Category: Alfred Berliner

POST 93: GUIDE TO THE MORMON CHURCH’S FAMILIAL MICROFILMS: USING THEM TO UNRAVEL MY GREAT-GRANDFATHER’S LINEAGE

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.

Related Posts:

Post 12: “State Archives in Katowice Branch in Racibórz (Ratibor)”

Post 92: Beware Identical Ancestral Names, The Case of My Maternal Great-Grandfather Hermann Berliner

 

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)

 

Figure 1. “FamilySearch.org” page where free account is created

 

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.

 

Figure 2. “FamilySearch.org” portal page with pull-down “Search” menu

 

Figure 3. “FamilySearch Catalog” page where “Place” one is searching is entered

 

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.

 

Figure 4. Search Results for Ratibor listing Jewish records, “Matrikel, 1814-1940”

 

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.

 

Figure 5. “Matrikel, 1814-1940” Microfilms for Ratibor, numbered 1184447 (“Friedhofsusrkunden 1888-1940” (Cemetery Documents)), 1184448 (“Tote 1865-1930) (Deaths)), and 1184449 (“Geburten 1815-1874 Heiraten 1814-1862” (Births & Marriages))

 

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.

 

Figure 6. “FamilySearch Catalog” print list for Ratibor Microfilm 1184449 containing births (1815-1874) and marriages (1814-1862)

 

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.

 

Figure 7. My maternal great-grandfather Hermann Berliner (1840-1910)

 

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.

 

Figure 8. Page from an 1889 Ratibor Address Book listing my great-grandfather Hermann Berliner and identifying him as a “brauereimeister,” a master brewer

 

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.

 

Figure 9. My grandmother’s birth register listing from Family History Library (FHL) Ratibor Microfilm 1184449 showing she was born on 3 March 1873, and misidentifying her father’s profession as “Maurermeister,” master mason

 

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):

 

Sterbmonat

ev. Jahr

 Sterbetag. Namen Beerdigungsort Angehörige Bemer-

kungen
Month of death

Protestant Year

 Day of death Name Place of burial Relative Remarks (relationship of deceased)
1868   Abr. Berliner Neisse Stadtrath Berliner Vater
1868   Abr. (Abraham) Berliner Neisse

[today: Nysa, Poland]

 City councilor Berliner Father
1907 März 31 Philippine Berliner Leobschütz Stadtr. Berliner Mutter
1907 March 31 Philippine Berliner (née Glogauer) Leobschütz

[today: Głubczyce, Poland]

 City councilor Berliner Mother
3 September 1910 Hermann Berliner

(Name in Hebrew)

 Ratibor Alfred Berliner

Frau Bruck

Frau Berliner

 Vater

                          “

Gatte
1910 September 3 Hermann Berliner Ratibor

[today: Racibórz, Poland]

 Alfred Berliner

Else Bruck née Berliner

Olga Berliner (née Braun)

 Father

                          “

 

Husband
1920/5680 August 23 Frau Olga Berliner Ratibor Frau Herm. Zweig

Fr. Else Bruck

Alfred Berliner

 Schwester

                Mutter

“
1920 August

[5680 Hebrew year]

 23 Mrs. Olga Berliner (née Braun) Ratibor

[today: Racibórz, Poland]

 Mrs. Hermine Zweig née Braun

Mrs. Else Bruck (née Berliner)

Alfred Berliner

 Sister

 

             Mother

 

“
1921/5680

Februar

 19 Alfred Berliner

(Name in Hebrew)

 Ratibor Frau Lotte Berliner Gatte
1921 February

[5680 Hebrew year]

 19 Alfred Berliner

 

 Ratibor

[today: Racibórz, Poland]

 Mrs. Lotte Berliner (née Rothe) Husband

 

Figure 10. Hermann Berliner’s death register listing from FHL Microfilm 1184448 (Ratibor) showing he died on 3 September 1910 in Ratibor

 

Figure 11. Olga Berliner’s death register listing from FHL Microfilm 1184448 (Ratibor) showing she died on 23 August 1920 in Ratibor
Figure 12. Hermann Berliner’s father, Abraham Berliner, death register listing from FHL Microfilm 1184448 (Ratibor) showing he died in Ratibor, supposedly in 1868, but was buried in Neisse [today: Nysa, Poland]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 13. Hermann Berliner’s mother, Philippine Berliner, death register listing from FHL Microfilm 1184448 (Ratibor) showing she died on 31 March 1907 in Ratibor but was buried in Leobschütz
Figure 14. Hermann Berliner’s son, Alfred Berliner, death register listing from FHL Microfilm 1184448 (Ratibor) showing he died on 19 February 1921 in Ratibor

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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.

 

Figure 15. Hermann Berliner’s father, Abraham Berliner, death register listing from FHL Microfilm 1184444 (Neisse) showing he died not in 1868 but on 21 June 1858

 

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)

 

Figure 16. Hermann Berliner’s death certificate from the “State Archives in Katowice Branch in Racibórz (Ratibor)” showing he died on 3 September 1910; that he was born in Zülz, Germany; that his wife was born “Philippine née Glogauer”; and that his father was named “Ismar Berliner”

 

Figure 17. 1893 map of Silesia with the towns mentioned in the text of Ratibor, Germany (today: Racibórz, Poland); Leobschütz, Germany (today: Głubczyce, Poland); Neisse, Germany (today: Nysa, Poland); and Zülz, Germany (today: Biała, Poland) circled

 

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.

 

Figure 18. Hermann Berliner’s mother, Philippine Berliner née Glogauer, death certificate showing she supposedly died on 31 March 1907 in Leobschütz at age 93 (she actually died in Ratibor but was interred in Leobschütz)

 

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
Abraham Berliner (father) Birth 8 June 1818 Zülz, Germany [today: Biała Prudnicka, Poland] FHL Zülz Microfilm 1271493 (births) (FIGURE 22)
Death 21 June 1858 Ratibor, Germany [today: Racibórz, Poland FHL Ratibor Microfilm 1184448 (deaths) (FIGURE 12); FHL Neisse Microfilm 1184444 (deaths) (FIGURE 15)
Burial 1858 Neisse, Germany [today: Nysa, Poland] FHL Neisse Microfilm 1184444 (deaths)
Philippine “Zipperle” Glogauer (mother) Birth 25 March 1814 Zülz, Germany [today: Biała Prudnicka, Poland] FHL Zülz Microfilm 1271493 (births) (FIGURE 23); FHL Leobschütz Microfilm 1184434 (deaths) (FIGURE 24); Leobschütz death certificate from ancestry.com (FIGURE 17)
Death 31 March 1907 Ratibor, Germany [today: Racibórz, Poland FHL Ratibor Microfilm 1184448 (deaths) (FIGURE 13); FHL Leobschütz Microfilm 1184434 (deaths) (FIGURE 23); Leobschütz death certificate from ancestry.com (FIGURE 18)
Burial 1907 Leobschütz, Germany [today: Głubczyce, Poland] FHL Ratibor Microfilm 1184448 (deaths) (FIGURE 13); Leobschütz death certificate from ancestry.com (FIGURE 18)
         
         

 

Figure 19. Hermann Berliner’s birth register listing from FHL Microfilm 1271493 (Zülz) showing he was born on the 18 May 1840, that his father was Abraham Berliner, and that he was married to Philippine née Glogauer

 

Figure 20. Olga & Hermann Berliner’s cemetery records listing from Microfilm 1184447 (Ratibor) showing, respectively, they were buried three days after their deaths

 

Figure 21. Alfred Berliner’s “Death Notice” confirming he died in Ratibor on 19 February 1921

 

Figure 22. Abraham Berliner’s birth register listing from FHL Microfilm 1271493 (Zülz) indicating he was born on 8 June 1818

 

Figure 23. Hermann Berliner’s mother, Philippine Glogauer, birth register listing from FHL Microfilm 1271493 (Zülz) showing she was born on 25 March 1814 as “Zipperle” and that her father was named Isaac Glogauer, matching the name shown on her 1907 death certificate

 

Figure 24. Hermann Berliner’s mother, Philippine Berliner née Glogauer, death register listing from FHL Microfilm 1184434 (Leobschütz) showing she supposedly died on 31 March 1907 in Leobschütz at age 93 (she actually died in Ratibor but was interred in Leobschütz)

 

 

 

 

POST 92: BEWARE IDENTICAL ANCESTRAL NAMES, THE CASE OF MY MATERNAL GREAT-GRANDFATHER HERMANN BERLINER

Note: In this post, I discuss a man named Ernst Berliner born in 1878 in Ratibor, Germany to a Hermann Berliner, coincidentally the same name as my great-grandfather. Initially I thought Ernst might be a previously unknown great-uncle, a younger brother of my grandmother, Else Bruck née Berliner.  

Related Post:

Post 34: Margareth Berliner, Wraith or Being?

Post 34, Postscript: Margareth Berliner, Wraith or Being? Death in Theresienstadt

Post 34, Postscript 2: Margareth Berliner, Wraith or Being? More Discoveries

 

Figure 1. In the early 1950’s in New York City, my father Dr. Otto Bruck holding me in his lap, seated next to his mother Else Bruck née Berliner, and brother, Dr. Fedor Bruck

 

This story started simply when I queried ancestry.com for the surname “Berliner.” This was my grandmother Else Bruck’s maiden name, who was born on the 3rd of March 1873 in Ratibor, Germany [today: Racibórz, Poland]. I knew her as a child growing up in New York City, although she died when I was only six years old. (Figure 1) Not surprisingly, she never spoke to me about her siblings and ancestors. Had she done so, I would not in any case have remembered since none of my relatives ever reinforced this knowledge.

My search yielded an intriguing result, the name “Ernst Berliner.” This was an unexpected discovery because according to ancestry.com he was born on the 7th of March 1878 in Ratibor, where many of my father’s family were born. Given my familiarity with Berliners living there at around this time, I was uncertain whether or how he might be related to my grandmother. While Ernst Berliner’s birth certificate was not available online, from the records I could locate, it showed he had lived in Frankfurt am Main before WWII; had been a Bank Director there prior to the war; emigrated to England; had his German nationality annulled following his departure from Germany (Figure 2) and was registered in England as a World War II Alien Internee upon his arrival there (Figure 3); was registered as a “German Persecutee” in 1950 (Figure 4); died in Willesden, Middlesex, England on the 15th of February 1956; and according to the “Index of Wills and Administration” from the National Probate Calendar had his estate administered on the 29th of May 1956. (Figure 5) He left his personal effects to a married woman named Barbara Friedlaender, a domestic helper. The England Death Register only shows that Ernst died in the first quarter of 1956 but provides specific information in which English register his death certificate can be found. (Figure 6)

 

Figure 2. Evidence of the Nazi Regime’s annulment of Ernst Berliner’s German nationality, showing he was born on the 7th of March 1878 in Ratibor, that he was a Bank Director, and last lived in Frankfurt (Main) prior to leaving Germany
Figure 3. England’s “Alien Exemption from Internment” card for Ernst Berliner dated the 8th of November 1939, showing his date and place of birth and occupation

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 4. Frankfurt, Germany “Registration of Foreigner and German Persecutee, 1939-1947,” dated the 4th of May 1950, listing Ernst Berliner
Figure 5. Page from England’s “National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administration)” showing Ernst Berliner died in Willesden, London, England on the 25th of February 1956, had his will administered on the 29th of May 1956, and left his personal effects to Barbara Friedlaender

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 6. Page from England’s “Civil Registration Death Index,” showing Ernst Berliner died in the first quarter of 1956, and indicating the register where his death certificate can be found

 

With this data in hand, I turned to the United Kingdom’s (UK) General Register Office online database and ordered Ernst Berliner’s death record in April 2020. Previous UK death certificates I have ordered sometimes name the father, and I was hoping this would again be the case. During these Covid-19 times, it took more than three months for the official document to arrive. But, when it arrived, I realized it included negligible new information and named neither his father nor any next-of-kin. (Figure 7) The person who caused Ernst Berliner’s body to be cremated, identified as Erica Weiss, I later learned was someone who probably worked in his household as a domestic helper.

 

Figure 7. Ernst Berliner’s death certificate obtained from the United Kingdom’s “General Register Office,” confirming he died on the 25th of February 1956 in Willesden, London, England

 

 

Realizing there was little to be learned from the “backend” of Ernst’s life, I turned my attention to obtaining his birth certificate. Given Ernst’s year of birth in 1878, I knew the record would be among the civil records found at “Archiwum Państwowe w Katowicach Oddział w Raciborzu,” State Archives in Katowice Branch in Raciborz. I asked my historian friend from Racibórz, Poland, Mr. Paul Newerla, whether he could obtain a copy of Ernst Berliner’s birth certificate. Even though the State Archives is currently shuttered to the public on account of the Covid pandemic, Paul was able to contact their office and quickly obtain a copy of the document in question. (Figures 8a-b) The record identified Ernst’s father as Hermann Berliner, and, initially, I was stunned and excited by the discovery, thinking I had uncovered a previously unknown sibling of my grandmother. This would not have been unprecedented. In Post 34 and the postscripts, I discussed my grandmother’s older sister, Margareth “Grete” Brauer née Berliner, who I learned about from a single picture of her found among my cousin’s collection of family photographs (Figure 9); my great-aunt Grete Brauer was murdered in the Theresienstadt Ghetto on the 24th of November 1942 and was never mentioned to me growing up so I naturally assumed the same might have been true of a previously unknown great-uncle.

 

Figure 8a. Ernst Berliner’s birth certificate obtained from the “State Archives in Katowice Branch in Raciborz,” proving he was born on the 7th of March 1878 in Ratibor to a Herman Berliner, coincidentally the same name as my great-grandfather
Figure 8b. Translation of Ernst Berliner’s birth certificate

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 9. My great-aunt Margareth “Grete” Brauer née Berliner (1872-1942), murdered in the Theresienstadt Ghetto in 1942

 

My grandmother was born in 1873, her older sister Grete in 1872, and her younger brother Alfred Max Berliner in 1875; the timing of Ernst’s birth in 1878 would not have been illogical. However, upon obtaining a translation of Ernst Berliner’s birth certificate, I discovered that his mother had not been my great-grandmother Olga Berliner née Braun but had instead been a Sara Riesenfeld.

I was next left to contemplate whether my great-grandfather Hermann Berliner (Figure 10) might have divorced his first wife and remarried this Sara. I swiftly concluded based on two pieces of evidence this was unlikely to have occurred. The Hermann Berliner who was married to Sara Riesenfeld was identified on their child’s birth certificate as a “hausierer,” an old-fashioned professional title meaning “street vendor,” or “door-to-door salesman.” I know that my great-grandfather was a “brauereimeister,” a master brewer, although I considered the possibility he might have changed professions after 1878. The more compelling evidence that I was looking at two different Hermann Berliners is that my great-grandparents Hermann and Olga were once interred together in the now destroyed Jewish Cemetery in Ratibor; I have a picture of their former headstone. (Figure 11)

 

Figure 10. My great-grandfather Hermann Berliner (1840-1910)
Figure 11. Headstone from the former Jewish Cemetery in Ratibor for my great-grandparents, Hermann Berliner and Olga Berliner née Braun (1852-1920)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Not entirely satisfied with the evidence I had mustered, I continued to look for further proof I was dealing with two different people by the same name. An 1889 Ratibor Address Book lists only one Hermann Berliner (Figure 12), so this was inconclusive.

 

Figure 12. Page from an 1889 Ratibor Address Book listing my great-grandfather Hermann Berliner and his mother Pauline Berliner, identifying her as “Witwe,” a widow

 

I returned my attention to Ernst Berlin, and ultimately found in MyHeritage a “1939 Register of England and Wales,” with his name and the members of his household then residing in London. (Figure 13) His wife “Grete” (i.e., misidentified as “?Rete”) and her date of birth, 6th of June 1880 (i.e., she was actually born in July), were listed. I quickly discovered she was born in Breslau, Germany [today: Wrocław, Poland] as Grete Moskowicz. Like her husband and many other Jews, she had her German nationality annulled following her departure from Germany (Figure 14) and was registered in the United Kingdom as a World War II Alien Internee upon her arrival there. She died in London on the 7th of April 1940, and her probate hearing was held on the 25th of July 1940 (Figure 15); Ernst, shown to be a retired bank director, inherited. I have found no evidence that Ernst and Grete had any children.

 

Figure 13. “1939 Register of England and Wales” for Ernst Berliner and his household members, listing his wife and domestic helpers, and their dates of birth
Figure 14. Evidence of the Nazi Regime’s annulment of Grete Berliner née Moskowicz’s German nationality, showing she was born on the 6th of June 1880 (July is the correct month) in Breslau and last lived in Frankfurt (Main) prior to leaving Germany

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 15. Page from England’s “National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administration)” showing Grete Berliner died in Willesden, London, England on the 4th of April 1940, had her will administered on the 25th of July 1940, and left her personal effects to her husband Ernst Berliner, a retired banker

 

I next turned my attention to family trees on ancestry.com and MyHeritage. With respect to these, I have often expressed my deep-seated concern that because these are not typically based on primary source documents, the data contained within them is often wrong. Compounding the problem is that genealogists developing their own trees often replicate errors from earlier trees. Still, I have begun to apply a principle I have learned from listening to an investment service to which I am subscribed that maintains the statistical data cited for stocks and companies may be “directionally correct but precisely wrong.” Applied to ancestral data, this means that while vital data of people included in trees may not always be precisely accurate, the relationship among the people may be correct.

Having had limited success finding additional information on Hermann Berliner, I turned my attention to his wife Sara Riesenfeld. Indirectly, I found a surprising amount of information on both in one family tree developed by a “Peter Lax,” confirming Ernst’s father was indeed a different Hermann Berliner than my great-grandfather (Figure 16); this tree identifies another of Hermann and Sara’s sons named Hans born on the 17th of February 1891 in Breslau. I also found the 1913 marriage certificate for a third son, Arthur Berliner, born on the 8th of September 1880, also in Breslau. (Figure 17a-b) According to Yad Vashem, both Arthur and Hans were murdered in the Shoah. There is quite a time span between the birth of Hermann and Sara Berliner’s three sons, 1878 to 1891, so the possibility of additional children exists. Still, based on the information in hand, it seems only Ernst survived the Holocaust.

 

Figure 16. Screen shot of Peter Lax’s family tree with information on Sara Riesenfeld (Ernst Berliner’s mother); circled is the incorrect date of her birth, shown as the 12th of January 1949 when it is in fact the 1st of December 1849, and the name of her father, “Israel Jacob Riesenfeld”

 

Figure 17a. Ancestry.com cover page for the marriage of Ernst Berliner’s younger brother Arthur Berliner to Amalie Luise Bernhardt on the 30th of April 1913 in Breslau, Germany
Figure 17b. Arthur Berliner’s 1913 marriage certificate with the names of his parents, Hermann Berliner and Sara Riesenfeld, circled

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Peter Lax’s tree, with more than 100,000 names in it, allows me to illustrate the point I was alluding to above that even the seemingly best documented trees contain errors. Case in point, Mr. Lax’s tree indicates Sara Riesenfeld was born on the 12th of January 1849 in Biała, Opolskie, Poland [formerly: Zülz, Germany], and identifies her father as “Israel Jacob Riesenfled (181601860).” (Figure 16) Consulting the Family History Library Microfilm Roll No. 1271493, found online at familysearch.org, with Jewish birth records from Zülz, Germany (Figure 18) for January of 1849, I could not initially locate Sara’s birth register listing. However, I eventually found her birth register listing under December of 1849. (Figure 19) Inadvertently, Peter Lax transposed “1/12/1849” (i.e., European designated date of 1st of December 1849) as “12/1/1849” (i.e., English designated date of the 12th of January 1849). This is another cautionary tale of consulting primary source documents where they exist to verify vital data.

 

Figure 18. 1893 map of Silesia with the towns of Ratibor, Germany (today: Racibórz, Poland); Beuthen, Germany (today: Bytom, Poland); and Zülz, Germany (today: Biała, Poland) circled

 

Figure 19. Birth register listing for Sara Riesenfeld circled identifying her father as Israel Riesenfeld and her date of birth as “1/12” (i.e., 1st of December 1849) (Source: Family History Library’s microfilm roll 1271493 for Zülz, Germany, pages 80 and 231 of 380 pages on this roll)

 

One specific piece of information included in Peter Lax’s family tree was the purported place and date of birth of Ernst Berliner’s father, Hermann, on the 1st of June 1852 in Beuthen, Silesia [today: Bytom, Poland]. (Figure 20) I again turned to the Family History Library online microfilms to confirm this, and successfully found and had transcribed and translated Hermann Berliner’s birth register listing. (Figures 21a-b) Hermann’s birth register listing includes the names of his parents, Hirschel Berliner and Jalünder Rohel née Silbermann, both of whom I later found in the “Jewish Records Indexing-Poland” and “JewishGen Worldwide Burial Registry,” “JOWBR.” This allowed me to “push back” their ancestral tree another generation.

 

Figure 20. Screen shot of Peter Lax’s family tree with information on Hermann Berliner (Ernst Berliner’s father), showing his date and place of birth, the 1st of June 1852 in Bytom, Poland (formerly: Beuthen, Germany)

 

Figure 21a. Birth register entry for Hermann Berliner circled, identifying his parents as Hirschel Berliner and Jalünder Rohel née Silbermann and his date of birth as 1st of June 1852 (Source: Family History Library microfilm roll 1335074 for Beuthen, Germany, page 31 of 476 pages on this roll)
Figure 21b. German transcription and English translation of Hermann Berliner’s birth register entry

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Having confirmed that Hermann Berliner, father of Ernst Berliner born on the 7th of March 1878 in Ratibor, was not my grandmother’s father prompted me to trace my great-grandfather’s lineage with reference to primary source documents. In the ensuing post, I will present this information. Regular readers know that without primary source documents in hand, I am most hesitant to accept ancestral and vital data found on other trees. Regarding my ancestral tree, I am much more interested in having well-sourced data and pictures on fewer people than unproven information going back multiple generations. While I assume there exists an ancestral connection between my grandmother Else Bruck née Berliner and Ernst Berliner and his ancestors, I have not yet ferreted out this relationship.

 

 

VITAL STATISTICS FOR ERNST BERLINER & HIS IMMEDIATE RELATIVES

 

NAME

(relationship)

 VITAL EVENT DATE PLACE SOURCE OF DATA
         
Ernst Berliner (self) Birth 7 March 1878 Ratibor, Germany [today: Racibórz, Poland] Ancestry.com;

State Archives in Katowice Branch in Raciborz birth certificate
Death 25 February 1956 Willesden, Middlesex, England UK “Index of Wills and Administration, National Probate Calendar”;

UK General Register Office death certificate
Grete Moskowicz (wife) Birth 6 July 1880 Breslau, Germany [today: Wrocław, Poland] Multiple ancestry.com documents
Death 7 April 1940 Willesden, Middlesex, England UK “Index of Wills and Administration, National Probate Calendar”
Hermann Berliner (father) Birth 1 June 1852 Beuthen, Germany [today: Bytom, Poland] Family History Library Microfilm Roll 1335074 (Beuthen, Germany)
Death   Kattowitz, Germany [today: Katowice, Poland] Peter Lax Family Tree
Sara Riesenfeld (mother) Birth 1 December 1849 Zülz, Germany [today: Biała, Poland] Family History Library Microfilm Roll 1271493 (Zülz, Germany)
Marriage 5 February 1876 Breslau, Germany [today: Wrocław, Poland] Peter Lax Family Tree
Death   Kattowitz, Germany [today: Katowice, Poland] Peter Lax Family Tree
Arthur Berliner (brother) Birth 8 September 1880 Breslau, Germany [today: Wrocław, Poland] Eastern Prussian Provinces marriage certificate
Marriage (to Amalie Luise Bernhardt) 30 April 1913 Breslau, Germany [today: Wrocław, Poland] Eastern Prussian Provinces marriage certificate
Death 29 November 1941 Fort IX, Kaunas, Lithuania Yad Vashem
Hans Berliner (brother) Birth 17 February 1891 Breslau, Germany [today: Wrocław, Poland] Peter Lax Family Tree
Death Between 1941 and 1944 Minsk Ghetto, Belarus Yad Vashem; Peter Lax Family Tree

POST 62, POSTSCRIPT: THE FAR-REACHING SEARCH FOR MY FATHER’S FIRST COUSIN, HEINZ LUDWIG BERLINER—FURTHER PROOF OF HEINZ’S EXISTENCE

Note: In this postscript, I discuss some intriguing new information that has come to light about Heinz Ludwig Berliner since publication of the original post, details of which bring me closer to determining his fate.

Related posts:

Post 18: Remembering My Great-Aunt Charlotte “Lotte” Berliner, née Rothe, Victim of The Holocaust

Post 62: The Far-Flung Search for My Father’s First Cousin, Heinz Ludwig Berliner

I can never predict when or from where further traces of ancestors I’ve written about in earlier posts may materialize. In my original publication, I explained to readers the challenges I encountered trying to uncover concrete evidence of Heinz Ludwig Berliner, one of my father’s first cousins. I first learned about him from a fleeting reference in a document written by my third cousin Larry Leyser’s grandmother detailing the fate of some of our family’s ancestors. His grandmother briefly remarked Heinz Berliner immigrated to some unspecified country in South America after WWII, where he purportedly committed suicide.

 

Figure 1. Cover of March 19, 1948 playbill from the “Teatro Municipal” showing Heinz Berliner’s stage name, “Enry Berloc,” along with the names of his co-performers, “Witha Herm” and “Maestro Kurt Kohn”

 

As discussed in the original post, I was able to confirm Heinz Ludwig Berliner’s appearance in South America through the cover of a playbill (Figure 1) sent to me by Tema Goetzel née Comac, the wife of Heinz’s nephew; the playbill showed that Heinz, using his stage name “Enry Berloc,” had performed at the “Teatro Municipal,” in an unspecified South American country, on the 19th of March 1948 in the accompaniment of a “Witha Herm” and the “Maestro Kurt Kohn.” More on this later.

For two reasons, I never imagined it would be so difficult to track Heinz’s movements and eventual destination. First, both of Heinz’ s siblings, Ilse (Figure 2) and Peter Berliner (Figure 3), wound up in New York and were known to me since childhood. And, second, as alluded to above, I’m in touch with descendants of Heinz’s siblings, and assumed they would have letters or documents showing where he’d wound up; initially, all they found was the playbill cover to the 1948 recital in which Enry Berloc performed.

Figure 2. Heinz Berliner’s older sister, Pauline Ilse Berliner (1911-1981), standing alongside my father, Dr. Otto Bruck
Figure 3. Heinz Berliner’s older brother, Peter Berliner (1910-1977)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Heinz’s siblings were born in the same town in Upper Silesia where my father had been born, Ratibor [today: Racibórz, Poland], and I was able to locate both of their birth certificates when I visited the “State Archives in Katowice Branch in Raciborz”; vexingly, on two separate visits I could never find Heinz’s birth record, though it was logical to assume he too had been born in Ratibor. I even asked my Polish historian friend in Racibórz, Mr. Paul Newerla, to confirm my negative findings, and his initial efforts were similarly fruitless. As previously discussed, I began to think Heinz may have been born earlier out-of-wedlock and/or born in the town where his parents had married, Meseritz [today: Międzyrzecz, Poland]. I even contacted the archives there but was told the on-line birth records would not be available until this current year; this is on account of Poland’s legal requirement prohibiting the release of birth certificates until 110 years after a person’s birth, so in the case of Heinz possibly soon after his parents married in 1909 in Meseritz.

 

Figure 4. Page from MyHeritage ancestral database entitled “German Minority Census, 1939,” showing a Heinz Ludwig Berliner born in Ratibor on the 24th of September 1916, living in Berlin-Charlottenburg at the time, having immigrated to Bolivia

 

As readers may recall, this search became moot when I recently discovered a document in MyHeritage entitled “German Minority Census, 1939,” listing a Heinz Ludwig Berliner born on the 24th of September 1916 in Ratibor, showing he lived in the Charlottenburg District of Berlin in 1939, and indicating he had immigrated to Bolivia. (Figure 4) I had some initial doubts this was my father’s first cousin, but after transmitting this new information to Mr. Newerla, Paul was able to finally locate Heinz’s birth certificate in the State Archives in Raciborz, misfiled as it happens, confirming his parents’ names.

Researching the names and information found on the cover of the 1948 playbill, I thought the “Teatro Municipal” was in Buenos Aires, Argentina, as I told readers in my original post. Hoping to locate Berliners who may have wound up there before or after WWII, I turned to family trees on JewishGen, and contacted a lady in Australia who put me in touch with a Ms. Marcia Ras from Buenos Aires with Berliners in her family tree, who turned out to be exceptionally helpful.

 

Figure 5. Cover of March 19, 1948 playbill from the “Teatro Municipal” with the circled name of the sponsoring organization, “Ministerio de Educacion y Bellas Artes”

 

Following publication of my original post, I sent Marcia a link to it, and she explained that Argentina’s Ministry of Education that had supposedly sponsored the 1948 recital at the Teatro Municipal had never borne the name “Ministerio de Educacion y Bellas Artes.” (Figure 5) Quick online searches showed that in both Venezuela and República Dominicana they were called that way. I sent an email to the Dominican Republic’s Ministry of Education but never received a response. Given Venezuela’s severely dysfunctional state, I never bothered to contact them. I searched for a similarly named entity in other South American countries to no avail.

Marcia could find no evidence Heinz was ever in Buenos Aires. She told me that if he was, he did not enter the country legally. Thousands of Jewish refugees entered Argentina and other South American countries illegally, especially between 1938 and 1949, so he may well have been among them. Marcia was unable to find his name mentioned anywhere. A Ms. Silvia Glocer, an expert in Jewish musicians seeking refuge in Argentina whom Marcia consulted, confirmed she’d also never heard Heinz’s or the maestro Kurt Kohn’s names. They stressed this did not mean they’d never been in Argentina, only that no evidence could be found they’d been there. 

Figure 6a. Picture of the chatelaine with an attached photo locket containing the image of Heinz’s father, Alfred Berliner (1875-1921) (photo courtesy of Tema Goetzel, Heinz Berliner’s niece by marriage)
Figure 6b. Photo locket with the image of Heinz Berliner’s father, Alfred Berliner (1875-1921) (photo courtesy of Tema Goetzel, Heinz Berliner’s niece by marriage)

 

My ongoing search might well have ended here. However, out of the blue, Tema Goetzel sent me a photo from a chatelaine (i.e., a clasp or hook for a watch, purse, or bunch of keys) (Figures 6a-b), asking if I recognized Alfred Berliner, Heinz Berliner’s father. While I know Alfred Berliner was once interred in the Jewish Cemetery in Ratibor and included a photo of his former headstone in the original post, I had no photos of him against which to compare; eventually, Tema sent two more photos, a second of Alfred Berliner (Figure 7), and a third of Alfred Berliner’s wife, Charlotte Berliner née Rothe, with their three children. (Figure 8) At long last, I’d tracked down a photo of the elusive Heinz Berliner, albeit as a young child! (Readers are reminded that in Post 18, I told the story of Heinz Berliner’s mother who perished in Auschwitz in 1943.)

Figure 7. Alfred Berliner, Heinz Berliner’s father (photo courtesy of Tema Goetzel, Heinz Berliner’s niece by marriage)
Figure 8. Heinz Berliner as a child with his two older siblings, Peter and Ilse, and his mother, Charlotte Berliner née Rothe (photo courtesy of Tema Goetzel, Heinz Berliner’s niece by marriage)

 

In the course of our recent conversations, I told Tema the Teatro Municipal I thought was in Buenos Aires was not in fact in Argentina; I related what Marcia Ras had explained to me. Tema, the source of the original playbill, thought it indicated the country. When I told her it didn’t, she again dug out the playbill and found three additional pages (Figures 9a-c) which she hadn’t previously sent, and these sheets specifically mentioned Bolivia, the country the “German Minority Census, 1939” document identified as Heinz’s destination. Armed with a country, I now quickly found a Teatro Municipal in La Paz. (Figure 10) Another puzzle solved.

 

Figure 9a. Second page of the March 19, 1948 playbill from the “Teatro Municipal” confirming the theater was in La Paz, Bolivia (courtesy of Tema Goetzel)

 

Figure 9b. Third page of the March 19, 1948 playbill from the “Teatro Municipal” with a summary of the critical reviews from different places where Witha Herm and Enry Berloc performed (courtesy of Tema Goetzel)
Figure 9c. Fourth page of the March 19, 1948 playbill from the “Teatro Municipal” with the list of musical numbers in each act and the names of the performers (courtesy of Tema Goetzel)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 10. Teatro Municipal de la Paz in Bolivia (Photo Credit: Gatol fotografia)

 

 

Having confirmed from two independent sources Heinz’s connection to Bolivia, I again contacted the Bolivian affiliate of the World Jewish Congress, Circulo Israelita De La Paz, asking if they could check on Jewish musicians who may have sought refuge in Bolivia between roughly 1938 and 1949. This office has been gracious and helpful beyond measure but, to date, they too have been unable to confirm Heinz’s presence there. I think what is true of Jewish refugees entering Argentina illegally is also true of Bolivia. It may well be I’m unable to ever confirm whether or when Heinz died in Bolivia.

 

Figure 11. The popular British-Austrian orchestra leader, Ray Martin, born Kurt Kohn (1918-1988), whose musical score may have been used in the 1948 recital Heinz Berliner performed in

Marcia Ras discovered one other final intriguing thing. In the original post, I told readers that the Witha Herm mentioned in the 1948 playbill was a stage name for a woman known as Herma Wittmann, who died in 1992 in Los Angeles and is interred there. Similarly, the other musician mentioned in the playbill, Kurt Kohn, used an artistic name, Ray Martin (Raymond Stuart Martin). (Figure 11) A quick online search revealed Ray was born Kurt Kohn in Vienna, Austria on the 11th of October 1918, and came to live and work in England in 1937. He was noted for his light music compositions, and created a legacy for himself in British popular music through his work with his orchestra in the 1950’s. I even located a descriptive catalog of his musical recordings, and tried to contact the compiler, Alan Bunting, but learned he’d died in 2016. Fortunately, the discography was created in collaboration with a Nigel Burlinson, whom I was able to reach. Mr. Burlinson sent a very gracious reply telling me he did not think the “Kurt Kohn” who performed at the Teatro Municipal in 1948 was the popular music conductor “Ray Martin” because at the time he was in England conducting orchestras. What to make of this is unclear? Possibly, the musical recital in which Witha Herm and Enry Berloc performed in 1948 in Bolivia merely used one or more of Kurt Kohn’s musical scores as accompaniment?

So, as often happens in my forensic investigations, I take two steps forward, one step back. I now know what Heinz Berliner looked like as a child, and confirmed he indeed immigrated to Bolivia after 1939, but am still left to ponder how and when exactly he died and whether he passed away in Bolivia.

 

HEINZ LUDWIG BERLINER & HIS IMMEDIATE FAMILY

 

Name (relationship) Vital Event Date Place
       
Heinz Ludwig Berliner (self) Birth 24 September 1916 Ratibor, Germany (Racibórz, Poland)
Death after 1948 possibly in Bolivia
Alfred Max Berliner (father) Birth 6 November 1875 Ratibor, Germany (Racibórz, Poland)
Marriage 17 January 1909 Meseritz, Germany (Międzyrzecz, Poland)
Death 19 February 1921 Ratibor, Germany (Racibórz, Poland)
Charlotte Henriette Rothe (mother) Birth 2 April 1886 Meseritz, Germany (Międzyrzecz, Poland)
Marriage 17 January 1909 Meseritz, Germany (Międzyrzecz, Poland)
Death January 1943 Auschwitz, Poland
Peter Hermann Berliner (brother) Birth 8 November 1910 Ratibor, Germany (Racibórz, Poland)
Marriage 24 December 1948 New York, N.Y., U.S.A.
Death 25 July 1977 New York, N.Y., U.S.A.
Pauline Ilse Berliner (sister) Birth 1 October 1911 Ratibor, Germany (Racibórz, Poland)
Marriage 2 April 1941 New York, N.Y., U.S.A.
Death January 1981 New York, N.Y., U.S.A.

 

 

 

POST 62: THE FAR-FLUNG SEARCH FOR MY FATHER’S FIRST COUSIN, HEINZ LUDWIG BERLINER

Note: In this Blog post I detail the extensive efforts I’ve undertaken trying to uncover information on one of my father’s first cousins, a man named Heinz Berliner. In connection with this quest, I’ve communicated with individuals or accessed documents and databases in Poland, Germany, Argentina, Bolivia and Australia, as well as domestically in California, New York and Ohio.

Related Post:
Post 18: Remembering My Great-Aunt Charlotte “Lotte” Berliner, née Rothe, Victim of the Holocaust

Figure 1. My grandmother Else Bruck née Berliner (1873-1957) in 1925

Berliner was the maiden name of my father’s mother, that’s to say my grandmother, Else Bruck née Berliner (1873-1957). (Figure 1) She had a younger brother, Alfred Max Berliner (1875-1921), who had three children, Peter Hermann Berliner (1910-1977) (Figure 2), Pauline Ilse Berliner (1911-1981) (Figure 3), and another son named Heinz Berliner whose existence I learned about only in 2011. His name was mentioned in a document given to me by my third cousin once-removed, Larry Leyser, written by his grandmother, Kate Leyser née Rosenthal (1903-1992) (Figure 4), discussing various family members; with respect to Heinz, Kate only recorded he’d committed suicide in South America, no year nor place specified.

 

Figure 2. Peter Hermann Berliner (1910-1977)
Figure 3. My father, Dr. Otto Bruck, with his first cousin, Pauline Ilse Berliner (1911-1981)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 4. Kate Leyser née Rosenthal (1903-1992), my cousin Larry Leyser’s grandmother, the source of the information on Heinz Berliner’s existence

 

Heinz’s siblings, Peter and Ilse, I’d known about since I was a child, as my parents had infrequent contact with them in New York where they lived; I was easily able to find information on both in ancestry.com, and eventually even located some of their descendants. Regarding Heinz I found nothing, although, in retrospect, knowing he’d wound up in South America, I’m not entirely surprised. I’d hoped that if he’d made his way to the southern hemisphere via New York, there would be some record of this, but such was not the case. To cover myself, I checked the Yad Vashem Victims’ Database, but fortunately there was no indication he’d perished in the Holocaust.

Having established contact with Peter and Ilse Berliner’s offspring, naturally, I asked them if they had any letters, pictures, family lore, etc. that might suggest where Heinz Berliner wound up in South America. The only piece of physical evidence the family ultimately found in February 2018 was a playbill or theatre program with Heinz Berliner handwritten above the stage name he’d apparently used, “Enry Berloc,” showing he performed as a dancer at the “Teatro Municipal” on the 19th of March 1948 (Figure 5); the Teatro Municipal is located in Buenos Aires, Argentina, as it turns out. I’ll return to this later.

Figure 5. March 19, 1948 playbill from the Teatro Municipal in Buenos Aires showing Heinz Berliner’s stage name, Enry Berloc

 

Knowing Heinz Berliner had a connection to Argentina, I turned my attention to try and find someone in the Jewish community there who might be able to track down evidence of his immigration or death in that country. I started by contacting the Argentine Consulate, then two governmental entities to whom they’d referred me, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs & Worship of the Argentine Republic (http://mrecic.gov.ar/en), and the Dirección Nacional de Migraciones (Immigration Office in Argentina) (https://Argentina.gob.ar). Next, I emailed Jewish Buenos Aires (contact@JewishBuenosAires.com), who referred me to AMIA (www.amia.org.ar), which is the main institution of the Jewish community in Argentina. Beyond learning from the Immigration Office in Argentina that records through 1953 show no evidence Heinz Berliner ever registered there, the other contacts bore no fruit.

Aware Heinz Berliner, or at least his alter-ego Enry Berloc, had been involved in the arts, I stumbled upon a website developed by Argentina’s Ministry of Culture of the Nation called “El Sur del Sur: Argentina el Pais su Cultura y su Gente,” “The Southernmost South: Argentina, the country, its culture and its people” (https://surdelsur.com/en/sections/people/). I was hoping the staff might point me to a cultural organization that maintains records of past cultural events. While the staff there proved to be exceptionally helpful, going so far as to check the database of the “Centro de Estudios Migratorios Latinoamericanos” (http://cemla.com.buscador) for any Berliners who’d immigrated to Argentina, ultimately this too proved futile. Thus, ended with no positive results around March 2018 my initial flurry of activity trying to track down Heinz Berliner in Argentina.

I resumed my quest again in October 2018 by asking Madeleine Isenberg, my contact at the Los Angeles Jewish Genealogical Society (LAJGS), of which I’m a member, for suggestions on how to proceed. Madeleine suggested I post a message to the Latin-American SIG, https://www.jewishgen.org/InfoFiles/LatAmSIG.html, which is precisely what I did. JewishGen hosts web pages for several “Special Interest Groups” (SIGs), whose interest is a geographic region of origin, or special topic. While Latin-American SIG was able to refer me to a few Berliners living in Buenos Aires, none of them had any known relationship to Heinz Berliner.

In addition to JewishGen hosting Special Interest Groups, they also have the “Family Tree of the Jewish People (FJTP),” where they centralize the collection of Jewish family trees. As of March 2017, they had collected 7,310,620 records from 6,266 family trees. I was able to locate a Berliner family tree, and contacted the family tree manager, who happens to live in Australia. After explaining what I was looking for, the tree manager put me in touch with yet another Berliner living in Buenos Aires, but, again, to no avail.

Let me switch gears for a moment. As readers can ascertain, the discussion above has been focused on my efforts to ascertain where Heinz Berliner emigrated in South America during or following WWII and when he might have died or killed himself. As frustrating as that search turns out to have been, trying to learn when and where Heinz Berliner was born, has been equally challenging.

Figure 6. Alfred Max Berliner’s (1875-1921) headstone from the former Jewish Cemetery in Ratibor

 

As mentioned above, Peter, Ilse and Heinz Berliner’s father was Alfred Max Berliner, who died in 1921 in Ratibor and was interred in the former Jewish Cemetery there (Figure 6); Alfred’s wife, Charlotte Berliner née Rothe, was murdered in the Holocaust in 1943. I talked about her in Post 18. On ancestry.com, I found Alfred and Charlotte Berliner’s marriage certificate (Figures 7a-c) and discovered they were married the 17th of January 1909, not in Ratibor, Germany, where they lived, but rather in a place called Meseritz, Germany [today: Międzyrzecz, Poland]. In 2015, I found the birth certificates for Alfred and Charlotte’s two eldest children, Peter (Figure 8) and Ilse (Figure 9), among the vital records at the Archiwum Państwowe W Katowicach Oddzial W Raciborzu (“State Archives in Katowice Branch in Racibórz”); these certificates show Peter was born in Ratibor on the 8th of November 1910, and Ilse on the 1st of October 1911, thus about eleven months apart. Oddly, I was never able to locate Heinz’s birth certificate, though I assumed he too had been born in Ratibor.

Figure 7a. Copy of page 1 of Alfred and Charlotte Berliner’s 1909 marriage certificate (downloaded from ancestry.com, duplicate originating from the court in Berlin-Köpenick)
Figure 7b. Copy of page 2 of Alfred and Charlotte Berliner’s 1909 marriage certificate (downloaded from ancestry.com, duplicate originating from the court in Berlin-Köpenick)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 7c. Translation of Alfred and Charlotte Berliner’s marriage certificate
Figure 8. Peter Hermann Berliner’s birth certificate showing he was born in Ratibor on the 8th of November 1910
Figure 9. Pauline Ilse Berliner’s birth certificate showing she was born in Ratibor on the 1st of October 1911

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fast forward. I revisited the State Archives in Racibórz in 2018, and double-checked for Heinz’s birth certificate, with equally disappointing results. Following my visit, Paul Newerla, the Silesian historian from Racibórz who occasionally helps me out, also systematically re-examined the birth records for Ratibor from 1897 through 1918 and likewise came up empty-handed. It became evident Heinz may have been born elsewhere, perhaps in the town of Meseritz where his parents were married in January 1909. Aware this might have happened, I sent an email to Międzyrzecz, Poland, formerly Meseritz, asking whether they could search their archives for Heinz’s birth certificate. They responded telling me their vital records are archived in Gorzów Wielkoplski, Poland [German: Landsberg an der Warthe], and are accessible on-line. Paul and I immediately checked the database and again could not locate any record of Heinz’s birth.

To remind readers, birth records in Poland and Germany are not generally available until approximately 110 years after a person’s birth; at present, birth records for Meseritz are only available through 1907. Even if Heinz was born in 1908 before his parents married, his birth record will not be on-line until 2020. At the time, other possibilities came to mind. Perhaps, Heinz’s father was not Alfred, in which case he would have his mother’s maiden name, Rothe, or alternatively he was born in a place other than Meseritz or Ratibor. Paul and I decided then to wait until 2020 to again check the on-line vital records for Meseritz.

In the course of scrolling through the vital records for Meseritz, I made a mildly interesting discovery. As previously mentioned, I originally found Alfred and Charlotte Berliner’s marriage record in ancestry.com. (Figures 7a-b) Knowing when they got married, I searched for this exact record to test my ability to use the Gorzów database and had no trouble finding it. (Figures 10a-b) However, in comparing the two hand-written versions of the marriage record, I discovered they are slightly different though written by the same hand. I asked Paul Newerla about this. He explained the registration office, Meseritz in the case of the marriage between Alfred Berliner and Charlotte Rothe, kept the original certificate. As a precaution, the registration office was compelled to create a duplicate, which was submitted at the end of the year to the court, likely one in the Berlin borough of Köpenick with jurisdiction over Meseritz. The same thing was true of Ratibor; often original certificates in the registration offices have been destroyed and only copies survive, upon which a note is made to this effect.

Figure 10a. Copy of page 1 of Alfred and Charlotte Berliner’s original marriage certificate from the Gorzów, Poland on-line database
Figure 10b. Copy of page 2 of Alfred and Charlotte Berliner’s original marriage certificate from the Gorzów, Poland on-line database

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hal Bookbinder, former President of JGSLA, recently emailed members reminding them they have free access to MyHeritage, explaining they’ve recently strengthened ship manifest searches to allow queries not only for the names of passengers but for where they were headed. I’ve rarely accessed this database, erroneously assuming it replicates information found in ancestry.com, but decided to run a test using Heinz Berliner’s name. I was utterly astonished, when after all this time searching for him, a page entitled “German Minority Census, 1939” listed a man by the name of Heinz Ludwig Berliner born on the 24th of September 1916 in Ratibor. (Figure 11) While this Heinz was born where I would have expected, two things gave me pause. First, Berliner was not an uncommon surname in Silesia, and, second, neither Paul Newerla nor I had previously found Heinz Berliner’s birth record in the State Archives in Racibórz. Nonetheless, I relayed this information to Paul and armed with a precise date of birth for this Heinz Ludwig Berliner, he offered to reexamine the Ratibor birth records. Yet again, Paul could not initially find Heinz’s name in the register of births, but suspecting something might be amiss, he requested the book with the actual birth certificates. And, there it was, Heinz’s birth certificate confirming his parents were Alfred and Charlotte Berliner and that he’d indeed been born in the same town as his two siblings. (Figure 12)

Figure 11. Page from MyHeritage ancestral database entitled “German Minority Census, 1939,” showing a Heinz Ludwig Berliner born in Ratibor on the 24th of September 1916, living in Berlin-Charlottenburg at the time, having emigrated to Bolivia
Figure 12. Heinz Ludwig Berliner’s birth certificate confirming he was born on the 24th of September 1916 to Alfred and Charlotte Berliner

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This has been a long exhaustive search that has not ended with the discovery of Heinz Ludwig Berliner’s birth certificate. Besides providing Heinz’s date and place of birth, the German Minority Census, 1939 report included his middle name and two other previously unknown bits of information; it shows that in 1939 Heinz was living in the Charlottenburg Borough of Berlin and that he emigrated to Bolivia. Thus, began my most recent flurry of activity trying to track down when and where Heinz might have died.

First, I checked the 1939 Berlin Address Book for Heinz Berliner, as well as for his mother and two siblings, operating under the assumption they may all have been forced to live together in this increasingly risky period. Nothing showed up.

Next, I again turned to Ms. Madeline Isenberg, my contact at JGSLA, asking if she could refer me to anyone in the Jewish community in Bolivia, a South American country where I’ve never previously sought any relatives. She suggested I contact the Bolivian affiliate of the World Jewish Congress, Circulo Israelita De La Paz (https://www.worldjewishcongress.org/en/about/communities/BO), which I promptly did. The latter bureau sent a very gracious reply unfortunately informing me that Bolivia does not maintain any immigration records, suggesting I contact AMIA in Argentina, which readers will recall I had previously done. Circulo Israelita also checked Jewish death records for La Paz and Cochabamba, Bolivia, but nothing showed up.

When I again contacted AMIA, they referred me to Agrupación de Genealogía Judeo-Argentina (AGJA), which among other things, “facilitates the linking of the genealogical and historical roots of the Argentine Jewish Community with the global community, facilitating the reunification of disconnected families.” AGJA referred me to multiple websites and organizations, many of which I’d previously checked and reexamined, once more with negative results.

As readers can attest, with the information currently in hand, I’ve taken the search in South America for the fate of my father’s first cousin as far as I can.

I mentioned above the August 1948 dance recital in Buenos Aires in which Heinz Berliner, using the stage name Enry Berloc, performed. I searched for his co-performers, actress and dancer Witha Herm and pianist Kurt Kohn, hoping Heinz might have participated in other recitals with them. I was unable to locate any information on Kurt Kohn. However, Witha Herm (Figures 13-14), also a stage name, died and is interred in North Hollywood, California as Herma Wittmann (1907-1992). Her small claim to fame may be that in 1919, she acted in a German movie, Im Schatten des Glücks, which also starred Marlene Dietrich.

Figure 13. Information from “Find-A-Grave” on Witha Herm, Heinz Berliner’s 1948 co-performer, indicating she was born in 1907, died in in 1992, and is buried in North Hollywood, California
Figure 14. Witha Herm (left) with a friend

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There are several take-aways for me from this exhaustive search for Heinz Ludwig Berliner. Because information is constantly being added to the ancestral databases, it is worth checking back every few months or once a year to see whether anything new shows up. Don’t assume, as I mistakenly did, that MyHeritage and ancestry.com replicate information. Searching for one’s Jewish ancestors who wound up in South America will be challenging, time-consuming, and often unproductive. And, the biggest admonition to myself, using a German word Mr. Paul Newerla, my Polish friend, taught me, “don’t act like a ‘besserwisser,’ a know-it-all,” just because you’ve been doing ancestral research for years!

POST 34: MARGARETH BERLINER, WRAITH OR BEING?

Note:  My paternal grandmother, Else Bruck née Berliner, had an older sister, Margareth Berliner, the evidence of whose survival beyond birth is examined in this post.

Figure 1. My grandmother, Else Bruck née Berliner (1873-1957)

Berliner was the maiden name of my grandmother, Else Bruck (Figure 1), born on March 3, 1873, in Ratibor, Germany (today: Racibórz, Poland).  According to Jewish birth records for Ratibor, available from familysearch.org, my grandmother had two siblings, an older sister MARGARETH AUGUST BERLINER, born on March 19, 1872 (Figure 2), and a younger brother, ALFRED BERLINER, born on November 6, 1875.  All three children were the offspring of my great-grandfather, HERMANN BERLINER, and his wife, OLGA BERLINER née BRAUN. (Figure 3)

Figure 2. Margareth August Berliner’s birth record (March 19, 1872) (LDS Microfiche 1184449, p. 101)
Figure 3. Olga & Herman Berliner’s headstone from the former Jewish Cemetery in Ratibor

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 4. Alfred Berliner’s headstone from the former Jewish Cemetery in Ratibor

As discussed in Post 14, Olga Berliner was one of twelve children the brauereipachter (tenant brewer) MARCUS BRAUN had with his wife CAROLINE BRAUN née SPIEGEL.  Through the names and dates of birth of all of Marcus’s children, I was able to establish connections with descendants of Marcus Braun, distant cousins living in America whose names I’d heard about growing up.  Thus, I was aware of and came to learn of Alfred Berliner’s three children with his wife CHARLOTTE ROTHE, first cousins of my father; readers may recall, Charlotte Rothe died in the Holocaust and was the subject of Post 18.  Alfred died in 1921 in Ratibor and was once buried in the Jewish Cemetery there. (Figure 4)

Oddly, no one in my family ever mentioned my grandmother’s older sister Margareth Berliner, so after learning of her, I assumed she had died at birth or shortly thereafter; this would not have been unusual at the time.

 

Figure 5a. Grete Brauer, her daughter-in-law Herta Brauer, and her grandson Till Brauer, Neubabelsberg, Germany, 1933
Figure 5b. Captions on back of photo with Grete Brauer, Herta Brauer & Till Brauer, Neubabelsberg, Germany, 1933

Fast forward to this past summer when I visited my first cousin’s son in Hilden, Germany, who inherited my uncle Fedor Bruck’s personal papers and pictures.  On the off-chance they might contain family items of interest, I asked if I could peruse these items.  Cached among the photos was one labelled on the back as a GRETE BRAUER. (Figure 5a-b) This caught my attention because during my visit in 2014 to the Stadtmuseum, where the personal papers of two renowned great-aunts, Franziska and Elsbeth Bruck, are archived, I discovered multiple letters sent to my great-aunt Elsbeth in East Berlin from Calvia, Mallorca by HANNS & HERTA BRAUER.  The letterhead on some letters read “DR. E. H. BRAUER,” and they were variously signed “Ernst,” “Hanns,” and “Ernst & Herta.”  Elsbeth’s archived materials also include photos the Brauer family sent her, though none of Grete Brauer.  Until I found Grete’s photo, I had assumed the Brauers were family friends of my great-aunt. 

As I said, the photo of Grete in my uncle Fedor’s surviving papers was captioned.  In one handwriting was written “Three generations: Grete-Herta-Till & Neubabelsberg 1933”; Neubabelsberg is located near Spandau, on the outskirts of Berlin.  Then, in what was unmistakably my uncle’s shaky handwriting, he had added: “Aunt Grete Brauer (mother’s sister with her daughter-in-law and grandson).”  This was an “aha!” moment because I knew then that my grandmother’s sister had indeed survived into adulthood and had lived at least as late as 1933, making her 61 years of age at the time. This is the first concrete evidence I’d come across confirming Margareth’s “existence.”

Armed with this new information, I turned to ancestry.com.  I found a surprising number of documents and information on the Brauer family there, although notable gaps still exist.  In combination with the photos and letters from the Stadtmuseum, I’ve been able to partially construct a family tree covering four generations.

Figure 6. Birth certificate for Siegfried & Grete Brauer’s son, Kurt Brauer (July 7, 1893)
Figure 7. Birth certificate for Siegfried & Grete Brauer’s son, Ernst Han(n)s Brauer (August 9, 1902)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 8. Kurt Brauer’s headstone from the former Jewish Cemetery in Ratibor indicating he died in 1920

Among the documents found were birth certificates for two of Margareth Brauer’s sons.  An older son, KURT BRAUER, was born on July 7, 1893 (Figure 6), in a place called Cosel, Prussia (today: Koźle, Poland), located a mere 20 miles north of Ratibor, where Margareth was born; the younger son, ERNST HAN(N)S BRAUER, was born on August 9, 1902 (Figure 7), also in Cosel, Prussia.  The birth certificates provided the father’s name, SIEGFRIED BRAUER.  Given the proximity of Cosel and Ratibor, I thought some Brauers might have been buried in the Jewish Cemetery in Ratibor, and, indeed, I discovered Kurt Brauer died in 1920 and was buried there, and that a photo of his headstone exists. (Figure 8)

Also, once buried in the Ratibor Jewish Cemetery was a young girl named THEA BRAUER, born in 1911 who died in 1919.  Whether or how she might be related to Margareth and Siegfried Brauer is unclear, but a poor photo of her headstone also survives.

Figure 9. Siegfried Brauer’s death certificate (February 5, 1926)

Siegfried Brauer’s death certificate (Figure 9) states he was born in approximately 1859 in a place called “Biskupitz County Hindenberg” (today: Zabrze, Poland, near Katowice), and died at 67 years of age, on February 5, 1926 in Cosel, Prussia; he appears to have been a Judicial Councilman.  Interestingly, his death was reported by a HILDEGARD BRAUER, who I initially thought was his daughter-in-law, the aforementioned “Herta”; because no maiden name is given, I now think Hildegard was another of Siegfried & Margareth’s children.  A 1927 Address Book for Cosel, Prussia lists Siegfried’s widow (“witwe” in German)  Margareth still living there. (Figure 10)

Figure 10. Page from a 1927 Address Book for Cosel, Prussia listing Margareth Brauer as a widow living at Bahnhofstraße 16
Figure 11. September 1967 photo of Ernst Hanns Brauer in Calvia, Mallorca

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 12. State Department Form for “Report of Death of An American Citizen,” Ernst Hanns Brauer (May 19, 1971)
Figure 13. Passenger Manifest listing Ernst Brauer & his family arriving in New York from Lisbon, Portugal on February 12, 1941

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 14. Passenger Manifest listing Ernst Brauer & his family leaving New York on March 20, 1941, for Puerto Rico

Margareth & Siegfried’s son, Ernst Hanns Brauer (Figure 11), eventually became an American citizen, and died on May 19, 1971 in Calvia, Mallorca, Spain (Figure 12), where he’s buried.  He and his family traveled to Puerto Rico in 1941 (Figures 13 & 14), where they appear to have ridden out the war there before moving to Mallorca.  Oddly, a 14-year old girl named YUTTA MARIA MUENCHOW was in their company when they traveled to Puerto Rico; her connection to the Brauer family is unknown.  Ernst’s wife, HERTA LEONORE BRAUER, maiden name unknown, was born on February 4, 1904 in Neumünster, Germany, and passed away in August 1983 in San Juan, Puerto Rico. (Figure 15)  According to letters Ernst and Herta sent to my great-aunt, their son, alternately referred to as “TILL” or “OLIVER,” born in 1933, was married to an unnamed Puerto Rican woman, and they had a daughter MERLE-MARGARITA, born 1966. (Figure 16)  The fate of Oliver, his wife, and their daughter is unknown.

Figure 15. Social Security Death Index showing birth and death of Herta Brauer (b. February 4, 1904-d. August 1983)
Figure 16. Oliver (“Till”) Brauer with his daughter, Merle-Margarita, Christmas 1966, Calvia, Mallorca

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These vital statistics merely highlight the large amount of data available from ancestry.com on the Brauer family.

Still, so far, I’ve been unable to determine when and where my great-aunt Grete died, someone who for the longest time was an ethereal figure.  I tried one other thing attempting to ascertain her fate.  I turned to the Mallorca White Pages to search for Brauers possibly still living there.  I found a KERSTEN BRAUER living in a community only 22 miles north of Calvia, where Ernst Brauer is buried.  I was firmly convinced I’d found one of his descendants.  I was able to reach her by phone, after having carefully translated my questions into Spanish.  Amusingly, I’d barely introduced myself in tortured Spanish, before Ms. Brauer impeccably asked, “do you speak English?”  What a relief!  Reaching Ms. Brauer was a veritable stroke of luck as she hails from Switzerland and spends only short periods in Mallorca.  Nonetheless, originating from Switzerland and given that her name is spelled “Bräuer” (pronounced “Breuer”), makes it exceedingly unlikely she is distantly related to my great-aunt.

Figure 17. Clipping from a local newspaper discussing Herta & Ernst Brauer’s work with the Palma de Mallorca’s ballet company

The letters Ernst and Herta Brauer wrote to my great-aunt Elsbeth spoke of their public work in Mallorca, and even included a newspaper clipping. (Figure 17)  Herta was working on a novel as well as building up the ballet school in Palma de Mallorca, while Ernst was play-writing and making connections with local members of international high society, such as the English writer Robert Graves settled in Deià, Mallorca. (Figure 18)  One letter from 1967 (Figure 19) spoke about two Englishmen visiting Mallorca looking for two ballerinas from Herta’s ballet school to appear in a movie starring Michael Caine and Anthony Quinn, who did in fact collaborate on at least three different movies.  Ernst did some translations of the German poet Rainer Maria Rilke’s works that were performed in Mallorca, while their son, Oliver, had a minor role in a movie starring Roy Black, the famous German schlager singer and actor.  No mention is made of Grete in any of Ernst and Herta’s letters from Mallorca, so we can safely assume she was no longer alive.

Figure 18. April 1967 photo of Hanns Brauer with noted author Robert Graves (1895-1985) in Deià, Mallorca
Figure 19. November 1967 letter from Herta & Ernst Brauer to my great-aunt Elsbeth

 

 

 

 

 

The last year we can assuredly place my great-aunt Grete in Germany, 1933, would have been a very perilous time for Jews.  Whether she escaped Germany with the rest of her family, died before the mass arrest of Jews there, or was deported on an age-transport to a concentration camp is unknown.  More forensic work is required to answer these queries.

SIDEBAR:

Figure 20. My wife Ann standing by a bust of Roy Black along Lake Wörthersee, in southern Austria, June 2018

Part of the appeal for me in doing forensic genealogy is finding connections between people and places, sometimes in the most unexpected fashion.  Case in point.  One place in Europe my wife and I like to recuperate during our family pilgrimages is a town called Velden along the Wörthersee, a lake in the southern Austrian state of Carinthia, a place my parents first took me to as a young boy.  Imagine my surprise this year when we were strolling along the lake and discovered a bust of Roy Black (1943-1991) in Velden. (Figure 20)  Knowing that Roy Black was of German origin, I could not imagine why he was being celebrated in southern Austria.  As it turns out, in the last years of his short life, Roy had a comeback as singer and leading actor of the hit TV show “Ein Schloß am Wörthersee (known internationally as “Lakeside Hotel”; literally “A Castle on Lake Wörthersee”).”  Small world!

 

 

POST 18: REMEMBERING MY GREAT-AUNT CHARLOTTE “LOTTE” BERLINER, NÉE ROTHE, VICTIM OF THE HOLOCAUST

“For the dead and the living, we must bear witness.”—Elie Wiesel

 “To forget the dead would be akin to killing them a second time.”—Elie Wiesel

NOTE:  This article tiers off my previous post dealing with my Uncle Fedor, and a postcard he mailed on his 14th birthday from Breslau, Germany.  For most of my readers, I expect this article will be of limited interest, so briefly let me explain why I’ve written it.  With the exception of my Uncle Fedor, I had never heard of the other people whose names appear on the postcard.  I had low expectations when I started gumshoeing, so was pleasantly surprised when I figured out all their identities.  I was even more delighted when I found pictures of the person to whom the card had been mailed.  Sadly, I also felt an obligation to share with readers the fate of my great-aunt Charlotte Berliner, and in a small way remember that she once existed.  And, finally, I wanted to tell about the various databases I checked to uncover the vital events of the named people.

In the previous Blog post dealing with my Uncle Fedor Bruck, readers will recall that on his 14th birthday on August 17, 1909, my uncle went on a hot-air balloon ride in Breslau (today: Wrocław, Poland).  Along with “Alfred & Lotte,” all signed a card postmarked from a mail train, copied here (Figures 1a & 1b), addressed to “Fräulein Helene Rothe” and sent to the attention of “Martin Rothe” in Meseritz in the province of Posen, Prussia (today: Miedzyrzecz, Poland).  This was the first time I came across the surname “Rothe” in my family research.

Figure 1a-Front of postcard dated August 17, 1909 showing Rathaus (Town Hall) in Leipzig

 

Figure 1b-Back of postcard dated August 17, 1909, with names of people discussed in Blog post circled

I had been told by my parents that members of my grandmother Else Berliner’s (Figure 2) family had immigrated to New York.  While I’d never met them growing up, my parents had occasional contact with them in America.  These included two of my father’s first cousins, Peter Berliner and his sister (Figure 3); Ilse’s husband, Walter Goetzel, was even a witness at my parent’s wedding. (Figure 4)  Gradually, though, our families lost contact.  Still, without too much difficulty I was able to find Peter Berliner’s ancestors, though too late to meet Peter who died in 2000.  It was while researching him in ancestry.com, however, that I learned his parents were Alfred Berliner and Lotte Berliner, née Rothe, thus, the great-uncle and -aunt “Alfred & Lotte,” who, along with my Uncle Fedor, signed the card postmarked in 1909 from Breslau, Germany.  Hence, the Rothe family is related to the Berliner family by marriage.

Figure 2-My grandmother Else Bruck, née Berliner (1873-1957)

 

 

Figure 3-My father Otto Bruck with one of his first cousins, Ilse Goetzel, née Berliner

 

Figure 4-My Uncle Fedor, my mother Paulette Brook, née Bruyere, & Walter Goetzel, husband of Ilse Goetzel, on my parents wedding day on October 22, 1949

 

During a visit to the Polish State Archives in Raciborz in 2014, I discovered the certificates for two of Alfred and Lotte Berliner’s three known children, Peter Berliner and his sister, Ilse Goetzel, née Berliner.  Both of these documents confirmed that Lotte Berliner, née Rothe, was their mother. 

I discovered additional information about my great-uncle Alfred Berliner from familysearch.org, the Mormon Church website.  Microfilm roll 1184448, containing Jewish death records from Ratibor, confirmed Alfred died there on February 19, 1921, and that his wife Lotte Berliner was present. (Figure 5)  Readers may remember Alfred Berliner was a brewer and the owner of the “M. Braun Brauerei” in Ratibor.  Alfred was interred in the former Jewish Cemetery in Ratibor, and a photo of his tombstone exists among the photos archived at the Muzeum Raciborzu that I examined in 2015. (Figure 6)

Figure 5-Jewish death register from Ratibor, confirming Alfred Berliner died there on February 19, 1921 (source: LDS Microfilm 1184448)

 

Figure 6-Tombstone of Alfred Berliner (1875-1921) from the former Jewish Cemetery in Ratibor, with birth year incorrectly inscribed as 1876

 

While all these documents provided conclusive evidence of when and where Alfred Berliner died, I did not yet know his wife’s fate.  Previously, I’ve made mention of the database: Östliche preußische Provinzen, Polen, Personenstandsregister 1874-1945 (Eastern Prussian Provinces, Germany [Poland], Selected Civil Vitals, 1874-1945).  Not only was I able to locate Alfred and Lotte Berliner’s marriage certificate here (Figures 7a & 7b), but I also was able to find Lotte Berliner’s birth certificate (she was born Charlotte Henriette Rothe) (Figures 8a & 8b), that of two of her siblings, Helene Lina Rothe (Figure 9) and Curt Isidor Rothe (Figure 10), the names of her parents, Martin Rothe and Babette Pinner, and the death certificate of her father Martin. (Figure 11)  Thus, with the historic documents found in the “Eastern Prussian Provinces” database, I was now certain that the 1909 postcard had been sent to Lotte Berliner’s sister, Helene Rothe, to the attention of Lotte and Helene’s father, Martin Rothe.

Figure 7b-Alfred & Lotte Berliner’s marriage certificate (source: Östliche preußische Provinzen, Polen, Personenstandsregister 1874-1945)
Figure 7a-Alfred & Lotte Berliner’s marriage certificate (source: Östliche preußische Provinzen, Polen, Personenstandsregister 1874-1945)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 8a-Lotte Berliner’s (née Charlotte Henriette Rothe) birth certificate #1 (source: Östliche preußische Provinzen, Polen, Personenstandsregister 1874-1945)
Figure 8b-Lotte Berliner’s (née Charlotte Henriette Rothe) birth certificate #2 (source: Östliche preußische Provinzen, Polen, Personenstandsregister 1874-1945)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 9-Helene Schönhöfer, née Rothe, birth certificate (source: Östliche preußische Provinzen, Polen, Personenstandsregister 1874-1945)
Figure 10-Curt Isidor Rothe birth certificate (source: Östliche preußische Provinzen, Polen, Personenstandsregister 1874-1945)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 11-Martin Rothe death certificate (source: Östliche preußische Provinzen, Polen, Personenstandsregister 1874-1945)

 

Figure 12-March 1964 passport picture of Helene Rothe to whom 1909 postcard was sent by her sister Lotte and brother-in-law Alfred Berliner

 

I previously mentioned I was able to locate descendants of Peter Berliner and his sister Ilse, in America.  Through them, I even obtained photos of the Helene Rothe to whom the 1909 postcard had been sent. (Figure 12)  I also learned a little about “Tante Lena,” as she was affectionately known; members of the Goetzel and Berliner families visited her a few times in Landau in der Pfalz, Germany, where she then lived.  They learned that her husband, Dr. jur. (lawyer) Johann Alois Schönhöfer, a non-Jew, hid her in a basement and protected her throughout WWII, and that she emerged severely malnourished, with a deformed back.  Knowing where Helene Rothe had lived, I contacted the Rathaus, basically City Hall, in Landau, and obtained a copy of her death certificate and learned she died there on January 17, 1981. (Figure 13)

 

Figure 13-Death certificate of Helene Rothe, who died as Helene Schönhöffer (source: Stadtverwaltung Landau in der Pfalz, Germany)

Lotte Berliner was the last name on the 1909 postcard whose fate I had still to work out.  When researching one’s Jewish relatives during the Nazi era, at some point one must consider they may have been murdered in the Holocaust, and search their names in the database of victims.  Such was the case with my great-aunt Lotte Berliner.  She is listed in Yad Vashem, as having been deported from Berlin, Germany to Auschwitz-Birkenau aboard “Transport 27, Train Da 13 on January 29, 1943,” arriving there a day later (Figure 14); whether Lotte relocated to Berlin after her husband’s death is unknown.  A recently added feature on Yad Vashem allows users to view the route trains took to transport their victims to the extermination camps, in the case of my great-aunt Lotte, Auschwitz-Birkenau. (Figure 15) 

Figure 14-Cattle car on display at Auschwitz-Birkenau of the type used to transport my great-aunt Lotte and many other Jews to their death

 

Figure 15-The route Transport 27, carrying my great-aunt Lotte Berliner between Berlin and Auschwitz, followed between January 29-20, 1943 (source: Yad Vashem)

 

 

Below is a summary of the vital events of the five people whose names appear on the postcard mailed on August 17, 1909 from Breslau, Germany:

 

NAME EVENT DATE PLACE
       
Alfred Max Berliner Birth November 6, 1875 Ratibor, Germany (today: Racibórz, Poland)
Death February 19, 1921 Ratibor, Germany (today: Racibórz, Poland)
Charlotte (“Lotte”) Henriette Berliner, née Rothe Birth April 2, 1886 Meseritz, Prussia, Germany (today: Miedzyrzecz, Lubuskie, Poland)
Death January 30, 1943 Auschwitz-Birkenau, Extermination Camp, Poland
Adolf & Charlotte Berliner Marriage January 17, 1909 Meseritz, Prussia, Germany (today: Miedzyrzecz, Lubuskie, Poland)
Fedor Bruck (died as Theodore Brook) Birth August 17, 1895 Leobschütz, Germany (today: Głubczyce, Poland)
Death February 20, 1982 Yonkers, New York
Helene Lina Rothe (died as Helene Lina Schönhöfer) Birth January 4, 1892 Meseritz, Prussia, Germany (today: Miedzyrzecz, Lubuskie, Poland)
Death January 17, 1981 Landau in der Pfalz, Germany
Martin Rothe Birth ~1858  
Death June 20, 1933 Meseritz, Prussia, Germany (today: Miedzyrzecz, Lubuskie, Poland)

 

 

POST 14: RATIBOR & THE BRAUER (BREWER) M. BRAUN “LINK” TO AMERICA

My father, Otto Bruck, arrived in America aboard the Queen Elizabeth in 1948, and eventually came to be known as Gary Otto Brook after he became a naturalized U.S. citizen.  The first job my father had was working at Childs Restaurants near Times Square in Manhattan, which was one of the first national dining chains in the United States and Canada; it was a contemporary of the better-known Horn & Hardart and preceded McDonalds.

Figure 1-Franz Kayser with his nephew Walter Leyser (middle) and son John Kayser atop Rockefeller Center in 1945 (photo courtesy Larry Leyser)

 

After a summer stint as a tennis pro at Grossinger’s Catskill Resort Hotel in 1949, my father went to work for one of his cousins, a gentleman by the name of Franz Mantheim Kayser (Figure 1), who then operated a small import firm.  Franz and his then-wife, Catherine “Ulrike” Kayser nee Birkholz (Figure 2), had had one son born in 1938 in London, John Kayser. (Figure 3)  After John Kayser’s mother passed away in 2005 in New Jersey, by then long married to another man, who had predeceased her, and known as Catherine Sterner, John asked whether I knew how we are related.  At the time, I had absolutely no idea.  John and I would return to the question in 2010.  While the intervening years had given neither of us further insight, John thought our ancestral connection went back to Ratibor; he also told me his grandmother’s maiden name was “Elly Schueck,” which he thought might help unravel the mystery.  So, armed with these seemingly opaque clues, I set myself to work.

Figure 2-John Kayser’s mother in 1992, then known as Catherine Sterner
Figure 3-John Kayser in 2014 in Berlin at the entrance to 22 Kaiserdam Strasse, near the apartment building his parents last lived before fleeing Germany in 1938

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 4-John Kayser’s great-grandfather, Adolph Schueck (photo courtesy Larry Leyser)

 

Until just this year, most microfilm records available from the Church of Latter Day Saints (LDS), could only be ordered and viewed for a limited time at a local Mormon-operated Family History Center, or physically examined at the main LDS Library in Salt Lake City.  Over the years, I had ordered the Jewish records from Ratibor on several occasions, and eventually created a partial database of births, marriages and deaths of people of possible interest to me.  After John Kayser told me his grandmother’s maiden name and our possible connection to Ratibor, I reviewed the database I’d created and, lo and behold, I found Elly Schueck’s name; she had been born in Ratibor on September 7, 1874, and her parents’ names were Adolf Schueck and Alma Schueck, nee Braun. (Figures 4, 5, 6)  For me, this cracked the code because my own great-grandmother on my grandmother’s side was born Olga Braun, so I concluded John and I have an ancestral link related to the Braun family.  The database I had created from the Jewish microfilm records also included the birth information for John Kayser’s great-grandmother, Alma Braun, born on June 12, 1851 to Markus Braun and Caroline Braun, nee Spiegel.  Wanting to confirm all of this, I re-ordered the Jewish microfilm for Ratibor.

Figure 5-John Kayser’s great-grandmother, Alma Schueck nee Braun (photo courtesy Larry Leyser)
Figure 6-Adolph & Alma Schueck with fellow travelers in front of the Great Sphinx of Giza in Egypt (photo courtesy Larry Leyser)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After receiving the relevant microfilm, I focused on Markus Braun (1817-1870) and Caroline Braun, nee Spiegel.  Ultimately, I identified twelve children they had together, born between 1847 and 1860, and established that John Kayser and I are third cousins (i.e., our respective great-grandmothers were sisters).  As an aside, Caroline Braun likely died before Markus Braun because he re-married a woman named Johanna Braun nee Goldstein, with whom he had two more children, including a son named Markus, who appears to have been born in 1870 shortly after the father Markus Braun died.

Figure 7-Postcard of M. Braun Brewery (front)

 

 

Figure 8-Postcard dated July 28, 1912 written by my great-grandmother Olga Berliner nee Braun, sister of Alma Schueck nee Braun, to my great-aunt Franziska Bruck (back)

 

 

 

Figure 9-My great-grandfather, Hermann Berliner, Ratibor brewery owner

 

My father’s surviving personal papers include a postcard dated July 28, 1912 (Figures 7, 8) written by my great-grandmother, the aforementioned Olga Berliner, nee Braun, to her niece Franziska Bruck in Berlin, the famed florist mentioned in earlier Blog posts.  The postcard illustrates the brewery first owned by M. Braun in Ratibor.  There exists a virtually complete listing of historic German breweries entitled “Das historische Brauereiverzeichnis der ehem. Ostgebiete und Polen,” which translates as “The historical breweries of the former Eastern Territories and Poland,” at the following URL: http://www.klausehm.de/Pagepolenr.html.  Ostgebiete refers to the areas of Silesia, Pomerania, Brandenburg, and East and West Prussia.  For Ratibor, there once existed 32 breweries, including one owned by “M. Braun,” and two connected to my great-grandfather, Hermann Berliner (Figure 9), his wife Olga Berliner, nee Braun, and their son, Alfred Berliner. 

Ratibor now Raciborz 1a Brauerei M. Braun 1622
Ratibor now Raciborz 1b Herm. Berliner, vorm. M. Braun`sche Braunbierbrauerei 1910
Ratibor now Raciborz 1c Brauerei Herm. Berliner, Inh. Alfred & Olga Berliner 1920

According to this database, the brewery owned by the original “M. Braun” dated to 1622 and appears to have been the second oldest in Ratibor after the “Ratiborer Schloßbrauerei Freund & Co.,” dated to 1567. (Figures 10, 11)  Hermann Berliner, who died in 1910, owned the brewery originally held by “M. Braun.”  His wife passed away in 1920, followed shortly thereafter by the death of their son, Alfred, in 1921.  It’s unclear whether the brewery continued to be owned by either Braun or Berliner descendants following the deaths of Hermann, Olga and Alfred Berliner within a relatively short 11-year period.

Figure 11-The “Ratiborer Schloßbrauerei Freund & Co.” established 1567, known today as the Browar Raciborz
Figure 10-1927-1928 plan map of Ratibor with town ‘s oldest brewery (dated 1567), the “Schloßbrauerei” circled

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 12-M. Braun Brauerei with name of brewery and H. Berliner circled

 

There are a few things to observe from a close look at the front side of the postcard. (Figure 12) The business sign above the carriages reads “vorm. (=original owner) M. Braun.”  By the time the photo was taken, prior to 1912 (the year the postcard was written), the brewery was already owned by Hermann Berliner as the “Berliner Brauerei, Ratibor” caption on the postcard tells us.  Also, the carriage on the left has the name “H. Berliner” on its side, more evidence the brewery was already operated by Hermann Berliner and his descendants at the time the photo was taken.

Coupling the information from the postcard with data gleaned from both the microfilm of Jewish records and ancestry.com, one finds a gentleman named “Moises or Moses Braun,” coincidentally married to a Fanny Bruck.  A definite link to Markus Braun has not yet been established although the years his children were born between 1843 and 1855 strongly suggests he may have been Markus Braun’s older brother.  Moses Braun’s occupation at the time his first two children were born, respectively in 1843 and 1844, is “brauereipachter” or “tenant brewer”; this means that Moses Braun rented the house or factory where he had a license to produce beer.  Interestingly, by 1849, his occupation was “partikulier,” or someone who lived without working, perhaps as a result of rental income.  By 1853, his occupation is shown as “makler,” or estate agent, possibly a real estate agent or middleman of sorts.  By contrast, Markus Braun is always identified as a “kaufmann” or businessman at the time of his children were born; perhaps, this included tenant brewer.  In fact, on his son Markus Braun’s marriage certificate from 1900, long after the father had died, the father’s occupation was definitively specified as “brewery owner.”  I surmise that the brothers together or sequentially operated the brewery, and, eventually, Markus Braun’s daughter Olga and her husband Hermann, and, ultimately, their son Alfred, inherited the operation. 

The exercise I went through to pinpoint the family connection between John Kayser and myself revealed something unexpected.  Again, utilizing the Jewish microfilm records from Ratibor, I identified another branch of the family who are descendants of Elly Schueck’s (John Kayser’s grandmother) sister, Auguste “Guste” Schueck. (Figure 13)  The significance of this is that various surnames I heard my father mention while growing up in New York also had links extending back to Ratibor.  I was eventually able to track this branch to Cleveland, Ohio, and many of the photos included in this Blog post come from the collection of Larry Leyser, a third cousin, once-removed. (Figure 14)

Figure 13-John Kayser’s great-aunt, Auguste “Guste” Schueck, with her granddaughter, Doerte Zweig (photo courtesy of Larry Leyser)
Figure 14-Larry Leyser, my third cousin once-removed, and the great-grandson of Auguste “Guste” Schueck

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pressed on the matter, my father would never have been able to explain to me how all the various families that wound up in America after WWII were related to us nor would he have had any interest in doing so.  Nonetheless, as an exercise in doing forensic genealogy, this has been endlessly entertaining finding the family connections to people living in America today whose roots go back to Ratibor, where the original brewer M. Braun first established his business in 1622.  Going forward, I will touch on some of these people and their connections to my family, both in America as well as harkening back to Europe.

SEE ALSO:  POST 14, POSTSCRIPT: RATIBOR & THE BRAUER (BREWER) M. BRAUN “LINK” TO AMERICA