Note: In this brief post, I discuss a few findings I made about Michael Bruck’s ancestors since the recent publication of Post 128. Also, based on the context in which some photos sent to me by Michael and his siblings were found, I speculate as to who the individuals might have been. It’s my hope that distant members of Michael’s family, some of whom have trees on ancestry, might stumble upon this post and either confirm or rebut my suppositions.
In Post 128, I discussed the family of an American gentleman named Michael Bruck (Figure 1) whose ancestors came from west of Frankfurt, Germany, and whose German surname originally had an “umlaut” over the “u.” Michael Bruck’s great-uncle, Max Brück (1884-1942) (Figure 2), and Max’s oldest son, Eugen Kurt Brück (1920-1942) (Figure 3), both perished in Auschwitz. Their fates had previously been unknown to Michael and his siblings, although rumors circulated within the family that an unnamed uncle had “disappeared” during the Holocaust. While investigating Michael’s relatives I learned that somehow Max’s wife, Elsa Brück née Neumeyer (1890-1993), and his daughter, Hilda Ruth Nathan née Brück (1925-2018), escaped Nazi Europe and made their way to the United States to live long productive lives. As discussed in Post 128, I confirmed this in a “Geneanet Community Tree Index” I found for Max Brück. (Figure 4)
I have yet to figure out what made Elsa and Hilda’s escape to America possible while Max and Eugen Brück were unable to emigrate. From Elsa Brück’s January 1942 “Declaration of Intention” to become a U.S. citizen (Figure 5), I know she arrived in New York on the 20th of August 1941 aboard the “SS Ciudad de Sevilla” and emigrated from Barcelona, Spain. Incredulously, on this declaration, Elsa reports that her son Eugen was then “residing” in “Camps des Milles,” outside Aix-en-Provence, France. One could hardly refer to Camps des Milles as a residence since it was a temporary detention center for Jews being deported to Drancy, outside Paris, then on to Auschwitz.
Euphemisms aside, knowing that Elsa and Hilda Brück survived, I Googled them. I quickly discovered both were featured on the “Alabama Holocaust Education Center” website. (Figures 6-7) As sought after speakers on the Holocaust, they helped fulfill the Education Center’s mission of “keeping the history and lessons of the Holocaust alive.” Unlike many other German Jews who converted, they remained practicing Jews and were active in the Congregation B’nai Shalom in Huntsville, Alabama. Of particular interest to Michael and me was that Elsa’s personal page on the Education Center’s website included a picture of she and Max (Figure 8); similarly, Hilda’s personal page showed a picture of her later in life. Elsewhere, on a family tree on ancestry I discovered a heartwarming picture of Elsa Brück, also from later in life. (Figure 9)
Michael and his siblings shared other unidentified photos found among their grandfather Arthur Brück’s surviving papers. The only identification on one of the pictures is “father”; he is seated alone in this picture (Figure 10), but in an accompanying image is photographed at his marriage with a woman who is obviously his wife. Knowing Arthur’s family tree from the Community Tree Index, I surmise the photo is of Max and Arthur’s parents, Karl Simon Brück (1844-1927) and Christiane Karoline Brück née Kuhn (1854-1929). (Figure 11) The minimal identification and the context in which these photos were found is what confidently causes me to believe they are Arthur’s parents.
Michael shared another set of photographs. One picture shows a couple (Figure 12), the second the same lady alone. (Figure 13) Again, the context in which these pictures were found, and the estimated age of the photos provides a clue as to who is illustrated.
In Post 128, I discussed a picture-postcard mailed in around 1934 from Munich signed by Max Brück’s wife Elsa and their three children, Eugen (1920-1942), Werner (1922-1936), and Hilda (1925-2018). (Figures 14a-b) The card was addressed to Max Brück’s sister and brother-in-law, Selma Daniel née Brück (1886-1965) and Albert Daniel. The card was mailed to the corset factory in Saarbrücken owned by Albert Daniel. I am reasonably confident the unidentified couple are Selma and Albert Daniel.
In making these tentative identifications, it is not my intention to presumptuously override any thoughts that Michael and his siblings may have as to who is pictured. Rather, it is to provoke any distant family members with further knowledge or ancestral trees posted on ancestry to hopefully stumble on my blog post and come forward to corroborate or refute my speculations.
Note: This represents another reader-inspired post. While responding to a query from an American reader named Michael Bruck, whose surname is now spelled the way my family’s surname was once spelled, I learned his family’s surname was originally Brück, with two dots over the “u.” I helped this reader confirm family rumors and identify and track down pictures of some of his family members who were victims of the Holocaust.
I was recently contacted by an American gentleman from Virginia named Michael Bruck asking whether I have any Brucks in my family tree from a spa town named Bad Kreuznach in the west German state of Rhineland-Palatinate, located about 50 miles west-southwest of Frankfurt, Germany. (Figure 1) I explained to Michael that most of my family originated from Silesia, the historical region of Central Europe that now lies mostly in Poland, with small parts in the Czech Republic and Germany. I further added that while I have sometimes come across Brucks in my ancestral research who lived in the western part of Germany, I have never found any direct connection between them and my family.
I expected my response to be the end of our exchange. However, Michael provided additional information in his initial email that caused me to do some further investigation. He mentioned that his grandfather Arthur Bruck had been born in Bad Kreuznach in the late 19th century and had immigrated to the United States in the early 20th century. Most intriguingly, Michael mentioned that his grandfather Arthur had an unnamed brother who was a judge who disappeared in the 1930’s during the Nazi era; Arthur Bruck apparently never spoke of this brother to his family, ergo his name and fate were unknown to them.
With this scant information, I set out to see what, if anything, I could learn about Michael’s German ancestors. In the process, I made a few discoveries specific to Michael’s ancestors, but more interestingly on a historical level I made a surprising discovery that I will tell readers about in this post.
Certain of Michael’s family’s connection to Bad Kreuznach, I began by searching in ancestry.com for his grandfather Arthur Bruck. I immediately discovered Arthur’s “Declaration of Intention” to become a citizen of the United States and renounce his allegiance and fidelity to The German Empire. (Figure 2) This document is dated the 25th of May 1925 and confirms he was born in Kreuznach, Germany on the 11th of March 1885; his surname is incorrectly spelled “Bruch.” His 1928 “Petition for Naturalization” shows his surname correctly spelled. (Figure 3)
His wife’s name is given as “Ella” on the 1925 Declaration of Intention form. A New York State Marriage Extract confirms that Arthur and Ella Gerber got married on the 12th of January 1919 in Manhattan. (Figure 4) The 1920 (Figure 5) and 1940 (Figure 6) U.S. Federal Censuses show them living together in New York (Bronx and Manhattan) with their son, Charles Bruck, Michael’s father. The recently released 1950 U.S. Federal Census (Figure 7) expectedly shows that Charles is no longer living with his parents, but that Ella’s sister, Bertha G. Schack, is now living with Arthur and Ella in Los Angeles.
A 1913 Hamburg Passenger List confirms that Arthur Brück departed Hamburg, Germany on the 7th of August 1913, and was ledig, single, at the time. (Figures 8a-b) Of all the documents I found on ancestry, this is the first one showing Arthur’s surname with an umlaut over the “u,” obviously the way the surname was spelled before his arrival in America.
For information, an umlaut is often thought of as the two dots over letters, usually vowels, in the German language. Referred to as a diacritic, a sign written above or below a letter, when discussing German umlauts, there are three in use within the alphabet including Ä, Ö, and Ü. Rather than implying an accent or emphasis, German umlauts are independent characters with variations that represent both long and short sounds. In the case of “Brück” the word would be spelled out as “Brueck.”
The spelling of Michael’s current surname is like the way my father formerly spelled his name in Germany. However, just like my family’s surname changed upon their arrival in America from “Bruck” to “Brook,” so too did Michael’s family’s transform, from “Brück” with an umlaut to “Bruck” without an umlaut. In both instances of our respective German surnames spelled with and without an umlaut, the word translates to “bridge.”
Neither Michael nor I know how long his Brück family was associated with Bad Kreuznach but a quick Wikipedia search reveals the spa town is most well-known for its medieval bridge dating from around 1300, the Alte Nahebrücke, which is one of the few remaining bridges in the world with standing structures on it. This is wild speculation on my part, but possibly his family adopted their surname because they owned a business along the bridge. In the case of my own family, which originally came from Hungary and was named “Perlhefter,” they became toll collectors in an Austrian town named Bruck an der Leitha, “Bridge on the Leitha,” on the Austro-Hungarian border. Upon their relocation to Vienna, Austria, the “Bruck” surname was adopted.
The California U.S. Index tells us that Michael’s grandfather died in Los Angeles on the 5th of November 1972. (Figure 9) The Find A Grave Index further informs us that Arthur Bruck is buried in Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California, and even shows his headstone. (Figures 10a-b)
A particularly useful document found on ancestry for Arthur Brück was the so-called “Geneanet Community Tree Index.” (Figures 11a-b) It confirms the original spelling of Arthur’s surname and provides the names and vital data of his parents, siblings, and half-siblings. This was the first evidence I found that confirmed Arthur had a brother named Max Brück, Michael Bruck’s previously unnamed great-uncle, who was born in 1884 and died in 1942. A similar “Geneanet Community Tree Index” for Max Brück established he indeed was a victim of the Holocaust. (Figure 12)
As in the case of his younger brother, I uncovered numerous documents for Max Brück. Like my own uncle Dr. Fedor Bruck who was a German WWI veteran but was nevertheless hunted down by the Nazis, Max was also a veteran of The Great War. Multiple personnel registers from WWI record his name. (Figure 13)
Max’s “Geneanet Community Tree Index” (see Figure 12) indicates he was murdered in Auschwitz on the 16th of August 1942 at the age of 58. It also shows he was married to an Elsa Neumayer, born in 1890 in Munich, with whom he had three children; unlike her husband, Elsa survived the Holocaust and died at 103 years of age in Georgia. The oldest of Max and Elsa’s children, Eugen Kurt Brück (1920-1942), I found was also murdered in Auschwitz.
Knowing Max Brück and his oldest son Eugen were Holocaust victims, I turned to the Yad Vashem Victims’ Database and predictably found both listed. Periodically, a surviving family member will complete what is termed “A Page of Testimony” remembering their loved ones. In the case of Eugen Brück, two such testimonies were submitted to Yad Vashem, one by Eugen’s mother Elsa Brück (Figures 14a-b) and another by Eugen’s younger sister Hilda Ruth Nathan née Brück (1925-2018). (Figures 15a-b) Both testimonies include pictures of Eugen, which, in my limited experience, is unusual.
According to the Page of Testimony completed by Eugen’s mother, his places of residence during the war, euphemistically speaking, were Mondorf-les-Bains in Luxembourg; Gurs internment camp in southwestern France; and Les Milles, a transit and internment camp for Jews in Aix-en-Provence. As I discussed in Post 23, my beloved Aunt Susanne, also murdered in Auschwitz in September 1942, was likewise briefly detained in Camp des Milles on her final journey to Auschwitz. At the time Eugen’s mother submitted her testimony in 1971 she lived in Huntsville, Alabama.
After sharing my findings with Michael, he and his family sent me unidentified pictures found among their grandfather Arthur Bruck’s surviving papers. One of them is a picture-postcard mailed in around 1934 from Munich showing his brother Max’s three children, Eugen along with his two younger siblings, Werner Alexander Brück (1922-1936) and Hilda Ruth Brück (1925-2018). (Figures 16a-b) The elaborate postmark “Besucht die deutsche Siedlungsausstellung München 1934 (Juni bis Oktober),” “Visit the German settlement exhibition Munich 1934 (June to October),” suggests it was mailed in 1934, and the 6 Pfennig stamp of Paul von Hindenburg issued between 1933 and 1936 would seem to confirm this.
As a brief aside, according to German Wikipedia, the “German Settlement Exhibition” of 1934, presented shortly after the Nazi regime took power was “. . .part of an exemplary embodiment of the National Socialist idea of settlement. Within a very short time, 192 single-family houses with 34 different building types were built under the direction of housing consultant and architect Guido Harbers. The ensemble is self-contained and has numerous green areas in accordance with the garden city idea.”
I asked my German friend Peter Hanke, “The Wizard of Wolfsburg,” to translate the postcard. Though the handwriting was difficult for Peter to decipher, enough could be discerned to know the card was written by Max’s wife Elsa Brück to her sister- and brother-in-law, Selma Daniel née Brück and Albert Daniel, thanking them for sending candy to her children; all three of the children signed the postcard. The card was mailed to the corset factory in Saarbrücken owned by Albert Daniel.
Aware of the fact that Max’s daughter had submitted “A Page of Testimony” for her brother Eugen, I assumed she might also have completed one for her father. Further digging proved this was in fact the case, and likewise yielded a picture of Max Brück. (Figures 17a-b)
In Yad Vashem, I also discovered three personal documents attached to Max’s entry, including a Bestätigung, a confirmation, issued by the “Administration du Culte Israelite Luxembourg” dated the 15th of November 1948 acknowledging that Max Brück and Eugen Brück had both been deported to Auschwitz. (Figure 18) Both were on the same transport departing Drancy, France on the 14th of August 1942. The cause of Max Brück’s death is not given, but I assume he was gassed immediately upon his arrival in Auschwitz, which the “Geneanet Community Tree Index” stating he died on the 16th of August 1942 corroborates.
The cause of Eugen Brück’s death, which took place on the 23rd of September 1942, is stated as “Darmkatarrh bei Phlegmone.” According to Peter Hanke, “Darmkatarrh” is an obscure expression, that today might more appropriately be described as an “inflammatory bowel disease” or “purulent bowel disease.” According to Wikipedia, “A phlegmon is a localized area of acute inflammation of the soft tissues. It is a descriptive term which may be used for inflammation related to a bacterial infection or non-infectious causes (e.g. pancreatitis). Most commonly, it is used in contradistinction to a ‘walled-off’ pus-filled collection (abscess), although a phlegmon may progress to an abscess if untreated. A phlegmon can localize anywhere in the body. The Latin term phlegmōn is from the Ancient Greek (phlégō, ‘burn’).”
After learning of Eugen’s existence from the Geneanet Community Tree Index and his fate, I rechecked ancestry.com for additional documents. Astonishingly, I found his death certificate!! (Figures 19a-b)
Having never previously found such a document for a Jewish inmate murdered in Auschwitz, I asked Peter Hanke about this. Apparently, this is not unprecedented according to the information Peter sent me from the Arolsen Archives in a section entitled “Death register entry for deceased concentration camp prisoners,” which reads as follows:
“This document is officially known as a death register entry or death book entry. It is a form that was officially filled out not only for concentration camp prisoners but others as well. As a formal act that still applies today, deceased persons must be registered at a German registry office. Deceased concentration camp prisoners were therefore also supposed to be listed in a death register – though there were major differences here depending on the prisoners’ nationality and whether they were considered Jews. The form was basically identical in all camp and civil registry offices. This is why the entries for Spanish, German and Polish deceased prisoners from different concentration camps are similar. They differ only in their typeface and the handwriting of the respective registrars.”
The only death certificate I’ve previously found for an ancestor murdered in a concentration camp was from the Theresienstadt Ghetto. (Figure 20)
In closing I would make a few observations. Though Michael Bruck’s German relatives’ surname was originally spelled Brück with two dots over the “u” and are unrelated to my own family insofar as I know, helping Michael learn about his forefathers confirmed rumors he heard about growing up. The Geneanet Community Tree indices I found for Arthur and Max Brück allowed us to connect names with photographs. Personally speaking, finding pictures of one’s ancestors, particularly those who were victims of the Holocaust, makes a statement that these people once walked among us and are not forgotten. Without fail, whenever I help others learn about their ancestors, I too learn and come away with something and nothing is more important to me.
REFERENCE
“Mustersiedlung Ramersdorf.” German Wikipedia, https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mustersiedlung_Ramersdorf
Note: In this post, I supplement what I have learned about the French brothers who owned the fruit farm in Fayence in the Vars region of France. This is the last place where some of my family, including Ernst Mombert and my beloved aunt Susanne Müller née Bruck, took refuge before they were arrested by the Vichy French in late August 1942; from here, they were transported to Drancy, outside Paris, and deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau on September 7, 1942, a trip on which they likely killed themselves, or, upon arrival, were murdered. I also provide some historic and geographic context for some of the events that affected my family.
In Post 22, I explained to readers the circumstances that led my uncle and aunt Dr. Franz and Susanne Müller to depart Fiesole, Italy, a Tuscan village located outside Florence, around September 16, 1938, in favor of France. Adolph Hitler visited Florence on May 9, 1938, escorted by Italian Duce Benito Mussolini. On the heels of this visit and at the bequest of Hitler, Fascist Italy began to enact racial laws directed primarily against Italian and foreign Jews resulting in many leaving the country, including my aunt and uncle.
My uncle Dr. Franz Müller’s first marriage resulted in two children, Peter Müller-Munk and Karin Margit Müller-Munk. Peter, who dropped the umlaut in his surname upon his arrival in America in 1926, went on to become a world-renowned silversmith and industrial designer in Pittsburgh. Peter’s sister Margit Müller-Munk departed Germany, probably in around 1933 or 1934, and wound up getting married to Francois Mombert on December 4, 1934, in Fayence, in the Vars region of France.
The Mombert family originally hailed from Freiburg, Germany, and in Germany Francois was known as Franz, hereinafter referred to by his German name. The circumstances that led Franz and Margit to settle in Fayence was the result of Franz’s younger brother Ernst (known as Ernest in France) buying a fruit farm there. Archival records from the Archives Départementales du Var (www.archives.var.fr) in Draguignan, France, place Ernst’s acquisition of the property in December 1933 (Figure 1), which suggests that Ernst departed Germany soon after the Nazis seized power on January 30, 1933. It’s unknown why Ernst purchased property and settled in Fayence, since there’s no evidence he knew or had family living there. He could not envision the lengths to which the Nazis would eventually go to eradicate Jews, so probably felt that purchasing a property in a small town in France and eventually becoming a French national offered some security and would afford him some level of protection. As a related aside, there is no evidence Ernst Mombert ever obtained French citizenship.
Little is known about Ernst Mombert. I came upon a fleeting reference to him in an obscure French publication entitled “quelques camps du sud-est 1939-1940,” “Some Camps in the Southeast (of France) 1939-1940,” by André Fontaine. I initially misconstrued who was being detained in these internment camps thinking they were established by the Vichy French to imprison Jews following Germany’s conquest of France in June 1940. While in fact many Jews were interned in these camps, they had been established by the French authorities for a different reason.
Some brief history. WWII began with the German invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939. The next day, France decreed a national mobilization. Internment sites for the nationals of the German Reich (i.e., German, Austrian, and Czech emigrants) were planned and requisitioned in every French département, the administrative divisions of France. By the 3rd of September, the French Minister of the Interior sent a telegram to each prefecture concerning the “concentration of foreigners from the German empire.” Immediately notification about the planned roundups were circulated and posters put up in the town halls. All male nationals of the German Reich over 17 and under 50 years of age were required to report for incarceration. Male nationals from the department of Var were initially detained in le camp de la Rode near Toulon. Toulon is a city on the French Riviera and a large port on the Mediterranean coast, with a major naval base, located 74 miles southwest of Fayence, France. (Figure 2)
Judging from André Fontaine’s publication, it appears the gathering and detention of nationals of the German Reich took place in short order. Swept up in this roundup were many Jewish refugees, incredibly, a handful of French legionnaires, siblings of soldiers who were in the French Army, and even an Alsatian who had never been to Germany and spoke no German (i.e., Alsace–Lorraine is a historical region, now called Alsace–Moselle, located in France. It was created in 1871 by the German Empire after the region was seized during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. It reverted to French ownership in 1918 following WWI). Very quickly, the legionnaires were released, and the Austrian and Czech nationals were separated from the Germans resulting in the Germans being more closely guarded. The irony is not lost on most readers that many of the German nationals that continued to be detained were Jewish refugees and anti-Nazis, many more anti-Nazi than the French.
André Fontaine includes a short description of Ernst Mombert, which I quote here mostly because of the physical characteristics he describes: “MOMBERT Ernst, philosophe de valeur. Il est très brun et atteint de strabism; il vient de Fayence où il a une plantation d’arbres fruitiers. Son frère Franz n’est pas au camp.” (1988:184) Translated: “MOMBERT Ernst, a noted philosopher. He is very darkly complected and is cross-eyed; he comes from Fayence where he has a fruit tree plantation. His brother Franz is not in the camp.”
The duration of the German nationals stays in the camp de la Rode in Toulon appears to have been a short one. André Fontaine reports that on September 16, 1939, a train carrying the prisoners departed Toulon in the direction of Camp des Milles, outside Aix-en-Provence. (Figure 3) The latter was a French internment camp, opened in September 1939, in a former tile factory near the village of Les Milles, part of the commune of Aix-en-Provence. I will have a little more to say about Ernst Mombert’s connection to Camp des Milles later.
André Fontaine describes (1988:185-186) the detainees’ arrival in Camp des Milles: “Le 16 septembre 1939, on annonce le départ de Toulon: un camion prend les bagages à 18 h et le train part à 21 h. L’arrivée n’a lieu que le lendemain matin à Aix-en-Provence, soit après 15 h de train pour effectuer 90 km. Deux camions attendent à la gare. Les soldats ardéchois se montrent accueillants, serviables et souriants, surtout quand ils comprennent qu’un Allemand vient de les prendre comme les Millois pour des Arabes en raison de leur teint basané et de leur chéchia rouge; l’un d’eux s’exclame: ‘des Arabes de l’Ardéchiou !’
Arrivés à la tuilerie, ils trouvent la grande cour vide car les internés se sont barricadés ; ne leur a-t-on pas annoncé des prisonniers nazis !… Les officiers et les sous-officiers sont en train de déjeuner. A 14 h, c’est l’ouverture des bureaux où sont employés des internés. E.E. Noth, devenu homme de confiance, dit à propos de Kantorovicz : ‘Celui-là, c’est vraiment un réfugié !’
Lorsqu’un nouveau convoi est attendu, une forte effervescence règne dans le camp. Très tendus, les militaires recommandent aux internés de se méfier des arrivants, membres de la cinquième colonne : ‘Restez dans vos dortoirs, fermez les volets; la grande porte sera close.’ Ils doublent la garde, installent des chevaux de frise devant le poste de police. Au début les détenus se demandent quels nazis ils vont devoir affronter. Et à chaque détachement ils guettent derrière les volets et voient arriver au loin des pauvres hères, amaigris, courbés, pâles, assoiffés. Ils n’ont rien d’ennemis redoutables. Parfois même ils reconnaissent certains d’entre eux. Mais il est interdit de pousser les volets pour leur parler.”
Translated: “On September 16, 1939, the departure from Toulon was announced: a truck took the luggage at 6 pm and the train left at 9 pm. The arrival was only the next morning in Aix-en-Provence, after 15 hours of train to cover 90 km. Two trucks were waiting at the station. The soldiers from the Ardèche were welcoming, helpful, and smiling, especially when they understood that a German had just mistaken them, like the Millois, for Arabs because of their swarthy complexion and their red fez; one of them exclaimed: ‘Arabs from the Ardéchiou!’
When they arrived at the tile factory, they found the large courtyard empty because the internees had barricaded themselves; had they not been told that there were Nazi prisoners! The officers and non-commissioned officers were having lunch. At 2 p.m., the offices where the internees were employed opened. E.E. Noth, who had become a trusted man, said of Kantorovicz: ‘This one is really a refugee!’
When a new convoy was expected, the camp was in an uproar. The soldiers were very tense and advised the internees to be wary of the arrivals, who were members of the Fifth Column: ‘Stay in your dormitories, close the shutters; the main gate will be closed.’ They doubled the guard and set up frieze horses in front of the police station. At first the prisoners wonder which Nazis they will have to face. And with each detachment they watch behind the shutters and see poor, emaciated, bent, pale, thirsty men arriving in the distance. They are not fearsome enemies. Sometimes they even recognize some of them. But it is forbidden to push the shutters to talk to them.”
Just a few observations about Mr. Fontaine’s description of the German nationals’ arrival at Camp des Milles. The French clearly sought to have the current detainees believe the new arrivals were hard-bitten Nazis of the German Reich living “underground” in France as members of a Fifth Column even though the current detainees were also Germans; the truth is that many of the new arrivals were foreign refugees, including Jews who’d sought to escape the Nazis. One of the existing detainees even recognized one of the new arrivals as a real refugee, not a Fifth Columnist. Curiously, the new German arrivals were guarded by soldiers from the Ardèche department of southeastern France who had been mistaken as Arabs because of their swarthy complexion and the red fez hats they wore; the existing detainees had also mistaken them as Arabs.
Mr. Fontaine tells us that the nationals of the German Reich were held in various camps in the southeast of France including Fort Carre (Antibes); Camp de Forcalouier (Forcalquier); Volx Camp (near Manosque); Camp des Mées (Les Mées); Camp de Marseille (Marseille); Camp des Garrigues (north of Nimes); Le Brebant (in Marseille); Camp de Carpiagne (south of Marseille); and Camp de Loriol (department of Drôme). While not entirely clear, it appears that detainees from some but not all of these camps were transferred to the larger camp at Camp des Milles, the former tile factory. Such was clearly the case with Ernst Mombert. (see Figure 3)
I was particularly interested in learning when or if the German nationals were released from detention to try and get an understanding of when Ernst Mombert might have been liberated. A little more history is relevant.
The Battle of France began on May 10, 1940. The Battle of France, also known as the Western Campaign, the French Campaign, and the Fall of France, was the German invasion of France, Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands during the Second World War. It ended just six weeks later, on June 25th, when the French government capitulated to Nazi Germany after a disastrous, humiliating defeat. By that time, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg had also fallen to the Germans, leaving Adolf Hitler in complete control of Western Europe. On June 22nd the French signed an armistice with the Germans, near Compiègne. The armistice provided for the maintenance of a quasi-sovereign French state and for the division of the country into an occupied zone (northern France plus the western coast) and an unoccupied southern zone referred to as Vichy France. France was made responsible for the German army’s occupation costs. The French army was reduced to 100,000 men and the navy disarmed in its home ports.
According to André Fontaine, almost all the former detention centers were dissolved in May 1940; this would roughly correspond with the beginning of the Battle of France. The former detainees incarcerated in Antibes, Camp des Milles, Les Mées, Manosque, Marseille, and Forcalquier were taken to the camp of Albi (Figure 4), where most were liberated, under the pretext they had been part of the French army. From supposed Fifth Columnists to members of the French Army is very much a stretch. Are we meant to understand that the German detainees were released and immediately mobilized into the French Army at the beginning of what is called the “Phoney War?” The Phoney period began with the declaration of war by the United Kingdom and France against Nazi Germany on the 3rd of September 1939, after which little actual warfare occurred, and ended with the German invasion of France and the Low Countries on the 10th of May 1940.
Other former detainees fell into the hands of the Germans at the end of the Battle of France. If they were not of Jewish descent and volunteered to return to the Reich they were not mistreated. The Jews, however, were transferred to the Dachau concentration camp.
Again I quote André Fontaine (1988:205-206) on the fate of some of the other detainees: “L’émissaire d’Eleanor ROOSEVELT, Varian FRY, et son “Comité américain de Secours (CAR)” permettent l’émigration d’environ 1500 personnes et les Oeuvres juives “Hicem” beaucoup plus. Les Etats-Unis font appel aux grands savants comme les prix Nobel MEYERHOF et REICHSTEIN. Le Mexique accueille les communistes. Mais à partir du 3 août 1942, la “solution finale de la question juive” décidée par la conférence de Wannsee en janvier 1942 trouve son application après les déportations de la zone occupée dans tous les grands camps de la zone sud. Le Vernet (Ariège), Gurs, les Milles, Rivesaltes (Pyrénées orientales). Des rafles ont lieu dans villes et campagnes. Des milliers de familles entières de juifs étrangers (pauvres ou riches mais souvent érudits ou tout au moins de valeur) arrivés depuis 1936 sont transférés à Drancy (puis Auschwitz) et ce dans la France dite libre du maréchal PETAIN. On livre des enfants de deux ans, d’anciens militaires français; tous s’étaient placés sous la protection de la France, dite terre d’asile. On ne peut que déplorer ces faits sans s’empêcher de penser au mot de Romain ROLLAND : “Intelligence – Amour !“
Translated: “Eleanor ROOSEVELT’s emissary, Varian FRY, and his ‘American Rescue Committee (CAR)’ allowed the emigration of about 1500 people and the Jewish Works ‘Hicem’ many more. The United States called upon great scientists such as the Nobel Prize winners MEYERHOF and REICHSTEIN. Mexico welcomed the communists. But from August 3, 1942, the ‘final solution of the Jewish question’ decided by the Wannsee conference in January 1942 found its application after the deportations from the occupied zone in all the big camps of the southern zone. Le Vernet (Ariège), Gurs, les Milles, Rivesaltes (Pyrénées orientales). Roundups took place in towns and countryside. Thousands of entire families of foreign Jews (poor or rich but often educated or at least valuable) who had arrived since 1936 were transferred to Drancy (then Auschwitz) in the so-called free France of Marshal PETAIN. Children as young as two years old, former French soldiers, were handed over; they had all placed themselves under the protection of France, the so-called land of asylum. One can only deplore these facts without stopping oneself from thinking of Romain ROLLAND’s words: ‘Intelligence – Love!’”
Ernst Mombert did not meet his fate at Dachau. The circumstances and timing of Ernst Mombert’s liberation or escape from a detention center are unknown. What is clear is that he returned to his fruit farm in Fayence probably sometime in early to mid-1940, before he was again arrested in August 1942, this time by the French collaborators, the Vichy. Ernst was arrested at the same time as my Aunt Susanne in late August 1942, probably on the 26th of August. According to a brief reference I found on the home page of “AJPN.org,” “Anonymous, Just, and Persecuted during the Nazi period in the communes of France,” “the roundup of foreign Jews by the Vichy police in the Alpes-Maritimes, the Basses-Alpes (54 people) and the Principality of Monaco” took place precisely on the 26th of August 1946. (Figure 5) These roundups took place in one of the 18 administrative regions of France known as “Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur” which includes the department of Var and the commune of Fayence. (Figures 6a-b)
Ernst Mombert’s fate mirrors that of my Aunt Susanne. They were arrested on the same day, taken briefly to Draguignan (Figure 7), detained for some days at Camp des Milles (Aix-en-Provence) (Figure 8), transported to Avignon (Figure 9), then to Drancy (Figure 10), outside Paris, before being deported to Auschwitz on the 7th of September 1942 (Figure 11); on Serge Klarfeld’s list of deportees their names appear on the same page. (Figure 12) There is perverse irony that Ernst Mombert having been held in Camp des Milles for being a citizen of the German Reich in 1939 and a supposed Fifth Columnist would again find himself interned here in 1942, this time for being Jewish, on the way to his ultimate fate.
Contemporary witness accounts from the day Ernst and Susanne were arrested in Fayence indicate that my aunt was in hiding when the Vichy French showed up. She might have been able to escape had she been willing to forsake the older inhabitants of the fruit farm that included Ernst and Franz Mombert’s mother, as well as my grandmother and uncle. By my count, seven people were living on Ernst’s property at the time, though some of the younger ones may have joined the French Resistance. Regardless, this is not who my aunt was, and she would never have allowed anyone to be deported in her stead, so she turned herself in. It is an enduring mystery why all the Jewish residents at the fruit farm were not arrested simultaneously, though it is self-evident they would all eventually have been murdered had the Nazis prevailed during WWII.
As I related in Post 22, my wife Ann and I visited Fayence in 2014, then again in 2015, to learn more about my family’s connection to the town. Ernst Mombert’s brother, Franz survived WWII. Ownership of the fruit farm his brother had owned passed to him on September 6, 1947. (Figure 13) In 2014, my wife and I showed up unexpectedly on the doorsteps of the current owner of the property, a Mme. Monique Graux, who has since passed away. She related that she and her husband had purchased the farmhouse, which dates from around 1740, in the early 1960’s from a gentleman who bought it from Franz Mombert but owned it just briefly. Franz Mombert’s first wife, Margit Mombert née Müller-Munk, died in Fayence on the 22nd of March 1959, and sale of the property seems to have occurred after her death. Following disposal of the estate in Fayence, Franz remarried and moved to Switzerland, living first in Ascona (Figure 14), then to nearby Muralto (Figure 15), on the outskirts of Locarno. Franz passed away there on the 29th of January 1988.
While Ernst was the only member of his immediate family who was a direct victim of the Nazis, there are Stolpersteine, concrete cubes bearing a brass plate inscribed with the name and life dates of victims of Nazi extermination or persecution, for Ernst, Franz, and their parents in Giessen, Germany (Figure 16), the last place the Mombert family lived in Germany before emigrating to France. Interestingly, there also exists a memorial in the administrative region of Île-de-France, centered around Paris, bearing the names of “Ernest Mombert” and other victims of the Shoah, “a structure erected in honor of someone whose remains lie elsewhere.” (Figure 17)
Fontaine, André. Quelques camps du Sud-Est, 1939-1940 [réfugiés allemands], Recherches régionales. Centre de documentation des Alpes-Maritimes, 1988, 29e année, n° 3, p. 179-206.
Note: This is the last in the series of articles discussing my Aunt Susanne Müller, née Bruck, spanning from 1936, when she left Berlin with her husband Dr. Franz Müller, to the moment she was arrested in Fayence by the Vichy French in August 1942. It describes the final two-and-a-half to three weeks of her life and that of Ernst Mombert, her step-daughter’s brother-in-law. Surviving documents in my father’s personal papers, along with records publicly available, allow me to track the precise route my Aunt Susanne and Ernst took to their deaths in Auschwitz.
My Aunt Susanne and her step-daughter’s brother-in-law, Ernst Mombert, were arrested by the Vichy French in Fayence, France, probably around the third week of August 1942. Their arrests were the result of the implementation of the so-called “Final Solution to the Jewish Question.” On January 20, 1942, Nazi officials had convened in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee to discuss the implementation of the Final Solution, whereby most of the Jews of German-occupied Europe would be deported to Poland and murdered. Following the Wannsee Conference, the deportation of Jews throughout Nazi-occupied areas to extermination camps increased in momentum. In France, the deportations, which had begun in March 1942, reached their peak in the summer of 1942, overlapping with the arrest of my relatives. Involvement of French authorities intensified during this period.
Arrests of individual Jews in the occupied zone of France had begun around 1940, and general round up in 1941. By March 1941, the Vichy State created the Commissariat General aux Questions juives (“Commissariat-General for Jewish Affairs”), which managed the seizure of Jewish assets and organized anti-Jewish propaganda. Around this same time, the German began compiling registers of Jews living in the occupied zone. The Second Statut des Juifs of June 2, 1941 systematized registrations across all of France, including the unoccupied parts of France controlled by the Vichy government where Fayence was located. Because Jews in the unoccupied zone were not required to wear the yellow star-of-David badge, these records would provide the basis for future rounds-ups and deportations. No doubt, my relatives’ names were on these registers.
In Post 22, I told readers seven members of my family once lived at the fruit farm in Fayence, although only two were ever arrested by the French collaborators. It remains unclear why the other five were never seized. While I’m disinclined for various reasons to credit local French authorities for having played a role in protecting my family during WWII, supposedly 75% of the roughly 330,000 Jews in metropolitan France in 1939 survived the Holocaust, which is one of the highest survival rates in Europe. This story, however, is about Aunt Susanne and Ernst Mombert, my relatives who did not survive.
Soon after my Aunt Susanne was arrested, she and Ernst Mombert were transported approximately 20 miles to the nearby town of Draguignan. (Figures 1 & 2) Whether they were taken there by train or other conveyance is unknown. The priority that the Nazis and their henchmen placed on the extermination of Jews following the Wannsee Conference suggests arrested Jews were brought to major transit centers in a matter of weeks for deportation to concentration camps. Susanne and Ernst wrote an undated postal card to the Mombert family in Fayence from Draguignan, postmarked August 26, 1942, that survives in my father’s personal papers; their stay in Draguignan was brief, only half-an-hour. (Figure 3) An acquaintance from the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles tells me Jewish detainees were encouraged to write postal cards so Nazis could identify and root out surviving family members.
My dear ones, We have just arrived in Draguignan and will leave in half-an-hour for aux Milles. Once again, I remind you to ask David to come for the pump, at any price, even if you must pick him up by car. Vegetables, be careful with the string-beans, water every other day—cabbage twice weekly. Cucumbers every other day—pick the corn—chase the birds, as directed by Marius. Tomatoes water once a week. Special attention: Carrots! bugs on cabbage. Take care of the old and the young. Don’t worry. Before sending the certificates, wait until our address has arrived. Love to all, Susanne, Ernst
From Draguignan, Susanne and Ernst were then transported approximately 76 miles to the notorious French detention center at Camp des Milles in Aix-en-Provence, a place that is today a museum. (Figure 4) While it was never an extermination camp, unlike Auschwitz where Susanne and Ernst were murdered, it is extremely foreboding because it survives virtually intact and gives one a real sense of what awaited the Jewish internees. (Figure 5) Susanne and Ernst wrote a second postal card from here, dated August 24, 1942, postmarked five days later. (Figure 6)
August 24, 1942 Dearest Peterle, How are you? Did the doctor come? Take care of yourself and don’t lose courage—me, I am well—I have met some acquaintances fromHyères, a woman doctor from Berlin who knows you—well, we will see what happens to us. Ernst has also met some people he knows—we talk quite often. Mummi, how are you? And Margit and the rest of the family? Don’t work too hard—for the five of you there will be enough from the property. Go to Sénégnier and explain our situation to him. My thanks to all of you as well as to our friends for their kindness. My love to all of you. Thousand kisses, Papstein! Susanne
Next, Susanne and Ernst were taken 56 miles to Avignon, whose bridge is the subject of a children’s well-known French nursery rhyme, Sur le pont d’Avignon, although most certainly this was not on their minds. The last words my Uncle Franz and the Mombert family heard from Susanne and Ernst came from the third and final postal card mailed from there. The card is dated September 2, 1942 and postmarked the same day. (Figures 7 & 8)
Dearest Franzl, Up to now, the trip has not been too bad. I stayed together with some very nice ladies. We are well fed, too well for my taste. I am so sad that I cannot send you anything (chocolates, sardines, cookies). All these things come from the Quakers and from the Union of the Israelites of France. . . but what does it mean to us? In any case, I have decided to hold on to be reunited with all of you. Do not lose your patience and courage. They have loaded all and everyone in wagon trains—old people, children, the sick, etc. Kisses, embraces for all of you and good wishes. Susanne
P.S. Maybe I will be able to send you something else.
In this last postal card, my Aunt Susanne mentions the Union Générale des Israélites de France (UGIF), along with the Quakers, as the providers of charitable donations. The Germans created the UGIF on November 29, 1941 to more closely control the Jewish community. Through this organization, the Germans were thus able to learn where local Jews lived. Many of the leaders of the UGIF were themselves ultimately deported to concentration camps.
In this final postal card, my Aunt Susanne also mentions that by the time Jewish detainees had arrived in Avignon, they had been loaded into cattle cars, likely in Camp des Milles. The Société Nationale des Chemins de Fer Français (SNCF), the state-owned railroad system of France, was an active participant in the transport of Jewish detainees to the extermination camps, and evidence of their complicity can be seen even today in railroad sidings at Camp des Milles. (Figure 9)
My relatives never again wrote words that have been handed down to the present. The three postal cards, all written in French, selflessly remind the surviving family to carefully water and tend to the fruits and vegetables on the farm on which their survival clearly depended. The mundane nature of Susanne and Ernst’s final words is a poignant reminder of how ordinary Jews were trying to lead normal lives when their everyday existence was so tragically interrupted by the Nazis.
From Avignon, my relatives were taken more than 430 miles to Drancy, a suburb outside Paris, which was an assembly point for Jews being deported to concentration camps. My Aunt Susanne and Ernst Mombert are known to have survived until at least September 7, 1942. Both of their names appear, coincidentally on the same page (Figures 10a & 10b), on a list of 1000 Jewish prisoner deported from Drancy, a suburb of Paris, destined for Auschwitz, aboard Convoy 29, which departed Drancy at 8:55am and arrived in Auschwitz two days later. (Figures 11a & 11b) My aunt, correctly identified as a German national, is incorrectly shown having been born in “Ratisbonne” rather than Ratibor, Germany.
Serge Klarsfeld, a Romanian-born French activist and Nazi hunter known for documenting the Holocaust to enable the prosecution of war criminals, compiled the lists using surviving German documents. The nationality of only 893 deportees was recorded from Convoy 29, possibly because some arrived from the unoccupied zone only a few hours before the convoy was slated to leave for Auschwitz. The German record of deportees was divided into seven sub-lists, and while both Susanne and Ernst originated from the unoccupied zone, they were likely identified as coming from Camp des Milles. The convoy contained 435 women and 565 men. Upon arrival in Auschwitz (Figure 12), except for 59 men and 52 women, the remaining deportees were immediately gassed to death. (Figures 13 & 14) According to my father, his sister always carried a poison pill in a locket, and I choose to believe she took her own life before the convoy arrived in Auschwitz.
It is impossible to pinpoint the actual date my relatives were arrested in Fayence. Cancellation dates on the postal cards and Susanne and Ernst’s arrival in Drancy no later than September 7th suggest it cannot have taken more than three weeks before they were murdered, no later than September 9th. The ultimate irony is that my aunt moved to Fayence, almost 1000 miles away from where she was born in Ratibor, Germany, only to be hauled back and murdered less than 70 miles from her hometown. Stolpersteins, the small, brass memorials commemorating individual victims of Nazism, have been placed, respectively, at the last residences in Berlin and Giessen, Germany where my Aunt Susanne and Ernst Mombert and his family lived. (Figures 15 & 16)
