Dr. Erich Schueck Archives - bruckfamilyblog.com

POST 104: THE WOINOWITZ ZUCKERFABRIK (SUGAR FACTORY) OUTSIDE RATIBOR (PART VI-COMPENSATION DENIED)

Note: In what I anticipate will be the last installment about the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik (Sugar Factory) located outside Ratibor, Germany, the town where my father Dr. Otto Bruck was born in 1907, I review the background and explore the German law that resulted in compensation being denied to descendants of the original co-owners of the factory. Readers will be disappointed because I am unable to clearly explain this. I will end this sequence of articles about the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik with a series of questions that remain unanswered. This post allows readers to understand the twisted path sometimes involved in retrieving and reconstructing ancestral information for one’s family, resulting in both satisfactory and unsatisfactory outcomes.

Post 36: The Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik (Sugar Factory) Outside Ratibor (Part I-Background)

Post 36, Postscript: The Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik (Sugar Factory) Outside Ratibor (Part I-Maps)

Post 55: The Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik (Sugar Factory) Outside Ratibor (Part II-Restitution for Forced Sale by The Nazis)

Post 59: The Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik (Sugar Factory) Outside Ratibor (Part III—Heirs)

Post 61: The Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik (Sugar Factory) Outside Ratibor (Part IV-Grundbuch (Land Register))

Post 98, Part 1 (Stories): The Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik (Sugar Factory) Outside Ratibor (Part V-Chilean Descendants)

Post 98, Part 2 (Documents): The Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik (Sugar Factory) Outside Ratibor (Part V-Chilean Descendants)

At the outset, I need to apologize to readers for the exhaustive background of how the heirs of Adolph Schück (1840-1916) (Figure 1) and his brother-in-law Sigmund Hirsch (1848-1920) (Figure 2), the original co-owners of the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik (Figure 3), attempted to obtain compensation from the German government for the forced sale of the plant by the Nazis in 1936. Regular readers know I am not only a stickler for accuracy but also for sourcing my information. Unfortunately, this sometimes leads to tedious detail.

Figure 1. Adolph Schück (1840-1916), co-owner of the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik

Figure 2. Sigmund Hirsch, Adolph Schück’s brother-in-law and partner in the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik

Figure 3. A postcard of the Woinowitz sugar factory as it looked in the early 1900’s

In Post 25, I discussed the fate of one of my father’s first cousins, Fritz Goldenring, who perished in the Shanghai Ghetto on the 15^th of December 1943. As I explained to readers at the time, I contacted one of the Chabad centers in Shanghai hoping to obtain a copy of Mr. Goldenring’s death certificate; Chabad is one of the largest Hasidic groups and Jewish religious organizations in the world promoting Judaism and providing daily Torah lectures and Jewish insights. Almost immediately after sending emails to three centers, I received a reply from Rabbi Shalom Greenberg. He had forwarded my request to Mr. Dvir Bar-Gal, who leads “Tours of Jewish Shanghai” and has become known as Shanghai’s “gravestone sleuth” because of his tireless work tracking down Jewish tombstones scattered around the city’s outlying villages following the demolition of the Jewish cemeteries there.

While unable to provide a death certificate for Mr. Goldenring, Mr. Bar-Gal offered useful information. He told me that before being expelled from Germany, Fritz had last worked in Darmstadt, Germany as a journalist. He suggested I contact the Rathaus (City Hall) there by email. My question to them about Fritz Goldenring was forwarded to the Stadtarchiv, or City Archive, in Darmstadt, and in October 2017 they responded. They too could not find his death certificate nor evidence Fritz Goldenring had lived in Darmstadt, but they did provide a valuable clue to an on-line directory mentioning him kept at the Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv, the Hesse Central State Archive, in Wiesbaden. They also told me Fritz had been born in Berlin, and I was subsequently able to locate his birth certificate showing he was born there on the 11^th of September 1902. (Figure 4)

Figure 4. Fritz Hermann Goldenring’s birth certificate showing he was born in the Berlin borough of Wilmersdorf on the 11th of September 1902

Based on what the Stadtarchiv in Darmstadt told me, I next contacted the Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv, hoping to finally obtain Mr. Goldenring’s death certificate there. While they too were unable to track it down, the archivist told me about an Entschädigungsakte, a claim for compensation file, submitted by his mother Helene Goldenring née Hirsch (Figure 5), as the heir of her son’s estate. Presumably, this was the document the Stadtarchiv in Darmstadt found mention of. After paying a fee, I was able to obtain a copy of this 160-page file, a document that ultimately filled in some holes.

Figure 5. Helene “Lene” Goldenring née Hirsch (1880-1968), in New York at Christmas 1950

The review above provides the necessary context for where this led me in March of this year. While working on a Blog post unrelated to the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik, I took the opportunity to reexamine the 160-page file the Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv had sent me in December 2017. Something I had previously deemed inconsequential caught my attention this time, namely, a reference to a file about the sugar factory numbered “Reg. Nr. 40 672.” (Figure 6)

Figure 6. Page from Helene Goldenring née Hirsch’s compensation file mentioning case number “Reg. Nr. 40 672” dealing with the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik that I eventually obtained from the “Landesamt für Bürger- und Organisationsangelegenheiten (LABO)” in Berlin

Having no idea what this might contain or where to obtain a copy, I asked Mr. Achim Stavenhagen-Bucher, a Swiss acquaintance with greater familiarity deciphering German documents, if he could help. He suggested I contact the “Bezirksregierung Düsseldorf.” Achim explained this office was responsible for handling claims from Nazi victims of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia as well as those regions that belonged to Germany until the 31^st of December 1937, based on the Bundesentschädigungsgesetz (BEG), the Federal Compensation Act; this Act encompasses three separate German laws that were adopted in 1953, 1956, and 1965. I will return to these later as it gets to the heart of why the lineal heirs of the owners of the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik were denied compensation for the forced sale by the Nazis of the sugar factory in 1936.

As the source of Helene Goldenring née Hirsch’s original 160-page compensation package, I again contacted the Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv asking them how I might obtain the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik file. They referred me to the Landesarchiv Berlin, though the response from the Bezirksregierung Düsseldorf is ultimately how I tracked down and obtained the document. They told me to contact the Landesamt für Bürger- und Organisationsangelegenheiten (LABO) in Berlin, specifically their Compensation Office, the Entschädigungsbehörde. Their website describes their function:

“The compensation authority in the State Office for Citizens’ and Regulatory Affairs implements the Federal Law on Compensation for Victims of National Socialist Persecution (BEG), the Law on Compensation for Victims of National Socialism (BerlEG), the Law on the Recognition and Provision for Victims of Political, Racial or Religious Persecution under National Socialism (PrVG) as part of its responsibility for the State of Berlin.

According to the will of the federal legislature, initial applications under the BEG for recognition and provision of National Socialist injustice have not been admissible since 1969. Persons recognized as victims of persecution generally receive monthly pension benefits and ongoing, case-by-case health care benefits (curative proceedings) for established health damage because of National Socialist injustice. Each western federal state has its own compensation authority. Section 185 of the Federal Compensation Act regulates which of the compensation authorities is responsible in each individual case.

All benefits are granted only upon application. The exclusion of compensation benefits to former members of the NSDAP [National Socialist German Workers’ Party] or one of its branches goes without saying.”

I contacted LABO and had the good fortune to land upon a very helpful lady, Ms. Angela Sponholz, who sent me “Reg. Nr. 40 672” related to the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik at no charge. I will get into some of the contents of this file below.

At this point, let me briefly digress and identify Adolph Schück’s and Sigmund Hirsch’s heirs and provide some observations as to their rights to shares of the sugar factory. Except as noted below, the following analysis assumes that, upon the death of an individual, his or her share goes to the individual’s spouse; if there is no spouse upon death, it would be divided among the individual’s children; and if there is no spouse and there are no children, it would be divided among the individual’s siblings. The analysis assumes this order of distribution either under applicable intestacy laws or under the provisions of any applicable wills or trusts.

ADOLPH SCHÜCK AND SIGMUND HIRSCH’S HEIRS

POST-1920 OWNERS	FIRST TIER HEIRS	SECOND TIER HEIRS	THIRD TIER HEIRS **

Auguste Leyser née Schück (1872-1943) (1/6^th) (Adolph Schück’s daughter)	Friedrich Leyser (1898-1959) (1/12^th) (Auguste Schück’s son)	Katerina Leyser née Rosenthal (1903-1992) (Friedrich Leyser’s wife)
	Margot Leyser née Leyser (1893-1982) (1/12^th) (Auguste Schück’s daughter)
Elly Kayser née Schück (1874-1911) (1/6^th) (Adolph Schück’s daughter)	Franz Kayser (1897-1983) (1/6th) (Elly Schück’s son)
Erich Schück (1878-1938) (1/6^th) (Adolph Schück’s son)	Hedwig Schück née Jendricke (1/6^th) (1890-1960) (Erich Schück’s wife)	Anna Johannsen née Brügge (1897-?) (half-sister of Hedwig Schück née Jendricke) Sophia Dalstrand née Brügge (1900-1980) (half-sister of Hedwig Schück née Jendricke) Christian Brügge II (1902-?) (half-brother of Hedwig Schück née Jendricke)
Erich Schück (1878-1938) (1/6^th) (Adolph Schück’s son)			Christian Brügge III (~1927-?) (son of Christian Brügge II) Helmuth Brügge (~1930-?) (son of Christian Brügge II)
Helene Goldenring née Hirsch (1880-1968) (1/6^th) (Sigmund Hirsch’s daughter) ##	Eva Zernick née Goldenring (1/6^th) (1906-1969) (Helene Goldenring née Hirsch’s daughter)
Robert Hirsch (1881-1943) (1/6^th) (Sigmund Hirsch’s son)	Helene Goldenring née Hirsch (1/12^th) (1880-1968) (Robert Hirsch’s sister) ## Frieda Mamlok née Hirsch (1883-1955) (1/12^th) (Robert Hirsch’s sister)
Frieda Mamlok née Hirsch (1883-1955) (1/6^th) (Sigmund Hirsch’s daughter)	Alfred Mamlok (1874-~1960) (1/12^th) (Frieda Mamlok née Hirsch’s husband) Hans Walter Mamlok (1908-1956) (1/24^th) (Frieda Mamlok née Hirsch’s son) ++ Erich Mamlok (1913-1991) (1/24^th) (Frieda Mamlok née Hirsch’s son)
		Erich Mamlok (1913-1991) (1/48^th) (Hans Mamlok’s brother) Helene Goldenring née Hirsch (1880-1968) (1/72^nd) (Hans Mamlok’s aunt) ## Alfred Mamlok (1874-~1960) (1/144^th) Hans Mamlok’s father)

** Only those third-tier heirs who are known to have received “damages” from the German government in connection with the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik are shown.

++ When Hans Mamlok died in 1956, he left ½ of his shares to his brother Erich Mamlok, 1/3^rd to his aunt Helene Goldenring née Hirsch, and 1/6^th to his father Alfred Mamlok

## Helene Goldenring née Hirsch was an owner in her own right, as well as a first-tier heir as inheritor of a one-half interest in her brother’s 1/6^th share in the sugar factory, as well as a second-tier heir of 1/3^rd of her nephew Hans Mamlok’s 1/24^th share

A few observations.

Adolph Schück (Figure 7) and Sigmund Hirsch (Figures 8-9) each had three children, each of whom was a shareholder with a 1/6^th share of the sugar factory. Assuming the German government paid compensation or damages, each owner would have been eligible for 1/6^th of the amount paid out.

Figure 7. Screen shot from my family tree showing Adolph Schück and his heirs

Figure 8. Screen shot from my family tree showing Sigmund Hirsch and his heirs

Figure 9. Co-owner of the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik Sigmund Hirsch with his wife Selma Hirsch née Braun and their three children, Frieda, Robert, and Helene

In the case of Frieda Mamlok née Hirsch who pre-deceased her husband Dr. Alfred Mamlok, I would later learn ½ of her 1/6^th share went to her husband while each of her two sons, Hans and Erich, received one-quarter of her 1/6^th share. Hans pre-deceased both his brother and his father, and he divided what amounted to his 1/24^th share among his brother (one-half), his aunt (one-third), and his father (one-sixth). My apologies if I’ve confused readers.

Figure 10 is a screen shot from my family tree on ancestry.com with Erich and Hedwig Schück née Jendricke and their heirs.

Figure 10. Screen shot from my family tree showing Dr. Erich Schück and his wife’s heirs

Readers can see on Figure 6 there is another file at LABO with a different number, namely, “Reg. Nr. 160 800,” for Robert Hirsch (Figure 11), one of the six heirs of the sugar factory. I would later learn there exist multiple files with unique identifiers for the various claimants.

Figure 11. Robert Hirsch (1881-1943) in Chile in 1942 with his cousin’s daughter-in-law, Margarete Hirsch née Janzen (1914-1992), and her daughter (photo courtesy of Roberto Hirsch)

In Post 55, I discussed at length the documentation I received from Mr. Allan Grutt Hansen, a gentleman from Denmark related to the wife of Dr. Erich Schück (1878-1938) (Figure 12), Hedwig Schück née Jendricke. (Figure 13) I refer readers to that post for details. Suffice it to say that according to the documentation I received from Mr. Hansen, several of Hedwig’s relatives in fact received some monies from the German government in connection with sale of the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik in 1966. Figure 14 gives their names and their presumed inherited ownership shares of the sugar factory.

Figure 12. Dr. Erich Schück (1878-1938), an heir of the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik, who supposedly committed suicide in Berlin after the forced sale of the sugar plant

Figure 13. May 1930 stage photograph of Hedwig Schück née Jendricke, an aspiring actress

Anna Johannsen née Brügge and Sophia Dalstrand née Brügge were Hedwig Schück’s half-sisters, Christian Brügge II was her half-brother, and Christian Brügge III and Helmuth Brügge were his sons. None of the documents I’ve obtained show Hedwig’s half-brother receiving any monies in connection with the sale of the sugar factory, so he may have been deceased by 1966. The names in red text in the table above are the four heirs who each were awarded damages through their kinship to Hedwig Schück. In the aggregate, Hedwig Schück’s heirs should have inherited her 1/6^th share in the sugar factory but according to the figures shown in Figure 14, the amounts total 1/4^th(i.e., 1/12^th + 1/12^th + 1/24^th +1/24^th=6/24^th), so something is amiss.

Figure 14. Page from 1966 West German compensation agreement for the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik listing Erich and Hedwig Schück’s four heirs, and the fraction they owned of the sugar factory

I naturally assumed that if Hedwig Schück’s heirs had received damages for the forced sale of the sugar factory, so too had heirs of the other shareholders. To date, I have not been able to confirm from third- or fourth-tier heirs that this ever occurred.

Readers will note in the table above that one of Sigmund Hirsch’s daughters is Helene Goldenring née Hirsch, the very same person who did receive compensation from the German government because of her son’s premature death in the Shanghai Ghetto. This was indirectly a result of Nazi pressure on the Japanese to eliminate Jews living in this occupied part of China. Rather than exterminate them, however, the Japanese incarcerated them in a ghetto under deplorable living conditions causing many to die.

Hoping to round out my understanding of how the reparations claims were handled by the then West German government, I contacted Dr. Robert Mamlok (Figure 15), the grandson of Dr. Alfred Mamlok (1874-~1960) (Figure 16), the spouse of one of the six original shareholders. Robert generously shared copies of numerous letters penned by his grandfather, the other heirs, and the multiple attorneys involved in the compensation case. Most usefully, Robert sent me a summary in English of the contents of the various documents, which precluded my having to tediously retype and translate the original German documents. With this synopsis, I came away with a much more in-depth and nuanced understanding of the years-long effort undertaken by the various claimants to obtain compensation for the forced sale of the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik.

Figure 15. Dr. Alfred Mamlok’s grandson, Dr. Robert Mamlok

Figure 16. Dr. Alfred Mamlok, born 1874 in Breslau, Germany [today: Wrocław, Poland]

I cannot do justice to all that is contained in the correspondence Robert Mamlok shared, but I want to highlight a few things. There were some administrative challenges faced by the claimants. As alluded to above, the Berlin Compensation Office, the Entschädigungsamt Berlin, assigned unique case numbers to each claim. Each claimant had their own attorney, at times interfering or working at cross-purposes to one another. Several attorneys died over the course of the multi-year effort requiring aging and ailing litigants to begin anew with different lawyers. The claimants themselves could not agree on the amount of lost income they’d incurred because of the forced sale of the sugar factory; widely divergent estimates of annual proceeds were proffered by the shareholders (i.e., ranging between 20,000 Reichmark (RM) and 100,000 RM annually with a RM having an estimated nominal exchange rate during WWII of $2.50). Without surviving documents to bolster claims of lost income, including the sales documents of the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik, lawyers repeatedly questioned the estimates and asked for less inflated figures. This further delayed the adjudication process and allowed claimants to be played off against each another. There were seemingly endless requests for supporting evidence such as powers of attorney, proof of Jewish origins, proof of residency, attestations of one’s professional practice, estimates on the value of the business and the annual profits, etc., some of which could only be recreated from fading memories.

From a cursory examination of the summary papers forwarded by Robert Mamlok, the requests for compensation were based on several considerations, namely, forced sale of the sugar factory at less than fair market value (taking into account “goodwill”); loss of professional wages; and loss of income based on the boycotting of the Jewish-owned Zuckerfabrik. (Goodwill is a marketplace advantage of customer patronage and loyalty developed with continuous business under the same name over a period. It may be bought and sold in connection with a business, and the valuation is a subjective one.) Interestingly, yet another recompense that could be claimed was the travel costs of being forced to flee Germany.

At some point, it appears lawyers representing some of the claimants made the decision it would be easier to argue loss of income due to the boycott of the Jewish-owned sugar factory by Aryan-owned businesses rather than the losses due to forced sale of the business at a discounted price. Possibly, the lawyers felt it would be easier to compare the decline in the estimated annual profits from before to after the boycott was implemented than estimate the fair market value of the business in 1936.

While the compensation claim based on the forced sale of the sugar factory continued, this was never successfully adjudicated by any of Adolph Schück or Sigmund Hirsch’s heirs. Dr. Alfred Mamlok eventually did receive some recompense for professional damages in connection with the loss of his medical practice in Gleiwitz, Germany [today: Gliwice, Poland], including possibly for the loss of goodwill, as well as payment for his costs to flee Germany. However, Dr. Mamlok did not receive payments for the loss of goodwill in connection with the sugar factory. Additionally, Dr. Mamlok, his son Erich Mamlok, and his sister-in-law Helene Goldenring received monies in 1957 but the basis for these payments is also unclear.

The summary sent to me by Robert Mamlok provided further background on the sale of the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik. Following Hitler’s attainment of power in March 1933, the responsibility for oversight of businesses like the sugar factory was transferred from the Reich Ministry of Economics to the auspices of the more stringent Reich Ministry of Food and Agriculture, making ownership and management of exclusively Jewish-owned enterprises more difficult.

Additionally, according to Dr. Alfred Mamlok’s correspondence, Upper Silesia, where the factory, was located was deemed to be an “animal welfare area.” This is a particularly interesting provision I needed to ask one of my German cousins about since I could not understand how animal welfare related to the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik. On page 256 of the 1997 German edition of the book entitled “German-Jewish History in Modern Times, vol. 4: Renewal and Destruction, 1918-1945,” my cousin found the following explanation:

“Only in Upper Silesia, on the basis of a German-Polish agreement of 1922, did the approximately 10,000 Jews living there succeed in securing special status of a protected religious and ‘racial’ minority under the protection of the League of Nations Commission until July 1937. This was the only case in which a Jewish representative body, the Upper Silesian Synagogue Association, concluded agreements with the German government in open negotiations and before an international body. As a result, discriminatory measures against Jewish gainful employment or against kosher slaughter were not implemented here until July 14, 1937.”

Thus, ostensibly under the guise of safeguarding animal welfare, the Nazis were really targeting kosher slaughter of farm animals, and limiting, where possible, Jewish economic activities including at the sugar factory. Not only did the Nazis strive to expel Jews and deprive them of their economic existence, but according to their twisted logic expropriation of Jewish businesses served animal welfare. However, it is not apparent to this author the connection between animal welfare and the manufacture and sale of sugar.

As to the sale of the sugar factory, the owners eventually found a buyer in the form of an East German sugar company which obtained the necessary approvals clandestinely. The sale papers were presented to the Reich Ministry of Agriculture when key officials there attended a congress in Nuremberg in 1936, making it easier for the buyers to obtain approval. According to one letter found among Dr. Alfred Mamlok’s papers, the sugar factory was sold for approximately 800,000 RM though the writer estimates the fair market value of the business was several million RM. As a quick aside, this figure does not comport with the number I found in the papers sent to me by Allan Hansen which based damages on a sales price of 450,000 RM.

Let me turn now to a discussion of the act which guided the compensation claims for the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik. Compensation for the victims of National Socialist injustice was governed in principle by the Federal Act for the Compensation of the Victims of National Socialist Persecution (Bundesentschädigungsgesetz or BEG) as amended by the Final Federal Compensation Act of the 14^th of September 1965.

Below is a succinct description of this act from the Wollheim Memorial (www.wollheim-memorial.de/de/bundesentschaedigungsgesetz_1956):

“In July 1953, using the term Bundesergänzungsgesetz (Federal Supplementary Law), the German Bundestag passed the first national-level compensation law for people who were forced to undergo expropriation, forced labor, deportation, and imprisonment in camps during the Nazi era. In 1956, it was amended and renamed the Bundesentschädigungsgesetz (BEG, Federal Compensation Law), owing to numerous interventions by the Western Allies and the Claims Conference, which were directed primarily at the meagerness of the benefits intended for victims of the Nazis and at the exclusion of foreign victims of Nazi persecution. But the BEG held fast to the so-called subjective and personal territoriality principle, according to which benefits could be claimed only by victims of the Nazis who were residents of the FRG [Federal Republic of Germany] or West Berlin on the effective date of December 31, 1952 (originally, January 1, 1947), or had lived within the 1937 borders of the German Reich and taken up residence in the FRG or West Berlin by the effective date. From the outset, therefore, the provisions excluded from compensation all those people in the countries occupied by Germany during World War II who had been hunted by the death squads of the Wehrmacht and the SS and had not left their home countries.”

The Claims Conference refers to the Conference of Jewish Material Claims Against Germany founded in 1951 as a coalition of several Jewish organizations to represent the compensation claims of Jewish victims of National Socialism and Holocaust survivors.

A 2009 paper prepared by Germany’s Federal Ministry of Finance, entitled “Compensation for National Socialist Injustice,” provides more detail:

“The first compensation act covering the entire [German] Federation was the Additional Federal Compensation Act which was adopted on 18 September 1953 (Federal Law Gazette I p. 1,387) and entered into force on 1 October 1953. Although this was much more than an addition to the Act on the Treatment of the Victims of National Socialist Persecution in the Area of Social Security and in particular created legal equality and security on federal territory, its provisions also proved inadequate. Following very detailed and careful preparation, the Federal Compensation Act (Federal Law Gazette I p. 562) was adopted on 29 June 1956 and entered into force with retroactive effect from 1 October 1953. This Act fundamentally changed compensation for the victims of National Socialism and introduced a number of amendments improving their situation. At the outset, the Federal Compensation Act only provided for applications to be submitted until 1 April 1958.”

The Act on the Treatment of the Victims of National Socialist Persecution in the Area of Social Security was an act adopted by the Southern German Länder Council for all Allied occupation zones. This was promulgated by Land laws in Bavaria, Bremen, Baden-Württemberg, and Hesse in August 1949.

The Federal Compensation Act was amended in 1965. Quoting again from the paper by the Ministry of Finance:

“In applying the Federal Compensation Act, further need for amendment became clear. There was an awareness that the new piece of legislation would not be able to take account of all the demands of those eligible for compensation and that, given the high number of settled cases, these could not be re-opened. The amendment was thus to constitute the final piece of legislation in this field. After four years of intense negotiations in the competent committees of the German Bundestag and Bundesrat, the Final Federal Compensation Act was adopted on 14 September 1965 (Federal Law Gazette I p. 1,315), its very name emphasizing that it was to be the last.”

A few comments.

The Final Federal Compensation Act extended the original deadline of the 1^st of April 1958, though no claims could be filed after the 31^st of December 1969.

Numerous provisions of the Federal Compensation Act were complicated. One decisive criterion was the residence requirement. Those eligible to apply were persecutees of the Nazi regime who had resided in the Federal Republic of Germany or West Berlin by December 31, 1952 (previously January 1, 1947), or who had lived there prior to their deaths or emigrations. Except for Dr. Alfred Mamlok, who was a doctor in Gleiwitz in Upper Silesia, all the other heirs had lived in Berlin or what became the Federal Republic of Germany prior to emigrating or being murdered, so this would not seem to have been an exclusionary criterion for receiving compensation.

As an aside, for people persecuted because of so-called “antisocial” behavior, including the Sinti and Roma, “. . .the latter, the Federal Supreme Court (BGH) claimed in a decision in principle on January 7, 1956, had been persecuted not for ‘reasons of race, religious belief, or worldview’ (§ 1 BEG) but for their ‘antisocial traits.’ The BEG believed race-based persecution occurred only from 1943 on, when the Sinti and Roma began to be sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp.”

Communists also could not receive compensation because they were perceived as alleged enemies of the “liberal-democratic basic order.” Homosexuality was a criminal offense in the Federal Republic of Germany until 1973 so for this reason persecuted homosexuals similarly were ineligible to receive payments.

After the enormity of the crimes the National Socialists had perpetrated against humanity came into the public eye and shocked the world, the willingness of Germans to accept political and moral responsibility waned. Over time, and against the backdrop of post-war reconstruction, the Cold War, and the suffering the Germans had also experienced during and after the war, many began to see themselves as the victims. Feeling they had been manipulated and terrorized by the Nazis and Adolf Hitler allowed many Germans to displace any complicity in Nazi crimes. Consequently, as German Wikiwand notes: “People began to offset their own suffering against the persecution of Nazi victims—the cliché of well-off Nazi victims became a kind of political myth—and along with the integration of former Nazi officials into postwar German society, it was not the perpetrators but the victims who were perceived as a burden on the new society.” How rich.

Given the complexity of the Federal Compensation Law, it is not clear that if the compensation cases were being adjudicated today the decisions would be rendered any differently. But readers should know that many claims were being handled by former Nazi officials, such as judges and district attorneys, who had been integrated back into German society following WWII, officials who seemingly had little interest in compensating Jews they had once so avidly been an integral part of persecuting.

File Reg. Nr. 40 672 obtained from LABO was the restitution claim refiled for the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik by Dr. Alfred Mamlok’s lawyers, Dr. Hans Zilesch and Ms. Gisela Maresch-Zilesch, for him as an individual. Contained within this file is a decision letter dated the 30^th of January 1962 to his lawyers, ostensibly from the Berlin Compensation Office, laying out the reason his compensation claim vis a vis the sugar factory was denied. Followers can read the original and translated versions of this 1962 letter below. (Figures 17a-b)

Figure 17a. Letter from the Berlin Restitution Office dated the 30th of January 1962 to Dr. Alfred Mamlok’s lawyers rendering their decision on his Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik compensation claim

Figure 17b. Translation of letter from the Berlin Restitution Office to Dr. Alfred Mamlok’s lawyers rendering their decision on his Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik compensation claim

In citing § 143 and § 146 of the BEG, the Berlin Compensation Office makes it abundantly clear that the claims were rejected because the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik had its registered office in Woinowitz in Upper Silesia in an area they declared was decidedly outside the scope of the BEG. I include the language of both subsections below:

§ 143

(1) The right to compensation exists only if the legal person, establishment, or association of persons

1. on 31 December 1952 had its seat within the scope of this Act or the place of its administration was situated there,

2.before 31 December 1952, for the reasons of persecution under § 1, had transferred its seat or its administration from the territory of the Reich to a foreign country in accordance with the state of 31 December 1937 or the territory of the Free City of Gdansk.

(2) If a legal person, institution or association of persons no longer exists, the claim for compensation shall only exist if it had its registered office or the place of its administration in the territory of the Reich in accordance with the status on 31 December 1937 or in the territory of the Free City of Gdansk and if the registered office or the place of administration of a legal successor or successor to a purpose was in the area of application of this Act on 31 December 1952.

§ 146

(1) The right to compensation exists only for damage to property and for damage to property and only to the extent that the damage occurred within the scope of this Act. In the case of non-legally capable commercial companies whose all partners were natural persons at the time of the persecution, the claim for compensation also exists if the damage to property or assets in the Reich territory occurred as of 31 December 1937 or in the territory of the Free City of Gdansk.

(2) Communities which are institutions of or recognized by religious communities and whose members have undertaken to acquire through their work not for themselves but for the community may also claim as damage to property the damage caused to the community by the loss of the working activities of their members. A Community national shall not be entitled to compensation for loss of professional progress in respect of any work carried out by him on behalf of the Community if the Community has received compensation in accordance with the first sentence.

(3) No compensation shall be paid for losses of contributions, donations, and similar income.

Woinowitz was part of the German Reich in 1937. In a referendum held in Upper Silesia on the 20^th of March 1921, people there voted to remain part of the German Reich. On this basis, I would have assumed that Woinowitz met the seat requirements under BEG as of 31 December 1937. Whether its location inside Poland by 31 December 1952 is relevant is not clear. Regardless of my understanding of the provisions and exclusions of the complicated Federal Compensation Law, the Berlin Compensation Office determined the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik was outside the seat requirements of the act and for this reason denied compensation to heirs of the shareholders.

A separate page in File Reg. Nr. 40 672, dated the 27^th of January 1964, gives the Berlin Compensation Office claim number, “Reg. Nr. 21 879,” for Erich and Hedwig Schück’s heirs, identifying them by name. (Figure 18) Attached to this cover page is the decision letter rendered by this office. Like the one sent to Dr. Alfred Mamlok’s attorneys it comes to the same conclusion, namely, that the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik is outside the seat requirements of the Federal Compensation Law. This letter came as a surprise to me. Whereas I had assumed the monies Hedwig Schück’s heirs had received were the result of a different decision rendered by the Berlin Compensation Office under the authority of the Federal Compensation Law, this letter made clear this was not so.

Figure 18. Cover page of decision letter from the Berlin Restitution Office dated 27th of January 1964 addressed to Hedwig Schück’s half-sister, Ms. Anna Johannsen née Brügge, rejecting her and her relatives’ claim for compensation. Case number is circled along with the names of Erich and Hedwig’s heirs

With this new information in hand, I returned to the eight pages sent to me by Mr. Hansen for his ancestors discussing monies paid out to them in 1966. After translating these documents, I realized there was no mention of the Federal Compensation Law and instead payments made in 1966 to Hedwig Schück’s heirs were for “damages” paid out under what I eventually learned was the “Equalisation of Burdens Act (Lastenausgleichsgesetz)” of 1952 and decided by an order from a Federal Administrative Court. Suffice it to say, at the risk of further overwhelming readers with more detail, that the difference between what Dr. Erich Schück received from the September 1936 forced sale of the sugar factory, estimated to be 75,000 RM (i.e., calculated by the Ratibor Tax Office for each 100 RM of share capital at 190 RM, thus totaling 140,000 RM), and what he should have received (i.e., 142,500 RM), his wife’s heirs were in aggregate eligible for only 2,500 RM or whatever the 1966 equivalent was in German Marks. (Figures 19a-b)

Figure 19a. Page from 1966 West German compensation agreement for the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik indicating how individual shares of 75,000 RM were “adjusted” by the Ratibor Tax Office to 142,500 RM but showing only 2,500 RM was disbursed in 1966 to Hedwig Schück’s heirs

Figure 19b. Rough translation of Figure 19a

At long last, I conclude my series on the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik saga with some questions or issues still unresolved:

1). While I assume ALL six shareholders received equal portions of the 450,000 RM (i.e., 75,000 RM each) for which the sugar factory sold for in 1936, no documentation survives to know whether this was the case.

2). While we know that Hedwig Schück’s four heirs in the aggregate divided 2,500 RM in damages in 1966, we don’t know whether the heirs of the other shareholders received equal amounts. The office in Lübeck, Germany that handled the case has no documentation on file to answer this question.

3) And, finally, given that Woinowitz was part of the German Reich in 1937, why was it deemed that it was outside the scope of the Federal Compensation Act?

REFERENCES

Barkai, Avahram, Paul Mendes-Flohr, and Steven M. Lowenstein. German-Jewish History in Modern Times. Vierter Band 1918-1945. Munich, 1997.

Federal Ministry of Finance (Germany), Public Relations Division. Compensation for National Socialist Injustice. 2009, canada.diplo.de/blob/1106528/becf2995e860c6348a1efe7b3367ce51/information-on-compensation-federalministryoffinance-download-data.pdf

POST 61: THE WOINOWITZ ZUCKERFABRIK (SUGAR FACTORY) OUTSIDE RATIBOR (PART IV-GRUNDBUCH (LAND REGISTER))

Note: In this post, I explore some of the information Mr. Paul Newerla, the Racibórz historian, was able to find related to the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik (Sugar Factory) in what is called the “Grundbuch,” or land register, discuss where this information currently resides, and how it rounds out my understanding of the history and ownership of the sugar plant over the years. I also explain to readers that even had I been able to access the land register and backup files on my own, I would have been hard-pressed to make much sense of the materials without the intercession of a lawyer familiar with German real estate law. Mr. Newerla happens to be a retired Polish lawyer who, by virtue of his profession and current study of Silesian history, is well versed in such matters.

Mr. Paul Newerla, my friend from Racibórz, Poland, is a retired lawyer who now specializes in studying and writing about the history of Silesia. Regular readers will recognize his name as I’ve mentioned him in numerous posts related to Ratibor, Germany, the town in Upper Silesia where my father was born in 1907. Perhaps, one of the biggest unintended benefits of having a family history Blog is that Paul stumbled upon it in the course of doing research and reached out to me through Webmail to offer supplementary historical information on the Bruck’s “Prinz von Preußen” Hotel which I’d written about. This family establishment was owned through what I’ve determined to be three generations, from roughly the mid-19th Century through the early 1920’s. Our initial exchanges involved the Bruck’s Hotel but have far transcended this subject.

Figure 1. Silesian historian, Paul Newerla, and me in 2018 standing by the historic statue of John of Nepomuk, located in the middle of a parking lot in Racibórz

I had the pleasure of personally meeting Paul in 2018 on a visit to Racibórz. (Figure 1) As an aside, I realize many fellow genealogists may never have the opportunity nor resources to visit the places one’s ancestors hail from, but I can’t emphasize enough the value of “having boots on the ground,” so to speak, to further one’s ancestral investigations, as this post will illustrate. It’s worth mentioning that Paul does not speak English, nor do I speak German, so we are compelled to use a few on-line translators to communicate, which presents its own challenges but is far better than nothing.

Figure 2. The Woinowitz sugar factory as it looked in the early 1900’s

As I began to research the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik (Figure 2), I naturally turned to Paul to ask him about the sugar plant’s history. He sent me numerous maps and visuals and provided valuable context for understanding the extent of the sugar industry in Silesia and its influence on the development of railroads; I’ve discussed these topics in earlier posts on the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik. I was specifically interested in what Paul might be able to tell me about the sale by or confiscation of the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik from its Jewish owners, the timing, the names of the sellers, and the price for which the business was sold. While he knew little about these matters, coincidentally, during his lawyering days, Paul had handled the legal sale of the former Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik between Polish parties. For this reason, he knew that while the sale of the sugar plant may well have been compelled by the Nazis, the later Polish owners had valid legal rights. Likely, the Nazi overlords wanted to handle the forced sale with a veneer of “legality” by paying the Jewish owners something for their business, even if that payment was vastly below fair market value.

Figure 3. Entrance to the “Archiwum Państwowe w Katowicach Oddział w Raciborzu”

By virtue of Paul’s previous involvement with the sale of the former Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik, he knew that the “Grundbuch,” that is the land register, is archived in the Archiwum Państwowe W Katowicach Oddzial W Raciborzu (“State Archives in Katowice Branch in Racibórz”). (Figure 3) The Grundbuch in Germany, including former parts of Germany that are now within Poland, shows the names of the current and previous owners, third party rights in rem (e.g., mortgages), and the description of the property. Land registers were kept for real estate or land, and included, as will be discussed below, the buildings and structures found on the land.

The land registry is a special division of the local German district court (i.e., Grundbuchamt beim Amtsgericht), and land registers are kept in Poland’s counterpart courts even today. Changes of rights to land do not go into effect until they have been recorded in the land register, although some exceptions apply (e.g. an heir becomes owner of a property even if he or she is not registered in the land register). Unless proven otherwise, the correctness of all titles recorded in the Grundbuch is assumed and a buyer can rely on its accuracy.

The old German land registers have been continued by the Polish court, naturally in Polish, and slightly modified in concept. The basic German land register was a thick book with sections for: I. Directory of Properties, II. Owner(s), III. Rights of other persons (e.g., rights of use, real burdens), and IV. Mortgages. The land registers were kept in court in case they were needed there. The documents justifying the individual entries in the land register were in the so-called “files to the land register,” and were held in the archives of the court; notes were made in the files but in the event of a discrepancy between the land register and the files, the former took precedence. In the 1960’s, Polish land registers were introduced that were organized differently; sections I-IV above were retained except they were kept in individual volumes, and in the back of each volume, the documents justifying the entries were maintained. As a result, files to the land registers in the court archives were no longer needed there so were turned over to the State Archives after several years.

There is one other distinction Paul brought to my attention I need to mention. There is also a “Handelregister,” or commercial register, that is maintained by what are called “Registergerichten,” Commercial Register Courts, that’s to say, regional courts above district courts. The Handelregister records “legal persons” of a company, including Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung (GmbH), a limited liability company, or LLC. The name of the GmbH emphasizes the fact that the owners (Gesellschafter, also known as members) of the entity are not personally liable or responsible for the company’s debts. GmbHs are considered legal persons. The Handelregister for the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik is not available today for reasons that are unclear.

All the above is just background information that will understandably be of scant interest to most readers. Let me continue.

Prior to my queries, Paul had tried for some time to access the land register for the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik. He was aware that German land registers, Grundbucher, are archived at the State Archives in Racibórz. The status of these registers is they have not yet been catalogued and therefore are not available to researchers. My interest in the sugar plant renewed Paul’s attempt to gain access to the plant’s Grundbuch, and, as Paul characterizes it, he finally “was allowed into the camp” to search for it; this was only possible because of his longstanding relationship with the State Archives in Racibórz. Paul found it under the number “Woinowitz Sheet 161.” (Figure 4) Fortunately, the land register includes the supporting files or documentation turned over by the Polish court.

Figure 4. Cover of the Woinowitz Grundbuch Paul Newerla found at the State Archives in Racibórz

Paul photographed and sent me copies of the documents he deemed of greatest value and spent a good deal of time explaining their content and significance. I want to believe that in describing some of what Paul found in the Grundbuch and the auxiliary files, I’ve mostly done justice conveying this to readers, although I welcome readers’ input if I’ve failed in this regard.

Figure 5 shows the size of the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik under the column “Größe.” It was 5.44.10 hectares in size, or 13.44 acres.

Figure 5. The size of the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik shown under the column “Größe, as 5.44.10 hectares, or 13.44 acres

As alluded to earlier, a Grundbuch is kept for land and shows the structural components located on the property. In the case of the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik, the extent of the property and the current value of the structural components is shown on Figure 6. The left-hand column of the table below is a German transcription of the structures listed and the right-hand column provides a rough translation and in a few instances some explanation in brackets:

Figure 6. Page from the Woinowitz Grundbuch listing the structural components of the sugar plant corresponding to the table below

GERMAN	ENGLISH
1. Acker, Weide, Graben, Weg, sowie Hofraum“ – was vom Grundbuch “Polnisch Woinowitz” [der früher Ortsnamen] Blatt 60 abgezweigt wurde. Dieses Blatt 60 umfasste Grundstücke des “Dominiums Woinowitz.”	1. Field, willow, ditch, path/way, courtyard space—which were diverted from the land register “Polish Woinowitz” [the former place name] Sheet 60. [Sheet 60 included plots of land of the “Dominium Woinowitz”]
a. Zuckerfabrik mit Maschinen und Kesselhaus	a. Sugar factory with machine and boiler house
b. Gasanstalt	b. Gasworks
c. Eisenbahnwaagehaus	c. Railway scale house
d. Comptoir (Büro) mit Waagehaus	d. Office with scale house [another scale house where incoming sugar beets and outgoing processed sugar were weighed]
e. Rohproduktionshaus mit Wohnung	e. Raw production house with apartment
f. Rohproduktionshaus	f. Raw production house
g. Stall mit Remise und Werkstätten	g. Stable with drawer and workshops

The table below corresponds to the text on Figure 7, and shows the various names for the sugar factory over time, the owners, and the reason for the acquisition or name change:

Figure 7. Page from the Woinowitz Grundbuch showing the name changes of the sugar plant over time corresponding to the table below

GERMAN	ENGLISH
1. Woinowitz’er Zuckerfabrik Adolph Schück & Comp. zu Woinowitz — Auf Grund der Auflassung vom 24-ten eingetragen am 30-ten Mai 1881 Der Name der Firma ist geändert und lautet jetzt „Woinowitz’er Zuckerfabrik Adolf Schück & Co. Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung zu Woinowitz bei Ratibor O/S.“ [O/S = Oberschlesien] — Eingetragen am 21. Oktober 1910 Nr. 2 statt Nr. 1 nach dem Rezess vom 29. Dezember 1923 eingetragen am 20. Februar 1925. Weihendorfer Zuckerfabrik, Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung Weihendorf Kreis Ratibor — Auf Grund der Firmenänderung eingetragen am 13. August 1938.	1.Woinowitz’er Sugar Factory Adolph Schück & Comp. to Woinowitz — On the basis of the 24th injunction on 30th May 1881 The name of the company has been changed and is now “Woinowitz’er Zuckerfabrik Adolf Schück & Co. Gesellschaft with limited liability to Woinowitz near Ratibor O/S.” [O/S = Upper Silesia] — Registered on 21st October 1910 [FIGURE 8] No. 2 instead of No. 1 registered on 20th February 1925 after the recess of 29th December 1923. Weihendorfer Zuckerfabrik, limited liability company Weihendorf district Ratibor — Due to the change in the company registered on 13th August 1938.
2. Die Ratiborer Zuckerfabrik, Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung in Ratibor — Aufgelassen am 26. Februar 1942 und eingetragen am 25. Februar 1943.	2.The Ratibor Sugar Factory, limited liability company in Ratibor — Abandoned on 26th February 1942 and registered on 25th February 1943.
3. Die Landwirtschaftliche Warenzentrale Oberschlesien /Raiffeisen) eGmbH in Oppeln — Aufgelassen am 11 Dezember 1942 und eingetragen am 25. Februar 1943.	3. The Agricultural Goods Centre Upper Silesia /Raiffeisen) eGmbH in Opole — Abandoned on 11th December 1942 and registered on 25th February 1943.

Figure 8. Letterhead from the time the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik was known as the “Woinowitz’er Zuckerfabrik Adolf Schück & Co. GmbH”

Paul provided some additional explanation about the land register and the auxiliary files. He’d hoped to find documents there about the possible expropriation of the sugar plant from the Schück family. However, Paul discovered the files relate only to the actual entries in the land register, and because no mention of the forced sale of the plant by the Nazis is found in the original land register, therefore, no documentation exists in the land register’s backup files.

The land register recorded changes of ownership; in the case of private sales, the purchase contract would be found in the files of the land register. However, because the Zuckerfabrik was a GmbH or an LLC, changes in ownership were recorded in the Handelregister, the commercial register, and the courts notified of such changes via a letter. The change in the name of the LLC could result from new ownership or possibly new shareholders that came into a company. Regardless, a change in the company’s name in the commercial register of the GmbH (LLC) also caused a change in the name of the company in the land register.

Let me provide an example as this may be confusing to readers. If Adolph Schück individually owned a plot of land, it was recorded in the land register under his name. If, on the other hand, Mr. Schück formed a GmbH, which he eventually did and could do even as a single person, he could transfer that property as a non-cash deposit into the GmbH which would then be recorded in the Handelregister. Adolph Schück’s name was also then deleted from the Grundbuch and the GmbH registered in place of his name as the owner of the property. The obvious advantage, as previously mentioned, was that Mr. Schück was no longer personally liable or responsible for the company’s debts.

From earlier posts on the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik, readers may recall that Sigmund Hirsch was Adolph Schück’s partner in the sugar plant. I was even able to read his name on several pages Paul sent from the State Archives in Racibórz, so asked whether he was an equal partner. Paul reminded me this information and the size of Sigmund’s investment would be found in the commercial register, which we don’t have access to. However, Paul drew my attention to a four-page document he found at the State Archives, dated the 15th of January 1908, which indirectly answers my question. (Figures 9a-d) Initially, the capital shares owned by Schück and Hirsch were unequal. According to this document, Sigmund Hirsch was obliged to use his annual dividends, which exceeded 27,000 Reichmarks (RM), to increase his capital share of the business until they were equal partners. Additionally, because there was such a large difference in the number of shares owned by the two men, Sigmund Hirsch obtained a security mortgage in the amount of 400,000 RM payable to Adolph Schück.

Figure 9a. First page of four-page document last dated January 15, 1908 spelling out the terms of payments to bring Sigmund Hirsch’s shares in the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik equal to those of Adolph Schück

Figure 9b. Second page of four-page document last dated January 15, 1908 spelling out the terms of payments to bring Sigmund Hirsch’s shares in the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik equal to those of Adolph Schück

Figure 9c. Third page of four-page document last dated January 15, 1908 spelling out the terms of payments to bring Sigmund Hirsch’s shares in the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik equal to those of Adolph Schück

Figure 9d. Last page of four-page document last dated January 15, 1908 spelling out the terms of payments to bring Sigmund Hirsch’s shares in the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik equal to those of Adolph Schück

In addition to official partners, Paul explained there were also “silent” partners. They invested their money, presumably reaped a portion of the sugar plant’s profits, but were not recorded in the commercial register. Often, these silent partners were members of the Board of Directors or agents of the company.

Naturally, I was curious whether the land register and/or the backup files indicated in which year the Nazis forced the sale of the Zuckerfabrik and was reminded this information would also be found in the Handelregister. Yet again, however, one document from the State Archives gives an indirect clue; it shows that on the 26th of September 1938, the company name changed to “Weihendorfer Zuckerfabrik GmbH” without “Adolf Schück & Co.” (Figure 10), likely corresponding to the end of the Schück family’s stake in the sugar plant. To remind readers, less than three months later December 18, 1938, Erich Schück, Adolph’s son and probable managing director of the sugar plant, killed himself in Berlin. I don’t think the timing is coincidental.

Figure 10. Letterhead from the time the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik was known as the “Weihendorfer Zuckerfabrik GmbH” without the name “Adolf Schück & Co.”

As to the value of the sugar plant in 1938, I remarked to Paul that its value of 189,800 RM seemed low. (Figure 11) He pointed out that while a 1943 letter from the tax office used roughly this same value for that plot of land, it also showed “assets and working capital” of 2,269,351 RM minus unspecified “deductions” of 1,247,223 RM. (Figures 12a-b) To remind readers, in January 2017, a 1937 Reichsmark would have been worth approximately $4.30. Clearly, the income generated by the Zuckerfabrik was significant, and it’s very likely the Jewish owners sold at a significant loss and the heirs never adequately compensated.

Figure 11. Letter dated 30th of August 1938 indicating the “unit value” of the then-named “Weihendorfer Zuckerfabrik” as 189,800 Reichmarks

Figure 12a. First page of letter from the “Finanzamt Ratibor,” Ratibor Tax Office, dated the 22nd of January 1943

Figure 12b. Second page of letter from the “Finanzamt Ratibor,” Ratibor Tax Office, dated the 22nd of January 1943, showing the value of the sugar factory, as well as its “assets and working capital” (i.e., 2,269,351 RM) minus unspecified “deductions” (i.e., 1,247,223 RM)

Suffice it to say, at the risk of presenting information that would be of no interest to most readers, there are many more documents in the files to the land register that seemingly relate to contracts and financial matters.

I’ve previously alluded to the fact that knowing someone who is familiar with the “landscape” of archival and documentary resources available for an area one’s ancestors originated from can significantly expand one’s understanding of things. I erroneously assumed the land register for the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik from the State Archives in Racibórz was the extent of documentary information available; what I initially failed to comprehend is that the original land register for the sugar plant still exists and is retained by the local district court in Poland.

Paul accessed the original Grundbuch and was able to glean additional information not available from the copy of the land register and files in the State Archives. He confirmed that Adolph Schück originally purchased in 1881 only arable land and meadows where the sugar plant, gas station, etc. would eventually be built. (Figure 13) The ownership titled was recorded in the land register on the 27th of March 1881 as “Woinowitzer Zuckerfabrik Adolph Schück & Comp. in Woinowitz.” (Figure 14) At the time, the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik was not yet a GmbH or LLC. On the 21st of October 1910, the name of the company changed to “Woinowitzer Zuckerfabrik Adolph Schück & Co. Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung [Gmbh] zu Woinowitz” (Figure 14), at which time the company became an LLC. Then, on the 13th of August 1938, the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik underwent an ownership change becoming the “Weihendorfer Zuckerfabrik, Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung Weihendorf Kreis Ratibor.” (Figure 14) Presumably, this corresponded to the time the Schück and Hirsch heirs were forced to sell the sugar plant.

Figure 13. Page from the original land register at the District court confirming that Adolph Schück originally purchased arable land and meadows where the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik would eventually be built

Figure 14. Page from the original land register at the District court showing the ownership title was recorded on the 27th of May 1881 as the “Woinowitzer Zuckerfabrik Adolph Schück & Comp. in Woinowitz”; subsequent name changes are also shown

Subsequent changes are also noted in the Grundbuch. On the 26th of February 1942, the factory was taken over by the “Ratiborer Zuckerfabrik GmbH in Ratibor,” and later that year, on the 11th of December 1942, the factory named changed to “Raiffeisen.” (Figure 14)

Thus, the original land register for the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik clarifies a few things: we learn the year Adolph Schück purchased the land (1881); the fact that he purchased land and meadows with no structures on them; the year the firm became a GmbH or LLC (1910); and the date the Schück family ceased to be owners (1938).

Paul was unable to find the Grundbuch for the Woinowitz estate (i.e., “Polnisch Woinowitz“) from which Adolph Schück purchased the land in 1881, so no conclusions can be drawn about the previous property owners. Just to be crystal clear about this, Figure 6 above, the page from the files of the Woinowitz Grundbuch, indicates that Adolph Schück purchased a “field, willow, ditch, path/way, courtyard space” which was “detached” from what was referred to as the Polnisch Woinowitz and this sale was noted in the land register for that estate. Paul was unable to find the Grundbuch for this estate at the District court, although possibly it may eventually turn up at the State Archives in Racibórz.

Let me apologize to readers for the ponderous nature of this post. I’ve gone to such lengths to understand and explain the source of the data related to the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik and the timeline for the benefit of a select audience. As explained, because the Grundbuch’s auxiliary files are not catalogued, they are basically inaccessible to the average individual. However, even if they were generally available, it would still require comprehension of German and an understanding of German land law to make sense of their contents and its significance. This said, for the few readers whose Jewish ancestors may have held property in Germany they were compelled to sell during the Nazi era, there may be a few tendrils of useful information in this post.

POST 59: THE WOINOWITZ ZUCKERFABRIK (SUGAR FACTORY) OUTSIDE RATIBOR (PART III—HEIRS)

Figure 1. The Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik as it looked in the early 1900’s

Figure 2. The Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik in 2014, seen from roughly the same angle as Figure 1

Remark: I’ve relabeled the titles of the two previous posts dealing with the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik (Sugar Factory) (Figures 1-2), Posts 36 and 55, to make clear to readers this post is merely another part of a story that continues to evolve and grow. Woinowitz [today: Wojnowice, Poland], is located outside Ratibor [today: Racibórz, Poland], the town in Upper Silesia where my father, Dr. Otto Bruck, was born in 1907. Lately, I’ve acquired multiple new documents and photographs from family, friends, and archives about the factory and its heirs, and anticipate receiving more in coming weeks, possibly enough materials to expand the story to five or six separate posts.

In Post 36, including the Postscript, I provided some historical background and maps, including information on the original family owners of the sugar plant. I fully anticipated the original post, now Part I, would be a “one-and-done” publication. This unexpectedly changed when I was contacted earlier this year through my Blog by a Danish gentleman, Allan Grutt Hansen, with documentation on the compensation paid by the then-West German government in 1966 to his ancestors for the forced sale of the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik by the Nazis around 1937. I detailed this surprising development in Post 55, now Part II of the tale. Suspecting the German government has indemnified what amounts to only one-sixth of the heirs propelled further forensic investigations and resulted in findings that provide the basis for this Blog post.

One additional point I want to emphasize to readers. I have “no skin in this game,” that’s to say, I am not entitled to any compensation that may eventually be meted out for the forced sale of the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik. While I hope the rightful heirs eventually receive reparations for harm done to their ancestors and will strive to facilitate this outcome, this post is primarily a story describing the scientific technique I applied to uncover relevant ancestral evidence that may buttress the family’s claims.

Note: In this post, I identify the first-generation heirs of the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik, and briefly return to the topic of compensation for the forced sale of the sugar plant. I also discuss the historic documents obtained since publication of Post 55, alluded to in that post, that lead to some unexpected discoveries.

Following publication of Post 55, now Part II of the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik saga, I pursued other avenues of investigation to identify the first-generation heirs of the sugar factory and learn who, if any, among them was indemnified for the forced sale of the plant. With the help of living next-of-kin, I’ve compiled the following table of the two original owners and their immediate descendants, along with their vital statistics:

Figure 3. Adolph Schück (1840-1916), co-owner of the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik

Figure 4. Sigmund Hirsch (1848-1920), Adolph Schück’s brother-in-law and partner in the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik

Figure 5. Dr. Erich Schück (1878-1938), an heir of the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik, who supposedly committed suicide after the forced sale of the sugar plant

ORIGINAL OWNER	FIRST-GENERATION HEIR	RELATIONSHIP TO OWNER	EVENT	DATE & PLACE
ADOLPH SCHÜCK (Figure 3)			Birth	5 Jul 1840 Ratibor, Germany
			Death	3 Nov 1916 Ratibor, Germany
	Auguste Leyser née Schück	Daughter	Birth	26 Jan 1872 Ratibor, Germany
			Death	28 May 1943 Theresienstadt
	Elly Kayser née Schück	Daughter	Birth	7 Sep 1874 Ratibor, Germany
			Death	28 Apr 1911 Berlin, Germany
	Erich Schück (Figure 5)	Son	Birth	13 Apr 1878 Ratibor, Germany
			Death	18 Dec 1938 Berlin, Germany

SIGMUND HIRSCH (Figure 4)			Birth	18 Nov 1848
			Death	14 Oct 1920 Ratibor, Germany
	Helene Goldenring née Hirsch	Daughter	Birth	25 Mar 1880 Ratibor, Germany
			Death	12 Jan 1968 Newark, NJ
	Robert Hirsch	Son	Birth	31 Oct 1881 Ratibor, Germany
			Death	7 Oct 1943 Valparaiso, Chile
	Frieda Mamlok née Hirsch	Daughter	Birth	8 Feb 1883 Ratibor, Germany
			Death	29 Jul 1955 Montevideo, Uruguay

Figure 6. Allan Grutt Hansen (b. 1962) from Denmark, grandnephew of Erich and Hedwig Schück

Figure 7a. Front page of the 1966 restitution agreement for the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik showing the estimated value; the number of “shares”; the date of Hedwig Schück’s death; and the “Landkreis” where the case was administered

Figure 7b. Page from 1966 West German compensation agreement for the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik indicating how individual shares of 75,000 RM were “adjusted” to 142,500 RM and showing only 2,500 RM was disbursed to Hedwig Schück’s heirs

Several things are worth noting. First, I presume from the Woinowitz compensation package provided to me by Allan Grutt Hansen (Figure 6) that when the West German government indemnified Allan’s ancestors in 1966 they were aware of six possible heirs. This presumption is based on the total compensation calculated at the time, 450,000 Reichmark (RM), which was divided by six, with each “share” worth 75,000 RM. (Figure 7a) For reasons possibly having to do with how much was paid out in the 1930’s by the Nazi overlords to the factory’s owners, this 75,000 RM was multiplied by a factor of 1.9 theoretically entitling each heir to 142,500 RM (Figure 7b) (i.e., in January 2017, a 1937 Reichsmark would have been worth approximately $4.30). Second, the six first-generation heirs likely correspond to those identified in the table above. The original owners of the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik, along with their wives, died well before the Nazis came to power and the sugar plant’s sale was forced. Third, we can see that apart from first-generation heir Helene Goldenring née Hirsch, all other first-generation heirs were deceased by 1966 when some compensation was paid out. Fourth, we know that Hedwig Schück née Jendricke’s descendants, as a result of her marriage to Dr. Erich Schück, received some minimal compensation, 2,500 RM split unequally four ways (Figure 7c); Hedwig’s relatives would have been second- and third-generation heirs. And, finally, based on conversations I’ve had with third- and fourth-generation heirs of the factory’s original owners, Adolph Schück and Sigmund Hirsch, it appears that five-sixth of the compensation was never meted out, despite concerted efforts by several of the descendants.

Figure 7c. Page from 1966 West German compensation agreement for the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik listing Erich and Hedwig Schück’s four heirs, and the fraction they each received of the 2,500 RM compensation doled out

Figure 7d. Page from 1966 West German compensation agreement showing that the case was adjudicated by the “Kreis Oldenburg (Holstein) Der Landrat,” the District Administrator for Oldenburg in the German State of Holstein

The package provided to me by Allan Grutt Hansen identifies the German office that handled the compensation case, namely, the “Kreis Oldenburg (Holstein) Der Landrat,” the District Administrator for Oldenburg in the German State of Holstein. (Figure 7d) After a few failed attempts to establish contact with the administrative office in Holstein that may have handled the proceedings, I was directed to the Bundesarchiv in Beyreuth, Germany, the Federal State Archives in the city of Beyreuth, in northern Bavaria. I’ve provided them with the list of all the possible heirs to the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik, requested they tell me about indemnification they may have received, and now await a reply; oddly, the archive can only research by individual names, not by the name of the Woinowitz factory, so it’s unclear what, if any, documentation I may eventually obtain.

Towards the end of Post 55, I told readers about having found the death register listings for Dr. Erich Schück and his wife Hedwig Schück née Jendricke in the online Landesarchiv Berlin database, the latter of which was the subject of Post 49. To remind readers, I found Hedwig’s date and place of death in the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik compensation package given to me by Allan Hurst Hansen; it showed she died on the 9th of June 1960 (Figure 7a) in the Wilmersdorf Borough of Berlin, making locating her in the Landesarchiv Berlin database relatively straight-forward. Finding her husband Dr. Erich Schück in the database was slightly more involved. I’d been told growing up he’d committed suicide sometime after the forced sale of the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik. Operating under the assumption he’d moved to Berlin after selling the sugar plant, further assuming he’d lived in Berlin-Wilmersdorf, where his wife died in 1960, and finally theorizing he’d died in the late 1930’s or early 1940’s, I scoured the death register for Wilmersdorf and eventually discovered his name listed under the year 1938.

As explained in Post 49, finding names in the death register listing does not give you immediate access to the underlying death certificates; these must be ordered from the Landesarchiv Berlin, and since publication of the Post 55, I’ve received these documents.

Figure 8. Dr. Erich Schück’s death certificate highlighting his dates and places of birth and death, his cause of death, the attending physician, his birth certificate number, and his marriage date

Figure 9. Hedwig Schück née Jendricke’s death certificate highlighting her dates and places of birth and death, her birth certificate number, and her marriage date

The death certificates for Erich and Hedwig, as readers can observe for themselves, are typed, thus easily decipherable even though written in German. (Figures 8-9) I learned several interesting things from these certificates. In the case of Dr. Erich Schück, his death certificate identified his cause of death, “todesursache,” as “Kranzaderverkalkung, Zuckerkrankheit, Herzschlag,” that’s to say, as arteriosclerosis, diabetes and heart disease. As mentioned above, Dr. Schück’s relatives had always maintained he committed suicide. Notwithstanding the stated causes of death, I still believe his death was self-inflicted. Let me explain why. The attending doctor who signed his name to the death certificate was a Dr. Alfred Mamlok, who it so happens was Dr. Schück’s first cousin. Perhaps mindful of the need for decorum or financial necessity, Dr. Mamlok opted to state natural causes as the reason for his cousin’s death. We may never know.

Figure 10. Co-owner of the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik Sigmund Hirsch with his wife Selma Hirsch née Braun with their three children, Frieda, Robert and Helene

I’d been aware for some time that Sigmund Hirsch, co-owner of the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik, had three children with his wife Selma Hirsch née Braun, two daughters, Helene and Frieda, and one son, Robert. (Figure 10) I knew both daughters had been born in Ratibor but had never found any concrete evidence of when and where the son had been born, though I’d known for some time he’d died in Valparaiso, Chile in 1943. Then, recently, I again searched Robert Hirsch in ancestry.com, and came upon a promising lead for a person by that name who once lived in an unexpected place at some remove from Ratibor called Mittweida, Germany, promising only because it showed this person was born in Ratibor on the 31st of October 1881. (Figures 11a-b) The year comported with the timeframe his two siblings had been born, respectively, in 1880 and 1883. Still, uncertain what to make of this, I asked Mr. Paul Newerla, my historian friend from Ratibor, whether he could check in the civil register in Racibórz for the Robert Hirsch born in 1881, which he graciously agreed to do. Paul located this person’s birth certificate and confirmed that he was indeed Sigmund and Selma’s son, born, like his sisters, in Ratibor. (Figure 12) Another mystery solved. A side benefit of this request to my friend Paul is that he also found and sent me the birth certificate for Erich Schück, who it turns out was born in 1878 in Ratibor only three years before Robert Hirsch. (Figure 13)

Figure 11a. Mittweida, Germany (State of Saxony) 1904 Residence Register listing a Robert Hirsch born on the 31st of October 1881 in Ratibor (cover)

Figure 11b. Mittweida, Germany (State of Saxony) 1904 Residence Register highlighting the Robert Hirsch born on the 31st of October 1881 in Ratibor (register)

Figure 12. Robert Hirsch’s Ratibor 1881 birth certificate highlighting his parents’ names, Sigmund and Selma Hirsch née Braun (partners Sigmund and Adolph’s wives were sisters)

Figure 13. Erich Schück’s Ratibor 1878 birth certificate highlighting his parents’ names, Adolph and Alma Schück née Braun (partners Adolph and Sigmund’s wives were sisters)

Erich and Hedwig’s respective death certificates indicated their date and place of birth, but more importantly provided the certificate numbers of their birth certificates. (Figures 8-9) Erich was born on the 13th of April 1878 in Ratibor, Germany, while his future wife Hedwig Jendricke was born on the 6th of December 1890 in a place called Gollantsch, Germany [today: Gołańcz, Poland]; On the off chance that familysearch.org might have the birth records automated for Gollantsch, I checked their online catalog, and, amazingly, found Hedwig’s birth certificate matching the number shown on her death certificate. (Figures 14a-b)

Figure 14a. Hedwig Schück née Jendricke’s 1890 birth certificate from Gollantsch, Germany, matching Certificate Number 129 found on her 1935 Berlin marriage certificate

Figure 14b. Translation of Hedwig Schück née Jendricke’s 1890 birth certificate

Both Erich and Hedwig Schück’s death certificates indicate they were married on the 25th of June 1935 in Berlin-Charlottenburg. (Figures 8-9) This was a source of potential new information, so naturally I ordered their marriage certificate from the Landesarchiv Berlin; it arrived several weeks later, but unlike Erich and Hedwig’s death certificates, it was handwritten. (Figures 15a-c) I asked one of my German cousins for a translation, which he happily provided. The marriage certificate included one new piece of information whose significance I had no reason to fully appreciate at the time, namely, Hedwig’s “middle” name, “Lange.” Often, in the Landesarchiv Berlin marriage registers, a widowed or divorced spouse who remarries has her first husband’s surname recorded. Such was the case with Erich and Hedwig’s 1935 marriage certificate, which showed Hedwig’s first husband had been someone with the surname Lange (i.e, Hedwig Lange née Jendricke).

Figure 15a. Erich Schück and Hedwig Lange née Jendricke’s 1935 Marriage Certificate 622 (page 1)

Figure 15b. Erich Schück and Hedwig Lange née Jendricke’s 1935 Marriage Certificate 622 (page 2)

Figure 15c. Translation of Erich Schück and Hedwig Lange née Jendricke’s 1935 Marriage Certificate 622

Figure 16. My third cousin once-removed, Larry Leyser

It took my third cousin once-removed, Larry Leyser (Figure 16), to fully unravel the significance of this new piece of information. Briefly, some background. In recent years, Larry has had the opportunity to scan a large collection of family photos and documents from his deceased great-aunt now in the possession of his second cousin. As occasionally also happens with me, even with labeled photos, neither of us is immediately able to recognize all the names nor ascertain a possible family connection; the photos go into what I term my “back-burner” file for future contemplation. Once I shared the translation of Erich and Hedwig Schück’s marriage certificate with Larry, it triggered an “aha!” moment to the previously unknown “Lange” name. In Larry’s own back-burner file, he discovered four labeled photos of Hedwig Lange from 1930, including one of Larry’s father, Kurt Leyser, with two of Kurt’s first cousins. (Figures 17-18) Beyond now knowing what Hedwig Schück looked like, it confirms that Hedwig was known to her future second husband Erich while she was either still married to, divorced or widowed from her first husband. Also, it was known that Hedwig was an aspiring actress or singer, and two of the photos do indeed appear to have been professionally staged. (Figures 19-20) It is beyond amazing that Larry was able to relate photos of a previously unfamiliar Hedwig Lange to the broader story of the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik.

Figure 17. Hedwig Lange née Jendricke on the 20th of September 1930

Figure 18. Hedwig Lange née Jendricke with three children, Larry Leyser’s father, Kurt Leyser, and two of Kurt’s cousins

Figure 19. May 1930 stage photograph of Hedwig Lange née Jendricke, an aspiring actress

Figure 20. May 1930 stage photograph of Hedwig Lange née Jendricke

Figure 21. Franz Kayser, one witness at Erich and Hedwig Schück’s 1935 marriage, in 1945 atop Rockefeller Center in New York City

Figure 22. Franz Kayser’s son, John Kayser, in 2014, in front of the apartment building in Berlin near where his parents lived at the time they fled to America in 1938, shown in Erich and Hedwig Schück’s marriage certificate as Kaiserdammstrasse 82 (not 22)

One final thing I found on Erich and Hedwig Schück’s marriage certificate of great personal interest were the names and addresses of two witnesses, specifically, “Franz Kayser” and “Fritz Leyser.” (Figure 15b) Readers should refer to the table at the outset of this post to see that Adolph Schück’s two daughters’ married names were, respectively, Leyser and Kayser. Franz Kayser (Figure 21), whom I met once as an adolescent in New York, was the father of my third cousin John Kayser (Figure 22), while Fritz Leyser (Figure 23) was Larry Leyser’s grandfather. It was astounding to find the surnames on one historic document from Berlin of three families, Schück, Leyser and Kayser (Figure 24), all connected to the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik outside Ratibor.

Figure 23. Larry Leyser’s grandfather, Friedrich “Fritz” Leyser, the second witness at Erich and Hedwig Schück’s 1935 marriage

Figure 24. Franz Kayser and Fritz Leyser, the two witnesses at Erich and Hedwig Schück’s 1935 marriage, as adolescents on horseback in the Tiergarten in Berlin

The point of telling readers about these discoveries is not to bore you senseless, but rather to emphasize that reconstructing one’s own family tree and finding relevant certificates and clues can be a painstaking process that sometimes requires taking baby steps to make progress. Occasionally, a single name or document can open a plethora of opportunities.

Figure 25. Dr. Alfred Mamlok with his wife Frieda “Henrietta” Mamlok née Hirsch

Figure 26. Dr. Alfred Mamlok’s grandson, Dr. Robert Mamlok

Figure 27. Dr. Alfred Mamlok’s son, Dr. Erich Mamlok (1913-1991), who attempted to obtain compensation on behalf of his family during the 1950’s for the forced sale of the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik around 1937

Regular readers know how much I like uncovering “connections” in my forensic investigations, so beyond finding photos of Hedwig Lange-Schück, I discovered one other serendipitous association. I previously mentioned the physician who signed Dr. Erich Schück’s death certificate was his first cousin, Dr. Alfred Mamlok. (Figure 8) It so happens that Alfred Mamlok (Figure 25) was the son-in-law of Sigmund Hirsch, co-owner of the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik. After publishing Post 55, Part II, of the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik story, Larry Leyser put me in touch with Alfred Mamlok’s grandson, Dr. Robert Mamlok (Figure 26), living in Texas. I alluded to this at the outset. It turns out that Dr. Erich Mamlok (Figure 27), Dr. Alfred Mamlok’s son, coordinated with two other second- generation heirs of the sugar plant and corresponded extensively with the German government on the issue of the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik compensation in the 1950’s but, apparently, they were never successful in being indemnified. The correspondence is in German, Polish, and Spanish, and eventually I hope to obtain a copy of the complete file from Robert Mamlok and translate it to learn why compensation was never meted out to his family. It’s odd that some of the sugar plant owners’ heirs failed in their efforts to be compensated during the 1950’s but that some heirs were eventually indemnified in 1966. I hope to eventually learn why.

POST 55: THE WOINOWITZ ZUCKERFABRIK (SUGAR FACTORY) OUTSIDE RATIBOR (PART II-RESTITUTION FOR FORCED SALE BY THE NAZIS)

Note: In this post, I describe a recent contact I had with a reader of my Blog who was able to partially answer the question of whether the German government ever paid restitution to the heirs of the Woinowitz sugar plant for the forced sale of the factory by the Nazis during the 1930’s. I also discuss some of what I’ve learned about the heirs, detail some of the documentary evidence I’ve uncovered, and raise new questions now that earlier ones have been answered.

When I launched my family history Blog two years ago, I expressed hope readers would contact me with information about people and topics I would write about over time and/or establish ancestral connections between our families based on these accounts. This has happened on various occasions, and this Blog post is about one such encounter. It is a particularly satisfying story because it relates to several earlier posts, resolves a few mysteries I was never previously able to unravel, and establishes connections between events and people I earlier viewed as unrelated. Yet, like the Lernaean Hydra, one question gets answered and two “grow” in its place.

Figure 1. My father, Dr. Otto Bruck, in February 1948, the year he came to America

This story really begins when I was a youth. My father, Dr. Otto Bruck (Figure 1), came to America in 1948, at the age of 41. He never again worked as a dentist because the American authorities wanted him to completely reestablish his dental credentials, something he felt he was too old to do. Instead, he went to work for one of his cousins, Franz Kayser (1897-1983) (Figure 2), who ran an import business. When this cousin’s wife left him and got remarried with Curt L. Sterner, who similarly ran an import business, my father became part of the “package.” For the remainder of his working days, my father worked for Mr. Sterner.

Figure 2. My father’s second cousin, Franz Kayser, in 1945 atop Rockefeller Center in New York City

Figure 3. Mrs. Catherine “Ulrike” Sterner, the former Mrs. Kayser, in October 1992 in Hackettstown, New Jersey

Both Franz Kayser and Curt Sterner were Jewish and escaped Nazi Germany, as did Mrs. Catherine “Ulrike” Sterner (1908-2005) (Figure 3), the former Mrs. Kayser, also German though not Jewish. Growing up, my family would occasionally socialize with Mr. and Mrs. Sterner. On various occasions over the years, Ulrike would tell the story of her first husband’s uncle who had refused the Nazis offer to leave Germany in the 1930’s with 80 percent of his wealth intact. This was contrary to Ulrike’s advice, which was rejected on account of her juvenescence and presumed naivety. She maintained the uncle and his family could have lived very comfortably on the remaining money. Instead, he wound up committing suicide when it was no longer possible for German Jews to leave, with or without their money. Whether Ulrike ever mentioned this uncle’s name, I can’t recall.

Figure 4. Franz & Catherine Kayser’s son, John Kayser, in 2014, in front of the apartment in Berlin at Kaiserdam Strasse 22, where his parents lived at the time they fled to America

Ulrike and Franz Kayser had one son together, John Kayser. (Figure 4) Ulrike was prescient and could see what awaited Jews who stayed in Germany. She traveled to England to give birth to John in 1938 so that he would have a British passport; while the family briefly returned to Berlin following John’s birth, they quickly fled to America after Kristallnacht. John and I are third cousins, and he provided the name of his father’s uncle, Dr. Erich Schück, Uncle Schück as he was familiarly known. (Figure 5)

Figure 5. Dr. Erich Schück (1880 (?)-1938), Franz Kayser’s uncle who committed suicide in Berlin in 1938

Figure 6. Allan Grutt Hansen (b. 1962) from Denmark, grandnephew of Erich & Hedwig Schück

Fast forward. Through my Blog, I recently received an email from a gentleman in Denmark, Mr. Allan Grutt Hansen. (Figure 6) He explained that his great-aunt, his grandmother’s sister that is, Hedwig Schück née Jendricke, had been married to Dr. Erich Schück. I have Dr. Schück in my family tree, though I never knew he’d been married. While this obviously expands my family tree, I was more interested in what it might reveal about the Schücks who once co-owned the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik outside Ratibor [today: Racibórz, Poland] that I wrote about in Post 36.

Figure 7. The still-standing Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik, outside Racibórz, Poland, as it looked in May 2014

Mr. Hansen is an avid genealogist and visits places associated with his family in Germany and Poland. This year he and his wife visited Upper Silesia, including Ratibor. As he’s done in the past, he did an Internet query on the still-standing Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik (Figure 7) outside Ratibor before his trip but, unlike earlier searches, this time landed upon my recent Blog post on the subject. Ergo, his email to me. As an aside, I learned, to my pleasure, that Allan used my Blog posts as a guide to some places he visited in Silesia.

Figure 8. Adolph Schück (1840-1916), co-owner of the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik

Figure 9. Henrietta and Helene Hirsch, the two daughters of Sigmund Hirsch, Adolph Schück’s partner in the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik, who may have inherited their father’s shares following his death in 1920

In Post 36, I explained that Dr. Erich Schück’s father, Adolph Schück (Figure 8), had been partners with one of his brothers-in-law, Sigmund Hirsch, in the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik; I’m unsure whether they were equal partners. Adolph died in 1916 and seemingly his shares passed into the hands of his three children, including his only son Erich. It’s unclear who inherited Sigmund’s stake in the business when he died in 1920, although it’s likely his two married daughters, Henrietta and Helene Hirsch (Figure 9), did. Though the factory was shuttered sometime in the 1920’s for economic reasons, the families retained ownership. To remind readers, I was never previously able to resolve the question of whether the Schück and Hirsch families were compensated by the German government for the sale or confiscation of the property after the Nazis came to power in 1933. My friend Mr. Paul Newerla (Figure 10), Silesian historian, however, affirmed that during his days working as an attorney he transacted a legal sale of the sugar factory from rightful owners. This is where things stood until I was contacted by Mr. Allan Grutt Hansen from Denmark.

Figure 10. My friend, Silesian historian Paul Newerla, and me standing by the statue of John of Nepomuk in Racibórz in 2018

Allan was not only able to answer the question of German restitution, but he provided documentation on how monies were meted out to his ancestors; he sent me the eight pages of the restitution agreement, naturally in German, detailing how his branch of the family was indemnified for sale of the sugar factory. There are specifics I’m still trying to understand and additional records I’m currently working to obtain, but the broad outline is becoming clearer.

The written materials Allan sent me deals only with the one-sixth of the estate involving his ancestors. The West German government ostensibly compensated all eligible heirs in 1966 for the forced sale of the sugar factory in September 1936. If my understanding is accurate, compensation paid out in 1966 was based on what the factory would have sold for in 1936 had the sale been voluntary. It appears the value of the factory in 1936 was estimated in 1966 to have been about 450,000 Reichsmark (RM) (i.e., in January 2017, a 1937 Reichsmark would have been worth approximately $4.30). This figure was divided into six equal shares of 75,000 RM, which likely represented the number of eligible heirs and/or “estates.” (Figures 11a-b)

Figure 11a. Front page of the restitution agreement for the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik showing the estimated value; the date of Hedwig Schück’s death; and the “Landkreis” where the agreement was handled

Figure 11b. Page from 1966 restitution agreement for the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik with Hedwig Schück’s address shown as Fasanenstrasse 38, where I would later find her listed in a 1954 Berlin Address Book

This figure was “adjusted” upward in 1966 by multiplying the 75,000 RM by 1.9 “boosting” the value of Dr. Erich Schück’s shares to 142,500 RM; perhaps this was done to offset the ridiculously high “wealth tax” assessed in 1936 by the Nazis that reduced the amount he actually received. However, Dr. Schück’s heirs only reaped 2,500 RM in 1966 because 140,000 RM had already been disbursed in 1936. (Figure 11c) This only makes sense to me if Erich was the only heir to receive monies from sale of the sugar plant in 1936. If so, the West German government may have attempted to rectify this “oversight” in 1966 by paying out equal portions of 142,500 RM to each of the five other heirs or their descendants. Until the complete restitution package is in hand, it’s unknown how much was paid out in 1936 and to whom, and how much in 1966 and again to whom. Watch this space for further explanation.

Figure 11c. Page from 1966 West German compensation agreement for the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik indicating how individual shares of 75,000 RM were “adjusted” to 142,500 RM but showing only 2,500 RM was disbursed in 1966 to Hedwig Schück’s heirs

Examining the documentation provided by Allan Grutt Hansen, formal compensation proceedings were apparently initiated in the early 1960’s in Hansestadt Lübeck (Figure 11a), the Hanseatic city of Lübeck, in the northern German state of Schleswig-Holstein. Hedwig Schück was probably no longer alive at the time, having passed away on the 9th of June 1960, at a then-undetermined location. I’ve already told readers Dr. Erich Schück committed suicide, place and date also then-undetermined. I’ll discuss below how details in the restitution package allowed me to track down the place they died, and, in the case of Dr. Schück, the year he died.

The documentation on the one-sixth of the compensation doled out to Allan’s family lists by name all the heirs and their shares. These included: Anna Johannsen née Brügge (1/12th share); Sophie Dalstrand née Brügge (1/12th share); Christian Brügge (1/24th share); and Helmuth Brügge (1/24th share). (Figure 11d) Let me briefly explain how these people are related to Dr. Erich Schück.

Figure 11d. Page from 1966 West German compensation agreement for the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik listing Erich and Hedwig Schück’s four heirs, and the fraction they each received of the 2,500 RM compensation doled out

As previously mentioned, Dr. Erich Schück was married to Hedwig Schück née Jendricke. Hedwig’s mother, Anna Pelagia Jendricke (1873-1953), had her out-of-wedlock in 1889 when she was only 16 years old. Possibly, because the family came from a small town in Poland, Gołańcz, with conservative values they pretended Hedwig was Anna’s sister rather than her illegitimate daughter, thus the maiden name “Jendricke.” Anna would eventually get married to a Christian Brügge (1853-1926) with whom she had four additional children. (Figure 12)

Figure 12. Hedwig Schück “née” Jendricke’s mother, Anna Pelagia Brügge née Jendricke (center), with two of her daughters, Sophie Dalstrand née Brügge (left) and Anna Johannsen née Brügge (right)

In any case, Anna Johannsen and Sophie Dalstrand were sisters-in-law of Dr. Erich Schück, while Christian and Helmuth Brügge were two of his nephews. All four of Dr. Schück’s heirs were related through marriage to Hedwig Schück née Jendricke.

Allan provided some historical background to clarify where his Brügge and Jendricke lineages came from and how, after WWI, geo-political factors influenced why the Brügges wound up in Denmark and the Jendrickes ended up in Germany. This is important for understanding why some members of Allan’s family were so German-minded, and how it influenced their actions during WWII. I’ll return to this shortly. While not directly relevant to restitution for the forced sale of the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik, it establishes some context for understanding the present-day borders of Denmark, Germany, and Poland, and by extension other European countries. (Figure 13)

Figure 13. Map of Europe between WWI and WWI, with date “1920” circled, showing the northern part of Schleswig regained by Denmark after WWI, and Germany border town of “Flensburg”; the eastern part of Poland that became part of Ukraine and Belarus following WWII is also shown (source: “Putzger: Historischer Weltatlas”)

Allan’s Brügge ancestors come from the Danish-German border region of Schleswig, divided today between Germany and Denmark. His Jendricke family comes from the Polish-German border region of western Poland. Schleswig was originally entirely Danish, while western Poland was Polish, but after several hundred years of German influence and pressure from German authorities in both areas, western Poland (as well as northern Poland) and southern Denmark became German. A war was fought between the Danes and the Germans in 1864 when the Danish government sought to reunite the whole of Schleswig under Danish control; the Danes were defeated and wound up losing 40 percent of their land and population. Denmark only recovered the northern half of Schleswig in 1920 following a plebiscite asking the residents whether they wanted to be Danish or German.

Figure 14. Allan Grutt Hansen’s great- grandfather, Christian Brügge, on 10 July 1920 shown waving the Danish flag, following the plebiscite where Denmark regained the northern part of Schleswig

In the 1890’s, Allan’s Danish-minded great-grandfather, Christian Brügge (1853-1926) (Figure 14) apparently traveled to western Poland and found his wife, Anna Pelagia née Jendricke, in Gołańcz, Poland; they settled in Flensburg in south Schleswig, which today is in Germany, on the German-Danish border. When south Schleswig was not restored to Denmark in 1920 (Figure 15), Christian Brügge immediately moved his family to Copenhagen in Denmark. Allan’s great-grandfather wrote an article for a Flensburg newspaper promising to return once south Schleswig again became part of Denmark. It never has.

Figure 15. King Christian X of Denmark astride his white steed crossing the newly established border between Germany and Denmark on 10 July 1920

Western and northern Poland had already been incorporated into German Prussia, when Prussia, Austro-Hungary and Russia divided the rest of Poland among them, and Poland ceased to exist for 123 years between 1796 and 1919. Following WWI, between 1919 until 1939, Poland regained its independence until Hitler and Stalin started WWII by again dividing Poland. Following the war, Poland never regained its eastern half (now a part of Belarus and Ukraine), and instead Poland was “parallel-shifted” westward, and Poland was compensated by regaining western and northern Poland. This redrawing of the map resulted in 7 million Poles being deported from the former eastern part of Poland to western and northern Poland, and 12 million Germans from the latter areas being deported to Germany. This was ethnic cleansing on a massive scale.

Figure 16. The Nazi collaborators, Anni (née Jendricke) & Bende Johannsen, in the 1950’s in Germany

Let’s return to the story of the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik. According to Allan, Lübeck, where compensation proceedings were initiated, may not have been an accidental location. Let me explain and tell readers at the outset this involves “skeletons in the closet,” so to speak. Anna “Anni” Johannsen née Brügge, who received 1/12th of the compensation that was meted out in 1966, was married to a Bende Johannsen. (Figure 16) Because both were German-minded and eager to make Denmark German, they supported the Nazis. They worked at the Gestapo headquarters in Copenhagen during WWII, a place called the “Shell House” because it had been confiscated from Shell Corporation during the war. Anni translated forced confessions from captured Danish freedom fighters, while her husband worked in an administrative position. While neither was ever convicted of directly torturing or killing anyone, Anni as a German citizen was expelled from Denmark after the war, and her Danish husband Bende left with her, with both eventually settling in the Holstein-Oldenburg- Lübeck area, in a town called Neustadt. If Anni initiated the compensation proceedings after her sister’s death in 1960, as seems likely, this may explain why it was handled by the “Landesrat Oldenburg (Holstein).” Regardless, it’s an irony the ardent Nazi Anni benefited from the expropriation of the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik.

Regular readers know I always try to track down historic documents to bolster my account of events. Immediately after establishing contact with Allan, I asked him for a picture of his great-aunt Hedwig and vital data about her. I quickly learned he had no photos of her, no idea where she’d died, and no letters or personal papers belonging to her; if Hedwig maintained a relationship with her mother and half-siblings, it appears it was at best a casual one. My question, however, prompted Allan to re-examine the compensation documents, and there he discovered Hedwig had lived on one of the poshest streets in Berlin.

In Post 49, I described to readers how to use the challenging Landesarchiv Berlin database to search for vital records, and the importance of knowing which of Berlin’s 12 boroughs a vital event took place. In the absence of knowing for certain which borough an event took place, I ALWAYS begin by looking at records for the well-heeled borough of Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf, where virtually all my Jewish ancestors lived and/or worked. Knowing the exact date Hedwig Schück died and knowing she had lived in a “posh” Berlin district, I used this same approach, and lo-and-behold, I discovered her name in the Wilmersdorf death register listing for the year 1960. (Figures 17a-b)

Figure 17a. Cover of Landesarchiv Berlin Book 2142 for the year 1960 for Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf, with Hedwig Schück née Jendricke’s death register listing

Figure 17b. Landesarchiv Berlin Book 2142 for the year 1960 for Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf with Hedwig Schück née Jendricke’s name circled

The search for her husband Dr. Erich Schück was more challenging since I had no idea when or where he’d killed himself. John Kayser, Erich’s grandnephew, assumed he’d died in Ratibor, while I’d always assumed, he’d committed suicide in Berlin. Knowing from the restitution file the Nazis had forced the sale of the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik in 1936, I could see no reason why Erich would have stayed in Ratibor following the sale of the sugar plant. Most of my relatives, living in smaller communities, who lost their positions or businesses in such places after the Nazis came to power, quickly moved to Berlin; there, at least for a time, they could get “lost” in the relative anonymity of a larger city. Both my father and uncle relocated to Berlin from smaller towns after they lost their dental practices during the 1930’s.

I began by searching for Dr. Erich Schück in ancestry.com, and was rewarded by finding him listed in three Berlin Address Books, respectively, for 1936, 1937 and 1938, living at Landhausstrasse 37 in the Wilmersdorf borough of Berlin (Figure 18); the 1936 Address Book also lists a “Frau Dr. Schück,” Erich’s wife, living at the same address. I did not find him listed in any Berlin directories after 1938 but didn’t automatically assume he’d died that year. Most of my Jewish ancestors living in Berlin told to report for deportation were ordered to do so in 1942 and killed themselves that year.

Figure 18. 1938 Berlin Address Book with Dr. Erich Schück’s name and Wilmersdorf address circled, the last year he is listed

Having narrowed Dr. Schück’s residence to Berlin-Wilmersdorf in 1938, I began scouring the Landesarchiv Berlin death listings for that borough from that year forward; in short order, I discovered his name in the 1938 register. The only surprise is while I’d been told by family that he was a medical doctor, I discovered he was actually a “Dr. jur.,” Doctor juris. (Figures 19a-b)

Figure 19a. Cover of Landesarchiv Berlin Book 2126 for the years 1937-1940 for Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf with Dr. jur. Erich Schück’s death register listing under year 1938

Figure 19b. Landesarchiv Berlin Book 2126 for the years 1937-1940 for Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf with Dr. Jur. Erich Schück’s name circled

Now knowing both Dr. Schück and his wife died in Berlin, I’ve requested copies of their death certificates from the Landesarchiv Berlin. They currently have a several month-long backlog so it will be some time before I can report to readers any new information these documents may contain.

I also searched Dr. Schück’s wife in ancestry.com. I found a “Heddy Schück” listed in a 1954 Berlin Phone Directory living at “Fasanenstrasse 38, Charlottenburg” (Figure 20), which matched her address in the compensation package. Reminded that Hedwig was listed as “Heddy,” Allan’s mother later recalled that she in fact went by this diminutive.

Figure 20. 1954 Berlin Address Book with Heddy Schück shown living at Fasanenstr. 38 in Charlottenburg, matching her address in the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik compensation package

Readers will correctly surmise that my conversation with Allan Grutt Hansen has partially answered the question of whether the Schück family was compensated for the forced sale of the sugar factory located in Woinowitz. But, like the Hydra of mythological renown, I may have raised several new questions for the one I’ve answered, namely, who, if anyone beyond Dr. Schück, received monies paid out in 1936; who initiated the compensation proceedings in the 1960’s; and which heirs were indemnified in 1966? There may be other new questions based on the answers to the ones enumerated. Because the restitution was only resolved in 1966, it’s possible that Germany’s privacy laws may prevent release of the complete compensation package for many years to come. Time will tell.