POST 87: “COLORIZED” PHOTOS OF PAULY FAMILY MEMBERS

 

Note: This post is inspired by a Polish gentleman who sent me “colorized” photos of members of the Pauly branch of my extended family using an image I included in Post 45.

Related Posts:

Post 45: Holocaust Remembrance: Recalling My Pauly Ancestors

 

Given the emotionally taxing subject matter of some of my family history posts, occasionally I like to intersperse stories that are more whimsical or lighthearted in nature. The current post is one such example. It was inspired by a Mr. Marek Bieńkowski from Włocławek, Poland. This gentleman is not subscribed to my Blog, nor, to the best of my knowledge, are we in any way related. Taking a photo inserted in Post 45 showing multiple members of the Pauly branch of my family, Mr. Bieńkowski “colorized” images of 19 of the 31 people in this picture. I estimate the picture was taken in the early 1890’s in Posen, Prussia [Poznan, Poland], and, to date, I’ve been able to identify 23 of the 31 subjects using an incomplete caption on the back of the photo and comparing the individual images to others where the people are identified by name. The original photo with the heads of the figures circled and numbered is included here (Figure 1), and the table below summarizes the vital data of the known people.

 

Figure 1. Pauly family get-together, probably in the early 1890’s, with heads of the 31 attendees circled and numbered

  

NO. NAME EVENT DATE PLACE
         
1 Anna Rothholz née Pauly

(Figures 2a-b)

Birth 14 March 1871 Posen, Germany
Death 21 June 1925 Stettin, Germany
Marriage 20 May 1892 Berlin, Germany
2 Josef Pauly

(Figures 3a-b)

Birth 10 August 1843 Tost, Germany
Death 7 November 1916 Posen, Germany
Marriage 1869  
3 Paula Pincus née Pauly

(Figures 4a-b)

Birth 26 April 1872 Posen, Germany
Death 31 March 1922 Magdeburg, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany
Marriage 16 November 1891 Berlin, Germany
4 UNKNOWN WOMAN

(Figures 5a-b)

     
5 Julie Neisser née Sabersky

(Figures 6a-b)

Birth 26 February 1841 Wöllstein, Germany
Death 11 April 1927 Berlin, Germany
6 Ernst Neisser

(Figures 7a-b)

Birth 16 May 1863 Liegnitz, Germany
Death

(Suicide)

4 October 1942 Berlin, Germany
Marriage 5 September 1898 Stettin, Germany
7 Margarethe Neisser née Pauly

(Figures 8a-b)

Birth 16 January 1876 Posen, Germany
Death 10 December 1941 Berlin, Germany
Marriage 5 September 1898 Stettin, Germany
8 Rosalie Pauly née Mockrauer Birth 3 January 1844 Leschnitz, Germany
Death 28 November 1927 Berlin, Germany
Marriage 1869 Unknown
9 Rosalinde Kantorowicz née Pauly

(Figures 9a-b)

Birth 22 January 1854 Tost, Germany
Death 3 November 1916 Frankfurt am Main, Hessen, Germany
10 UNKNOWN MAN

(Figures 10a-b)

     
11 Charlotte Mockrauer née Bruck

 

(Figures 11a-b)

Birth 8 December 1865 Ratibor, Germany
Death 10 January 1965 Stockholm, Sweden
Marriage 18 March 1888 Ratibor, Germany
12 UNKNOWN WOMAN

(Figures 12a-b)

     
13 UNKNOWN BOY      
14 Therese Sandler née Pauly Birth 21 August 1885 Posen, Germany
Death 25 November 1969 Buenos Aires, Argentina 
15 Gertrud Kantorowicz

“Gertrude Pauly (Pseudonym)”

Birth 9 October 1876 Posen, Germany
Death

(Murdered)

20 April 1945 Theresienstadt, Czechoslovakia
16 Maria Pohlmann née Pauly Birth 21 July 1877 Posen, Germany
Death Unknown  
Marriage 30 September 1901 Posen, Germany
17 Gertrud Wachsmann née Pollack Birth 10 July 1867 Görlitz, Saxony, Germany
Death

(Murdered)

22 October 1942 Theresienstadt, Czechoslovakia
Married 17 October 1893 Görlitz, Saxony, Germany
18 Heinrich Sabersky

(Figures 13a-b)

Birth July 1845 Grünberg, Germany
Death January 1929 Berlin, Germany
19 Helene Guttentag née Pauly

(Figures 14a-b)

Birth 12 April 1873 Posen, Germany
Death

(Suicide)

23 October 1942 Berlin, Germany
Marriage 5 February 1898 Berlin, Germany
20 Adolf Guttentag

(Figures 15a-b)

Birth 4 December 1868 Breslau, Germany
Death

(Suicide)

23 October 1942 Berlin, Germany
Marriage 5 February 1898 Berlin, Germany
21 Wilhelm Pauly

(Figures 16a-b)

Birth 24 September 1883 Posen, Germany
Death 1961 Unknown
22 UNKNOWN MAN

(Figures 17a-b)

     
23 Elly Landsberg née Mockrauer Birth 14 August 1873 Berlin, Germany
Death

(Murdered)

15 May 1944 Auschwitz, Poland
Marriage 1892 Posen, Germany
24 Edith Riezler née Pauly Birth 4 January 1880 Posen, Germany
Death 1963 Unknown
25 UNKNOWN MAN

(Figures 18a-b)

     
26 UNKNOWN WOMAN      
27 Elisabeth Herrnstadt née Pauly Birth 2 July 1874 Posen, Germany
Death

(Murdered)

27 May 1943 Theresienstadt, Czechoslovakia
Marriage 11 May 1895 Cunnersdorf, Germany
28 Arthur Herrnstadt Birth 15 March 1865 Hirschberg, Germany
Death 21 October 1912 Stettin, Germany
Marriage 11 May 1895 Cunnersdorf, Germany
29 Adolf Wachsmann

(Figures 19a-b)

Birth 3 January 1859 Ratibor, Germany
Death Unknown Unknown
Married 17 October 1893 Görlitz, Saxony, Germany
30 UNKNOWN MAN

(Figures 20a-b)

     
31 UNKNOWN MAN      

 

** Numbers in the left-hand column correspond with the numbered, circled heads in Figure 1. Names in red refer to people whose images have been colorized.

 

Mr. Bieńkowski seemingly used the automated feature of an image-editing program to smooth and sharpen the individual photos. All subjects have blue eyes but given that only 8 to 10 percent of the world’s population have eyes this color, clearly this is unrealistic. Some of the colorized images are remarkably real and look like their originals, others are eerie since the proportions are imprecise and imbue the subjects with a wax-museum quality.

 

Figure 2a. Anna Rothholz née Pauly
Figure 2b. Anna Rothholz née Pauly (colorized)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 3a. Josef Pauly
Figure 3b. Josef Pauly (colorized)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 4a. Paula Pincus née Pauly
Figure 4b. Paula Pincus née Pauly (colorized)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 5a. Unknown Woman
Figure 5b. Unknown Woman (colorized)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 6a. Julie Neisser née Sabersky
Figure 6b. Julie Neisser née Sabersky (colorized)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 7a. Ernst Neisser
Figure 7b. Ernst Neisser (colorized)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 8a. Margarethe Neisser née Pauly
Figure 8b. Margarethe Neisser née Pauly (colorized)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 9a. Rosalinde Kantorowicz née Pauly
Figure 9b. Rosalinde Kantorowicz née Pauly (colorized)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 10a. Unknown Man
Figure 10b. Unknown Man (colorized)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 11a. Charlotte Mockrauer née Bruck
Figure 11b. Charlotte Mockrauer née Bruck (colorized)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 12a. Unknown Woman
Figure 12b. Unknown Woman (colorized)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 13a. Heinrich Sabersky
Figure 13b. Heinrich Sabersky (colorized)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 14a. Helene Guttentag née Pauly
Figure 14b. Helene Guttentag née Pauly (colorized)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 15a. Adolf Guttentag
Figure 15b. Adolf Guttentag (colorized)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 16a. Wilhelm Pauly
Figure 16b. Wilhelm Pauly (colorized)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 17a. Unknown Man
Figure 17b. Unknown Man (colorized)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 18a. Unknown Man
Figure 18b. Unknown Man (colorized)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 19a. Adolf Wachsmann
Figure 19b. Adolf Wachsmann (colorized)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 20a. Unknown Man
Figure 20b. Unknown Man (colorized)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As mentioned, based on the estimated age of the younger subjects and their known dates of birth, I gauge the original picture was taken in the early 1890’s. While color photography is almost as old as black-and-white, the process did not become widely available until much later, certainly after the Lippmann color process was unveiled in 1891. The only color photo I have of any of the subjects is of my great-aunt Charlotte Mockrauer née Bruck when she turned 100 in 1965 and her eyes appear to be brown. (Figure 21) Additionally, I have color paintings of two of the 31 subjects in the original photograph, specifically, Julie Neisser née Sabersky (Figure 22) and Wilhelm Pauly (Figure 23). In these paintings, Julie Sabersky clearly has brown eyes, and a much older Wilhelm Pauly has blue eyes.

 

Figure 21. Color photo of my great-aunt Charlotte Mockrauer née Bruck (subject 11 in Figure 1) with my uncle Fedor Bruck when Charlotte turned 100 in 1965; her eyes appear brown

 

Figure 22. Color painting of Julie Neisser née Sabersky (subject 5 in Figure 1), where her eyes appear brown
Figure 23. Color painting of Wilhelm Pauly (subject 21 in Figure 1) showing his blue eyes

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 24. Liselotte “Lilo” Dieckmann née Neisser (1902-1994) who typed a biography in which she mentioned and described her grandmother, Julie Neisser née Sabersky

Regular readers know how I like making connections between seemingly unrelated things. In the previous post, Post 86, Suse Vogel née Neisser’s 1947 letter describing the last days of her father and aunt’s lives in October 1942 in Berlin was sent to her first cousin, Liselotte Dieckmann née Neisser in St. Louis. (Figure 24) Liselotte was an extremely accomplished woman and a Professor of German at St. Louis University. She wrote a short biography in English of her life, which I obtained a copy of from Nicki Stieda, Suse’s Vogel’s granddaughter. On the opening page, Liselotte discussed her grandmother without naming her. Being familiar with the Neisser family tree, I quickly ascertained she was discussing Julie Neisser née Sabersky, who is seated alongside one of her sons, Ernst Neisser, in Figure 1. Liselotte’s description of her grandmother, quoted below, comports with my preconceived notion of the strong matriarch I imagine she was:

 

“My Father Max Neisser, born in 1869, professor of bacteriology at the University of Frankfurt, came from Silesia which was then a Prussian province and is now part of Poland. By the time I was born in 1902, his mother [editor’s note: Julie Neisser née Sabersky], widowed for many years, lived with her brother [editor’s note: Heinrich Sabersky] whom she had well-tamed in Berlin where we visited her often. She was a fine lady, with beautiful blue eyes, who sat straight as a ruler at the edge of her chair. She was a woman of great vitality—no doubt, almost to her end in 1926, the ruling member of her family. My cousins and I owe to her a sense of family closeness rarely found among cousins. Her sons and one daughter had eight children together, with whom I am still in close touch, insofar as they are still alive.”

 

Julie’s regal bearing caught my attention well before I knew who she was. Interestingly, Julie’s brother, Heinrich Sabersky, mentioned in the paragraph above who is also in the group picture, similarly caught my attention because of his warm demeanor. Among my third cousin Agnes Stieda née Vogel’s personal photographs is a different one with Julie and Heinrich Sabersky seated amidst a group of ten people; this photo includes three Pauly sisters, Margarethe, Helene and Edith, all three of whom are in the larger group picture that is the subject of this post, two of whose photos are also colorized. (Figures 25-26)

 

Figure 25. Group photo of ten people including siblings Heinrich and Julie Sabersky (seated) and three Pauly sisters, Elisabeth Pauly (to left of Heinrich Sabersky), Margarethe Pauly (behind Heinrich Sabersky), and Edith Pauly (behind Julie Sabersky)

 

Figure 26. Three Pauly sisters from left to right: Margarethe Pauly, Elisabeth Pauly, and Edith Pauly

 

To my mind, the major take away of receiving the unsolicited colorized images of people from 130 years ago is that it personalizes them and makes them seem less abstract. This comports with one of the goals of my Blog to make my ancestors come to life in a tangible way, while conceding it may not be entirely realistic.

POST 44: A TROVE OF FAMILY HISTORY FROM THE “PINKUS COLLECTION” AT THE LEO BAECK INSTITUTE

Note: In this Blog post, I discuss how I inadvertently uncovered vital records information for several people in my family tree and talk about leaving open the possibility of discovering evidence of ancestors whose traces appear negligible.

Related Posts:

Post 39: An Imperfect Analogy: Family Trees and Dendrochronology

Post 40: Elisabeth “Lisa” Pauly née Krüger, One of Germany’s Silent Heroes

In the prologue to my family history blog, which I initiated in April 2017, I conceded there are some ancestral searches which are bound to end up unresolved during my lifetime.  While I never actually close the book on these forensic investigations, I place them on a back-burner in the unlikely event I discover something new or make a new connection.  This Blog post delves into one recent find that opened the door to learning more about several close ancestors whom I’d essentially given up hope of unearthing anything new.

Given my single-minded focus over the last two years on writing stories for my family history blog, I’ve woefully neglected updating my family tree which resides on ancestry.com.  An opportunity recently presented itself to piggy-back on a friend’s membership to ancestry and review the hundreds of “leaves” associated with the roughly 500+ people in my tree.  Typically, at the top of the list of ancestry clues are links to other family trees that may include the same people as found in one’s own tree.  While I systematically review these member trees, I only “import” new ancestral information if source documents are attached to the member trees and I can confirm the reliability of the details; I may occasionally make exceptions if trees or tree managers have been trusted sources of information in the past, and/or I otherwise can confirm the origins of the data.  Over the years I’ve seen multiple trees replicate the same erroneous information, and this is a path I choose to avoid.

The family ancestral information I happened upon came from a family tree I discussed in Blog Post 39, entitled “Schlesische Jüdische Familien,” “Silesian Jewish Families.”  Regular readers may recall this tree has an astronomical 52,000+ names in it, so it should come as no surprise that it is often the source of overlapping or new information for individuals found in my own modest-sized tree.  That said, I still apply the same rigorous principles in assessing the information found in this larger tree.  I rarely take anything at face-value when it comes to vital records (e.g., births, baptisms, marriages, deaths) given the multiple reasons, often inadvertent or negligent, why data may be incorrect or divergent (e.g., illegible or unintelligible writing on source documents; transcription errors).  With these caveats in mind, however, I came across some vital record information on the Silesian Families tree that seemed credible given the specificity of birth and death dates for a few individuals in my tree.  The information related to my great-great-uncle Josef Mockrauer’s first wife, Esther Ernestine Lißner, and their son, Gerhard Mockrauer; while I’d previously found Gerhard’s birth certificate mentioning his parents, I had never found precise birth and death dates for Ernestine or Gerhard, so this was particularly intriguing.

Having previously established contact with the manager of the “Schlesische Jüdische Familien” family tree, a very helpful German lady by the name of Ms. Elke Kehrmann, I again reached out to her.  I acknowledged that remembering the source of data for 52,000+ people is unrealistic but thought I should still ask.  Initially, Ms. Kehrmann could only recall the information came from a manuscript prepared by an American Holocaust survivor who’d wanted to memorialize his lineage; with numerous computer upgrades over the years, Elke expressed the likelihood the document was digitally irretrievable.  Disappointed, but not surprised, I was prepared to accept the vital records information at face-value. 

 

Figure 1. Screen shot of the “Pinkus Family Collection 1500s-1994, (bulk 1725-1994),” archived at the Leo Baeck Institute—New York/Berlin (LBI), highlighting Series VII where my family’s ancestral materials were found

Then, much to my delight, a day later Elke told me she’d located the source document from a larger collection entitled the “Pinkus Family Collection 1500s-1994, (bulk 1725-1994).” (Figure 1)  It was too large to email, but she opined I might be able to locate it on the Internet, and, sure enough, I immediately learned the collection is archived at The Leo Baeck Institute—New York/Berlin (LBI) and can be downloaded for free.  For readers unfamiliar with this institute, according to their website, “LBI is devoted to the history of German-speaking Jews. Its 80,000-volume library and extensive archival and art collections represent the most significant repository of primary source material and scholarship on the Jewish communities of Central Europe over the past five centuries.”

The Pinkus Family Collection is enormous.  From the “Biographical Note” to the collection, I learned the Pinkus family were textile manufacturers.  Their factory, located in Neustadt, Upper Silesia [today: Prudnik, Poland], was one of the largest producers of fine linens in the world.  Joseph Pinkus became a partner in the firm S. Fränkel when he married Auguste Fränkel, the daughter of the owner.  Their son Max Pinkus (1857-1934) was director until 1926.  Subsequently, Max Pinkus’s son Hans Pinkus (1891-1977) managed the family company from 1926-1938 until he was forced out after the company’s total aryanization in the wake of Kristallnacht.  Both Max and Hans Pinkus were very active in civic and cultural affairs and interested in local history; they amassed a large library of books by Silesian authors.  In their spare time, they devoted themselves to genealogical research, the basis of the family collection archived at LBI.  Hans Pinkus left Germany at the end of 1938, emigrated to the United Kingdom with his family in 1939, and died in Britain in 1977.

In reviewing the index to the collection, I had no idea where to begin.  Fortunately, Elke came to my rescue and pointed me to “Series VII” (Figure 1),  described as encompassing not just close Pinkus family relations but the broader array of families in Upper Silesia.  Within this series I located pages related to my family, although, unlike other portions of the collection, ancestral information is recorded in longhand, in Sütterlin, no less.  Even so, I was able to decipher most of the numerical data, and enlisted one of my German cousins to translate the longhand.

Here is where I discovered the source of the birth and death dates for my great-great-uncle Josef Mockrauer’s first wife, Esther Ernestine Lißner, and their son, Gerhard Mockrauer.  A summary of vital information for Josef Mockrauer, his two wives, and their children follows:

Figure 2. My great-great-uncle Josef Mockrauer (1845-1895)

 

Figure 3a. First page of Josef Mockrauer’s 1895 death certificate
Figure 3b. Second page of Josef Mockrauer’s 1895 death certificate

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 4a. Plan map of the Jüdischer Friedhof in Berlin Weißensee (East Berlin) showing section Q1, where Josef Mockrauer is interred
Figure 4b. Headstone of Josef Mockrauer’s grave

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

NAME EVENT DATE PLACE
Josef Mockrauer

(Figures 2, 3a-b, 4a-b)

Birth 18 June 1845 Leschnitz, Oberschlesien, Germany [today: Leśnica, Poland]
Death 9 February 1895 Charlottenburg, Berlin, Germany
Esther Ernestine Mockrauer, née Lißner (Josef’s first wife) Birth 30 October 1854 Dresden, Saxony, Germany
Death 24 May 1934 Berlin, Germany
Marriage Unknown Unknown
Elly Landsberg, née Mockrauer

(Figure 5)

Birth 14 August 1873 Berlin, Germany
Death 15 May 1944 Auschwitz, Poland
Gerhard Mockrauer

(Figure 6)

Birth 25 January 1875 Berlin, Germany
Death 21 September 1886 Freienwalde, Märkisch-Oderland district, Brandenburg, Germany
George Mockrauer (Ernestine’s out-of-wedlock child)

(Figure 7)

Birth 16 April 1884 Dresden, Saxony, Germany
Death Unknown Unknown
Charlotte Mockrauer, née Bruck (Josef’s second wife)

(Figure 8)

Birth 8 December 1865 Ratibor, Germany [today: Racibórz, Poland]
Death 1965 Stockholm, Sweden
Marriage 18 March 1888 Ratibor, Germany [today: Racibórz, Poland]
Franz Josef Mockrauer

(Figure 9)

Birth 10 August 1889 Berlin, Germany
Death 7 July 1962 Stockholm, Sweden

 

Figure 5. Josef Mockrauer and Esther Ernestine Mockrauer née Lißner’s daughter, Elly Landsberg née Mockrauer, in 1902

 

Figure 6. Birth certificate for Josef and Ernestine Mockrauer’s son, Gerhard Mockrauer, indicating he was born on January 25, 1875
Figure 7. Birth certificate for Georg Mockrauer, Ernestine Mockrauer’s out-of-wedlock son, who carried the “Mockrauer” surname even though he was not Josef Mockrauer’s son

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 8. Josef Mockrauer’s second wife, my great-aunt Charlotte Mockrauer née Bruck
Figure 9. Josef and Charlotte Mockrauer’s son, Franz Josef Mockrauer

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 10. My great-great-grandfather Fedor Bruck
Figure 11. My great-great-grandmother Friederike Bruck née Mockrauer

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I made other surprising discoveries in the Pinkus Collection. Briefly, some context.  The second-generation owners of the Bruck’s “Prinz von Preussen” Hotel in Ratibor were my great-grandparents, Fedor Bruck (Figure 10) and Friederike Bruck née Mockrauer. (Figure 11)  As the table below shows, Fedor and Friederike Bruck had eight children, only six of whom I’d previously been able to track from birth to death; Elise and Robert remained wraiths whose existence I knew about but assumed had died at birth, a not uncommon fate in the 19th century.  This was not, in fact, what happened.  Elise lived to almost age 4, and Robert to age 16.  While Elise expectedly died in Ratibor, mystifyingly, Robert died on December 30, 1887 in Braunschweig, Germany, more than 450 miles from Ratibor.  Why here is unclear.  Their causes of death are a mystery, though childhood diseases a real possibility.

Figure 12. My grandfather Felix Bruck
Figure 13. My great-aunt Franziska Bruck

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

NAME EVENT DATE PLACE
Felix Bruck

(Figure 12)

Birth 28 March 1864  Ratibor, Germany (today: Racibórz, Poland)
Death 23 June 1927 Berlin, Germany
Charlotte Mockrauer, née Bruck

(Figure 8)

Birth 8 December 1865 Ratibor, Germany (today: Racibórz, Poland)
Death 1965 Stockholm, Sweden
Franziska Bruck

(Figure 13)

Birth 29 December 1866  Ratibor, Germany (today: Racibórz, Poland)
Death 2 January 1942 Berlin, Germany
Elise Bruck Birth 20 August 1868  Ratibor, Germany (today: Racibórz, Poland)
Death 19 June 1872 Ratibor, Germany (today: Racibórz, Poland)
Hedwig Löwenstein, née Bruck

(Figure 14)

Birth 22 March 1870

 

Ratibor, Germany (today: Racibórz, Poland)
Death 15 January 1949 Nice, France
Robert Bruck Birth 1 December 1871 Ratibor, Germany (today: Racibórz, Poland)
Death 30 December 1887 Braunschweig, Lower Saxony, Germany
Wilhelm Bruck

(Figure 15)

Birth 24 October 1872  Ratibor, Germany (today: Racibórz, Poland)
Death 29 April 1952 Barcelona, Spain
Elsbeth Bruck

(Figure 16)

Birth 17 November 1874  Ratibor, Germany (today: Racibórz, Poland)
Death 20 February 1970 Berlin, Germany

 

Figure 14. Another great-aunt, Hedwig Löwenstein, née Bruck
Figure 15. My great-uncle Wilhelm Bruck

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 16. Yet another great-aunt Elsbeth Bruck

 

With respect to the tables above, I don’t expect readers to do anything more than glance at them; for me, they’re a quick reference as to what I know and where it came from, a form of metadata, if you will.  The italicized information in the tables was new to me and originated from the Pinkus Collection.

As a related aside, Friederike Mockrauer and Josef Mockrauer were siblings.  Interestingly, Josef Mockrauer would go on to eventually marry one of his sister’s daughters, his niece, my great-aunt Charlotte Bruck.  Incestuous, I would agree.

Figure 17. Page from the Pinkus Family Collection showing Fedor and Friederike Bruck’s eight children, including birth and death dates for my great-aunt Elise and my great-uncle Robert, both of whom died as children. Towards the bottom right my father’s name is shown (Otto Bruck). [Citation: Series VII: Genealogical and historical materials on the Fraenkel family and others, undated, 1600s-1971; Pinkus Family Collection; AR 7030; Box 20; Folder 3; Page 293; Leo Baeck Institute]

Remarkably, on the very same page where I discovered Elise and Robert’s dates and places of death, I found my father and his three siblings listed! (Figure 17)  Inasmuch as I can tell, the detailed family information was recorded by either Max (Max died in 1934) or Hans Pinkus around the early- to mid-1930’s, at which time my father, Dr. Otto Bruck, would have been a dentist in Tiegenhof in the Free State of Danzig, and this is precisely what is noted: “Zahnarzt im Tiegenhof (Freistaat Danzig)”; “Freistaat Danzig” was the official name of this former part of the Deutsches Reich after World War I.

Figure 18. Page from the Pinkus Family Collection identifying Oscar Pincus and Paula Pincus née Pauly’s two children (“kinder” in German), Franz Pincus and Lisselotte “Lilo” Pauly. Here can also be seen that Franz Pincus married Lisa Krüger. [Citation: Series VII: Genealogical and historical materials on the Fraenkel family and others, undated, 1600s-1971; Pinkus Family Collection; AR 7030; Box 20; Folder 3; Page 307; Leo Baeck Institute]
Finally, from the Pinkus Collection, I was also able to confirm that Elisabeth “Lisa” Pauly née Krüger, discussed in Blog Post 40, one of the “silent heroes” who hid my Uncle Dr. Fedor Bruck during his 30-months “underground” in Berlin during WWII, was indeed married to Franz Pincus (Figure 18); Franz Pincus, readers may recall, died in 1941 as Franz Pauly, having taken his mother’s maiden name as his own surname.  While the Pinkus Collection shed no additional light on exactly how Franz Pincus/Pauly died, I discovered Franz was the older rather than the younger of two siblings, contrary to what was in my family tree.  This comports with a photo, attached here, showing Franz and his sister, Charlotte “Lisselotte or Lilo” Pauly, as children, found since I published Post 40; readers can clearly see Franz is the older of the two children. (Figure 19)

Figure 19. Franz and Lilo Pauly as children in 1902

 

Tracking down the Pinkus Collection with its relevant family history is admittedly noteworthy, but the real service was rendered by Max and Hans Pinkus.  Their detailed compilation of ancestral data from related Silesian families was gathered while running a full-time business and in the days before genealogical information was digitized, when most of the painstaking work had to be undertaken manually through time-consuming letter-writing, and perhaps occasional phone calls and family gatherings.  So, while I take obvious pleasure in having discovered the Pinkus Collection, I acknowledge the true forensic genealogists for amassing this valuable trove of family history.  

Let me conclude by emphasizing that well-done family trees to which ancestry.com leads genealogists can often be the source of valuable forensic clues but should be closely scrutinized and delved into to before accepting the data prima facie.  And, finally, I have no idea how many “cold cases” I can eventually solve but the challenge is what motivates me.

CITATION

Series VII: Genealogical and historical materials on the Fraenkel family and others, undated, 1600s-1971; Pinkus Family Collection; AR 7030; Box 20; Folder 3; Leo Baeck Institute

POST 12: “STATE ARCHIVES IN KATOWICE BRANCH IN RACIBÓRZ (RATIBOR)”

Figure 1-Entrance to the “Archiwum Państwowe w Katowicach Oddział w Raciborzu“

In the previous Blog post dealing with the Bruck’s Hotel “Prinz von Preußen,” the hotel in Ratibor owned by the Bruck family for three generations, the reader learned about the “Archiwum Państwowe w Katowicach Oddział w Raciborzu” (“State Archives in Katowice Branch in Raciborz”) where civil records of births, marriages, and deaths from the 1870’s onward are to be found. (Figure 1)  I explained to the reader the genesis of this situation, namely, that the Imperial Chancellor Otto von Bismarck and the liberal nationalists in Germany saw the existence of a Church loyal to the Pope as a threat to national unity, and, for this reason, sought to bring the Church under the control of the Prussian state.  This conflict with the Church was known as the Kulturkampf (“Cultural Struggle“).  Among other things, this resulted in mandating that births, marriages, and deaths be recorded as civil events.  Consequently, today, a researcher is compelled to show up in person to access these records at the State Archives. 

Figure 2-Ms. Malgosia Ploszaj from Rybnik, Poland examining the civil records at the State Archives in Raciborz

In the previous Blog post, I explained I’d been referred to an English-speaking Polish lady, Ms. Malgosia Ploszaj, who is studying the former Jews of her hometown of Rybnik, about a half-hour from Raciborz.  Prior to our visit to Raciborz in May 2014, Malgosia had already visited the State Archives there and discovered the existence of an inch-thick portfolio of administrative documents related to management of the Bruck’s Hotel from about 1912 to 1928.; these have been discussed in the previous Blog post.  When my wife and I visited Raciborz in May 2014, Malgosia accompanied us to the State Archives and helped us efficiently navigate the plethora of civil documents. (Figure 2) 

My father’s older sister, Susanne, was born in Ratibor in 1904, and my father, Otto, three years later in 1907. (Figure 3)  Once I understood their birth documents would not be among the Jewish religious records found on Mormon Church microfilms, it became a priority to find them with the civil records at the State Archives.  I knew my father’s older brother Fedor had been born in 1895 in the nearby town of Leobschütz [today: Głubczyce, Opole Voivodeship, Poland], so had no expectation of uncovering his birth certificate.  With Malgosia’s assistance, we were very quickly able to locate the birth records of both my father and my aunt. (Figure 4)

Figure 3-My Aunt Susanne, my father Otto and my Uncle Fedor as children in Ratibor
Figure 4-Birth Register (“Urodzenia”) for the period 1874-1902 found at the State Archives in Raciborz

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In former times, it was quite common for parents to have many children, so I often wondered why nine years (1895 to 1904) had transpired before my grandparents had a second child.  This question was promptly answered by a careful examination of the birth certificates for these years; it turns out my grandparents indeed had a second child in this intervening period, a son by the name of Walter Bruck, who was born in August 1900 but died shortly thereafter in April 1901.  The existence of another older brother was never mentioned by my father when I was growing up.  As to the Birth Certificate for my Uncle Fedor born in 1895, I did eventually locate it in the Eastern Prussian Provinces database: Östliche preußische Provinzen, Polen, Personenstandsregister 1874-1945 (Eastern Prussian Provinces, Germany [Poland], Selected Civil Vitals, 1874-1945).  

Figure 5-My great-aunt Elsbeth Bruck, right, with her older brother Wilhelm “Willy” Bruck as children in Ratibor

I found several other original family documents at the Polish State Archives in Raciborz that ultimately provided context for artifacts in my possession, and also pointed me to other towns and countries to find additional historic family records.  At the State Archives in Raciborz, I also found the Birth Certificate for my great-aunt, Elsbeth Bruck. (Figure 5)  Previously, I’d located the birth record for Elsbeth’s seven older siblings, born to my great-grandparents Fedor Bruck and Friederike Bruck, nee Mockrauer, on the Jewish microfilm records from Ratibor, but was puzzled as to why I’d never found hers.  When I eventually learned that Elsbeth was born in the midst of the Kulturkampf, it became obvious her record would be with the civil documents, which is where I ultimately found it and where I also discovered her given name was not Elsbeth but “Elisabeth.” 

Figure 6-My grandparents, Felix “Lixel” Bruck and Else Bruck, nee Berliner, on their wedding day, February 11, 1894

A particularly interesting document I found was the marriage certificate for my grandparents (Page 1 & Page 2), Felix Bruck and Else Bruck, nee Berliner, dated February 11, 1894; prior to the discovery of this certificate, I didn’t know when my grandparents got married although I have photos of them on their wedding day. (Figure 6)  This document was interesting principally because it provided context for an “erinnerung,” or remembrance, I’d found among my father’s papers.  The name on the cover page of this remembrance, written in difficult-to-decipher Gothic font, said “Willy Bruck,” and was dated “February 11, 1894.”  I incorrectly assumed it related to a ceremony or rite in honor of a relative who’d died on this date; unfortunately, I could think of no relative by this name who’d died on this day.  After a German cousin recently examined this remembrance, all became clear.  Felix’s younger brother was Wilhelm or “Willy” Bruck, and the remembrance I thought was a death announcement was actually an ode or poem Willy had written on the occasion of his brother’s marriage, “in brotherly love.” (Figure 7) While I never knew my grandfather, and my father only spoke sparingly of him when I was growing up, from this remembrance I also learned Felix’s nickname was “Lixel.”

Figure 7-Cover of remembrance poem written by Wilhelm “Willy” Bruck for his brother Felix’s wedding “in brotherly love”
Figure 8-Wilhelm “Willy” Bruck standing next to his velocipede in 1889 in Ratibor, possibly the same bike his brother once fell off of

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the poem Willy Bruck wrote in honor of his brother Felix’s marriage, he teased his brother about a few incidents that occurred to him as a young lad, such as the time he threw a stone through an expensive window and when he fell off his velocipede.  Coincidentally, among the family pictures is one of Willy Bruck himself standing next to his own velocipede, perhaps a hand-me-down from his older brother! (Figure 8) 

In addition to the marriage certificate I found for Felix Bruck, I also located the marriage certificates for two of his younger sisters, Charlotte Mockrauer, nee Bruck (1865-1965) (Page 1 & Page 2), and Hedwig Loewenstein, nee Bruck (1870-1949) (Page 1 & Page 2).  These historic documents are of interest primarily because they eventually helped me unravel the complete family tree for these branches of my family, and, in turn, lead to some compelling discoveries.  In time, I will relate to the reader these tales which are rather involved and span multiple countries.