Category: Cimitiere De Caucade

POST 198: ITALIAN OCCUPATION OF SOUTHEASTERN FRANCE DURING THE SECOND WORLD WAR: IMPACT ON JEWISH PEOPLE, INCLUDING MY FAMILY

Note: In this post, I discuss the two periods of Fascist Italy’s occupation of southeastern France during the Second World War. While not philanthropic towards Jews, Mussolini did not share Hitler’s views on the “Jewish problem,” possibly influenced by his Jewish mistress. Many French Jews flocked to the Italian-occupied part of France providing some enough time to survive until the area was liberated by the Allies in August 1944. Among the survivors were members of my family. 

Related Post:

POST 189: CEREMONY FOR THE RESTITUTION OF THREE PAINTINGS LOOTED FROM MY FATHER’S COUSIN FÉDOR LÖWENSTEIN DURING THE SECOND WORLD WAR: SEPTEMBER 16, 2025

Over the years I’ve come across references that the southeastern part of France was occupied by the Italians during the Second World War. This is a topic that’s always fascinated me because it includes Nice along France’s Côte d’Azur, a city with close connections to both sides of my family. It’s been an enduring mystery how a few of my Jewish relatives survived there when the Nazi onslaught exterminated or scattered most of them elsewhere in Europe. 

Nice is where my parents met, and where my mother lived with her mother following her parents’ divorce. Also, my father’s aunt Hedwig Löwenstein, née Bruck, and two of her three children lived permanently or temporarily in Nice during the war. (Figure 1) After leaving Germany in early 1938, Nice is where my father went trying unsuccessfully to obtain a permit to work in France as a dentist. Following my father’s two-and-a-half years of military service in the Royal Pioneer Corps after five years in the French Foreign Legion, he returned to Nice to resume his dental career. (Figure 2) Here is where he was arrested for practicing illegally as a “stateless” person before decamping to America, sadly never again to practice dentistry. Nice is where my parents would regularly vacation, and where my maternal grandmother lived and where I spent multiple summers as a child. It’s a place that holds bittersweet memories for me and my family.

 

Figure 1. March 1946 photo of Fédor Löwenstein (seated) with his sister Hansi, his brother Heinz, and his mother Hedwig in Nice, France

 

 

Figure 2. My father Dr. Otto Bruck in October 1941 along the Mediterranean Sea when he was living in Nice and practicing dentistry “illegally”

 

Two of Hedwig’s children, Fédor and Heinz Löwenstein, have been the subject of multiple earlier posts. To remind readers, Fédor Löwenstein (1901-1946) was my father’s first cousin; he was the artist of the three paintings that were confiscated by the Nazis at the Port of Bordeaux in December 1940 that I retrieved in September 2025 from the French Ministry of Culture after an eleven-year legal tussle. (see Post 189) Nice is where Fedor returned to from Paris and Mirmande after becoming sick with a then-undiagnosed disease. He died there at 45 years of age of Hodgkin lymphoma and was buried in the Cimetière de Caucade in Nice. And I’ve often written about Fédor’s younger brother, Heinz Löwenstein, because of his fascinating wartime escapades. The third sibling, Jeanne “Hansi” Goff, née Löwenstein, is the cousin with whom my father was closest to and advised my father to join the French Foreign Legion in 1938, following my father’s flight from Germany. After emigrating with her mother and siblings from the Free City of Danzig in what I estimate was the early 1930s, Hansi settled in Nice and lived there for the remainder of her life. 

Because none of my Jewish relatives were deported from Nice during the war, I researched the history of the Italian occupation of France seeking an answer. Like many things that took place during the Second World War, the explanation is often rooted in historical events that took place before the war, sometimes many years before. 

During the Second World War, southeastern France experienced two distinct periods of occupation by Fascist Italy. (Figure 3) The first occurred when Benito Mussolini invaded France on June 10, 1940. This incursion followed closely on the heels of the invasion of France by Italy’s Axis ally Germany on May 10, 1940, initiating the “Battle of France.” Using blietzkrieg tactics, German forces broke through Allied lines, captured Paris on June 14, 1940, and forced an armistice on France on June 22, 1940, effectively defeating them in just over six weeks.

 

 

Figure 3. Map of the occupation zones of France during the Second World War including the two areas in the southeastern part of the country occupied by Fascist Italy

 

Italy’s June 1940 invasion had limited success even though their occupational army of 700,000 troops significantly outnumbered the French. The Italians faced numerous challenges, including inadequately light tanks, a lack of artillery and motor transport, and ill-preparedness for the cold Alpine climate. The French had established substantial fortifications along the Alpine Line, referred to as the “Little Maginot.” Nonetheless, following France’s rout at the hands of the Germans and their surrender, the French were forced to sign the Franco-Italian Armistice on June 24, 1940, two days after the cessation of hostilities, agreeing upon an Italian zone of occupation. 

As a result of this armistice with the Italians, the French relinquished 831 square kilometers (321 square miles) in southeastern France. (Figures 3-4) This Italian-controlled zone, which included between 28,000 and 30,000 French citizens, was officially annexed to the Kingdom of Italy. The largest town contained within the initial Italian zone of occupation was Menton. The main cities inside the larger “demilitarized zone” of 50km (31 miles) from the border with the Italian Alpine Wall were Nice and Grenoble, although, unlike Menton, neither was annexed to the Kingdom of Italy though that was the plan had the Axis powers won the Second World War.

 

 

Figure 4. A closeup of southeastern France showing the areas occupied by Fascist Italy during two periods of the Second World War

 

The second Italian occupation of southeastern France took place in November 1942 in conjunction with Case Anton, the German occupation of Vichy France. To remind readers, Vichy France was the so-called puppet and collaborationist government in southern France in the “zone libre” (free zone) that had between created by the June 1940 armistice between Germany and France. 

Readers may wonder, as I did, what suddenly precipitated the German occupation of Vichy France in November 1942. Case Anton was primarily triggered by the Allied invasion of North Africa during Operation Torch on November 8, 1942. Hitler ordered the occupation of the “zone libre” to prevent an Allied landing in southern France and to secure Mediterranean coastal defenses. Basically, the successful Allied landings in French North Africa convinced Hitler that the Vichy regime could no longer protect its territory, forcing Germany to take direct control of the “zone libre.” A critical part of German motivation to occupy Vichy was also to seize the French Navy fleet anchored in Toulon. To prevent this, the French soldiers successfully scuttled most of their ships on November 27, 1942, rendering them useless to the Axis powers. 

The November 1942 German occupation of Vichy France resulted in an expansion of Italy’s occupation zone in southeastern France. (see Figure 4) Italian forces took control of Toulon and all of Provence up to the river Rhone; the island of Corsica was claimed by the so-called Italian irredentists (more on this below). Nice and Corsica were to be annexed to Italy in accordance with the aspirations of these Italian irredentists, an action that never took place because of the Italian armistice in September 1943, following Italy’s defeat at the hands of the Allied forces.

Let me briefly explain Italian irredentism. The term originated from Italia irredenta (“unredeemed Italy”), referring to lands with Italian populations left outside the Kingdom of Italy following its unification between 1860 and 1870. Irredentism was the movement to annex territory considered culturally or historically Italian, such as Istria and Dalmatia. Istria is the largest peninsula in the northern Adriatic Sea, the majority of which now belongs to Croatia. (Figure 5) It also includes the historic region of Dalmatia, also primarily within modern-day Croatia, with a small portion of Montenegro, located on the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea. Significantly, for the purposes of this post and its impact on Jewish people during the Second World War, Italia irredenta included Nice. Italian irredentism in Nice was the political movement supporting the annexation of the County of Nice to the Kingdom of Italy.

 

 

Figure 5. Map of the territories claimed by the proponents of a “Greater Italy”

 

Readers are likely wondering what gave rise to Italian irredentism and the aspirations of their supporters that they were entitled to annex Nice. As I alluded to above, some events that took place during the Second World War have their roots earlier in history. During the Italian unification, in 1860, the House of Savoy, a noble and royal dynasty between France and Italy, allowed the Second French Empire, the government of France from 1852 to 1870, to annex Nice from the Kingdom of Sardinia in exchange for French support of its quest to unify Italy. As a result, the Nicois were excluded from the Italian unification movement, and the region has since become primarily French-speaking. 

Discontent over annexation to France led to the emigration of a large part of the Italophile population; more than 10,000 people, a quarter of the population in Nice, voluntarily left for Italy. This emigration of Nicard Italians to Italy took the name of the “Nicard exodus.” Many Italians from Nizza moved to towns in Liguria, a crescent-shaped region in nearby northwestern Italy, known as the Italian Riviera. This gave rise to a local branch of the movement of Italian irredentists which considered the reacquisition of Nice to be one of their nationalist goals. 

In support of the Italian irredentists, Benito Mussolini considered the annexation of Nice to be one of his main targets. Following the armistice between Italy and France in June 1940, the County of Nice was occupied by the Italian army and the newspaper Il Nizzardo (“The Nicard”) was restored there. It was directed by Ezio Garibaldi, the grandson of Giuseppe Garibaldi (1807-1882). For those unfamiliar with the elder Garibaldi, he was a charismatic Italian general, patriot, and revolutionary, who played a crucial role in unifying Italy. Born in Nice, he was vehemently opposed to the cession of his hometown to France. 

Having strayed some to explain the geopolitical basis for Italy’s historic connection to Nice, let me share one intriguing thing I learned while researching the extent of Italian occupation of southeastern France following German’s occupation of the “zone libre.” This is personally intriguing because I’ve been a philatelist, a stamp collector, much of my life. As I noted above, following Case Anton Italian forces took control of Toulon and all of Provence up to the Rhône River as well as the island of Corsica. I quote from an entry on Wikipedia on the “Italian Occupation of France”: 

“The area of southeast France actually occupied by the Italians has been disputed. A study of the postal history of the region has cast new light on the part of France controlled by the Italians and Germans (Trapnell, 2014). By studying mail that had been censored by the occupying power, this study showed that the Italians occupied the eastern part up to a ‘line’ joining Toulon-Gap-Grenoble-Chambery-Annecy-Geneva. Places occupied by the Italians west of this were few or transitory.” 

Thus, the line connecting these cities marks the boundary that separated the Italian-occupied eastern zone from the German-occupied western area. The line roughly follows a north-south axis through the French Alps and Provence, extending from the Italian border westward to the Rhône Valley corridor. Figure 6 (Figure) indicates the Italian-occupied part of France between November 1942 and September 1943 extended all the way to the Rhone River, although philatelic evidence suggests otherwise, namely, that the line was further to the east. (see the red line on Figure 6)

 

 

Figure 6. Map of southeastern France showing the putative area Fascist Italy controlled extending to the Rhône Valley corridor versus the actual area they controlled indicated by the red line; proof of this comes from letters censored by occupying forces, in other words philatelic evidence

 

So much for the background. Let me move now to the question of how the Italian occupation of southeastern France affected Jews. 

The Italian occupation government was far less severe than that of Vichy France. After France’s fall in June 1940, Nice was in the “demilitarized zone” of France which as mentioned above extended 50km from the Italian Alpine Wall. It provided a safe haven for Jewish refugees from Vichy’s anti-Jewish laws. Also, as mentioned, after the Allies invaded North Africa in 1942, the Germans invaded the “zone libre” of southern France in November 1942. This caused many thousands of Jews to seek refuge in the Italian-occupied zone of France between November 1942 and September 1943, as Italian authorities refused to deport them and often shielded them from Nazi. Exact numbers vary but it is estimated that nearly 80 percent of the remaining 300,000 French Jews took refuge in the Italian-occupied zone, saving many thousands from deportation. 

Though Mussolini was far from altruistic, he refrained from collaborating with Vichy and refused to persecute Jews or enforce yellow star badges. Mussolini did not share Hitler’s views on the “Jewish problem,” possibly influenced by his Jewish mistress, Margherita Sarfatti. 

Apparently, an Italian Jewish banker named Angelo Donati also played a vital role in convincing Italian civil and military authorities to protect Jews from French persecution in Nice. Curious about this, I happened upon a 2014 Bachelor’s Degree Thesis written by a Ms. Maria Teresa Nisticò from LUISS Guido Carli, a private university in Rome, explaining Angelo Donati’s role. 

Quoting: “Jewish are coming to Nice from everywhere: they know they have different perspective (sic) over there. In particular they have an important man, the Italian banker Angelo Donati, that devoted its (sic) life to realize the objective of saving all the Jewish that were living in Nice. He organized a committee that welcomed the Jewish arriving in Nice and helped them when Vichy officials were trying to arrest them. The main activity of such a committee was to create fake documents for the persecuted; documents where at least the word Jewish was absent. Donati was a (sic) honoured man: he played a decisive role in connecting the French and the Italian army during the First World War and he obtained the ‘Legion d’Honneur’ in France. Being smart, full of energy, without a Jewish surname and prestigious, neither Vichy nor Berlin were aware of its (sic) activity.” 

Once again, this speaks to the strength of individual courage and ingenuity in times of unspeakable horror. 

In any case, thanks to the fearlessness of people such as Angelo Donati, in January 1943, the Italians refused to cooperate with the Nazis in rounding up Jews in their occupied territory and even prevented German deportations from their zone in March. Although the Italians did not cooperate in deportations, they did intern some Jews in camps to keep them under surveillance; this had the effect of keeping many safe at least until the Italian surrender to the Allies in September 1943. This led the German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop complaining to Mussolini about Italian military circles’ insufficient understanding of the “Jewish question.” 

However, shortly after Italy signed the Armistice of Cassibile with the Allies on September 3, 1943, Nazi forces seized control of the Italian zone. The SS official responsible for Jewish affairs, Alois Brunner, Adolf Eichmann’s top aide, established his headquarters at the Hotel Excelsior several days later. This marked the start of a frightful crackdown on the Jewish population. SS officers systematically patrolled the city, arresting anyone who appeared Jewish, including those in mixed marriages, of certain nationalities, children, elderly, and invalid individuals. These individuals were interrogated at the Excelsior Hotel and subsequently deported to death camps from a nearby train station. The plaque today posted outside the hotel reads as follows: 

“During the German occupation of Nice from September 1943 to August 1944, more than 3,000 Jews including 264 children were arrested in the Alpes-Maritimes, Basses-Alpes and the principality of Monaco and deported by the Gestapo in application of Nazi anti-Semitic ideology. 

Before being transferred by rail to the Drancy camp near Paris from where they were sent to the Auschwitz extermination camp, the victims had been interned in the Excelsior hotel, which became an annex to the Drancy camp and was requisitioned by the Germans because of its proximity to Nice station.” 

As a related side note, Alois Brunner, who it is estimated orchestrated the deportation of 23,500 Jews from France to death camps, remained one of the top Nazis who evaded capture after the war. He lived freely and reportedly passed away in Damascus around 2010. 

So much for the lengthy discussion on the geopolitical situation in southeastern France during the periods of Italian occupation of the area during the Second World War. 

Nice was liberated from Nazi occupation on August 28, 1944, meaning that from roughly September 3, 1943, signing date of the “Armistice of Cassibile,” onwards until almost the end of August 1944, Nice and other previously Italian-occupied parts of France were controlled by the Nazis. How my Jewish relatives survived in Nice under Nazi rule for almost a year remains an enduring mystery. 

Let me briefly talk about my father’s beloved sister, Suzanne Müller, née Bruck (1904-1942), who did not survive the Holocaust. She and her husband, Dr. Franz Müller (1871-1945), were caught up in the expulsion of non-Italian Jews from Italy in September-October 1938. My aunt’s husband, 33 years older than her had two children from his first marriage. His married daughter, roughly the same age as my aunt, had a brother-in-law who owned a fruit farm in a small town in Fayence, France in the Var Department. When my aunt and uncle left Fiesole, Italy in 1938, they immigrated there. My aunt and the owner of fruit farm were arrested by the Vichy French on August 24, 1942, and murdered in Auschwitz. While I’m always hesitant to engage in “what ifs,” I wonder whether they might have survived had they relocated to Nice in the Italian-occupied part of France, roughly 42 miles east? (Figure 7)

 

Figure 7. Map showing the distance from Fayence, France, where my aunt was arrested on August 24, 1942 by the Vichy French, to Nice 

 

One final thing before I conclude this post. My wife and I just returned from Paris where the three surviving artworks painted by Fedor Loewenstein, my father’s first cousin, confiscated by the Nazis in December 1940, that are now in my possession are on display at the Musée d’Art et d’Histoire du Judaïsme (MAHJ) to whom I’ve loaned them. In connection with interpretive materials developed for this exhibit, I learned about the so-called Vel’ d’Hiv roundup. This was a mass arrest of more than 13,000 Jews that took place in Paris on 16-17 July 1942, by the Vichy French police at the behest of the German occupational authorities. This was roughly a month before my aunt Suzanne was arrested in the “zone libre” of France also by the Vichy French. While I can pretend to understand how the Vichy French would collaborate in the area they had administrative control over, I was flummoxed to learn they would also assist the Nazis in areas they did not administratively control. 

This speaks to the true extent of French collaboration with the Nazis in the extermination of Jewish people during the Second World War. On a more personal level, it speaks to the complex relationship my family has with France, a legacy that transcends the tragedy that befell my own aunt. In a few years after I’m done loaning the three Fédor Löwenstein paintings now in my possession to various French museums, I will be forced to confront this dark history in deciding what to do with the artworks, whether to donate them to a French museum or bring them to the United States where Fédor wanted them to come in 1940. 

REFERENCES 

Byron, H. (2024, January 19). The French Riviera under Italian Rule During WW2. Heroine Journey Fiction.

The French Riviera under Italian Rule during WW2 — HANNAH BYRON

“Italian occupation of France.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, Wikimedia Foundation,

Italian occupation of France – Wikipedia

“Italian irredentism.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 1 March 2026.

Italian irredentism – Wikipedia

“Italian irredentism in Nice.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 8 November 2025.

Italian irredentism in Nice – Wikipedia

Nistico, M. T. (2013/2014). Beyond GDP: exploring models and indicators of well-being. [Bachelor’s Degree Thesis, LUISS Guido Carli]. Bachelor’s Degree Program>Bachelor’s Degree Program in Political Science.

frajese-mariapaola-sintesi-2014.pdf

POST 197: THE HISTORY OF FÉDOR LÖWENSTEIN’S SURVIVING CONFISCATED PAINTINGS

Note: Following the restitution of Fédor Löwenstein’s three surviving Nazi-confiscated paintings to me, the Centre Pompidou’s Musee National d’Art Moderne (MNAM) sent me a dossier with documents about their history. In this post, I highlight some of the findings about the paintings’ dramatic and involved past and explain how an archivist and curator discovered they were looted art. 

Related Posts: 

POST 105: FEDOR LÖWENSTEIN’S NAZI-CONFISCATED ART: RESTITUTION DENIED 

POST 137: MY FATHER’S FIRST COUSIN HEINZ LÖWENSTEIN: DISCOVERING HIS WHEREABOUTS DURING WORLD WAR II

POST 137, POSTSCRIPT-MY FATHER’S FIRST COUSIN HEINZ LÖWENSTEIN, DISCOVERING HIS WHEREABOUTS DURING WWII—ADDITIONAL FINDINGS

POST 160: UPDATE ON COMPENSATION CLAIM AGAINST THE FRENCH MINISTRY OF CULTURE INVOLVING NAZI-CONFISCATED FAMILY ART 

POST 162: FEDOR LÖWENSTEIN’S CORRESPONDENCE WITH MARCELLE RIVIER, HIS ONETIME GIRLFRIEND 

POST 163: THE WARTIME ESCAPADES OF HEINZ LÖWENSTEIN, FEDOR LÖWENSTEIN’S BROTHER 

POST 163, POSTSCRIPT: THE WARTIME ESCAPADES OF HEINZ LÖWENSTEIN, FEDOR LÖWENSTEIN’S BROTHER: FURTHER FINDINGS 

POST 181: JOE POWELL, ESCAPEE FROM A GERMAN STALAG WITH MY FATHER’S FIRST COUSIN HEINZ LÖWENSTEIN 

POST 189: CEREMONY FOR THE RESTITUTION OF THREE PAINTINGS LOOTED FROM MY FATHER’S COUSIN FÉDOR LÖWENSTEIN DURING THE SECOND WORLD WAR: SEPTEMBER 16, 2025 

POST 189, POSTSCRIPT: CEREMONY FOR THE RESTITUTION OF THREE PAINTINGS LOOTED FROM MY FATHER’S COUSIN FÉDOR LÖWENSTEIN DURING THE SECOND WORLD WAR: SEPTEMBER 16, 2025 (CLARIFICATION) 

POST 194: BRINGING TOGETHER FORENSIC GENEALOGY & ARCHAEOLOGY TO THE STUDY OF MY FATHER’S FIRST COUSIN HEINZ LÖWENSTEIN’S ESCAPE FROM A GERMAN STALAG

 

Inasmuch as great art should ever belong to a single individual, the three paintings confiscated by the Nazis at the Port of Bordeaux on December 5, 1940, from my father’s first cousin Fédor Löwenstein that survived their destructive onslaught are now mine. In Post 189, I discussed the Restitution Ceremony that took place at the Centre Pompidou in Paris on September 16, 2025, where the formal turnover of the paintings took place, an event eleven years in the making. (Figure 1)

 

Figure 1. Mme. Christelle Creff, Head of the Museums of France Department, and me signing the “Discharge Agreement” handing over official title of Fédor Löwenstein’s three surviving paintings (photo credit: Damien Carles/SIPA Press)

 

Following the handover, Dr. Camille Morando, the person at the Centre Pompidou responsible for the documentation of the museum’s collections, sent me a digital file with documents detailing the history of the three paintings. Being a nerd for this type of information, I spent some time reviewing and making sense of it. Most of it is written in French, a language I’m reasonably fluent in. I thought I would share with readers insights and findings from the portfolio.

First, let me review some of what is known about Fédor Löwenstein. (Figure 2) Readers are referred to earlier posts for more detail. Though born in 1901 in Munich, Germany, he is typically referred as a Czechoslovakian artist because his father’s family hailed from there and he held Czechoslovak nationality. Since his two younger siblings were born in Danzig, Germany (today: Gdańsk, Poland), respectively, in 1902 and 1905, Fédor likely never lived in Czechoslovakia. Regardless, there is no question he felt an affinity for his father’s homeland.

 

Figure 2. The artist Fédor Löwenstein (1901-1946) (photo credit: Damien Carles/SIPA Press)

 

The Munich Agreement of 1938, a pact between Germany, Great Britain, France, and Italy, that allowed Germany to annex the Sudetenland, a German-speaking border region of Czechoslovakia, was intended to prevent a war. It failed. Following the pact, Fédor painted “La Chute,” The Fall (Figure 3), in the style of Picasso’s Guernica. This iconic work reflected his anguish at the betrayal of Czechoslovakia.

 

Figure 3. Fédor Löwenstein’s painting “La Chute” (The Fall), marking the dismantling of Czechoslovakia because of the Munich Agreement

 

Fédor studied at “L’ecole des arts decoratif de Berlin” (School of Decorative Arts in Berlin) then at “l’Academie des Beaux-Arts de Dresde” (Academy of Fine Arts in Dresden). In 1923 he moved to France where he spent the remainder of his life. Fédor Löwenstein was one of many Czechoslovak artists who lived and worked in Paris during what was known as the First Czechoslovak Republic that existed from 1918 to 1938. 

Following his arrival in Paris, Fédor started exhibiting at the Autumn Salon in the mid-1920s, first under the name of Fédor Lovest, of Czech nationality, then later as Fédor Loevenstein of Czechoslovakia. He mostly exhibited still lifes, though in 1927 and 1933, he added paintings of nudes. 

The fact that Fédor painted nudes is personally intriguing. Let me explain. Between the 1950s and 1980s, my parents would regularly visit Nice, France, where Fédor Löwenstein died in 1946, but where Fédor’s younger sister, Jeanne “Hansi” Goff, née Löwenstein, lived until her death in 1986. (Figure 4) During one of those visits, Hansi gave my father a pastel of a nude that to this day hangs in my mother’s bedroom. The work is framed so the signature is concealed, but it is logical to consider it might have been drawn by Fédor. One day, I intend to find out.

 

Figure 4. My parents visiting Fédor Löwenstein’s sister, Hansi Goff, née Löwenstein, in her apartment in Nice, France in October 1981

 

With his closest friends among the Czechoslovak artists, he regularly displayed his paintings between 1936-1938 with this group. His French friends included Robert and Sonia Delaunay, as well as students from the circle of his mentor André Lhote. Lhote ran a summer art academy in the medieval hilltop village of Mirmande in the Drôme department of southeastern France, where Fedor spent time in 1935 and 1938, then again later as discussed below. 

The Nazis captured France in about six weeks (10 May- 25 June 1940) during the Battle of France, starting with the invasion on May 10, 1940, and culminating with the fall of Paris on June 14. This was followed by the signing of an armistice on June 22, 1940, which effectively divided and occupied the country. This resulted in the establishment in the south of the so-called “Free Zone,” the collaborationist Vichy French government led by Marshal Philippe Petain. 

Shortly before the occupation of Paris, on the advice of Marcelle Rivier, one of Lhote’s students since 1928 and later Fédor’s lover (Figure 5), he relocated to Mirmande in the Free Zone. However, before leaving, Fédor made a final attempt to ship twenty-five of his canvases by boat from the Port of Bordeaux. They were destined for an exhibition at the Nierendorf Gallery in New York. They never made it there as I’ll explain.

 

Figure 5. Marcelle Rivier and Fédor Löwenstein with Fédor’s mother, my great-aunt Hedwig Löwenstein, née Bruck

 

Fédor’s works are characterized as a blend of Cubism and abstract art. A 2014 catalog accompanying an exhibition in Bordeaux of three of his surviving works ponders the question whether the ongoing war was responsible for the evolution of Fédor’s painting style or whether the war accelerated a development already in process. Regardless, two of Löwenstein’s supporters from the Paris art scene, Robert Delaunay and André Lhote, are quoted in “Ce Soir” in 1937 characterizing him as “one of the most inspiring abstract painters.” (Pravdova 2016: p. 60, footnote 6) 

In Mirmande Fédor continued working in difficult conditions. Then, on November 11, 1942, German troops occupied Vichy France in Operation Case Anton. No longer safe in Mirmande, in early 1943, disguised as a peasant woman and with the help of Marcelle Rivier and other members of the French Resistance, he was taken to Notre-Dame d’Aiguebelle Abbey, a Trappist monastery located 50km south of Mirmande. Concealed Jews were put to work there on various maintenance tasks related to upkeep of the monastery. In Löwenstein’s case, he painted tiles, a task for which he had no enthusiasm and was ill-suited. He eventually escaped from a work party he’d been assigned to and returned to Mirmande in Spring 1943, obviously feeling it was safe again. 

By Fall 1943, Fédor was sick with an unknown ailment. He secretly traveled to Paris to consult a renowned hematologist at the Curie Institute using the pseudonym “Lauriston.” His condition remained undiagnosed and he continued to deteriorate. He seemed largely unconcerned with being arrested while in Paris because of his fluency in French and the fact that he was discrete about his Jewish background. In truth, he appears to have traveled to Paris several times during the Nazi occupation. 

An article included in the dossier given to me by Dr. Morando is the catalog mentioned above that was written for an exposition at the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Bordeaux (Figure 6) in 2014 in which Löwenstein’s three martyred works were featured. It includes an intriguing footnote (number 24) suggesting Fédor used the pseudonym “Lauriston” as a cynical poke at the Gestapo since they had their Paris headquarters at “93 de la rue Lauriston.”

 

Figure 6. Cover page of the 2014 exhibition catalog from the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Bordeaux that featured Fédor Löwenstein’s three orphaned paintings

 

Family pictures I obtained in 2014 from the archives of the Stadtmuseum in Spandau, located outside Berlin, where the personal papers of two of Fédor’s aunts are archived, were taken in Nice. Given his declining health, it is clear he’d decided to spend his final days with his family there. The pictures were taken after the war ended because his youngest brother Heinz, who spent the entire war imprisoned or escaping from German stalags and was liberated sometime between March and May 1945, appears alongside Fédor in the postwar images. (Figures 7-8) Regular followers will recall the multiple posts I’ve written about Fédor’s brother Heinz. (Post 137; Post 137, Postscript; Post 163; Post 163, Postscript; Post 181; Post 194)

 

Figure 7. March 1946 photo of Fédor Löwenstein (seated) with his sister Hansi, his brother Heinz, and his mother Hedwig in Nice, France, several months before his death in August 1946

 

 

Figure 8. Photo of Fédor Löwenstein with his brother Heinz in military uniform taken in Nice, France on the 24th of October 1945

 

Fédor died in Nice on August 4, 1946, of Hodgkin lymphoma and was buried in the Cimetière Caucade. His mother passed away in 1949 and was entombed alongside her son. While their graves were eventually “evacuated” after the family stopped making payments required to keep them interred, their respective headstones survive as reminders of their existence. (Figure 9)

 

Figure 9. Hedwig and Fédor Löwenstein’s surviving headstones in the Cimetière Caucade in Nice, France

 

Included in the dossier that Dr. Morando sent me is the first page of a letter that was written to Mme. Sonia Delaunay on August 21, 1946, following Fedor’s death.  Recall the Delaunays were friends and supporters of his from his days in Paris. Written by someone named “Ullmann,” the person told Mme. Delaunay that Fédor had passed away and wrote that “Je perds un ami et le monde un artiste dont la valeur sera peut-etre un jour reconnue.” Translated, “I lose a friend and the world an artist whose importance may one day be recognized.” This day has finally arrived. 

With the above as background, having woven in historical events with findings from the file sent by Dr. Morando, let me briefly chronicle the paintings’ journey as documented in the dossier. 

The Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg (ERR), the “Special Task Force” headed by Adolf Hitler’s leading ideologue Alfred Rosenberg, was one of the main Nazi agencies engaged in the plunder of cultural valuables in Nazi-occupied countries during the Second World War. A particularly notorious operation by the ERR was the seizure of art from French Jewish and a number of Belgian collections from 1940 to 1944. The plunder was brought to the Jeu de Paume building in the Tuileries Gardens in Paris for processing by the ERR’s “Special Staff for Pictorial Art,” the so-called the Sonderstab Bildende Kunst. 

The twenty-five pieces of art Fédor Löwenstein tried to ship to New York on the eve of Germany’s capture of Paris are recorded as having been seized by the ERR at Hanger H at the Port of Bordeaux on December 5, 1940. Fedor had a premonition they would never arrive, a concern he expressed in writing to his girlfriend Marcelle Rivier. Following their seizure Fédor’s artworks were sent to the Jeu de Paume. (Figure 10)

 

Figure 10. Plan view of the fifteen rooms at the Jeu de Paume, including room 15, “salle des martyrs”

 

At the Jeu de Paume, the paintings were relegated to the so-called “salle des martyrs,” a space where works rejected by Nazi esthetics of the time, “degenerate art” as they were referred to, were stored pending destruction. The fact that this fate awaited the three paintings I recovered in September 2025 is evidenced by the large red crosses chalked across their surfaces. They were slated to be “vernichtet,” destroyed. And yet, by some miracle, three of Löwenstein’s paintings confiscated in 1940 survived. 

The documentation on the three Löwenstein paintings suggests that after being shuttled back and forth between the Louvre and the Jeu de Paume during the Nazi era, they wound up at the Louvre where they languished for many years. The many moves between the Louvre and the Jeu de Paume occurred for various reasons including the obsession by the Nazis to remove or destroy the degenerate art before a planned visit to the Jeu de Paume by Nazi dignitaries. It is well known that the space of the Jeu de Paume was rehung to highlight artworks for high-ranking Nazis who would regularly visit to “shop.” Hermann Göring, for example, one of the most powerful figures in the Nazi Party, is known to have visited the Jeu de Paume twenty times between November 1940 and November 1942 to select paintings for his personal collection. (Figure 11)

 

Figure 11. Hermann Göring on one of his multiple visits to the Jeu de Paume to “shop” for paintings for his personal collection

 

Some paintings considered to be degenerate were not destroyed because they could be traded to dealers or collectors for works more in line with the Nazi aesthetic. As Prévet & Thierry note, “These works, whose style was disapproved of by Nazi aesthetics, were often preserved only because of their market value and the possibilities they offered for exchange with older works that conformed more closely to official aesthetics.” (2012:34) 

In any case, this is likely how many works of unknown provenance wound up in the Louvre. 

The status of Löwenstein’s paintings was not “legally” resolved until 1973. Through administrative machinations, they were officially added to the modern art collections of the National Museum of Modern Art (Musee National d’Art Moderne) as an “anonymous donation.” Shortly before the museum’s relocation in 1977, the paintings were moved to the reserves of the Centre Pompidou where my wife and I first saw them in 2024. (Figure 12)

 

Figure 12. In April 2024, Christian Briend (Head Curator), my wife Ann Finan, my lawyer Caroline Gaffodio, and David Zivie (Minister of Culture) visiting the reserves of the Centre Pompidou where Fédor Löwenstein’s three martyred artworks were then stored

 

The identification of the three paintings, now mine, Les Arbres, Composition, and Les Peupliers, as looted art did not take place until December 2010. This was thanks to the work of archivists and curators, namely, Alain Prévet, head of the Archives of the National Museums, and Thierry Bajou, chief curator of artifacts of the French Museums. It is worth briefly relating how these two men were able to recognize Löwenstein’s paintings as looted art. 

As Didier Schulmann, former Director of the Kandinsky Library at the Centre Pompidou (Figure 13), wrote in 2012, it was a case of the “purloined letter syndrome,” based on Edgar Allan Poe’s short story of the same name, where the answer was right in front of people. (Schulmann 2012: 29).

 

Figure 13. In September 2025, Didier Schulmann, former Director of the Centre Pompidou’s Kandinsky Library

 

Preserved in the Archives of the National Museum are thirteen negatives showing views of the rooms at the Jeu de Paume taken during the Nazi occupation exhibiting numerous pieces of art seized by the ERR; these include two negatives specifically showing the “salle des martyrs” (Figures 14-15) where the works deemed degenerate were hung. Using these negatives, Prévet & Bajou describe the process they followed:

 

Figure 14. View 1 of the Jeu de Paume’s “salle des martyrs” (ERR photograph)

 

 

Figure 15. View 2 of the Jeu de Paume’s “salle des martyrs” (ERR photograph)

 

“This work initially involved a detailed digitization of the negatives, work by work. Each operation was accompanied by specific brightness adjustments to optimize the legibility of each artwork. Next, we performed an anamorphosis (Figure 16) to correct the distortions related to perspective. From this stage, it was then possible to identify a number of works and confirm attributions suggested elsewhere.”

 

Figure 16. From the French Minister of Culture’s “POP” website showing the correction using anamorphosis on Fédor Löwenstein’s “Composition” painting

 

Next, they referred to a list that the noted art historian Rose Valland recorded in her notebook on March 10, 1942 (Figure 17), of modern art displayed in the Jeu de Paume on this date. It was the translation of a list drawn up by the German authorities that provided a brief description of the pieces of art with dimensions and the name of the owners from whom the artworks had been confiscated. Ironically, while this list was known to historians, astonishingly no one had ever cross referenced it with the photographs of the Jeu de Paume. Ergo, Didier Schulmann’s remark cited above of the “purloined letter syndrome.”

 

Figure 17. Extract from historian Rose Valland’s notebook dated March 10, 1942, listing eleven paintings in the “Löwenstein collection”; Rose mistakenly thought he was a collector rather than a painter

 

Prévet & Bajou continue: 

“We also used a website recently launched by a team of American researchers led by Marc Masurovski, which reproduces all the records compiled by the ERR during the looting. This website provides a directory of the looted individuals and the works that passed through the Jeu de Paume, enriched with photographs of the seized works, when available, taken by ERR agents. We found most of the works visible on the negatives there, but some of them, now identified, remain known only through these negatives when they were not specifically photographed by the Germans. 

This is how we were able to identify works by Fédor Löwenstein, whose works were looted in December 1940 in Bordeaux. In a list from March 1942, Rose Valland enumerates eleven of the twenty-five works looted from the artist (six watercolors being grouped together as one lot) (see Figure 17), and she mentions two others, around 1944, not explicitly in the ‘Aulnay train,’ but at least remaining in Paris. At least two canvases are visible in one of the photographs, but had never been linked to this artist, particularly because the Germans intended to destroy them. [EDITOR’S NOTE: These paintings correspond to “La Ville Moderne” and an untitled work (see discussion and figures below)] 

The connection between visible works and those of a little-known artist, believed to have been destroyed according to the ERR (Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg) records, was made possible in part by a preliminary study of Löwenstein ‘s style, some of whose works appear similar to those of Paul Klee, but also by comparing the works still to be identified with those of Löwenstein listed in the ERR records. Comparing our hypotheses with the online catalog of the National Museum of Modern Art (MNAM) allowed us to find mention of three works by this artist (Figure 18), which were not illustrated at the time, one of which was clearly visible in one of the two photographs of the ‘room of martyrs.’” (2012: 34-35) [EDITOR’S NOTE: The visible painting was Fédor Löwenstein’s Composition] (Figure 19)

 

Figure 18. 1973 inventory page from the MNAM database listing Fédor Löwenstein’s three paintings among their holdings at the time

 

Figure 19. View of the “salle des martyrs” highlighting Fédor Löwenstein’s “Composition” hanging there

 

Let me make a few observations related to the above. 

The address of the website which reproduces all the records compiled by the ERR during the looting is: http://www.errproject.org/jeudepaume

The so-called “Aulnay train” was a train loaded with looted art the Germans had designated for urgent shipment on August 2, 1944, from Paris as the city was about to fall to Allied troops (i.e., the Allies liberated Paris on August 25, 1944). It was supposed to be the last shipment, but alerted by Rose Valland, the Societe nationale des chemins de fer francais (SNCF), the National Company of the French Railways, blocked the train on August 27 at the train station of Aulnay-sous-Bois; as a result many of the artworks the train contained were restored to their rightful owners. None of Löwenstein’s works, however, were aboard this train since the Germans had already decided to destroy them. As a related aside, none of Löwenstein’s artworks was individually photographed by the Germans, likely for the same reason that the Germans intended to destroy his works. 

Based on a comment in Rose Valland’s notebook, footnote number 40 in the catalog accompanying the 2014 Löwenstein exhibit in Bordeaux implies Rose Valland didn’t realize Löwenstein was a painter but rather thought he was a collector. (see Fédor Löwenstein (1901-1946), trois œuvres martyres (exh. cat)) 

Two of the Löwenstein’s paintings show “signs of laceration along the edges, where they were torn from their stretchers.” (Ministère de la Culture 2025) Documentation in the MNAM dossier sent by Dr. Morando indicates these edges have been repaired. However, since the red crosses bear witness to the “dramatic marks of history,” their “stigmata” remain. (Ministère de la Culture 2025) (Figure 20)

 

Figure 20. Fédor Löwenstein’s “Composition” painting with a large “X” scrawled across the canvas indicating it was to be “vernichtet,” destroyed (photo credit: Damien Carles/SIPA Press)

 

The Löwenstein painting Prévet & Bajou refer to as clearly visible in one of the ERR photos of the “salle des martyrs” is the one titled “Composition (Paysage).” Fascinatingly, it is tucked in a corner alongside works by Georges Braque, Marc Chagall, Pablo Picasso, Marie Laurencin, Fernand Léger, and Henri Matisse. Clearly, lofty company to be grouped with! (see Figure 15) 

To remind readers, I filed my claim with the French Minister of Culture for compensation and restitution of Löwenstein’s artworks in 2014 with Florence Saragoza’s assistance; Florence was the curator of the 2014 exhibit at the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Bordeaux where the martyred works were first shown. The claim mentioned 25 art pieces but over the years I never got a clear answer where this figure came from. A footnote in the French original of the paragraphs quoted above finally provided the answer. The web address to the database developed by Marc Masurovski, cited above, includes the two original pages of the list developed by the ERR listing the names, dates, art medium, and dimensions of the 25 artworks seized from Fédor Löwenstein. (Figures 21a-c) The paintings are catalogued under ERR record numbers Löwenstein 4 (Composition), 15 (Les Peupliers), and 19 (Les Arbres). These correspond to the three paintings I retrieved in September 2025. As readers can see, all 25 of Löwenstein’s listed works were crossed out, and marked “Vernichtet” (“destroyed”), even the three that survived. 

 

Figure 21a. Table 1 in the “ERR Project” database listing “Private French Jewish Collections Processed by the ERR at the Jeu de Paume” with a link to the two pages listing artworks seized by the ERR from Fédor Löwenstein

 

Figure 21b. Page 1 from “ERR Archival Guide, Appendix 1” listing the 25 pieces of art confiscated from Fédor Löwenstein by the Nazi’s ERR taskforce in December 1940

 

 

Figure 21c. Page 2 from “ERR Archival Guide, Appendix 1” listing the 25 pieces of art confiscated from Fédor Löwenstein by the Nazi’s ERR taskforce in December 1940

 

The online catalog of the National Museum of Modern Art cited by Prévet & Bajou (http://collection.centrepompidou.fr.artworks) no longer includes the three Löwenstein paintings in their inventory. 

One last observation about Prévet & Bajou’s discoveries. In the second picture taken by the ERR in the “salle des martyrs,” the curators discovered two other canvases in Löwenstein’s style, the first corresponds to the painting entitled “La Ville Moderne,” the Modern City (Figure 22), the second is untitled because too little of it is visible. (Figure 23)

 

 

Figure 22a. Fédor Löwenstein’s painting titled “La Ville Moderne,” The Modern City, seen in the “salle des martyrs,” which has disappeared and is presumed to have been destroyed

 

Figure 22b. Page from the French Minister of Culture’s “POP” website about Fédor Löwenstein’s “La Ville Moderne”

 

Figure 23. A fragment of an untitled work from the “salle des martyrs” believed to have been painted by Fédor Löwenstein and destroyed by the Nazis

 

Alain Prévet recounts the astonishing discovery: “No one had recognized the Löwensteins before. It was through studying the negatives of these two images, preserved in the archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, that we were able to identify them.” 

Once Löwenstein’s three paintings were positively identified as looted works, they were removed from the inventory of the MNAM (Musee National d’Art Moderne) in 2011 and transferred to the register of artworks confiscated by the Nazis, called the MNR (Musée Nationaux Recuperation) pending their return to heirs. Since their restitution in September 2025, they have now been removed from the MNR database. (Figures 24a-b)

 

Figure 24a. Left side page of MNR database showing the removal of the three Löwenstein paintings from their inventory
Figure 24b. Right side page of MNR database showing the removal of the three Löwenstein paintings from their inventory and the date of their restitution to me

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Briefly, some history on the MNR. At the end of the Second World War, roughly 61,000 artworks looted from French territory were recovered in Germany and returned to France. About three-quarters of them were restored to their rightful owners, 13,000 were sold by the French state, and roughly 2,200 were placed under the care of national museums, often regional institutions. Legally, the French state is only a temporary custodian of these works. As such, they are not considered part of the permanent public collections of France’s national museums. This latter group, made up of approximately 2,200 artworks as just stated, are referred to by the acronym MNR, Musée Nationaux Recuperation. The MNR designation signals a complex history. At the MNAM, where these three surviving Löwenstein paintings resided until Prévet & Bajou came along were labeled as R26P (Les Peupliers), R27P (Les Arbres), and R28P (Composition), not by MNR numbers since they were only recognized as looted works in 2010. 

It is pointless to imagine how well-known Fédor Löwenstein might have become during his life if circumstances had been different. However, in an article written in 2016 by Anna Pravdova, entitled “Vernichtet! Three rescued paintings by Fédor Löwenstein,” published in the “Bulletin of the National Gallery in Prague,” she notes an intriguing fact. Following his death, the property of the Nierendorf Gallery in New York, where Fédor had intended his consignment of 25 paintings to be shipped, was purchased in its entirety by the Guggenheim Museum. It’s enormously satisfying that by dint of owning Fédor’s surviving paintings, I am playing a role in helping my ancestor gain the recognition he never obtained in life, even though his artworks may never hang in the Guggenheim. 

REFERENCES 

Löwenstein, Fédor. Fédor Löwenstein (exh. cat.), 1962, Gallerie Blumenthal, Paris. (includes André Lhote quote from Ce Soir, Nov. 27, 1937) 

Löwenstein, Fédor. Fédor Löwenstein (1901-1946), trois œuvres martyres (exh. cat), 15 Mai-24 Août 2014, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Bordeaux. 

Ministère de la Culture. (2025, September 16). Tracking the ghost paintings of Fédor Löwenstein, lost to Nazi looting. [Press release]. 

Pravdová, A. (2016). Vernichtet! Three rescued paintings by Fédor Löwenstein. Bulletin of the National Gallery in Prague, XXVI, 55-60. 

Prévet, A, Bajou, T. La récente identification de tableaux spoliés à l’artiste Fédor Löwenstein, in Florence Saragoza (ed.), L’Art victime de la guerre. Destin des œuvres d’art en Aquitaine pendant la Seconde Guerre mondiale, Bordeaux, 2012, p. 33-35. 

Saragoza, F. (ed.) (2012). L’Art victime de la guerre. Destin des œuvres d’art en Aquitaine pendant la Seconde Guerre mondiale, Bordeaux. 

Schulmann, Didier. (2012). Fédor Löwenstein, le pillage et la liquidation des ateliers des artistas juifs pendant l’occupation, in Saragoza (ed.), in Florence Saragoza (ed.), L’Art victime de la guerre. Destin des œuvres d’art en Aquitaine pendant la Seconde Guerre mondiale, Bordeaux, 2012, p. 29-32.

 

POST 105: FEDOR LÖWENSTEIN’S NAZI-CONFISCATED ART: RESTITUTION DENIED

Note: In this post, I discuss my own attempt to obtain compensation and damages from the French government on behalf of my family for works of art seized by the Nazis in December 1940 from my father’s first cousin, Fedor Löwenstein, a noted painter. I also touch on the multiple occasions France has wronged my family during WWII, following WWII, and continuing to the present.

Related Posts:

POST 15: BERLIN & MY GREAT-AUNTS FRANZISKA & ELSBETH BRUCK

POST 16: TRACKING MY GREAT-AUNT HEDWIG LÖWENSTEIN, NÉE BRUCK, & HER FAMILY THROUGH FIVE COUNTRIES

POST 71: A DAY IN THE LIFE OF MY FATHER, DR. OTTO BRUCK–22ND OF AUGUST 1930

 

Figure 1. My great-aunt Franziska Bruck (1866-1942)
Figure 2. My great-aunt Elsbeth Bruck (1874-1970)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This story begins in 2014. This is the year my wife and I took a 13-week trip to Europe traveling from northeastern Poland to southeastern Spain following the path of my Jewish family’s diaspora. It included a stop at the Stadtmuseum in Spandau, on the outskirts of Berlin, where the personal papers of two of my accomplished and unmarried great-aunts, Franziska Bruck (Figure 1) and Elsbeth Bruck (Figure 2), are archived. The family items at the Statdtmuseum include academic papers, diaries, numerous professional and personal letters, family photographs, awards, and miscellaneous belongings. (Figures 3a-b) During my visit, I photographed all the articles and artifacts for later study.

 

Figure 3a. Entrance to the Stadtmuseum in Spandau, Berlin, Germany where my great-aunts’ personal papers are archived
Figure 3b. Archival boxes at the Stadtmuseum containing my great-aunts’ personal papers

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The letters and photographs turned out to be most informative. The letters were written in four forms, Old German Script (known as die Kurrentschrift or Kurrent for short in German); an updated version of Kurrent called Sütterlin developed in the early 20th Century; normal German script (deutsche Normalschrift); and typed normal German. Suffice it to say, that the three forms of German script are completely indecipherable to me, so I depended on German-speaking friends and relatives to translate these letters. However, in the case of letters typed in German, using a good on-line translator, called DeepL, I was able to make sense of the content of some of these missives.

One letter I translated provides the basis of much of this Blog post. (Figures 4a-c) It contains astonishing information that led to the seven-year odyssey I embarked upon to obtain redress from the French government for an injustice perpetrated upon my father’s first cousin, Fedor Löwenstein, by the Nazis. The letter was written by Fedor’s younger sister, Jeanne “Hansi” Goff née Löwenstein, to her aunt, my great-aunt, Elsbeth Bruck. It is dated the 30th of October 1946, and was sent from Nice, France to Berlin, Germany. What makes the letter so astounding is not that it mentions both my paternal grandmother ELSE Bruck and my father OTTO Bruck, since both had connections to Nice and France in 1946, but rather to Hansi’s declaration that one of her brother Fedya’s (named Fedor but also called “Fidel”) paintings had sold posthumously in 1946 for 90,000 French Francs. Using a Historic Currency Converter, I determined this would be worth more than $16,000 as of 2015, obviously even more today. Given the enormous amount that one of Fedor Lowenstein’s paintings had fetched in 1946 convinced me that he was no run-of-the-mill painter and that I needed to learn more about him.

 

Figure 4a. First page of typed letter dated the 30th of October 1946 sent by my father’s first cousin, Jeanne “Hansi” Goff née Löwenstein, to her aunt, my great-aunt, Elsbeth Bruck
Figure 4b. Second page of typed letter dated the 30th of October 1946 sent by my father’s first cousin, Jeanne “Hansi” Goff née Löwenstein, to her aunt, my great-aunt, Elsbeth Bruck

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 4c. Translation of letter

 

One place my wife and I visited in 2014 attempting to obtain copies of original death certificates for ancestors who had died in Nice was la Mairie de Nice, City Hall. There, I was able to obtain death certificates not only for Fedor Lowenstein (Figure 5) and his mother, Hedwig Löwenstein née Bruck (Figure 6), but also for his sister, Jeanne Goff née Löwenstein. (Figure 7) I was fortunate to even find Fedor Lowenstein’s name in the death register. In German, his surname was spelled “Löwenstein,” with the “ö,” that’s to say with an umlaugh over the “o,” transcribed in English as “oe”; in the French death register, Fedor’s surname was spelled simply as “Lowenstein” (Figure 8), so I nearly missed finding his name among the 1946 deaths. I would later discover that Fedor’s surname was variously spelled “Lowenstein,” “Löwenstein,” and even “Loevenstein.”

 

Figure 5. Fedor Lowenstein’s death certificate from Nice, France indicating he died there on the 4th of August 1946
Figure 6. Fedor Löwenstein’s mother’s death certificate from Nice, France showing Hedwig Löwenstein née Bruck died there on the 15th of January 1949; the name on her death certificate is “Edwige Bruck”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 7. Fedor Löwenstein’s sister’s death certificate from Nice, France showing Jeanne “Hansi” Goff née Löwenstein died there on the 5th of May 1986; the name on her death certificate is “Jeanne Loewenstein”
Figure 8. Death register listing dated the 5th of August 1946 for Fedor Löwenstein listing his name as “Fedor Lowenstein”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Having obtained the death certificates, I was dispatched to a different administrative office in Nice, le Service Administration Funéraire, the Funeral Administration Office, to locate their tombs. While Fedor’s sister I learned had been cremated, the Funeral Administration Office directed me to the Cimetière Caucade, the Caucade Communal Cemetery (Figure 9), on the outskirts of Nice to find Fedor and Hedwig’s tombstones. (Figures 10-11) It was providential that I was assisted at the Funeral Administration Office by a Mme. Jöelle Saramito (Figure 12), who would later render me a great service.

 

Figure 9. Reception Bureau at Cimitiere Caucade where Fedor Löwenstein and his mother were once interred

 

Figure 10. Hedwig Löwenstein née Bruck’s surviving headstone though her bones were removed to a charnel house
Figure 11. Fedor Loewenstein’s headstone correctly transcribing the “ö” as “oe”; the headstone survives though his bones were also removed to a charnel house

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 12. In 2015, me standing alongside Mme. Jöelle Saramito from Nice’s Funeral Administration Office, who helped track down valuable information about Fedor Löwenstein

 

 

Jeanne Goff née Löwenstein’s translated 1946 letter convinced me her brother was no ordinary painter. Knowing this, I became curious whether I could obtain an obituary from a contemporary newspaper that might lead me to living descendants. Hoping Mme. Saramito might be able to track it down for me, or at least point me in the right direction, I contacted her. What she provided surpassed my expectations.

In what can only be characterized as a fortunate occurrence of serendipity, Mme. Saramito sent me links to several articles about an exposition featuring three of Fedor Löwenstein’s paintings seized by the Nazis that had been displayed at the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Bordeaux. Unbeknownst to my wife and me, this exhibit had taken place there between the 16th of May and the 24th of August 2014, overlapping our extended stay in Europe that year; needless to say, had we known about this exposition, we would have detoured there.

Among the links Mme. Saramito sent me was an article naming the art curator for the exhibition held at the Musée des Beaux-Arts, a lady named Florence Saragoza; the article also mentioned the French government was looking for legitimate family members to whom Fedor Loewenstein’s artworks could be returned.

 

Figure 13. March 1946 photo of Fedor Loewenstein (seated) with his sister Hansi, his brother Heinz, and his mother Hedwig in Nice, France, taken several months before his death in August 1946
Figure 14. Photo of Fedor Loewenstein with his brother Heinz in military uniform taken in Nice, France on the 24th of October 1945

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

While I had several photographs of Fedor Löwenstein with his family in Nice (Figurse 13-14) found at the Stadtmuseum in Spandau, and a copy of his acte de décès, death certificate, obtained from la Mairie de Nice, there was much I did not know about my father’s first cousin. Hoping to learn more, I tried to contact Mme. Saragoza, and quickly discovered she was affiliated with the Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication as a conservatrice du patrimoine, curator of heritage. My initial email to her at the Ministère de la Culture “bounced.” I eventually learned that she was also the then-Director of the Musée Crozatier in le Puy-en-Velay, France (Figure 15), where my subsequent email reached her. I will always remember her response dated the 16th of September 2014, “What a surprise to read your e-mail! (To be honest I cried) . . .I’m so glad to read about someone from Lowenstein’s family!” Logically, Mme. Saragoza had assumed that Fedor’s family had been murdered in the Holocaust, emigrated, or would be unlikely to learn about the exhibition in Bordeaux and the resurfaced paintings. More on this later.

 

Figure 15. Mme. Florence Saragoza, former Director of Musée Crozatier in le Puy-en-Velay, France

 

 

Almost immediately after connecting with Mme. Saragoza, she sent me the Journal d’exposition, the exhibition catalog, for the Fédor Löwenstein (1901-1946) trois œuvres martyres exposition. (Figure 16) Most of Fedor Löwenstein’s biography and the history behind the works of art confiscated by the Nazis is drawn from this reference.

 

Figure 16. Cover page of the 2014 exhibition catalog from the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Bordeaux that featured Fedor Löwenstein’s three orphaned paintings

 

 

Wilhelm Fédor Löwenstein was born in Munich, Germany on the 13th of April 1901, and is often characterized as a Czech painter because this was his family’s country of origin. He first studied at the School of Decorative Arts in Berlin and then at the Academy of Fine Arts in Dresden. In 1923, Fédor Löwenstein settled in Paris (Figures 17a-b), attracted by the artistic influence of the capital. An artistic movement dominated there, designated in 1925 as the École de Paris, the School of Paris; in reality, this name does not refer to any school that really existed, but rather to the École de Paris, which brought together artists who contributed to making Paris the focus of artistic creation between the two world wars. It was in this rich artistic context that Löwenstein painted and drew.

 

Figure 17a. Undated photo of Fedor Löwenstein as a young man
Figure 17b. Back of undated photo of Fedor Löwenstein indicating he was the first cousin of my aunt Susanne Müller-Bruck, my uncle Fedor Bruck, and my father Otto Bruck

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In Paris he mixed with and became a student of the painter André Lhote from Bordeaux and joined the “Groupe des Surindépendants” in 1936. Löwenstein’s early works were marked by the influence of cubism, whose main representatives worked in Paris, although his subsequent productions evolved towards abstraction, probably under the influence of André Lhote. In 1938, he painted “La Chute” (The Fall), inspired by the signing of the Munich Agreement that dismantled the Czechoslovakia that had been created in 1918. As is noted in the 2014 Bordeaux retrospective exhibition catalog, “The composition and iconographic vocabulary of the work are reminiscent of the convulsed and screaming silhouettes of Picasso’s Guernica, exhibited a year earlier in the Spanish Pavilion at the Paris World’s Fair.” The comparison to Picasso’s famed work speaks volumes about Löwenstein’s remarkable talent. 

When France entered the war in September 1939, Löwenstein, like many artists, had to leave the capital. As a foreigner, he had to hide to escape France’s exclusion laws. He went to Mirmande (Drôme) on the advice of Marcelle Rivier, a friend and another of André Lhote’s students. The two artists probably met in Paris shortly before France entered the war. At that time, Mirmande, a village in ruins, welcomed a few painters who lived there. But most of them came there to work alongside André Lhote during his summer academy. The village became a place of refuge for many Parisian artists of foreign origin, all of whom led a relatively peaceful life, free from military operations and repression, contending mostly with the difficulty of obtaining art supplies.

This ended abruptly when the Germans occupied the whole of Metropolitan France in November 1942. Until then, the French Demarcation line marked the boundary between the occupied part of France administered by the German Army in the northern and western part of France and the Zone libre in the south. The suppression of the Demarcation line marked by the invasion of the southern zone by the Germans put an end to the peaceful life the artists in Miramande had enjoyed.  This caused the group gathered there to break up.

From then on, it was the French Resistance network that worked to protect the refugees of Mirmande, thus allowing many Jewish painters to flee. Marcelle Rivier, Fedor Löwenstein’s friend who had enticed him to move there, somewhat amusingly described her involvement in his evacuation in 1943 from Miramande: “That night I put on Lowenstein one of these vast peasant skirts that we wore then and by a night of full moon in this month of February 1943, we left for Cliousclat. . .With his skirt, Lowenstein had the air of a horse disguised and the ground left no other means than to take the traced road. There I entrusted him to Ména Loopuyt, a Dutch painter living in Cliousclat. Charles Caillet had gone by bicycle to the abbey of Aiguebelle to get along with the abbot and gave us an appointment at his house. The next day at midnight, Doctor Debanne disguised the Jews as wounded, and they were taken to Aiguebelle.”

As the exposition catalog goes on to describe, “They [the Jews] were in possession of false identity cards made by Maurice Caillet, the curator of the Valence Museum. In agreement with the bishopric and the superior of the community, the monks of the abbey of Aiguebelle in the Drôme welcomed refugees at the end of 1942 and sheltered Jews whom they employed in the various works of the abbey. Löwenstein decorated tiles without enthusiasm.”

In the fall of 1943, ill, Fedor went to Paris, under the pseudonym of Lauriston, to consult at the Curie Institute and at the Broussais Hospital in the south of Paris, where Dr. Paul Chevallier, a French pioneer in hematology, was practicing. However, his disease was not diagnosed, and he continued to deteriorate. Löwenstein would eventually return to his family in Nice, where he was hospitalized and would die on the 4th of August 1946. It was determined he died of Hodgkins Lymphoma.

Fedor’s association with the “Groupe des Surindépendants” from 1936 onward resulted in him exhibiting regularly with them until the outbreak of WWII. The group even organized a personal exhibition for him in 1939. At some point in 1940 during his stay in Miramande, Fedor returned to Paris where he selected small format works as well as six watercolors that he brought to be shipped to New York City. There is little information about the circumstances surrounding this project, but the paintings were sent to a harbor warehouse in Bordeaux for shipment to an American gallery. Unfortunately, the crates never left Bordeaux but were instead “requisitioned” by German military authorities on the 5th of December 1940, the date of a major seizure operation.

A special commando unit affiliated with the “Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg (ERR)” (Reichsleiter Rosenberg Taskforce) raided the warehouse where Fedor’s crates were stored, seized them, and had them shipped to Paris where they were stored at the “Jeu de Paume.” The ERR was a Nazi Party organization dedicated to appropriating cultural property during WWII and was led by the chief ideologue of the Nazi Party, Alfred Rosenberg, ergo its name. The Jeu de Paume was the seat of ERR’s processing of looted art objects confiscated from Jewish-owned collections.

Owing to the abstract cubist nature of Löwenstein’s works, the ERR staff at the Jeu de Paume deemed them as “degenerate” and consigned them to the store room for condemned art, the “Salles des Martyrs,” Martyrs’ Hall. They were marked for destruction, in German “vernichet.” In total, 25 paintings by Fedor were seized and brought to the Jeu de Paume to be disposed of for ideological reasons.

Almost seventy years after the Liberation of Paris in August 1944 three of the purportedly destroyed Löwenstein paintings resurfaced in French museum collections. French Ministry of Culture officials were able to match the resurrected paintings with information contained in the ERR database for three works labeled by the Germans as Löwenstein 4 (“Paysage” or Landscape), Löwenstein 15 (“Peupliers” or Poplars), and Löwenstein 19 (“Les Arbes” or The Trees). In the official catalogue of unclaimed works and objects of art known as “Musée Nationaux Récupération (MNR),” the works are assigned MNR numbers R26, R27, and R28. These three paintings correspond to Löwenstein’s works of art that were displayed at the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Bordeaux in 2014 for which I would later file a claim for restitution. As an aside, all three paintings were signed “Fedor Loevenstein.” I would later learn from a French reader of my Blog, who purchased several of his works at auction, that Löwenstein also signed some with his initials in reverse, “LF.”

In connection with researching and writing the catalog for the 2014 exhibit of Fedor Löwenstein’s three resurrected paintings, Florence Saragoza and her colleagues uncovered the notes of the curator at the Jeu de Paume, Rose Valland. Her notes from July 20, 1943, confirm the fate of artworks destined for destruction: “Scholz and his team continue to choose from among the paintings in the Louvre’s escrow and stab the paintings they do not want to keep. This is how they destroyed almost all of Masson’s works, all of Dalí’s. The paintings in the Loewenstein, Esmont (sic), M[ichel]-G[eorges] Michel collections are almost all shredded. . .” On July 23rd, she added “The paintings massacred in the Louvre’s sequestration were brought back to the Jeu de Paume. Five or six hundred were burned under German surveillance in the museum garden from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. . . . The paintings that remained in the Louvre were classified by category. . .”. It appears that Löwenstein’s three works that escaped destruction had been classified by the Louvre as “paintings of lesser importance,” while the remaining works were likely stabbed, shredded and/or incinerated.

As a side note, since virtually all the images of Fedor Löwenstein’s paintings as well as the historic images of the Martyrs’ Hall at the Jeu de Paume are copyrighted, I refer readers to the hyperlinks to view photos.

As a mildly interesting aside, Florence Saragoza and her colleagues, using the notes left behind by Rose Valland, then curatorial attaché at the Jeu de Paume, were able to attribute most of the paintings exhibited there. They did this using a detailed digitization of the negatives, work by work, accompanied by anamorphosis. This was a new term to me and is defined as: “. . .a distorted projection requiring the viewer to occupy a specific vantage point, use special devices, or both to view a recognizable image. It is used in painting, photography, sculpture and installation, toys, and film special effects. The word is derived from the Greek prefix ana-, meaning ‘back’ or ‘again’, and the word morphe, meaning ‘shape’ or ‘form.’ Extreme anamorphosis has been used by artists to disguise caricatures, erotic and scatological scenes, and other furtive images from a casual spectator, while revealing an undistorted image to the knowledgeable viewer.” In the case of the historic photos on display in the Martyrs’ Hall, I take this to mean that since the paintings in the photos look somewhat distorted, some digital manipulation was required to identify and attribute the works of art.

As previously mentioned, Fedor Löwenstein’s 25 paintings were seized from État-major administratif du port, hangar H, Bordeaux, the “Port Administration Headquarters, Hanger H, Bordeaux.” They were seized at the same time as a set of Dali’s works were taken from another collector, which were described under the acronym “unbekannt,” “unknown.” This was intended to indicate that the history of the works had been lost during the various transfers from their seizure in Bordeaux to their shipment to Paris, the inventories being drawn up only belatedly by the historians of the ERR. Again quoting from the exhibition catalog, “But the fact that these collections were made anonymous was also part of the ideological policy of the Third Reich, which aimed at cultural appropriation, an affirmation of superiority inscribed in a historical connection and a rewriting of art history.” As in the case of Dali’s works, the provenance of the three orphan paintings by Löwenstein was lost and they were described as having been donated anonymously in 1973. Only in 2011 were they were reclassified as stolen works. This brings me to where things stood when I learned all the above.

Soon after connecting with Florence Saragoza, she asked me whether I wanted to file a claim with the Commission pour l’indemnisation des victimes de spoliations (CIVS) for the return of Fedor Löwenstein’s three orphan paintings, as well as payment of damages. CIVS is the commission established in 1999 under the French Prime Minister to implement the policy of the State regarding the reparation of the damages suffered by the Jews of France whose property was looted during the Occupation, because of the anti-Semitic measures taken by the German occupier or by the Vichy regime. This seemed like a logical next step. Given my intimate familiarity with my father and his first cousins’ family tree, I immediately realized that I am Fedor’s closest living relative. (Figure 18) That’s to say, because neither Fedor nor either of his two siblings had any children or surviving spouses, as a first cousin once removed, I am their closest surviving blood relative.

 

Figure 18. My father Dr. Otto Bruck (1907-1994) standing alongside his first cousin and the sister of Fedor Löwenstein, Jeanne “Hansi” Goff née Löwenstein, on the 2nd of March 1947 in Fayence, France, the town from where my aunt Susanne Müller-Bruck was deported to Auschwitz

 

 

With Mme. Saragoza’s gracious assistance, I filed a claim with CIVS in October 2014. CIVS acknowledged receipt of my claim in November 2014, assigning it a case number, “Requête 24005 BROOK,” noting that considering the numerous claims pending before their office and the multiple archives and offices that would need to be consulted, it could take some time to render a decision. In fact, it took more than 6 ½ years.

In June 2015, my wife and I met with the staff at the CIVS in Paris (Figure 19) to discuss my claim, whereupon I provided them with a written account of the chronology detailed above and my ancestral connection to Fedor Löwenstein. In February 2017, I was eventually contacted by a genealogist contracted by CIVS to investigate my claim. I shared an updated written account of what I had sent to CIVS in 2015, and included an extensive array of historic documents, photos, and exhibits, along with a detailed family tree. In essence, I did the genealogist’s work for him.

 

Figure 19. In June 2015, meeting in Paris with Mme. Muriel De Bastier and Mlle. Eleonore Claret from CIVS, the Premier Ministre’s office handling my restitution claim

 

Between February 2017 and June 2021, when CIVS rendered their written decision, I was never contacted by the Premier Ministre’s office. The decision letter from the Premier Ministre along with the attached report by Le Rapporteur Generale arrived on the 17th of June 2021. It included much of the same information discussed above. The final decision is that my claim was rejected.

Beyond the disappointment and anger I feel about this determination, I was curious about the merits and legal basis of this ruling. Inasmuch as I can ascertain, it appears that because France is governed by principles of civil law rather than common law, my rights have been supplanted. Civil law has its features compiled and codified into a collection for ready reference. It is inspired by the Roman law. Common law, on the other hand, has its rules and regulations administered by judges and vary on a case-to-case basis. Civil law was framed in France. Common law was started in England. Common law varies from case to case depending upon the customs of the society whereas civil law has a predefined written set of statutes and codes for reference. Judgment in common law varies whereas in civil law, the judges must strictly follow the codification written in the book.

In the case of my claim for restitution, CIVS concluded there are what are called “universal legatees,” an element of civil law, whose claim to Löwenstein’s property and damages supersede my own. France considers property left in a will a “universal legacy,” so the person who inherits the rights, obligations, possession, and debts of an ancestor’s title in property through a testamentary disposition is called a “universal legatee.”

These universal legatees in the case of Fedor Löwenstein’s estate are descendants of individuals, merely friends, who inherited from his brother and sister. They and their descendants were not and are not related by blood to Fedor Löwenstein, as I am. Were it not for my efforts to uncover information about Fedor’s orphaned works and file a claim for repatriation and damages, these individuals would have no knowledge of their existence. Furthermore, had it not been for my own extensive genealogical research into Fedor Löwenstein’s spoliated works and ancestry, the CIVS genealogist contracted to undertake the forensic investigation into my claim likely would not have uncovered all the information I provided in 2017. Notwithstanding the stated wishes of CIVS and the Musée National d’Art Moderne housed in the Centre Pompidou in Paris to restore Fedor Löwenstein’s to his family, this is emphatically not happening.

Figure 20. My father Dr. Otto Bruck standing on la Promenade des Anglais in Nice, France in 1946

In retrospect, I would say I should not be surprised by this outcome. France has a long-standing tradition of having wronged my family going back to when the French were complicit in helping the Germans deport my aunt Susanne Müller née Bruck in August 1942, from Fayence, France to Auschwitz, where she was ultimately murdered. Then, following the war, in 1948, they arrested my father, Dr. Otto Bruck (Figure 20), in Nice, France for allegedly practicing dentistry illegally, simply for managing the practice of a dentist who had no interest in her business. My father was arrested only because he was “apatride,” stateless. Rather than offer French citizenry to a man who spoke fluent French and who offered a service much-in-need following WWII, they detained and intended to prosecute him had he not decamped for America. And this although my father served France nobly and honorably for five years during the war as a soldier in the French Foreign Legion. Arguably, France may have met its legal obligation with its decision regarding my claim, but they most assuredly have not fulfilled their moral obligation by handing over my ancestor’s paintings and awarding damages to so-called “universal legatees.” Family of Fedor Löwenstein they are decidedly NOT!!

 

 

REFERENCE

 

Fédor Löwenstein (1901-1946) trois œuvres martyres. 16 May-24 Aug. 2014. Musée des Beaux-Arts de Bordeaux, Bordeaux.

 

 

VITAL STATISTICS OF WILHELM FÉDOR LÖWENSTEIN & HIS IMMEDIATE FAMILY

 

NAME EVENT DATE PLACE SOURCE
         
Wilhelm Fédor Löwenstein (self) Birth 13 April 1901 Munich, Germany Munich Birth Certificate
  Death 4 August 1946 Nice, France Nice Death Certificate
Rudolf Löwenstein (father) Birth 17 January 1872 Kuttenplan, Czechoslovakia [today: Chodová Planá, Czech Republic] Kuttenplan, Czechoslovakia Birth Register Listing
  Marriage (to Hedwig Bruck) 17 September 1899 Ratibor, Germany [today: Racibórz, Poland] LDS Family History Center Microfilm Roll 1184449 (Ratibor)
  Death 22 August 1930 Iglau, Czechoslovakia [today: Jihlava, Czech Republic] LDS Family History Center Microfilm Roll 1184408 (Danzig)
Hedwig Löwenstein Bruck (mother) Birth 22 March 1870 Ratibor, Germany [today: Racibórz, Poland] LDS Family History Center Microfilm Roll 1184449 (Ratibor)
  Marriage (to Rudolf Löwenstein) 17 September 1899 Ratibor, Germany [today: Racibórz, Poland] Ratibor Marriage Certificate
  Death 15 January 1949 Nice, France Nice Death Certificate
Elsbeth Bruck (aunt) Birth 17 November 1874 Ratibor, Germany [today: Racibórz, Poland German Democratic Republic Passport
  Death 20 February 1970 East Berlin, German Democratic Republic  
Jeanne “Hansi” Goff née Löwenstein (sister) Birth 9 September 1902 Danzig, Free State [today: Gdansk, Poland] Danzig Birth Certificate
  Marriage (to Georges Goff) UNKNOWN    
  Death 5 May 1986 Nice, France Nice Death Certificate
Heinz Löwenstein (brother) (died as “Hanoch Avneri”) Birth 8 March 1905 Danzig, Free State [today: Gdansk, Poland] LDS Family History Center Microfilm Roll 1184407 (Danzig)
  Marriage (to Rose Bloch) 22 October 1931 Danzig, Free State [today: Gdansk, Poland] Danzig Marriage Certificate
  Death 10 August 1979 Haifa, Israel Haifa Burial Certificate
Otto Bruck (first cousin) (died as Gary Otto Brook) Birth 16 April 1907 Ratibor, Germany [today: Racibórz, Poland] Ratibor Birth Certificate
  Marriage 22 October 1949 Manhattan, New York  
  Death 14 September 1994 Queens, New York New York City Death Certificate
Richard Alan Brook (first cousin once removed) Birth 27 December 1950 Manhattan, New York  

 

 

 

POST 26: “APATRIDE” (STATELESS)

Note:  This story relates to the brief time between 1946 and 1948 when my father, Dr. Otto Bruck, worked illegally as a dentist in Nice, France.

The Nazi’s “Reich Citizen Law,” one of two Nuremberg Laws passed by the Reichstag on September 15, 1935, declared that only those of German or related blood were eligible to be Reich citizens; the remainder were classed as state subjects, without citizenship rights.  From this point forward, my father was “stateless.”

Figure 1-Vieux Nice is the city’s old town, characterized by narrow cobblestone streets and pastel-hued buildings

For me, this story begins more than 60 years ago in Nice, France, along la Côte d’Azur, when as a young boy I was in the company of my maternal grandmother and we were walking through Vieux Nice. (Figure 1)  I’m unsure what tricks time plays with memories, but I clearly remember my grandmother stopping along a street I would recognize many years later as Boulevard Jean Jaurès (Figure 2), pointing to a building on the windward side, and telling me my father had had his dental office there.  My grandmother knew this because my father had done extensive work on her teeth.  This may also have been when I first learned my father was Jewish.  It would be many years, in all honesty, before I would absorb the full significance of these facts.

Figure 2-Light rail running along Boulevard Jean Jaurès, much changed from when I was a young boy

In previous posts, I’ve mentioned having visited on multiple occasions Ratibor (today: Racibórz, Poland), where my father was born in 1907.  On my second visit there, in 2012, I met a gentleman at the Tourist Bureau, who, like myself, is a retired archaeologist.  He currently edits a journal, entitled the Almanach Prowincjonalny, and upon learning of my family’s connection to Ratibor, wondered whether I’d be interested in writing an article for this periodical.  I eagerly agreed, and in April 2013, my article was published. 

Figure 3-My father, Dr. Otto Bruck, in 1946 along Nice’s Promenade des Anglais

In writing this essay, I’d learned from my mother that my father had worked for a woman dentist by the name of Mme. Lotter between 1946 and 1948 in Nice.  Recall, this is the city where my parents first met, and where my dad settled after his release from the English Army in June 1946 because he had an aunt and cousins living there. (Figure 3)  Because Mme. Lotter was entirely disinterested in dentistry, my father essentially managed her dental practice.  This was an illegal arrangement because he was stateless, in French, “apatride,” and therefore not authorized to work in France. (Figures 4a & 4b)  The authorities eventually caught him in flagrante in 1948 and charged him with practicing dentistry illegally.  By this time, my father had obtained a visa for the United States which was predicated on not having a criminal record.  Rather than risk being denied entry into the States, my father absconded before his trial.

Figure 4a-My father’s French “Titre D’identité et De Voyage”

 

Figure 4b-My father’s French “Titre D’identité et De Voyage,” identifying him as “apatride,” or stateless

 

Fast forward now to 2014 when my wife and I visited l’Hôtel de Ville in Nice in search of information on my father’s aunt and cousins.  This was discussed in Post 16.  While waiting for assistance, I was left alone for some moments and encouraged to peruse the books containing les certificats de décès, the death certificates, so took the opportunity to check for deceased Lotters.  Having only this surname to work with, I systematically set myself to looking through the death certificates for the years starting with 1948, the year my father left France and Mme. Lotter was assuredly still alive. 

Figure 5a-Henri Lotter’s name listed in the Nice death register, alongside that of his wife, Simone Lotter-Jaubert (registration date does not correspond with the death date)

In the spirit of Branch Rickey’s mantra that “luck is the residue of design,” I quickly discovered a gentleman by the name of HENRI LOTTER who died on May 28, 1970.  Fortunately, there were only a handful of deceased Lotters, all men, but this individual caught my attention because it gave his divorced wife’s name, SIMONE JAUBERT. (Figures 5a & 5b)  I discovered she died on November 1, 1964. (Figure 6)   I requested copies of both of their death certificates, uncertain whether this Mme. Lotter-Jaubert was even a dentist. 

Figure 5b-Simone Lotter, née Jaubert, death register listing

 

Figure 6-Simone Lotter, née Jaubert, death certificate

 

 

Armed with these death certificates, I asked where the various people were buried.  I was directed to a different nearby office of l’Hôtel de Ville in Nice, Service De L’administration Funéraire, essentially the “Bureau of Cemeteries.”  Here we would make the acquaintance of Mme. Joelle Saramito, who, like other French bureaucrats I’ve met, was intrigued by an American who speaks fluent French; Mme. Saramito has helped me multiple times over the years including on one of my most spectacular discoveries, which will be the subject of a future post.  As fortune would have it, Mme. Lotter-Jaubert is buried alongside her husband in Cimitiere De Caucade (Figure 7), the same cemetery where my Aunt Hedwig Loewenstein, née Bruck, and her son, Fedor Löwenstein’s headstones are located.  While our visit to Cimitiere De Caucade allowed us to view all the tombstones simultaneously, it did not conclusively answer the question of whether this was the correct Mme. Lotter.

Figure 7-The graves of Simone Lotter, née Jaubert, buried alongside her divorced husband, Henri Lotter in Cimetière De Caucade

To answer this question, I revisited Mme. Saramito, and asked her where I might find Yellow Pages for Nice for the late 1940’s.  She directed us to the “Archives municipales de Nice” (Figure 8), on the western outskirts of Nice.  So, on July 4, 2014, we presented ourselves there to the “Président de salle” (Figure 9), literally, “President of the Hall.”  Unquestionably, this must be one of the most highfalutin titles I’ve ever come across.  Regardless, upon our arrival, I explained what I was looking for, and “Le Président” brought out several annuaires téléphoniques, telephone directories, for the period in question.  Much to my delight, in the 1947-48 annuaire, under the listing for “Dentistes,” I found “Lotter-Jaubert, Simone, place Saint-Francois 2” (Figures 10a & 10b), confirming that Mme. Simone Lotter had indeed been a dentist.  Simone’s ex-husband, Henry Lotter, I discovered had been un pharmacien, a pharmacist.

Figure 8-Entrance to “Ville De Nice Archives Communales”

 

Figure 9-The highfalutin title of “Président de salle”

 

Figure 10a-Listing in 1947-48 Nice telephone directory for “Dentistes”

 

 

Figure 10b-Listing in 1947-48 Nice telephone directory for “Lotter-Jaubert, Simone, place Saint-Francois 2” under the category of “Dentistes”

 

Figure 11-Entrance sign to “Vieux Nice”

There remained but one final thing for me to confirm, whether in fact a distant memory that the office building my grandmother had pointed to was indeed located in Vieux Nice. (Figure 11)  And, in fact, I was able to locate the still standing building at Place Saint-Francois 2, in the old section of Nice (Figures 12, 13 & 14).  This story proves that occasionally with only scant information to begin with, in my case just a surname and a 60-year old childhood memory, one can sometimes make extraordinary discoveries about one’s family.

Figure 12-The office building at “Place Saint-Francois 2” where my father worked for Mme. Simone Lotter
Figure 13-Street sign for “Place Saint Francois”

 

 

Figure 14-Entrance to “Place Saint-Francois 2”