorously dub Peter who has made some miraculous ancestral finds on my behalf and on the behalf of others the “Wizard of Wolfsburg” because he hails from Wolfsburg, Germany where Volkswagen is headquartered.
In sending this transcription, Peter casually mentioned that he might have chanced upon when and where Walter died and promised to get back to me. I was stunned given all the effort I have expended over the years trying to uncover Walter Stavenhagen’s fate. I waited in excited anticipation, and by the following day Peter put me in contact with a Swiss gentleman, Achim Bucher-Stavenhagen, whose deceased wife, Silke Stavenhagen, it turns out was the granddaughter of Walter’s youngest brother, Herbert Frederick Stavenhagen (1885-1960).
Peter located Achim through the GEDBAS database of the “Verein für Computergenealogie,” Association for Computer Genealogy (https://gedbas.genealogy.net/), a database I have never consulted. Entering the search fields and beginning the search sometimes yields results as happened in the case of Walter Edward Stavenhagen along with the name of a contact.
In contrast to Walter Stavenhagen, prior to my introduction to Achim Bucher-Stavenhagen, I had come across quite a bit of information related to Walter’s parents and four siblings (see vital statistics table below), including their dates and places of birth. I learned that Walter was the third of five siblings, though none of these sources indicated when and where he died. Much of this information originates from a family tree found on ancestry, a source I have often told readers I view with circumspection and wariness because of the erroneous data often incorporated into even the best of trees. With access to Achim, I soon learned he has done in-depth ancestral investigations on his wife’s Stavenhagen ancestors that make my own ancestral endeavors pale by comparison. He answered many of my questions and sent me dozens of primary source documents and photos of the Stavenhagen family, some of which I include in this post. Let me first summarize some of what I learned below about Walter.
According to Achim, Walter was schooled in Wittenberg, Germany, trained in Hamburg, Germany before eventually buying his estate in Eichwerder using family money amassed from trading in lace and tulle. The estate was about 414 hectares or 1023 acres, about 1.25 miles by 1.25 miles, in size. Contrary to my situation, by travelling to Szczecin, Poland, Achim was able to acquire a copy of the Grundbuch from the Szczecin archive for Walter’s estate, from which he sent only a few pages. (Figures 9a-b)
Walter sold the property in 1926 to a Jewish banker Hermann Bodzanowski but stayed on as the foreman of the estate. (Figure 10) Apparently, Walter’s youngest brother, Herbert Frederick Stavenhagen, was eventually intended to obtain ownership of the property. Germany’s hyperinflation in the early 1920’s affected the family’s fortunes requiring the sale of the landholding, although it was sold with an option to repurchase it. Regardless, given the Stavenhagen family’s Jewish origins, the estate might well have been confiscated by the Nazis as it was from Hermann Bodzanowski later.
Walter developed stomach cancer in the 1930’s and, while still living in Eichwerder, went to Heilbronn, Germany for treatments as his condition worsened where he died on the 9th of February 1937. According to Walter’s youngest sister, Emilie Fanny Stavenhagen, who kept daily notes between 1912 and 1960 (except during WWII), he was cremated on the 11th of February 1937 and buried in Soldin, Germany on the 15th of February. (Figure 11)
Finally, after several years trying to find out what happened to Walter, I uncovered the truth. Achim and Peter Hanke both sent me Walter’s death certificate from Heilbronn, Germany (Figure 12a), transcribed and translated below. (Figures 12b-c)
One of the first items Achim shared with me was a 1931 photo taken in Nottingham, England of Walter and his four siblings lined up from oldest to youngest. (Figure 13)
Achim sent me the birth certificates for Walter and his four siblings; all were born in Calais, France, thus are written in French which I read passably. I thought I might have difficulties deciphering the French handwriting, but in fact it is very legible. Walter’s birth certificate confirmed he was born on the 1st of September 1876. (Figure 14a) Below readers will find a French transcription and English translation of Walter’s birth certificate done for me by my second French cousin. (Figures 14b-c)
Walter Stavenhagen’s parents are named on his 1906 marriage certificate, Moritz Paul Stavenhagen and Fanny Ann Stevenson. (Figures 15a-b) Prior to connecting with Achim, I had already found Moritz and Fanny Ann’s marriage certificate showing they wed on the 19th of April 1873 in Saint Mary Abbots Church in Kensington, Middlesex, London, when he was supposedly 21 and she was 19. (Figure 16) I already knew Moritz had supposedly died on the 8th of January 1905 in Calais, France from the “England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administration), 1858-1966, 1973-1995,” showing his will was administered on the 15th of June 1905 in London, leaving his effects to his wife. (Figure 17) As though to prove my point that family trees on ancestry are often unreliable, I found two trees with different years of birth for Moritz, 1842 and 1852, a discrepancy I was eventually able to sort out with primary source documents given to me by Achim.
Moritz Paul Stavenhagen (1842-1905) was actively involved in trading lace with a financier originally from Nottingham, England by the name of William Henry Stevenson (1807-1886). Moritz wound up marrying William’s adopted daughter, Fanny Ann Roche, whose mother Margarite Roche née Smith had married William in around 1872. William moved permanently to Calais, France after 1828 and became a naturalized citizen in 1831. (Figure 20)
Two 1907 French Phone Directory listings indicate that “Stevenson et Stavenhagen” were in business together in Calais (Figure 21), a collaboration they likely began in around 1872 (Figures 37a-b). Following William’s death in 1886, Moritz’s continued collaboration was with William’s stepson, Frederick, born in 1855 who could have been his natural son.
I initially theorized that Moritz might have apprenticed with William or his father, John Stevenson, in Nottingham, England, but Frank Webster-Smith, the reader who provided corrections and additions for this post, pointed out that John was dead before Moritz was born and William was already living in Calais. According to the information in Figures 37a-b, in 1870 Moritz still lived in Nottingham, though he eventually moved to Calais from there. Frank theorizes rather that Moritz may well have acted as an agent for William in Nottingham in the early 1870s and picked up knowledge of lace business there.
Interestingly, John Stevenson together with his partner Richard Skipworth appear to have provided financing to a John Leaver, a reclusive genius from Nottinghamshire, recognized today as the “father” of modern lace making, who developed the prototype for machine-made lace. Suffice it to say, the history of lace making is fascinating, and partially explains the connection between England and France in this endeavor in the early-to-mid 1800’s.
According to the directories, it seems the trading company was in Calais proper, while the “succursale,” branch office or fabrication site, was in Caudry, 105 miles to the southeast of Calais. (Figure 22)
Achim sent me two death notices for Moritz Paul Stavenhagen from “Le Petit Calaisian” published after his death on the 8th of January 1905. He was identified as “négociant en matières premières, commissionnaire en tulles, vice consul d’allemagne à Calais,” commodities trader, tulles commission agent, and German vice consul in Calais. (Tulles is a sheer often stiffened silk, rayon, or nylon net used chiefly for veils or ballet costumes that was exported from England.) The death notice remarked that Moritz had been the German vice consul in Calais for 35 years. (Figure 23)
Achim also sent me Moritz’s Calais death certificate (Figure 24), which served to further muddy the waters because the vital data for Moritz, his wife, and his son Paul differs from dates in other primary source documents, specifically, birth and marriage records. Moritz’s death certificate says he died on the 9th of January, rather than the 8th of January 1905 cited elsewhere, at the age of 62 years and 3 months; this would mean he was born in 1842 contradicting what is written on his 1873 marriage certificate saying he was 21 at the time, meaning he would have been born in 1852. Moritz’s wife Fanny Ann Stevenson is said to be 49 years old at the time of his death when she was known to have been born in 1853 and would have been 51; similarly, Moritz’s son, Paul Stavenhagen, is said to have been 27 years in 1905 when he was in fact 29. What to make of all these discrepancies is unclear. I mention this because I often harp about tying vital events to primary source documents, but this is proof there can be discrepancies among even well-sourced certificates.
Another fascinating document Achim shared with me was a letter dated the 23rd of May 1872 appointing Moritz Stavenhagen as German vice consul in Calais. (Figures 25a-b) This would seem to confirm that Moritz was born in 1842 since he would have been only 20 years old in 1872 had he been born in 1852, rather young in my opinion to be appointed vice consul. Another 1907 French Phone Directory lists “Stavenhagen” as the German vice consul. (Figure 26)
A brief digression to recount some of what Achim related. By any measure, the Stavenhagen family were cosmopolitan with ties to Germany, England, and France. At the start of WWI in 1914, the French determined the Stavenhagens to be Germans, and liquidated their businesses. The French newspapers of the day apparently took great delight in the fact German bombs destroyed Stavenhagen’s house during the WWI. Later, during the Nazi era, the family was judged to be Jewish with a predictable outcome. Members of the family who were Anglicans escaped to England, mixed marriages fell apart, and others were murdered in the Holocaust.
We know from Moritz and Fanny Ann’s 1873 marriage certificate they were married in the Anglican Church in Kensington. I naturally assumed that Moritz had converted from Judaism, but such was not the case, according to Achim. His death notice from the “Le Petit Calaisian” dated the 12th of January 1905 states that he was Jewish and that his funeral was presided over by a rabbi from Boulogne-sur-mer, France. (Figure 27) It seems odd Moritz was married in the Anglican Church as a Jew, but then again, neither Moritz nor Fanny’s religion is denoted on the certificate.
As previously mentioned, Moritz’s wife, Fanny Ann Stevenson, was the adopted daughter of William Henry Stevenson; she was born in 1853 in Campagne-Les-Guines, France. Remarkably, Achim was able to track down census records from Campagne-les-Guines, respectively, from 1856 (Figure 28a), 1861 (Figure 28b), and 1866 (Figures 28c-d) with Fanny Ann’s name on it. It’s not entirely clear when or if Fanny’s mother, Margarite (Margueritte in French) Roche née Smith, married William Henry Stevenson, but at some point Fanny and her brother or half-brother, Frederick, took the Stevenson surname. There is no question William deemed these children to be his own because in his 1886 will, they each inherited one-third of his estate, with the last third left to other heirs. (Figure 29)
In closing what I realize is an involved and overly lengthy post on Walter Stavenhagen and his family (Figures 30-36), I want to end on a touching note. While researching his wife’s ancestry in her final months, Achim related how he would give Silke daily updates on his newest genealogical finds, including the day he discovered the fate of Walter’s two sons, revelations that brought her great joy and calm towards the end of her life.
Regular readers know that I am a stickler for accuracy. In recent posts, I have begun to include a table of vital statistics of the people I write about and their closest relatives, citing the source of the vital data. I expect this to be of zero interest to most readers, and I do this primarily for my own benefit so I can recollect where names, dates, places, etc. originate from. That said, I would emphasize to readers that compiling and documenting the source of vital data is a laborious task as the following table illustrates.
VITAL STATISTICS FOR WALTER EDWARD STAVENHAGEN & HIS IMMEDIATE FAMILY
NAME
EVENT
DATE
PLACE
SOURCE
Walter Edward Stavenhagen (self)
Birth
1 September 1876
Calais, France
Birth Certificate
Marriage (to Charlotte Bruck)
3 May 1906
Berlin, Germany
Marriage Certificate
Divorce (from Charlotte Bruck)
19 May 1910
Berlin, Germany
Notation on Marriage Certificate
Death
9 February 1937
Heilbronn, Germany
Death Certificate
Cremation
11 February 1937
Emilie Fanny Stavenhagen’s diary
Burial
15 February 1937
Soldin, Germany [today: Myślibórz, Poland]
Emilie Fanny Stavenhagen’s diary
Charlotte Stavenhagen née Bruck (wife)
Birth
17 August 1886
Berlin, Germany
Marriage Certificate
Marriage (to Walter Edward Stavenhagen)
3 May 1906
Berlin, Germany
Marriage Certificate
Divorce (from Walter Edward Stavenhagen)
19 May 1910
Berlin, Germany
Notation on Marriage Certificate
Death
5 June 1974
Stamford, Connecticut
Connecticut Death Index
Moritz Paul Stavenhagen (father)
Birth
3 October 1842
Neubrandenburg, Germany
Paul Moses Stavenhagen Facts & Events (from Achim Bucher); Marriage Certificate; Death Certificate; Walter Edward Stavenhagen’s Birth Certificate
Marriage (to Fanny Ann Stevenson)
19 April 1873
Kensington, London, England
London and Surrey, England, Marriage Bonds and Allegations, 1597-1921
Death
9 January 1905
Calais, France
Death Certificate
Probate
15 June 1905
London, England
England & Wales, National Probate Calendar, 1858-1966, 1973-1995
Fanny Ann Stavenhagen née
Roche adopted Stevenson (mother)
Birth
10 June 1853
Campagne-Les-Guines, France
Birth Certificate; William Henry Stevenson’s 24 February 1884 Last Will
Marriage
19 April 1873
Kensington, London, England
London and Surrey, England, Marriage Bonds and Allegations, 1597-1921
Death (buried in Nottingham, England)
8 September 1939
Nottingham, England
England & Wales, National Probate Calendar, 1858-1966, 1973-1995
Margarethe Marianne Just née Stavenhagen (sister)
Birth
14 February 1874
Calais, France
Birth Certificate; 1939 England & Wales Register
Marriage (to Aron Albert Just)
23 August 1897
Calais, France
Marriage Certificate
Death (buried in Nottingham, England)
1 July 1945
Nottingham, England
UK, Burial and Cremation Index, 1576-2014
Paul Henry Stavenhagen (brother)
Birth
22 May 1875
Calais, France
Birth Certificate; German Minority Census, 1939
Marriage (to Alice Violet Willmott)
17 January 1906
Leytonstone, Essex, England
Essex, England, Church of England Marriages, 1754-1935
Death
30 December 1946
Hamburg, Germany
England, Andrews Newspaper Index Cards, 1790-1976
Probate
27 August 1952
London, England
England & Wales, National Probate Calendar, 1858-1995
Note: In this post, I discuss the sad fate of Charlotte Bruck, my great-grandfather Fedor Bruck’s niece, a victim in this case not of the Holocaust but of a psychiatric disorder.
My great-grandfather, Fedor Bruck (1834-1892), was one of at least nine offspring of Samuel Bruck (1808-1863) (Figure 1) and Charlotte Bruck née Marle (1809-1861). (Figure 2) For context, Samuel Bruck and Fedor Bruck (Figure 3) were, respectively the first- and second-generation owners of the Bruck family hotel in Ratibor, Germany [today: Racibórz, Poland], the Bruck’s “Prinz von Preußen” Hotel. (Figure 4) The youngest of Samuel and Charlotte Bruck’s children and Fedor Bruck’s youngest sibling was Wilhelm Bruck (1849-1907). (Figure 5)
Wilhelm married a baroness named Margarete “Grete” Mathilde von Koschembahr (Figure 6), and because of the prestige the von Koschembahr name endowed, he adopted her surname, initially in hyphenated manner as Bruck-von Koschembahr; eventually upon some family members arrival in America the Bruck surname was dropped. Wilhelm Bruck and Margarete von Koschembahr had five children, including Charlotte “Lotte” Bruck (Figure 7), niece of my great-grandfather Fedor Bruck and subject of this post.
As a brief aside, Charlotte’s older brother and the oldest of Wilhelm and Margarete’s children was Gerhard Bruck von Koschembahr (1885-1961) (Figure 8), who emigrated to America in October 1938 with his wife and ten of their thirteen children (Figure 9), one of whom is still living. While I am in contact with descendants of virtually all other branches of my family whom I have written about in my family history blog, I have not yet established contact with this wing of my extended family. If precedent is any indication, descendants of the von Koschembahrs may in time stumble upon my blog and contact me.
With upwards of 900 people in my family tree, which I use primarily to orient myself to the people whom I discuss in my Blog, I have never previously written about Wilhelm Bruck (von Koschembahr). Still, because Charlotte Bruck is in my tree, one genealogist stumbled upon her name and contacted me asking whether I know the fate of Charlotte’s first husband, Walter Edward Stavenhagen. The inquiry, it so happens, came from Charlotte’s granddaughter, Brenda Jay Dunn née Lorenzen (Figure 10), and I explained I have been unable to discover Walter’s fate. Not unexpectedly, Jay told me much more about Charlotte’s family than I could tell her and provided family photographs, which is always immensely satisfying.
Prior to being contacted by Jay Dunn through ancestry on June 24, 2018, I had already uncovered multiple documents related to Charlotte Bruck, although my understanding of her three marriages and life was rather disjointed. Rather than try and inaccurately reconstruct what I already knew at the time, let me briefly highlight major events in her life.
Charlotte (Lottchen, Lotte, Lottel) Bruck got married for the first time on the 3rd of May 1906 in Berlin to the Protestant landowner Walter Edward Stavenhagen (Figures 11a-b) who owned an estate in Eichwerder in the district of Soldin, Germany [today: Myślibórz, Poland]. Though both of Charlotte’s parents were of Jewish descent, on her wedding certificate, Charlotte is identified as Protestant, indicating she and/or her parents had converted. Following her marriage to Walter at age 19, they moved to Soldin, and Charlotte gave birth to two sons there: Frederick Wilhelm Stavenhagen (1907-1997) and Hans Joachim Stavenhagen (1909-1947). (Figures 12-13a-b)
Charlotte first became ill following the birth of her second son, possibly the result of postpartum depression or a bi-polar disorder. Charlotte’s mother, Margarethe von Koschembahr Bruck (Figure 14), came and removed her from Walter Stavenhagen’s estate in 1909, whereupon she was briefly hospitalized in Schierke, located in the Harz Mountains of northern Germany. In a diary entry dated the 19th of November 1909, Charlotte’s maternal grandmother, Amalie Mockrauer von Koschembahr (1834-1918) (Figures 15-16), describes her granddaughter’s circumstances at the time:
“Ich bin furchtbar traurig über das Fehlschlagen von Lottchens Friedensversuch. Nachdem sie in Eichwerder (nördlich Mysliborz) mit den besten Vorsätzen und mit festem Muthe eintraf, sich in ihr Schicksal und ihre Pflichten zu fügen, benahm sich Walter abermals unglaublich lieblos, rücksichtslos und roh, so, daß es nach kurzer Zeit für Lotte unmöglich war Stand zu halten. Soweit mir berichtet wurde, ist alles geschehen, um es dem Mann leicht zu machen in Frieden zu leben, allein es war vergeblich. Krank und gebrochen mußte meine arme Lottel ihre Heimath für immer verlassen, nur begleitet von ihrem kleinen Fritzchen, den armen kleinen Hans gab der Mann nicht heraus. Mein armes Gretchen holte ihr Kind, Marianne und Kurt, die von großer Liebe und Treue sind, begleiteten sie. Lotte flüchtete nach Schierke (Ort im Harz), wohin ihr Gretchen nachfolgen mußte, da Lotte sehr krank ist. Welcher Schmerz ist es doch schon wegen der kleinen mutterbedürftigen Kinder! Welche große Sünde hat der bösartige Mann auf sich geladen! Mein lieber allmächtiger Gott hilf uns in dieser Noth!
Das alles muß ich so still für mich mittragen, denn mit Tilla kann ich mich nicht aussprechen – sie hat eine andere Anschauung vom Unglück der Menschen – sie kann froh darüber sein, während ich zwar ergeben aus Gottes Hand alles nehme, aber tief traurig an meine unglücklichen Kinder denke. Seitdem Martha von Schmidt der Tod von uns genommen hat, habe ich Niemanden, mit dem ich ein tröstliches Wort austauschen kann. Ach, wieviel Schwaches giebt es auf der Welt – der Kampf hört hier nicht auf und so sehnt man sich nach der ewigen Reise. –Mit Tilchen kann ich mich darüber deshalb nicht verstehen, weil sie glaubt das Unglück, welches der Herr schickt, soll die Menschen bessern und seine Gnade und Liebe erkennen lassen.”
ENGLISH TRANSLATION
“I am terribly saddened by the failure of Lottchen’s attempt at peace. After she arrived in Eichwerder (today north of Myślibórz, Poland) with the best of intentions and with firm courage to submit to her fate and duties, Walter again behaved in an unbelievably unloving, inconsiderate, and crude manner, so that after a short time it was impossible for Lotte to stand firm. As far as I was told, everything was done to make it easy for the man to live in peace, but it was in vain. Sick and broken, my poor Lottel had to leave her home forever, accompanied only by her little Fritzchen (Note: Charlotte’s older son Frederick); poor little Hans was not released by the man. My poor Gretchen (Note: Charlotte’s mother, Margarethe von Koschembahr) fetched her child, and Marianne and Kurt (Note: Charlotte’s younger sister and brother-in-law, Marianne & Kurt Polborn), who are of great love and loyalty, accompanied her. Lotte fled to Schierke (a place in the Harz Mountains in northern Germany), where Gretchen had to follow her, since Lotte was very ill. What a pain it is already because of the little children in need of a mother! What a great sin the wicked man has brought upon himself! My dear Almighty God help us in this distress!
I have to bear all this so quietly for myself, because I cannot talk to Tilla (Note: Tilla, Tilchen, was Margarethe von Koschembahr’s sister, Mathilde von Koschembahr) – she has a different view of people’s misfortune – she can be happy about it, while I humbly take everything from God’s hand, but think deeply sad about my unhappy children. Since death took Martha von Schmidt (Note: a friend of Amalie von Koschembahr, Charlotte’s grandmother) from us, I have no one with whom I can exchange a comforting word. Oh, how much weakness there is in the world – the struggle does not end here and so one longs for the eternal journey. I can’t get along with Tilchen because she believes that the misfortune the Lord sends should make people better and recognize His grace and love.”
Walter and Charlotte’s marriage certificate has a notation in the upper right-hand corner confirming they were divorced in Berlin on the 19th of May 1910. (Figure 17) Atypical of the time, Charlotte was granted custody of both of her boys because spousal abuse was suspected, as the diary entry above suggests.
According to family history, following her hospitalization in the Harz Mountains, Charlotte lived with her mother in Dresden, Germany until she remarried Karl Eduard Michaelis in 1913, a marriage which lasted only two years. At around this time, Charlotte again showed signs of mental illness, so her family sent her to America in 1915, to a hospital located in Minnesota; her two sons accompanied her to America. Her stay there was relatively brief because she soon moved to New Haven, Connecticut, where she met her third husband, Ernest Gustav Lorenzen (1876-1951), through the German Society there, whom she married around 1916. Ernest Lorenzen was a law professor at Yale University; he would eventually adopt both of Charlotte’s sons by Walter Stavenhagen, and they would take the Lorenzen surname. The 1920 U.S. Federal Census indicates Ernest and Charlotte living with her two sons in New Haven, Connecticut, (Figures 18-19) although by 1930, only Ernest and Charlotte’s older son Frederick lived together. (Figure 20) By 1940, Frederick was married with two daughters and his younger brother was living with them. (Figure 21)
Jay Dunn shared a remarkable letter with me dated 1940 written by the Superintendent of the Fairfield State Hospital in Connecticut where Charlotte Lorenzen née Bruck was permanently institutionalized as of around April 1939 until her death in June 1974. To me, this letter is noteworthy for two reasons. One, it is incredibly detailed as to Charlotte’s mental condition and institutionalization over the years, information I would assume would be confidential. And two, the letter was written at the request of Charlotte’s younger son, Hans Joachim Lorenzen, known in America as John Jay Lorenzen; it seems that John’s future father-in-law, William Sweet, sought a medical opinion as to the possibility of Charlotte’s mental condition being hereditary prior to his daughter Brenda’s marriage to John.
According to the 1940 letter, following Charlotte’s treatment in Minnesota and her relocation to New Haven, she appears to have been well until around 1921, then suffered another relapse from which she again improved by 1922; after 1925, however, she was institutionalized through the remainder of her life. While originally diagnosed with Manic Depressive Psychosis by 1928 she had become delusional. Over time, Charlotte’s original diagnosis was altered to Dementia Praecox, Paranoid Type, whose prognosis was not as good. Today, Dementia Praecox would more generally be referred to as schizophrenia. The Superintendent from the Fairfield State Hospital concluded as follows in his response to John Jay Lorenzen:
“Summing it up then in another manner I might say that if you consider yourself a normal individual in good physical health with no emotional problems which cannot be readily solved, I would not hesitate to contemplate marriage and would not entertain any undue fears that my children might inherit the illness of my parent. Unless one can definitely assure oneself that his heredity is too heavily tainted, I think one would do himself an injustice if he did not make every reasonable effort to live the kind of normal life to which everyone of us is certainly entitled.”
Ernst Lorenzen divorced Charlotte sometime after she was permanently institutionalized, and eventually got remarried. Charlotte’s older son Frederick (Figure 22-23) became a successful lawyer in New York and paid for his mother’s care throughout her life. Jay Dunn’s father, John Jay Lorenzen (Figure 24), obtained an MBA from Harvard around 1933, worked for a time as a stock broker for Smith Barney, then started a cola company called Zimba Kola (Figures 25-26) with a college friend. He was drafted in 1943, became an officer in the Navy (Figure 27), and was sent to the Pacific where he fought valiantly alongside General MacArthur in the battles of Okinawa and Leyte Gulf. He survived the war, only to commit suicide in 1947, likely from depression caused by PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder. Though Charlotte Bruck and her sons came to America well before Hitler rose to power, her fate and that of her younger son were indeed sad tales.
One final fascinating anecdote. Gerhard Bruck von Koschembahr, Charlotte’s oldest brother mentioned above, like his father, also married a baroness, Hilda Alexandra von Zeidlitz and Neukirch (1891-1954). (Figures 28-29) Hilda’s mother, Cornelia Carnochan Roosevelt, married on the 3rd of February 1889 to Baron Clement Zeidlitz, was a distant relative of President Theodore Roosevelt. (see Figure 9) It is likely that Gerhard Bruck von Koschembahr was able to “disguise” his Jewish ancestry by dropping the Bruck surname. Thus, because of Gerhard’s wife’s connection to the Roosevelts, they sponsored Gerhard’s entrance into America in 1938 with his family at a time when many Jewish families trying to reach America by ship were turned away. The most notorious ship turned away from landing in the United States in the lead up to WWII was the German liner St. Louis carrying 937 passengers, almost all Jewish; the ship was forced to return to Europe, and more than a quarter of the refuges died in the Holocaust.
Note: In this post, I present photos of Josef and Rosalie Pauly’s nine children, my great-great-uncle and aunt’s offspring, showing them as young children, adolescents, young adults, middle aged, and elderly. Naturally, there are gaps in the photo sequences for some of the children.
I have often thought to myself that upon one’s birth, one is metaphorically handed an hourglass measuring the sands of time slowly or rapidly draining out. Regular readers may recall that in Post 89, I discussed my great-great-great-grandparents, Wilhelm Wolf Marle and his wife Rosalie (“Reisel”) Marle née Grätzer, whose headstones survive in the former Jewish Cemetery in Pless, Germany [today: Pszczyna, Poland]. (Figures 1-2) Given my musings about the passage of time, I was mildly surprised to see that an hourglass is carved into Rosalie Marle’s headstone signifying how quickly time passes. (Figure 2) Clearly, I can take no credit for the originality of this metaphor.
Josef Pauly (Figure 3) and Rosalie Pauly née Mockrauer (Figures 4-5), my great-great-uncle and aunt, had nine children all born in Posen, Germany [today: Poznan, Poland] between 1871 and 1885. (Figure 6) In perusing my digital collection of photographs, I realized I have photos of all of them capturing how they looked through the years. Not unexpectedly, there are gaps in the photo sequences for some of the children, which my third cousin, Andi Pauly, more closely aligned to this branch of my family, was partially able to fill. I think it is unusual to have a “continuous” sequence of photos for one’s relatives who were born in the 19th century and died in the 20th century, and for this reason I thought I would array these photos for readers to see. I certainly find it to be true that I can recognize photos of some of my ancestors from specific periods in their lives but not necessarily from other intervals in their lives; interestingly, I occasionally even find this to be true of photos of myself.
Below, readers will find a table with the vital statistics of Josef and Rosalie Pauly’s nine children. This is followed by the sequence of photos I have for each of them showing how differently they looked at various stages of their lives. The second-born child, Paula Pincus née Pauly, died youngest at age 49, while the last born, Therese Sandler née Pauly, was the longest lived at age 84. Three of the daughters, Helene Guttentag née Pauly, Elisabeth Herrnstadt née Pauly, and Margarethe Neisser née Pauly, died during the Holocaust, two by their own hands.
VITAL STATISTICS FOR JOSEF & ROSALIE PAULY’S CHILDREN
Note: This post tiers off the previous one where I discussed a Hermann Berliner with links to Ratibor, Germany [today: Racibórz, Poland], like my identically named great-grandfather; Ratibor is where my father was born and where many of my Jewish Silesian ancestors hail from. In trying to initially determine whether I was dealing with the same person, I accessed the Mormon Church’s online Jewish microfilm records found at familysearch.org to work out the solution. This post, thus, allows me to provide readers with a brief guide on how to access these records, as well as point out that even among primary source documents, which for me are the “gold standard,” errors can be found.
Genealogists today have the advantage of being able to access online from the comfort of home many microfilm records from towns across the globe that once could only be ordered, paid for, and have mailed to a local Mormon Family History Library. These microfilms can be accessed for free by registering and creating a personal account at “familysearch.org.” (Figure 1)
I will walk readers through the simple steps for retrieving these digital records, using Ratibor, Germany [today: Racibórz, Poland] as an example, the town in Upper Silesia where my father and many of his relatives were born and/or lived. After readers have created their free ancestry account, they should go to the portal page for “familysearch.org.” On the pulldown menu under “Search,” readers should select “Catalog” (Figure 2) which will take them to a page entitled “FamilySearch Catalog.” (Figure 3) Under “Place,” readers should type the name of the town they are seeking records from. In my case, I typed in Ratibor, although if I type in the current Polish name of the town, “Racibórz,” the results on the next screen will be slightly different. My suggestion, at least when researching towns formerly in Germany, is to type the former German town name as well as the current Polish town name; a simple Google search will give you the name of towns over time.
The “Catalog Print List” enumerates the records available for the town you have selected. For Ratibor, I was interested in “Jewish Records,” which yields “Matrikel, 1814-1940,” birth, marriage, and death registers for Ratibor from between 1814 and 1940. (Figure 4) A few things should be noted. First, the “Matrikel” are simply registers maintained by the Jewish synagogues. Second, they do not give you access to the underlying birth, marriage, and death certificates, assuming these still exist. Third, the “Matrikel” are not a complete register of all Jewish births, marriage, and deaths between 1814 and 1940. Because of the “Kulturkampf,” discussed in Post 12, after the early 1870’s, most birth, marriages, and deaths were no longer registered by religious denominations in Germany but were recorded as civil events. Oddly, the names of Jews who died following the “Kulturkampf” and were interred in the former Jewish cemetery in Ratibor or elsewhere in Germany are registered both in the Jewish microfilm records as well as in the civil ledgers.
Selecting “Matrikel, 1814-1940” yields a list of available digital films, in the case of Ratibor, LDS microfilms 1184447, 1184448, and 1184449. (Figure 5) On the far right, readers should see a camera icon on which they should click to be taken to the digital film. If a microfilm reel icon or key shows up above the camera icon, the microfilm is not generally available online and can only be viewed at the Mormon Family History Library in Salt Lake City.
I first accessed the microfilms for Ratibor, Germany [today: Racibórz, Poland] almost 40 years ago on a visit to the Family History Library in Salt Lake City. Years later, I would order and pay for these films to be sent to a local Mormon Family History Library, so I could leisurely examine and take notes on them. I created a table summarizing what I had found on births, deaths, and marriages for members of my extended family. However, given that the registers were handwritten in German and often indecipherable, my log was incomplete. Only more recently have I made the effort to have a German relative or friend translate previously unreadable words or phrases. This is considerably easier since individual microfilm pages can now easily be downloaded from the Mormon Church’s website for closer study. (Figure 6) Thus, I am constantly refining and learning new things from these microfilm, as I will illustrate below.
My maternal great-grandfather Hermann Berliner (1840-1910) is known to me through a single picture I have of him. (Figure 7) He was married to Olga Berliner née Braun (1852-1920), and the two were interred together in the former Jewish Cemetery in Ratibor. Together they had three children, my grandmother Else Bruck née Berliner (1873-1957), her older sister Margareth Braun née Berliner (1872-1942), who was murdered in the Holocaust, and a younger brother Alfred Max Berliner (1875-1921), who died young in Ratibor.
The Hermann Berliner who was the subject of Post 92 had a son, Ernst Berliner, born in 1878, which initially confused me into thinking my great-grandfather sired another child with a different woman, Sara Riesenfeld, although I eventually concluded they were two different Hermann Berliners. My great-grandfather was a “brauereimeister,” a master brewer (Figure 8), and likely inherited the brewery business from his father-in-law, Markus Braun, while the “other” Hermann Berliner was a Bank Director.
The birth register for Ratibor records the occupation or profession of the father. Even though I consider these registers primary source documents, my “gold standard” so to speak, they are not error-free. Consider the birth register listing for my grandmother Else Berliner. Her father is misidentified as a “maurermeister,” a master mason (Figure 9), when I know him to have been a master brewer. My German friend offered a possible explanation for this error. Upon my grandmother’s birth, her father’s profession may have been conveyed verbally, and the recorder may have misunderstood or incorrectly recorded what was said.
I discussed in Post 92 the process I followed in determining I was dealing with two different Hermann Berliners. Throughout the remainder of this post, I will focus on my great-grandfather, and how I figured out who his parents were. While this information was always in hand, it was only recently that a German friend translated a few key words that enabled me to understand what I had in hand.
Ratibor LDS microfilm roll 1184448 contains the death register for my great-grandfather Hermann Berliner, his wife and son, and his parents. The column headers and titles from the death register are italicized in German and translated in the table below; included is the information for Hermann (Figure 10) and his wife, Olga Berliner (Figure 11); Hermann’s father, Abraham Berliner (Figure 12); Hermann’s mother, Philippine Berliner (Figure 13); and Hermann’s son, Alfred Berliner (Figure 14):
A few comments on the table above. Part of my difficulty in recognizing Hermann Berliner’s parents is that his forename was not recorded in the death register. Instead, he was identified as “Stadtrath Berliner,” City Councilor Berliner, clearly a prominent citizen of Ratibor. “Frau Bruck,” that is to say “Else Bruck,” was my grandmother. Finally, because the relationship of the witnesses to the deceased was identified in the last column, I was eventually able to work out all their names and, in the case of wives, figure out their maiden names.
From the death register, I know that Hermann and Olga Berliner, and their son Alfred Berliner all died and were interred in Ratibor. In the case of Hermann’s parents, however, I learned his father Abraham Berliner was buried in Neisse (Figure 12), Germany [today: Nysa, Poland] and his mother Philippine Berliner was interred in Leobschütz, Germany [today: Głubczyce, Poland]. (Figure 13) Consequently, I next turned my attention to the LDS microfilm rolls, respectively, for Neisse and Leobschütz to see if I could learn anything more about Hermann’s parents.
LDS microfilm 1184444 includes the Jewish deaths in Neisse, Germany for the period when Abraham Berliner died. Given that Abraham died in Ratibor, supposedly in 1868, I had no reason to think his death was also registered in Neisse, yet it was. The only Abraham Berliner listed in the Neisse index of deaths died on the 21st of June 1858 (Figure 15), NOT in 1868 as LDS Microfilm Roll 1184448 indicates. Given the precise death date in the Neisse register, I am inclined to believe 1858 is the correct year of Abraham’s death and this is in fact Hermann Berliner’s father. Readers may wonder why the Neisse death register is typed rather than handwritten. Occasionally, original registers are degraded so that for the data to be preserved, the original information must be transcribed.
In 2018, when I visited the archives in Ratibor for the third time, where the civil birth, marriage, and death records are stored from the time of the “Kulturkampf,” I found Hermann Berliner’s death certificate. (Figure 16) This not only confirmed his death date, but also showed where he was born in 1840, the town of Zülz, Germany [today: Biała Prudnicka, Poland]. So, along with Neisse and Leobschütz, this provided yet a third venue to search for microfilms. (Figure 17)
Hermann’s death certificate also gives his mother’s maiden name, Philippine Glogauer. As previously noted, she was buried in Leobschütz, Germany [today: Głubczyce, Poland]. Like her husband, Abraham Berliner, whose death was recorded in both Ratibor and Neisse, Philippine Berliner’s death was registered in both Ratibor and Leobschütz. Unlike vital records from Ratibor, some from Leobschütz have been digitized and are available on ancestry.com; I was able to find Philippine Berliner’s death certificate here. (Figure 17) Suffice it to say, her death certificate “pushes” Hermann Berliner’s lineage back yet another generation, naming his father-in-law as Isaac Glogauer. Philippine’s death certificate shows that like her husband and son she too was born in Zülz, Germany [today: Biała Prudnicka, Poland]. Family History Library Zülz Microfilm 1271493 registers births for all three of them, as well as the birth of one of Hermann Berliner’s younger siblings Julchen Berliner in 1842; Hermann Berliner had additional younger siblings, but they were born elsewhere in Silesia.
In closing, I would urge readers to focus not on the names of my family members whom I discuss but rather on the process of how I recovered data on their vital events, Readers may be able to follow a similar path to extract comparable information for their ancestors. As you do so, you too may discover that primary source documents are not without errors but that they may still be an improvement over vital data found in family trees developed by genealogists who copy and perpetuate inaccurate information.
VITAL STATISTICS FOR HERMANN BERLINER & HIS IMMEDIATE RELATIVES
NAME
(relationship)
VITAL EVENT
DATE
PLACE
SOURCE OF DATA
Hermann Berliner (self)
Birth
28 May 1840
Zülz, Germany [today: Biała Prudnicka, Poland]
Family History Library (FHL) Zülz Microfilm 1271493 (births)
(FIGURE 19)
Death
3 September 1910
Ratibor, Germany [today: Racibórz, Poland]
State Archives in Katowice Branch in Raciborz death certificate (FIGURE 16); FHL Ratibor Microfilms 1184447 (burials) (FIGURE 20) & 1184448 (deaths) (FIGURE 10); tombstone from former Jewish Cemetery in Ratibor
Olga Braun (wife)
Birth
23 July 1852
Ratibor, Germany [today: Racibórz, Poland]
FHL Ratibor Microfilm 1184449 (births)
Death
23 August 1920
Ratibor, Germany [today: Racibórz, Poland]
FHL Ratibor Microfilms 1184447 (burials) (FIGURE 20) & 1184448 (deaths) (FIGURE 11); tombstone from former Jewish Cemetery in Ratibor
Margareth Berliner (daughter)
Birth
19 March 1872
Ratibor, Germany [today: Racibórz, Poland]
FHL Ratibor Microfilm 1184449 (births)
Marriage (to Siegfried Brauer)
14 July 1891
Ratibor, Germany [today: Racibórz, Poland]
State Archives in Katowice Branch in Raciborz marriage certificate
Death
24 November 1942
Theresienstadt Ghetto, Czechoslovakia
Yad Vashem Victims’ Database
Else Berliner (daughter)
Birth
3 March 1873
Ratibor, Germany [today: Racibórz, Poland]
FHL Ratibor Microfilm 1184449 (births) (FIGURE 9)
Marriage (to Felix Bruck)
11 February 1894
Ratibor, Germany [today: Racibórz, Poland]
State Archives in Katowice Branch in Raciborz marriage certificate
Death
18 February 1957
Manhattan, New York
New York, Hebrew Burial Records (HFBA), Silver Lake and Mount Richmond Cemeteries, 1899-1991
Alfred Max Berliner (son)
Birth
6 November 1875
Ratibor, Germany [today: Racibórz, Poland]
State Archives in Katowice Branch in Raciborz marriage certificate; tombstone from former Jewish Cemetery in Ratibor
Marriage (to Charlotte Rothe)
17 January 1909
Meseritz, Germany [today:
Międzyrzecz, Poland]
Meseritz, Germany marriage certificate from ancestry.com
Death
19 February 1921
Ratibor, Germany [today: Racibórz, Poland]
FHL Ratibor Microfilm 1184448 (deaths); Ratibor death notice (FIGURE 21); tombstone from former Jewish Cemetery in Ratibor
