Dr. Otto Bruck Archives - Page 2 of 4

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

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

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

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

Figure 1. My great-aunt Franziska Bruck (1866-1942)

Figure 2. My great-aunt Elsbeth Bruck (1874-1970)

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

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

Figure 3b. Archival boxes at the Stadtmuseum containing my great-aunts’ personal papers

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

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

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

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

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

Figure 5. Fedor Lowenstein’s death certificate from Nice, France indicating he died there on the 4th of August 1946

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

Figure 7. Fedor Löwenstein’s sister’s death certificate from Nice, France showing Jeanne “Hansi” Goff née Löwenstein died there on the 5th of May 1986; the name on her death certificate is “Jeanne Loewenstein”

Figure 8. Death register listing dated the 5th of August 1946 for Fedor Löwenstein listing his name as “Fedor Lowenstein”

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

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

Figure 10. Hedwig Löwenstein née Bruck’s surviving headstone though her bones were removed to a charnel house

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

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

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

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

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

Figure 13. March 1946 photo of Fedor Loewenstein (seated) with his sister Hansi, his brother Heinz, and his mother Hedwig in Nice, France, taken several months before his death in August 1946

Figure 14. Photo of Fedor Loewenstein with his brother Heinz in military uniform taken in Nice, France on the 24th of October 1945

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

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

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

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

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

Figure 17a. Undated photo of Fedor Löwenstein as a young man

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

REFERENCE

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

VITAL STATISTICS OF WILHELM FÉDOR LÖWENSTEIN & HIS IMMEDIATE FAMILY

NAME	EVENT	DATE	PLACE	SOURCE

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

POST 89: EVIDENCE OF MY 18th & 19th CENTURIES MARLE ANCESTORS

Note: In this post, I discuss evidence of the Marle branch of my extended family from the late 18^th Century-early 19^th Century, which survives in the “Archiwum Panstwowe Oddzial Pszczyna,” State Archives Pszczyna [Poland] Branch, as well as in the Jewish cemetery that still exists there.

Figure 1. My father, Dr. Otto Bruck, and uncle, Dr. Fedor Bruck, winter 1934-35 in the Riesengebirge (Karkonosze), in southwestern Poland

My father, Dr. Otto Bruck (1907-1994) (Figure 1), had an indifferent if not dismissive attitude towards his ancestors and next of kin apart from his beloved sister Susanne Müller née Bruck (1904-1942), murdered in Auschwitz. By contrast, my uncle Dr. Fedor Bruck (1895-1982) (Figure 1), the oldest of my father’s siblings, was deeply interested in his forefathers. Upon my uncle’s death in 1982, my aunt gave me a copy of an abbreviated family “tree” my uncle had developed. (Figure 2) This includes the earliest mention I can recollect of the Marle branch of my family, specifically, “Wilhelm MARLE” who was married to “Reisel G. (=GRAETZER).” My uncle’s schematic tree provided no vital dates for the Marles.

Figure 2. A schematized family tree developed by my uncle Dr. Fedor Bruck with the earliest mention of the Marle branch of my extended family

In time, I would learn from a German cousin that Wilhelm and Rosalie Marle’s headstones survive in the extant Jewish Cemetery in Pszczyna, Poland, formerly Pless, Prussia. During my and my wife’s 2014 visit to Ratibor [today: Racibórz, Poland], our English-speaking Polish friend, Malgosia Ploszaj, took us the to their graves, approximately 35 miles distant. (Figure 3) Malgosia, who hails from nearby Rybnik, Poland, formerly Rybnick, Prussia, is ardently interested in the history of Jews in Silesia and works with local volunteers to restore and raise fallen Jewish headstones throughout the area. In 2014, only Wilhelm Marle’s headstone had been restored and reset, but subsequently, his wife’s headstone has also been raised. I include pictures here of their beautifully rehabilitated tombstones.

Figure 3. May 2014 photo of me standing by the raised headstone of Wilhelm Marle in the surviving Jewish Cemetery in Pszczyna, Poland

[Just a quick footnote. I have variously found Wilhelm Marle’s wife’s forename spelled as “Reisel,” “Roesel,” “Rosel,” “Raizel,” and “Rosalie.” I will primarily use “Rosalie” as this name appears on her tombstone.]

Let me very briefly digress to provide some context. The subject of Post 88 was my third great-aunt, Antonie Pauly née Marle, an illegitimate daughter of the Rosalie Marle née Graetzer buried in Pszczyna; as previously discussed, Antonie was humorously if not sarcastically referred to as the “Queen of Tost,” even though she was born in Pszczyna not Toszek, Poland as Tost is today known.

Because Wilhelm and Rosalie Marle’s headstones are the very earliest known to me of any ancestors and relate to individuals born in the late 18^th Century, I was particularly interested in learning more about them. Thus, I recently asked my friend, Ms. Madeleine Isenberg, affiliated as a volunteer with the Jewish Genealogical Society of Los Angeles, whether she could translate the Hebraic text on Wilhelm (Figures 4-6) and Rosalie Marle’s (Figures 7-9) headstones. Madeleine is fluent in Hebrew and is ardently interested in deciphering and interpreting Hebrew texts on headstones. Madeleine provided a beautiful translation and interpretation of the text on both tombstones.

Figure 4. Wilhelm Marle’s (1772-1846) tombstone

Figure 5. Transcription of text on Wilhelm Marle’s headstone

Figure 6. Translation of text on Wilhelm Marle’s headstone [courtesy of Madeleine Isenberg]

Figure 7. Rosalie Marle née Graetzer’s (1779 or 1780-1849) tombstone

Figure 8. Transcription of text on Rosalie Marle née Graetzer’s headstone

Figure 9. Translation of text on Rosalie Marle née Graetzer’s headstone [courtesy of Madeleine Isenberg]

A few points of clarification. “Kohen” is the Hebrew word for “priest,” thus, a member of the priestly class having certain rights and duties in the synagogue.

As to the reference that Wilhelm Marle’s father was a “chaver,” Madeleine explained that in today’s Hebrew, it would simply mean “friend,” but that at one time it was a sort of title. If a person studied at a yeshiva to gain the certification of a rabbi, it was with the intention he might serve a community as a rabbi or teacher. However, Madeleine found another “classification” of chaver in a paper entitled “Regulations of The Synagogue ‘Altneuschule’ In Prague In Their Historic Context” which I quote:

“In 18^th Century Germany, there were two degrees of rabbinical ordination: the higher degree, using the title ‘moreinu’—our teacher or guide—given to scholars who devoted all their time to Torah study even after marriage and intended to serve the Rabbinate or as a Yeshiva teacher. The lower degree—chaver—was given to students before marriage who intended to take up a trade other than the Rabbinate.” (Gevaryahu & Sicherman 2010)

The German translation of “chaver” on Wilhelm Marle’s headstone is “Kaufmann,” merchant or businessman, indicating that he did not intend to become a rabbi or teacher.

As mentioned, the translation of Wilhelm and Rosalie Marle’s headstones was recently obtained. However, in December 2017, I was contacted through my family tree on ancestry.com by Professor Sławomir Pastuszka from Jagiellonian University in Kraków looking for information on the Marle family. While I was able to provide Professor Pastuszka with some new material, I was the primary beneficiary of our exchanges.

Professor Pastuszka’s data comes from the Archiwum Panstwowe Oddzial Pszczyna, State Archives Pszczyna Branch, located in Pszczyna proper, which is unavailable online. I will briefly summarize and provide some historic context for the information about Wilhelm and Rosalie Marle. Wilhelm Wolf Marle was born on the 14^th of November 1772 in Pless to Isaac (Figure 10) and Magdalena (Figure 11), both of whom died before 1811 and are buried in the Mikołów Jewish Cemetery in Mikołów, Poland [formerly Nikolai, Prussia], a well-preserved Jewish cemetery; Mikołów is located about 19 miles or 30km north of Pszczyna. (Figure 12) The texts on most of the headstones in Mikołów are in Hebrew so without an interpreter it would be difficult for the average visitor to locate Wilhelm Marle’s parents’ headstones. (Figure 13)

Figure 10. Wilhelm Wolf Marle’s father, Isaac Marle, listed in a 1780 census of Pless [photo courtesy of Sławomir Pastuszka]

Figure 11. Wilhelm Wolf Marle’s parents, Isaac Marle and Magdalena, listed in a 1784 census of Pless [photo courtesy of Sławomir Pastuszka]

Figure 12. 1893 map of Silesia with Pless [today: Pszczyna, Poland], Nikolai [today: Mikołów, Poland], Ratibor [today: Racibórz, Poland] and Rybnick [today: Rybnik, Poland] circled

Figure 13. Headstone of unknown individual from the Mikołów Jewish Cemetery in Mikołów, Poland [photo courtesy of K. Bielawski] in Hebrew text

The Marle families was one of the oldest Jewish families in Pless. According to censuses in the Pszczyna Archive, respectively from 1811 (Figure 14) and the 24^th of March 1812 (Figure 15), Wilhelm Wolf Marle was also referred to as “Wolf Marle Schlesinger.” According to Sławomir, “Schlesinger” is a word in Schläsisch, or Silesian German, referring to “the Silesian.” Silesian German or Lower Silesian is a nearly extinct German dialect spoken in Silesia. It is part of the East Central German language area with some West Slavic and Lechitic influences. In German, Schläsisch is Schlesisch.

Figure 14. Wilhelm Marle listed in an 1811 Pless census as “Wolff Marle Schlesinger” [photo courtesy of Sławomir Pastuszka]

Figure 15. Wilhelm Marle again registered in a Pless census dated the 24th of March 1812 as “Wolff Marle Schlesinger”; this same entry also gives his date of birth (14 November 1772); his wife “Roesel’s” date of birth (19 March 1780); their date of marriage (15 August 1799); and the names & dates of birth of their four children at the time [photo courtesy of Sławomir Pastuszka]

Wilhelm Marle married Rosalie Graetzer on the 15^th of August 1799. Records show Rosalie was born in Tost, Prussia [today: Toszek, Poland] on the 19^th of March 1780, daughter of Meyer and Goldine, both from Tost, Prussia. Her headstone states she was 70 years old when she died in October 1849, suggesting she may actually have been born in 1779 rather than 1780.

Other census records indicate Wilhelm Marle was variously a trader [1813], a shopkeeper [1814], and a merchant [1817,1820, 1821, 1822, 1823, 1839, 1842], and that in 1841, he owned a spice shop, an iron shop, and a money exchange.

On January 28, 1802, Wilhelm Marle took over a plot of land from his father with a tenement house located at Deutsche Vorstadt 4, worth 266 Thalers and 20 silver pennies. He sold the property on November 23, 1833. The house still stands today. (Figure 16) In 1814, Wilhelm bought a house at No. 18 on Market Square for 2500 Thalers from Heinrich Theiner, which his son Isaak Marle inherited upon his death. This house also still stands today. (Figure 17)

Figure 16. Tenement house once owned by Wilhelm Marle at Deutsche Vorstadt 4, today at ul. Wojska Polskiego 9, in Pszczyna, as it looked in 2015

Figure 17. House once owned by Wilhelm Marle at No. 18 Market Square, today at Rynek 18, in Pszczyna, as it looked in 2019

The cause of Wilhelm Marle’s death in 1846 was pulmonary edema.

Let me briefly digress to provide some historic context to enable readers to understand when and under what conditions Jews were provided with some civil equality in Prussia. On March 11, 1812, the Prussian King Frederick William III issued an edict that under the first article declared all legally resident Jews of Prussia to be citizens. Article 2 considered Jews to be natives [Einländer] and state citizens of Prussia provided they adopt strictly fixed surnames; that they use German or another living language not only in keeping their commercial records but also in the drawing of contracts and legal declarations of intention; and that they use only German or Latin script for their signatures. Articles 7 and 8 provided that all occupations were open to Jews including academic positions. Article 9, however, postponed the question of Jewish eligibility to state offices. In sum, the Edict provided some civil equality for Jews in exchange for their assumption of fixed surnames, their adoption of German “or another living language” in their professional activities and compliance with other civil duties, including military conscription.

Wilhelm and Rosalie’s dates of birth come from the census record of Pless Jews dated the 24th of March 1812, who, after the emancipation edict, became full citizens of Prussia. Professor Pastuszka emphasized these records contain many errors and dates are not always correct, but this is the only source where complete dates appear.

It was only after the issuance of the Edict of 1812 that Wilhelm Marle could run for office and be elected as one of the first two councilors of the Jewish confession in Pless.

Officially, as implied, Jews in the Kingdom of Prussia had to adopt surnames in 1812, before which they used “nicknames.” The last name “Marle” was originally a nickname used by Wilhelm’s father Isaac. In some documents Sławomir found Wilhelm listed as “Wolf Isaac,” meaning he was “Wolf son of Isaac.” Wilhelm’s mother “Magdalena,” did not have a maiden name. The only Pless census in which her name appears is the one from 1784 at which time she is shown to be 48 years old. (Figure 11)

After the Edict of 1812, women without maiden names typically adopted their father’s first name as a surname. For example, in Pless, a widow listed in the 1811 census named “Pessel Ephraim,” Pessel daughter of Ephraim, was known after her marriage in 1812 to “Abraham Grunthal” as “Pessel Grunthal née Ephraim.” On other occasions women used as their nicknames the nicknames of their fathers, as in the case of Rosalie Marle née Graetzer. Rosalie Graetzer’s mother, “Goldine,” does not appear to have had a surname. While not likely, if I can obtain a picture of her tombstone from the Mikołów Jewish Cemetery, I may be able to confirm this.

Let me move on to the subject of Wilhelm and Rosalie Marle’s children, and the evidence Professor Pastuszka was able to muster about them. Naturally, a few caveats are in order. As previously mentioned, Wilhelm and Rosalie married in 1799. The census of the 24^th of March 1812 lists four of their children, namely, Goldine (b. 2^nd April 1804), Moritz (b. 12^th May 1806), Charlotte (b. 2^nd October 1809, and Handel (b. 28^th August 1812). (Figure 15) However, because no registers of births and deaths of Jews in Pless exist from before 1813, predating the Edict of 1812, we do not know how many additional children Wilhelm and Rosalie may have had between 1799 and 1812 who died at birth or in infancy.

In Pless censuses postdating the one of 1812, Professor Pastuszka found evidence of five additional children, specifically, Isaac Marle (b. 14^th October 1814), Rosel Marle (b. 12^th July 1817), Antonie Therese Marle (b. 1^st February 1820), Fanny Marle (b. 14^th March 1821) and Ernestine Marle (26^th October 1822). A family tree archived in the Pinkus Family Collection at the Leo Baeck Institute (Figure 18), available online, coincides almost exactly with the names and number of Wilhelm and Rosalie’s children from the census data, with one exception, Handel Marle, born in 1812 who died a little more than a year later. Not surprisingly, there are notable differences in the years of birth of Wilhelm and Rosalie and their eight surviving children.

Figure 18. Family tree for Wilhelm Marle & Rosalie Graetzer from the Pinkus Family Collection at the Leo Baeck Institute identifying 8 of their 9 children Professor Sławomir Pastuszka found in Pless censuses from the 18th-19th centuries

The compiled vital data for Wilhelm, his wife, and their nine known children is summarized in the table below, along with the source of the information. Whereas I consider the census records Professor Pastuszka retrieved from the Archiwum Panstwowe Oddzial Pszczyna to be primary source documents, I do not deem the vital data in the family tree from the Pinkus Family Collection to be such. Clearly, the more reliable vital data comes from the Pszczyna Archive.

VITAL STATISTICS FOR WILHELM WOLF MARLE, HIS WIFE & AND THEIR NINE KNOWN CHILDREN

NAME (relationship)	VITAL EVENT	DATE	PLACE	SOURCE OF DATA

Wilhelm Wolf Marle (self) [In Pless censuses from 1811 and 24^th of March 1812, he was named Wolf Marle Schlesinger]	Birth	14 November 1772	Pless, Prussia [today: Pszczyna, Poland]	Pless Census of 24^th of March 1812 (Pszczyna Archives)
	Marriage to Rosalie Grätzer	15 August 1799	Tost, Germany [today: Toszek, Poland]
	Death	31 October 1846	Pless, Prussia [today: Pszczyna, Poland]	Headstone in the Jewish cemetery in Pszczyna, Poland
Rosalie Graetzer (wife) (Figure 19)	Birth	19 March 1780	Tost, Germany [today: Toszek, Poland]	Headstone in the Jewish cemetery in Pszczyna, Poland
	Marriage to Wilhelm Marle	15 August 1799	Tost, Germany [today: Toszek, Poland]
	Death	26 October 1849	Pless, Prussia [today: Pszczyna, Poland]	Headstone in the Jewish cemetery in Pszczyna, Poland
Goldine Marle (daughter)	Birth	2 April 1804	Pless, Prussia [today: Pszczyna, Poland]	Pless Census of 24th of March 1812 (Pszczyna Archives)
	Marriage to Simon Pincus Oppler	10 December 1823	Rosenberg, Germany [today: Olesno, Poland]	Jewish Records Indexing-Poland (LDS Microfilm 1184449)
	Death	1853	Kreuzburg, Germany [today: Kluczbork, Poland]	Pinkus Family Collection, Marle Family Tree
Moritz (Moses) Marle (son)	Birth	12 May 1806	Pless, Prussia [today: Pszczyna, Poland]	Pless Census of 24th of March 1812 (Pszczyna Archives)
Moritz (Moses) Marle (son)	Death	1866	Breslau, Germany [today: Wrocław, Poland]	Pinkus Family Collection, Marle Family Tree
Charlotte Marle (daughter) (Figure 20)	Birth	2 October 1809	Pless, Prussia [today: Pszczyna, Poland]	Pless Census of 24th of March 1812 (Pszczyna Archives)
	Marriage to Samuel Bruck	18 January 1831	Pless, Prussia [today: Pszczyna, Poland]
	Death	17 August 1861	Ratibor, Germany [today: Racibórz, Poland]
Handel Marle (son)	Birth	28 August 1812	Pless, Prussia [today: Pszczyna, Poland]
Handel Marle (son)	Death	29 November 1813	Pless, Prussia [today: Pszczyna, Poland]
Isaak Marle (son)	Birth	15 October 1814	Pless, Prussia [today: Pszczyna, Poland]	Headstone in the former Jewish cemetery in Ratibor, Germany; Pinkus Family Collection, Marle Family Tree
	Marriage to Friederike Traube	11 April 1842	Ratibor, Germany [today: Racibórz, Poland]	LDS Microfilm 1184449
	Death	14 May 1884	Ratibor, Germany [today: Racibórz, Poland]	Headstone in the former Jewish cemetery in Ratibor, Germany; Pinkus Family Collection, Marle Family Tree
Rosalie Marle (illegitimate daughter of Rosalie Graetzer) (married to Jonas Bruck)	Birth	12 July 1817	Pless, Prussia [today: Pszczyna, Poland]	Headstone in the Old Jewish Cemetery in Wrocław
	Death	6 June 1890	Breslau, Germany [today: Wrocław, Poland]	Headstone in the Old Jewish Cemetery in Wrocław
Antonie Marle (daughter) (married to Zadig Pauly) (Figures 21a-b)	Birth	1 February 1820	Pless, Prussia [today: Pszczyna, Poland]	Pinkus Family Collection, Marle Family Tree
	Death	17 September 1893	Posen, Germany [today: Poznan, Poland]	Pinkus Family Collection, Marle Family Tree
Fanny Marle (daughter) (married to Salomon Mühsam)	Birth	14 March 1821	Pless, Prussia [today: Pszczyna, Poland]
Fanny Marle (daughter) (married to Salomon Mühsam)	Death	17 November 1909	Berlin, Germany	Schlesische Jüdische Familien ancestry tree
Ernestine Marle (daughter)	Birth	25 October 1822	Pless, Prussia [today: Pszczyna, Poland]
	Marriage Registration to Gustav Graeffner	30 June 1851	Ratibor, Germany [today: Racibórz, Poland]	LDS Microfilm 1184449
	Marriage to Gustav Graeffner	13 July 1851	Breslau, Germany [today: Wrocław, Poland]	Pinkus Family Collection, Marle Family Tree
	Death	7 June 1898	Obernigk, Germany [today: Oborniki Śląskie, Poland]	Pinkus Family Collection, Marle Family Tree

Figure 19. Painting of Rosalie Marle née Graetzer (1780-1849)

Figure 20. My great-great-grandmother Charlotte Bruck née Marle (1809-1861)

Figure 21a. Painting of Antonie Pauly née Marle (1820-1893)

Figure 21b. Photo of Antonie Pauly née Marle (1820-1893)

Figure 22. Wilhelm Marle & Rosalie Marle née Graetzer’s tombstones [photo courtesy of Sławomir Pastuszka]

REFERENCE

Gevaryahu, Gilad J. J. & Dr. Harvey Sicherman. “Regulations of The Synagogue “Altneuschule’ In Prague In Their Historic Context.” January 20, 2010

POST 82: DR. OTTO BRUCK IN THE BRITISH ARMY

Figure 1. My father, Dr. Otto Bruck, in his British Army uniform in Sétif, Algeria in the Summer of 1944

Note: In this post, I discuss the limited amount I know about my father’s 2 years and 224 days in the British Army as a member of the 338^th Royal Pioneer Corps. (Figure 1) Like his five-years in the French Foreign Legion, his tour of duty in the British Army began in Algeria, though it ended in Italy. I also talk about his reason for enlisting in the English Army, and, as in previous posts, provide some historical context.

Post 80: Dr. Otto Bruck in the French Foreign Legion

Post 81: Photo Essay of Dr. Otto Bruck’s Time in the French Foreign Legion

Between January 30, 1933 and May 8, 1945, there were two main laws pertaining to the loss of German citizenship. This not only affected Jews, but also Communists, Socialists, members of the Social Democratic party, conscientious objectors, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Quakers. The “Law on the Revocation of Naturalizations and the Deprivation of the German Citizenship” of July 14, 1933, deprived some persons of their German citizenship individually. Their names were listed in the “Reichsgesetzblatt” (Reich Law Gazette), and with publication of the particular “Reichsgesetzblatt” they lost their German citizenship.

The main group of former German citizens, however, lost their citizenship with the “Eleventh Decree to the Law on the Citizenship of the Reich” of November 25, 1941. This decree stripped Jews of their remaining rights, and stipulated that Jews living outside Germany were no longer German citizens. Deprived of their citizenship and their passports nullified, this effectively stranded in place Jews who had left Germany in the years before or shortly after the beginning of WWII.

As a related aside, ancestry.com has a searchable database entitled “Germany, Index of Jews Whose German Nationality was Annulled by Nazi Regime, 1935-1944,” where the names of individuals whose nationality was rescinded can be entered.

I previously explained to readers that my father left Germany in March 1938 and enlisted in the French Foreign Legion in November 1938. Enlistment in the Legion did not convey French citizenship unless one served at least three tours of duty or was seriously wounded during a military operation. Thus, the Nazi decree of November 25, 1941 stripping Jews living outside Germany of their citizenship effectively rendered Jews, including my father, “stateless.” While he was still a member of the Legion in November 1941 with two additional years of service to fulfill, my father no doubt began to consider what options might be available when his tour of duty ended.

Figure 2. My father’s demobilization document from the French Foreign Legion

My father’s five-year enlistment in the Legion ended on the 13^th of November 1943 when he was demobilized in Colomb-Béchar, Algeria (Figure 2); two days later, on the 15^th of November 1943, he joined the British Pioneer Corps in Algers, Algeria, and reported to Sétif, in northeastern Algeria. (Figure 3) The Pioneer Corps was apparently the only British military unit in which “enemy aliens” could serve (Figure 4); an enemy alien is a citizen of one country living in another country with which it is at war and technically viewed as suspect as a result. According to what my father told me, he switched to the English Army in the hope that after WWII was over, he would be admitted to England and could resume his dental career there. While my father never fully explained the circumstances, it seems a fellow soldier stole his identity and committed a misdeed for which my father was blamed making his entry into England impossible.

Figure 3. Political map of Algeria with Colomb-Béchar and Sétif, Algeria circled; Béchar is where my father was demobilized from the French Foreign Legion, and Sétif is where he was garrisoned with the English Army

Figure 4. English Army Recruitment Poster calling on men 30 to 50 years of age to join the Pioneer Corps

Thousands of German nationals joined the Pioneer Corps to assist Allied war efforts and the liberation of their home country. (Figure 5-6) Typically, they were Jews and political dissidents who’d fled. Unlike the French Foreign Legion, German refugees were not given anonymous names. Obviously, serving as a German national in the British forces was especially dangerous because, in case they were captured, there was a high probability of being executed, either for being a traitor or for being Jewish. Nonetheless, the number of German-born Jews joining the British forces was exceptionally high; by the end of the war, one in seven Jewish refugees from Germany had joined the British forces. Their knowledge of the German language and customs proved particularly useful; many served in the administration of the British occupation army in Germany and Austria following the war.

Figure 5. My father on leave from the English Army visiting one of his French Foreign Legion buddies in Ouargla on July 15, 1944

Figure 6. My father in his British Army uniform in Sétif in August 1944

Figure 7a. Side 1 of my dad’s “Certificate of Demobilization” from the English Army dated June 30, 1946, translated into French

Figure 7a. Side 2 of my dad’s “Certificate of Demobilization” from the English Army dated June 30, 1946, translated into French

Figure 8. My father’s English Army “Star of Italy” and ribbon (consisting of five vertical stripes of equal width, one in red at either edge and one in green at the center, with two intervening stripes in white)

Among my father’s surviving papers is his “Certificate of Demobilization” (Figures 7a-b) from the English Army, translated into French, as my father was then living and working illegally as a dentist in Nice, France. The certificate indicates my father served in North Africa and Italy from the 19^th of November 1943 until the 5^th of May 1946, obviously as part of the occupation army after the war ended. He was awarded the Star of Italy (Figure 8) for his involvement in the military campaign there. At the time of his demobilization on the 30^th of June 1946, either in Naples or Rome, my father was a private receiving the pay of a corporal. My father served a combined 2 years 224 days in the English Army. (Figures 9a-b, 10) Unlike with the French Foreign Legion, I was unsuccessful obtaining a copy of my father’s military dossier from the United Kingdom’s “Army Personnel Centre” in Glasgow. This is conjecture on my part, but possibly because my father enlisted in Algeria rather than the United Kingdom, the military dossiers for enlistees in North Africa are archived elsewhere. My primary interest in retrieving this file would be obtaining clues on why my father was unable to immigrate to England, an event that would have been transformative.

Figure 9a. Frontside of my father’s “War Medal 1939-45” and ribbon (consisting of a narrow central red stripe with a narrow white stripe on either edge, along with a broad red stripe at either edge with two intervening stripes in blue)

Figure 9b. Backside of my father’s “War Medal 1939-45” and ribbon

Figure 10. My father and his English Army buddies in Rome, Italy in September 1945 with St. Peter’s Basilica in the background

POST 81: PHOTO ESSAY OF DR. OTTO BRUCK’S TIME IN THE FRENCH FOREIGN LEGION

Note: In this post, I talk briefly about the origins of the French Foreign Legion’s romanticized reputation and its depiction in popular culture, followed by a presentation of a few of my father’s photos showing his time in the Legion in Algeria between November 1938 and November 1943.

Post 80: Dr. Otto Bruck in the French Foreign Legion

Figure 1. Cover page of the book “Memento du Soldat de la Légion Etrangère” my father was given upon his enlistment in Paris on November 9, 1938

My father, Dr. Otto Bruck, signed up for the French Foreign Legion on the 9^th of November 1938 in Paris (Figure 1), and reported for duty in Sidi Bel Abbès, Algeria (Figure 2) on the 18^th of November 1938. As discussed in the previous post, as a Jewish refugee in the lead-up to WWII without a visa to a safe haven, his options were limited, so he heeded the advice of one of his first cousins and enlisted in the Legion.

Figure 2. Political map of Algeria with the names of towns and cities mentioned in the text and photos circled

Before embarking on a presentation of some of my father’s visual images of his time in la Légion, I want to tell readers a little more about the Legion’s history to supplement what I discussed in the previous post, focusing primarily on the origins of the Legion’s romanticized reputation and its depiction in popular culture. There is no intent on my part to be comprehensive, so interested readers are encouraged to research the Legion’s history to obtain a more broad-based understanding.

The Legion was established on March 9, 1831 by King Louis-Philippe as a military unit to support France’s conquest of Algeria, which they had invaded the previous year. The Legion’s debut was inauspicious because of mismanagement in Algeria, nationally homogeneous battalions, resistance to military discipline among recruits, widespread desertion, and an unqualified officer corps. In 1835, the Legion was transferred into Spanish service to help Queen Regent María Cristina de Borbón put down a Carlist rebellion, though was resurrected in December 1835 by Louis-Philippe once he realized the continuing need for legionnaires in Algeria. The latter became known as the nouvelle légion (“new legion”), which staked out a reputation for military valor during the 1837 storming of Constantine, Algeria.

At the time, legionnaires were often used for labor rather than combat, a situation which began to change only with the arrival in 1840 of Thomas-Robert Bugeaud as commander in chief in Algeria. Recognizing the vulnerability of static legionnaire units in isolated locations that could be overwhelmed by Algerian resisters, Bugeaud instituted a counterinsurgency strategy that took the battle to the enemy and demanded incessant marching; the campaigns, while grueling, improved the Legion’s morale and performance. The Legion’s officers also then began to understand “. . .that leadership of foreign mercenaries requires finesse, appeals to the men’s sense of honor, and nonjudgmental, non-xenophobic attitudes.” Around this time, the Legion began to be more accepted as a full-fledged branch of the French army. The prior practice of nationally homogeneous military units was abandoned, discipline improved, and an ameliorated esprit de corps began to develop.

While historically the Legion had many cutthroats, political refugees, outlaws and others who required strict, often merciless, discipline, by the mid-19^th century the Legion had established its reputation as a formidable fighting unit. French imperial expansion that took place between 1871 and 1914 corresponded with the Legion’s “golden age.” The corps, which numbered about 10,000 legionnaires at the time, participated in campaigns in southeastern Algeria and in the conquest of Morocco. The campaigns were then spear-headed by mule-mounted units, the old Montées, as I explained to readers in the previous post. These units became a permanent fixture of Legion operations in North Africa into the 1930’s. The “Batterie Saharienne Portée de Légion,” of which my father was a member, originated as a mule-mounted unit, though by the time he joined it was a motorized infantry company.

The Legion’s reputation as a band of romantic misfits began to capture the public’s imagination during the Legion’s golden age, augmented by what is referred to as the anonymat, the requirement to enlist under an assumed name. This anonymity allowed legionnaires to invent fabulist pasts, unconstrained by reality. What also appealed to many recruits was the possibility of starting life anew with a clean slate, in an environment of macho hardships and challenges.

Readers will recall from my previous post that the Legion had always had a large complement of Germans in its rank. Ironically, German propaganda contributed to the allure of the Legion by depicting it as a band of criminals commanded by sadistic NCOs which, counter-intuitively, seduced the naïve and innocent. Literary works, such as Ouida’s Under Two Flags (1867) and Percival Christopher Wren’s well-known Beau Geste (1924), further kindled the public’s idealized view of the Legion.

By 1933 the Legion numbered more than 30,000 soldiers that were based in Sidi Bel Abbès under the oversight of an inspector general. The Legion’s first inspector general was Paul Rollet who was responsible for creating many of the Legion’s current traditions. Among other things, he sought to secure the Legion’s place in the public’s imagination by reviving the uniform legionnaires had worn during the 19^th century consisting of white uniforms and white kepis, and commissioning a glamorized history of the legion, Le Livre d’or de la Légion étrangère (“The Golden Book of the Foreign Legion”); he even had artistic battle scenes painted showing legionnaires in white kepis to reinforce his belief that they were members of an elite and exclusive military unit.

Rollet’s efforts were partly intended to counter what he perceived as an orchestrated attempt to vilify the Legion and thinly veiled attacks on France. Hollywood productions of novels about the Legion, including Under Two Flags (1936) and Beau Geste (1939), as well as the French film Le Grand Jeu (1934; “The Full Deck”) were also responsible for promoting the romanticism, adventure, and the opportunity for atonement through hardship; these possibilities were at the heart of the Legion’s appeal.

In the case of my father, the Legion offered a much simpler option, a lifeline. Still, there is a paradoxical intersection between the draw the Legion’s idealized view in popular culture may have had upon my father and the name he assumed upon his arrival in America in 1948, “Gary Otto Brook.” Recently, I asked my still-living mother why he adopted the name “Gary,” and she thought it was because he liked the actor Gary Cooper. This seems like a reasonable proposition, and the fact that Gary Cooper was one of the featured actors in Beau Geste, the 1939 movie about the French Foreign Legion, is not lost on me and does not seem coincidental.

With this rather lengthy prologue, let me turn now to a presentation and brief discussion of a few of my father’s photos of his time in the Legion.

Figure 3. Camel from a méhariste camel company (Compagnies Méharistes Sahariennes) France created as part of the Armée d’Afrique in the Sahara in 1902. Méhariste is a French word that roughly translates to camel cavalry

Figure 4. My barely visible father, marked by the “X,” marching with his company in Ouargla, Algeria on Bastille Day, July 14, 1939

Figure 5. General Maxime Weygand conducting a troop review of French Foreign Legion soldiers on Bastille Day, July 14, 1939, in Ouargla, Algeria

Maxime Weygand (Figure 5) was a French military commander in World War I and World War II. Weygand initially fought against the Germans during the invasion of France in 1940, but then signed the armistice with and partially collaborated with the Germans as part of the Vichy France regime before being arrested by the Germans for not fully collaborating with them.

Figure 6. Butcher at the market in Ouargla, Algeria, March 1941

Figure 8. Palm grove in Ouargla, Algeria

Figure 9. Blindfolded donkey drawing water from a well

Figure 10. My father playing cards with two compatriots. Circled is my father’s cigarette case, given to him by his own father, and passed down to me

Figure 11. The cigarette case depicted in Figure 10

Figure 12. The dormitory of the “Batterie Saharienne Portée de Légion,” of which my father was a member, in Ouargla, 1942

Figure 13. My father at a bar in Ouargla, Algeria, summer 1942

Figure 14. Two convoy trucks in Amguid, Algeria

Figure 15a. Truck accident in Djebel Djerrine, located between In-Salah and Amguid

Figure 15b. Truck accident in Djebel Djerrine, located between In-Salah and Amguid

Figure 16. Legionnaires gathered for a group photo after a successful gazelle hunt

Figure 17. Indigenous Algerian man from Ouargla

Figure 18. Legionnaire in Fort Miribel, located between In-Salah and El Goléa

Figure 19. Two members of the Italian Armistice Commission in Ouargla

The Commissione Italiana d’Armistizio con la Francia (“Italian Armistice Commission with France”) or CIAF (Figure 19) was a temporary civil and military body charged with implementing the Franco-Italian armistice of 24^th June 1940 and coordinating it with the Franco-German armistice of 22^nd June. It had broad authority over the military, economic, diplomatic and financial relations between France and Italy until the Italo-German occupation of France on the 11^th November 1942. It liaised with the German Armistice Commission, which I discussed in Post 80, which likely accounts for their presence in Ouargla, Algeria.

Figure 20. Constantine, Algeria in December 1941

Figure 21. My father’s French Foreign Legion “Certificat de Bonne Conduite” (Certificate of Good Conduct), dated the 12th of August 1944, issued nine months after his deployment in the Legion ended

POST 80: DR. OTTO BRUCK IN THE FRENCH FOREIGN LEGION

Note: In this post, I discuss the five years my father was deployed in the French Foreign Legion in Algeria between November 1938 and November 1943. This installment provides an opportunity to discuss some of the Legion’s history, explore the “conflicted” role the Legion played during WWII and, by extension, explain how my father was able to travel from North Africa to France in 1941 during the war, seemingly across “enemy” lines.

Figure 1. My father Otto Bruck on leave in Constantine, Algeria, December 1941, attired in his French Foreign Legion uniform

My father voluntarily enlisted in la Légion étrangère, the French Foreign Legion, in Paris on the 9^th of November 1938, for a required five-year stint. The French Foreign Legion is a military service branch of the French Army that was founded in 1831 and was initially stationed only in Algeria, the largest country in Africa. During the 19^th Century, the French Foreign Legion was primarily used to protect and expand the French colonial empire throughout the world. It is unique in that it is open to foreign recruits willing to serve in the French Armed Forces; enlistees serve under the command of French Officers. Given the limited options available to people of Jewish extraction in the lead up to WWII, my father heeded the advice of one of his first cousins and decided to enlist in la Légion. (Figure 1)

Sidi Bel Abbès, located in northwestern Algeria less than 50 miles from the Mediterranean, was the headquarters of the Foreign Legion until 1962. Named for the tomb of the marabout (saint) Sīdī Bel ʿAbbāss, it was established as a French military outpost in 1843; from this time on the city was closely associated with the French Foreign Legion. The city was the location of the Legion’s basic training camp and the headquarters of its 1^st Foreign Regiment. After Algerian independence in 1962, all French troops and legionnaires were evacuated from Sidi Bel Abbès and transferred to Aubagne, France.

Figure 2a. Page 1 of my father’s “Livret Matricule,” military file, in the name of his nom de guerre “Marcel Berger, showing his service date, the 9th of November 1938, and his assignment to the “Dépôt commun des régiments étrangers (D.C.R.E.)” First Foreign Regiment

Figure 2b. Page 2 of my father’s “Livret Matricule,” military file, listing the dates to which he was assigned to different companies and Legion units

Figure 2c. Page 3 of my father’s “Livret Matricule,” military file, showing the different campaigns in which he participated

Figure 2d. Page 4 of my father’s “Livret Matricule,” military file, showing he participated in the Battle of Tunisia from the 19th of February 1943 until the 16th of April 1943

As nearly as I can tell from my father’s “Livret Matricule,” military file (Figures 2a-d), he reported to the 1^st Foreign Regiment, 1er Régiment étranger (1er RE), to which he’d been assigned in Sidi Bel Abbès on the 18^th of November 1938. He was incorporated into the Dépôt commun des régiments étrangers (D.C.R.E.), the Communal Depot of the Foreign Regiments (D.C.R.E.), which was administratively dependent on the 1^st Foreign Infantry Regiment. For reasons that will become clearer, I’m uncertain whether upon enlistment my father was originally issued dog tags under his birth name, Otto Bruck, or under his nom de guerre, “Marcel Berger.” Among my father’s remaining personal effects, I have French Foreign Legion D.C.R.E. dog tags under both names. (Figures 3a-b; 4a-4b)

Figure 3a. Front side of my father’s French Foreign Legion dog tag under his given name, Otto Bruck, identifying him as a member of the “Dépôt commun des régiments étrangers (D.C.R.E.),” the Communal Depot of the Foreign Regiments

Figure 3b. Back side of my father’s French Foreign Legion dog tag under his given name, Otto Bruck, showing his actual date and place of birth

Figure 4a. Front side of my father’s French Foreign Legion dog tag under his nom de guerre, Marcel Berger, identifying him as a member of the “Dépôt commun des régiments étrangers (D.C.R.E.),” the Communal Depot of the Foreign Regiments

Figure 4b. Back side of my father’s French Foreign Legion dog tag under his nom de guerre, Marcel Berger, with his fictitious date and place of birth

According to the history of the 1^st Foreign Regiment, the Dépôt commun des régiments étrangers (D.C.R.E.), the Communal Depot of the Foreign Regiments, was created on the 1^st of October 1933 in Sidi Bel Abbès. The Depot was under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Azan, whom, interestingly, my father once photographed. (Figure 5) According to my father’s military dossier, upon his arrival in Algeria, he was initially assigned to the D.C.R.E.’s Compagnie de Passage No. 3, a logistics operation company, on the 19^th of November 1938; then, to the D.C.R.E.’s Compagnie d’Instruction No. 2, a training company, on the 4^th of December 1938; and, subsequently, to the D.C.R.E.’s Compagnie de Passage No. 1, a different logistics operation company, on the 2^nd of April 1939.

Figure 5. Lieutenant-Colonel Azan, far-right, commander of the Dépôt commun des régiments étrangers (D.C.R.E.), the Communal Depot of the Foreign Regiments, in Ouargla, Algeria

A word about the role of a “Compagnie de Passage.” This group seemingly provided logistical support for soldiers in those rare moments of relaxation during the war related to housing, library services, general information, reading or writing rooms, barber shops, sports venues, cinemas, etc. It was also used to perform banking operations for the soldiers, such as withdrawing money to pay for their purchases. My father’s specific job(s) during these assignments is unknown to me.

On the 1^st of October 1939, my father was transferred to the Compagnie Automobile de Transport du Territoire des Oasis (C.A.T.T.O.), the Saharan transport unit of the Legion. C.A.T.T.O. was merged into the Batterie Saharienne Portée de Légion (B.S.P.L.), Saharan Battery Legion Range, on the 29^th of June 1939, the date the B.S.P.L. was created in Ouargla, Algeria; my father was assigned to the 1^st B.S.P.L. on the 1^st of November 1940 (Figure 6), which may correspond with his relocation to Ouargla from Sidi Bel Abbès, though I’m uncertain when this took place.

Figure 6. Insignia of the Batterie Saharienne Portée de Légion (B.S.P.L.), Saharan Battery Legion Range, to which my father was assigned on the 1st of November 1940

A word about the French Military term “Portée” as in “Batterie Saharienne Portée de Légion.” Technically, the term translates into English as “mobile,” although that’s inaccurate; the old Montées, the mule-mounted units from which the Portees originated, were also considered highly mobile. Therefore, the term Portée is supposed to mean “motorized” to distinguish the modern vehicle-mounted motorized infantry companies from the old Montées, the mule-mounted ones. (see “French Legion Mounted Companies“)

So far, I’ve related dry details on the military units to which my father was assigned, their presumed function, and when these assignments took place. Let me turn now to the Legion’s history during WWII for context. Initially, I was narrowly focused on trying to specifically understand how my father was able to travel from Algeria to mainland France for a two to three month stay between September and November 1941 to visit friends and family living there. (Figures 7-8) This visit in the middle of the war seemingly involved travel across “enemy” lines, and on the face of it was baffling. In looking into this, I stumbled upon a fascinating article by Edward L. Bimberg, entitled “World War II: A Tale of the French Foreign Legion,” that originally appeared in the September 1997 issue of “World War II” magazine. Below I summarize some of this author’s findings.

Figure 7. Photo of my father’s sister Susanne Müller née Bruck in November 1941 in Fayence, France, taken during my dad’s leave from the French Foreign Legion while stationed in Algeria

Figure 8. Photo of my father’s first cousin Jeanne “Hansi” Goff née Löwenstein in Monte Carlo, Monaco in October 1941, taken during my dad’s leave from the French Foreign Legion while stationed in Algeria

According to Mr. Bimberg, the Legion had always had a large complement of Germans in its rank. In the late 1930’s, intelligence officers at the headquarters of the French Foreign Legion in Sidi Bel Abbès, however, were puzzled by an even greater number of Germans pouring in, despite the Nazis’ widespread campaign to discourage them from enlisting. In this period, the German press was violently attacking the Legion, and the Nazi government demanded that recruiting be stopped. Still the Germans kept coming until half the privates and 80 percent of the non-commissioned officers in the legion were German. Eventually, it became clear that this influx had been orchestrated by German intelligence, the Abwehr. The goal was to destroy the Legion from within, which the German legionnaires nearly succeeded in doing.

According to my father, the Legion attracted its share of unsavory types, such as ex-convicts, criminals, murderers, pederasts, etc. More importantly, however, the French Foreign Legion had always attracted the dispossessed, such as Spanish Republicans who’d fought on the losing side of the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939); Jews, such as my father, escaping Nazi persecution; then, later Czechs and Poles who’d fled as the German Army began its march across Europe. Obviously, these refugees did not mix well with the new Germans in the Legion; the German non-commissioned officers terrorized the non-Germans resulting in frequent fights and courts-martial. The French officers could not trust their own non-commissioned officers, and morale in the Legion plummeted, almost to the point of disbanding the entire corps.

WWII is generally said to have begun with the German invasion of Poland on the 1^st of September 1939, and the subsequent declarations of war on Germany by France and the United Kingdom. With the declaration of war, the situation in France became critical, but the questionable loyalty of the Germans in the Legion made shipping them to fight in Europe too risky. Instead, four more foreign regiments were raised in France and trained by veteran Legion officers from North Africa. These newly created regiments garrisoned the Maginot Line, the line of concrete fortifications, obstacles, and weapon installations built by France in the 1930s to deter invasion by Germany. These legionnaires remained inactive during the so-called “phony war,” the period of comparative inaction at the beginning of World War II between the German invasion of Poland (September 1939) and that of Norway (April 1940).

Despite the general reluctance of sending entire Legion units to France, the French authorities decided something had to be done with the loyal elements of the Legion marking time in North Africa but anxious to fight. So, in early 1940, volunteers were called for, and two battalions of 1,000 men assembled, one in Fez, Morocco, and the other in Sidi Bel Abbès, Algeria; the volunteers were carefully vetted. The remaining German legionnaires of unquestioned loyalty were given non-German names and false identity papers to protect them in case they were captured by the Germans. Possibly, my father acquired his alias, Marcel Berger, at this time.

The two battalions were joined into the 13^th Demi-Brigade (13e Demi-Brigade de la Légion Étrangère) and put under the command of a Lieutenant-Colonel Magrin-Verneret, a WWI veteran apparently typical of military eccentrics who often turned up in the Foreign Legion. When the 13^th Demi-Brigade arrived in France, these desert-trained veterans were surprisingly issued a new type of uniform and skis, trained to fight in the Arctic, and outfitted as mountain troops with heavy parkas, boots, and snow capes. They were initially bound for Finland, but after the capitulation of the Finns to the Russians when the latter were still in league with the Germans, thus before the brigade could be deployed there, the war in Finland ended.

Instead, the 13^th Demi-Brigade was shipped to Norway to capture the northern port of Narvik from the Germans to prevent ore shipments from neutral Sweden needed by the Nazi regime. After bitter fighting, the legionnaires captured control of Narvik on the 28^th of May 1940. For the next few days, they pursued the retreating Germans through the snow-covered mountains toward the Swedish border; their aim was to capture General Edouard Dietl, who’d led the German garrison at Narvik, and his remaining troops and force them into Swedish internment. Regrettably, when the 13^th Demi-Brigade was only 10 miles from the Swedish border, they were ordered to return to France where they were needed in defense of France. The “phony war” was over with the German invasion of the Low Countries a few weeks earlier.

Edward Bimberg picks up the narrative: “The 13^th Demi-Brigade returned to France from Norway, sailing into the harbor at Brest on June 13, almost at the same time the Germans were marching into Paris. Colonel Magrin-Verneret was ordered to form a line as part of a proposed last-ditch Breton Redoubt, but it was no use. The Germans had broken through.

While on a forward reconnaissance mission to determine what could be done to delay the enemy, Magrin-Verneret and some of his officers became separated from the main body of the 13^th Demi-Brigade, and when they returned to Brest they could not find any trace of the unit. The reconnaissance party assumed that the main body had been over-run, and the colonel determined that he and his companions should try to get to England, where the British planned to fight on. Every boat seemed to have been taken over by fleeing British and French troops, but the Legion officers finally found a launch that took them to Southampton. Miraculously, most of the 13^th Demi-Brigade had already found a way to get there.”

The point of relating the above history to readers is to explain why from this point forward the French Foreign Legion was so sharply divided during WWII. On June 18, 1940, the French General Charles de Gaulle, leader of the new Free French movement, was now also a refugee in England. Magrin-Verneret immediately offered the services of the 13^th Demi-Brigade to de Gaulle, and soon they were training at Trentham Park near Stoke-on-Trent.

On June 25, 1940, the Franco-Italian armistice went into effect, which ended the brief Italian invasion of France during WWII. This followed by a few days the Franco-German armistice of June 22, 1940, which divided France into two zones: one under German military occupation and one left nominally under full French sovereignty, referred to as “Vichy France.” These armistice agreements meant war was over for now for the French Army, which was reorganized into the Armistice Army. That’s also why in, November 1940, a major reorganization took place within the Legion. Not coincidentally, as mentioned above, my father was reassigned to the 1^st B.S.P.L. on the 1^st of November 1940 in Ouargla, Algeria.

With the implementation of the armistice agreements on June 25, 1940, the men of the 13^th Demi-Brigade were given a choice, fight on with de Gaulle, or return to North Africa, which was now under the control of Marshal Henri Philippe Petain’s newly formed Vichy government. The 1^st Battalion, strongly influenced by Captain Dimitri Amilakvari, a 16-year Legion veteran who’d fought valiantly to capture a key hill in the battle of Narvik, elected to stay with de Gaulle. The 2^nd Battalion went back to Morocco and was disbanded.

Edward Bimberg resumes the story: “The French Foreign Legion, like the rest of the French empire, was now sharply divided. The 13^th Demi-Brigade had given its allegiance to the Free French, while the rest of the Legion, scattered throughout North Africa, Syria and Indochina, remained under the thumb of the Vichy government, which meant being under the sharp watch of the German Armistice Commission.

The Germans demanded that the men that had been planted in the Legion be returned to the Reich, and the Legion was not sorry to see them go. But the Commission had other, not so welcome demands. They had lists of refugee Jews, Germans, Poles, Czechs, Italians, and others they wanted back, to send to concentration camps.

There were many men in the French army in North Africa, particularly in the Legion, who had no sympathy for the Vichy government and hated the Germans. Besides, the Legion had a reputation for taking care of its own. Its intelligence system usually discovered the Armistice Commission’s visits well in advance and knew the names of the legionnaires on the lists. The wanted legionnaires were given new names, new papers and new identity discs. When the Germans came too close, the refugees would be transferred to far-off Saharan outposts where the Commission seldom took the trouble to visit.”

Edward Bimberg’s story provides some context about my father’s time in the French Foreign Legion. Obviously, after the Franco-German armistice went into effect in June 1940, Algeria, where my father was stationed, was under the control of the Vichy government. According to Bimberg, while many of the Legion’s officers and men in North Africa would have liked to join de Gaulle’s forces, they were hesitant to desert; also, the surrounding mountains and desert prevented them from reaching the Free French in large numbers, so they were forced to bide their time. Still, because the Legion looked after their own, they probably gave my father a new identity after the establishment of the German Armistice Commission. Some of my father’s pictures, which I will feature in my next Blog post, were taken in remote outposts in the Saharan desert, places I presume he and fellow at-risk legionnaires were sent to put them outside the Commission’s reach. My father’s two to three-month trip to mainland France between September and November 1941 was clearly possible because the Legion units in North Africa were under the control of the Vichy government, so technically his travel did not involve crossing enemy lines. Additionally, his lengthy stay may have been orchestrated to distance him from planned visits by the German Armistice Commission.

The 13^th Demi-Brigade, which rallied to Charles de Gaulle’s Free French forces following France’s capitulation to Germany in June 1940, was incorporated into the British Eighth Army as the 1^st Free French Legion. It spearheaded the Gaullist conquest of French colonies in sub-Saharan Africa and Syria, where it actually fought against Legion units loyal to the collaborationist Vichy government. The Allied invasion of French North Africa in November 1942 reunited the fractured branches of the Legion. Still, political rancor was slow to dissipate on account of confrontation between the opposing units in Syria. The feuding between the pro-Gaullist and ex-Vichy legion units continued in Italy, where the Legion participated in the breakthrough at Monte Cassino in 1944. By this time, my father was no longer a member of the French Foreign Legion, having by then enlisted in the British Army, a subject of a future Blog installment.

The reuniting of the legion units in November 1942 explains why my father was able to fight against the Germans in the Battle of Tunisia between February and April 1943, likely the only combat action he ever saw. (Figure 9)

Figure 9. My father preparing for the Battle of Tunisia in January 1943 in Touggourt, Algeria

Stumbling upon Mr. Bimberg’s article on the history of the French Foreign Legion during WWII was instrumental in helping me understand why my father was in certain places during his five years in the Legion. The story also explains why the Legion’s morale was so low: “The Vichy Legion in North Africa was not only constantly harassed by the German Armistice Commission but was short of weapons, gasoline and sometimes even food and tobacco. Legion strength fell to less than 10,000 men, and the German authorities continually urged the Vichy authorities to disband it altogether. Morale was at rock bottom, and the rate of desertions and suicides was rising.” Given the Legion’s tenuous position, I can imagine the situation for Jewish men like my father must have been nerve-wracking, even with French aliases.

The following post will be a photo essay of images from my father’s years in the French Foreign Legion.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bimberg, Edward L. “World War II: A Tale of the French Foreign Legion.” World War II, September 1997.

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

Note: In this post I recreate what may have happened on one day of my father’s life, the 22^nd of August 1930, when he was a dental apprentice in the Free State of Danzig in the practice of Dr. Fritz Bertram.

Figure 1. My father, Dr. Otto Bruck, in Danzig in the Spring of 1932 before moving to Tiegenhof

Growing up, my father infrequently spoke of the roughly seven years between 1930 and 1937 when he lived in Danzig [today: Gdansk, Poland] (Figure 1) and Tiegenhof [today: Nowy Dwór Gdański, Poland] in the Free State of Danzig. No doubt my father would have characterized these years as the halcyon days of his life because he led a charmed life, albeit briefly. He took multiple pictures, which survive, of his time in the Żuławy region, the alluvial delta area of the Vistula River in the northern part of what is today Poland, so I can often precisely pinpoint where he was and what he was doing on specific dates. But I want to focus on one day in 1930, the 22^nd of August, a Friday, no pictures of which exist, which was the day of a tragic family happening. To relate this tale, and it may be nothing more than a fictional, imagined account, I must begin in the present.

In earlier posts, I’ve introduced Mr. Peter Hanke, a gentleman I became acquainted with through an online forum, “forum.danzig.de.” Peter has tracked down historic documents I would have been unlikely to find on my own and been particularly helpful solving mysteries on the fate of some of my father’s family, friends, and acquaintances. This post is about one such puzzle.

Figure 2. Page from the Leo Baeck Institute’s “Pinkus Family Collection” with the names of my great-uncle “Robert Samuel Bruck” and “Rudolf Löwenstein” (married to my great-aunt Hedwig Bruck) circled showing their vital statistics

Recently, Peter and I were discussing one of my great-uncles, Robert Samuel Bruck (1871-1887), who I thought had died as a child in Ratibor, Germany [today: Racibórz, Poland], only to eventually learn that he bafflingly died in Braunschweig, Germany, 445 miles west-northwest of Racibórz, as a teenager. I learned of Robert’s survival to adolescence from a page in the Pinkus Family Collection (Figure 2), archived at the Leo Baeck Institute, which I shared with Peter. The mention of Braunschweig caught Peter’s attention because this town is located only 21 miles southwest of where Peter lives near Wolfsburg, Germany.

Another name caught Peter’s attention on this same page, namely, that of Rudolf Löwenstein, my great-aunt Hedwig Bruck’s husband, who it was noted died on the 22^nd of August 1930 in Danzig. (Figure 2) To remind readers, in Post 16, I was able to confirm Rudolf Löwenstein’s death on this date in the Mormon Church’s microfilm records for Danzig, Microfilm Roll No. 1184408. (Figure 3) Peter was unable to locate Rudolf’s death certificate in online records from Danzig but was curious whether I’d be interested in having him seek other documents related to Rudolf; I told him I was, particularly since I had no idea how Rudolf had died. Naturally, I assumed it was of natural causes, which I soon learned was not the case. Having strangely been unable to find Rudolf Löwenstein’s death certificate, Peter presciently wondered whether he might have died somewhere other than Danzig.

Figure 3. Rudolf Löwenstein’s death register listing, 22 August 1930 (Source: Microfilm Roll # 1184408, LDS Church)

In a very short time, by accessing Danzig Address Books available online, Peter was able to track Rudolf and his family’s addresses and occupations between 1903 and 1933, summarized below:

1903—Director of the tobacco factory RUMI—Weidengaße 48

1904—Merchant—Weidengaße 48 (with a widow LÖWENSTEIN)

1905-1907—Merchant, representative of the advertising expedition Rudolf Mosse and Paul Stabernick, Heilige Gastgaße—Weidengaße 48 (Figure 4)

1909-1919—Hansaplatz 3

1920—Sandgrube 27b

1921-1929— Rennerstiftsgaße 11 (Figure 5)

1931—widow Hedwig (i.e., Rudolf’s wife)—Rennerstiftsgaße 11

1933—Heinz Löwenstein (i.e., Rudolf’s son)—Hauptstraße 51 (Figures 6a-b)

Figure 4. Page from 1905 Danzig Address Book showing Rudolf Löwenstein was a general representative of the advertising expedition Rudolf Mosse and Paul Stabernick, Heilige Gastgaße—Weidengaße 48

Figure 5. Page from 1927 Danzig Address Book listing Rudolf Löwenstein as a “kaufman” (merchant) for “Annoncen Expedition und Reklamebüro” (Advertising Expedition and Advertising Office) Rennerstiftsgaße 11

Figure 6b. Separate page from 1933 Danzig Address Book, following Rudolf Löwenstein’s death in 1930, shows his son Heinz Löwenstein following in his father’s footsteps

Peter’s findings related to Rudolf’s fate transcend what the Danzig Address Books of the day reveal. He was able to track down four newspaper accounts from two newspapers, the “Danziger Allgemeine Zeitung (DAZ)” and the “Volksstimme,” from August 23^rd and August 25^th, the days immediately following Rudolf’s recorded death date.

TRANSCRIPTION

(“Danziger Allgemeine Zeitung (DAZ)” article from Saturday the 23rd of August 1930) (Figure 7)

Figure 7. “Danziger Allgemeine Zeitung (DAZ)” article from Saturday the 23rd of August 1930 discussing plane crash that killed Rudolf Löwenstein

Passagierflugzeug abgestürzt
10 Tote

In der Nähe von Friedrichsdorf bei Iglau stützte, wie aus Prag gemeldet wird, Freitag nachmittag 4 Uhr ein Flugzeug ab, das auf der Strecke Prag-Preßburg verkehrte. In dem Flugzeug befanden sich 13 Personen, von denen bei dem Absturz vier auf der Stelle getötet wurden. Von den schwer verletzten Personen sind kurz nach der Einlieferung in das Iglauer Krankenhaus vier weitere gestorben. Ferner sind zwei Passagiere schwer und einer leicht verletzt worden. Unter den Getöteten befindet sich der Ingenieur Bernhard EIMANN aus Dresden. Das Flugzeug war vom Typ Ford und stand bei den tschechoslowakischen staatlichen Aerolinien seit Frühjahr vorigen Jahres in Dienst. Es vermochte 14 Passagiere und zwei Mann Besatzung zu fassen. Das Flugzeug ist anscheinend in eine Gewitterzone geraten.

Die Flugzeugkatastrophe bei Iglau hat nach neueren Meldungen 10 Todesopfer gefordert, da von den im Krankenhaus eingelieferten Verletzten sechs gestorben sind. Unter den Toten befinden sich zwei Ausländer, außer dem bereits genannten Ingenieur EIMANN aus Dresden, ein Passagier namens Ködenstein aus Dänemark. Man vermutet, dass der Pilot im Sturm die Orientierung verlor, unter die Wolken herabging und das Flugzeug infolge eines Windstoßes abglitt. Ein Teil des Flugzeugs bohrte sich in die Erde ein, der andere geriet in Brand.

TRANSLATION

“Passenger plane crashed
10 deaths

As reported from Prague, a plane, which operated on the Prague- Preßburg route, crashed near Friedrichsdorf near Iglau, at 4 o’clock on Friday afternoon. The plane contained 13 people, four of whom were killed immediately in the crash. Of the seriously injured, four others died shortly after being transferred to the hospital in Iglau. Two passengers were also seriously and one slightly injured. Among those killed is engineer Bernhard EIMANN from Dresden. The plane was of the Ford type and had been in service with the Czechoslovakian state airlines since spring of last year. It was capable of carrying 14 passengers and two crew members. The plane apparently got into a thunderstorm zone.

According to recent reports, the air disaster near Iglau has claimed 10 lives, as six of the injured who were hospitalized have died. Among the dead are two foreigners, apart from the already mentioned engineer EIMANN from Dresden, a passenger named Ködenstein from Denmark. It is suspected that the pilot lost his orientation in the storm, went down under the clouds and the plane slipped as a result of a gust of wind. One part of the plane drilled into the ground, the other caught fire.”

TRANSCRIPTION

(“Volksstimme” article from Saturday the 23rd of August 1930) (Figure 8)

Figure 8. “Volksstimme” article from Saturday the 23rd of August 1930 discussing plane crash that killed Rudolf Löwenstein

10 Tote bei einem Flugzeugunglück
Flugzeug stürzte auf ein Dach – Die Orientierung verloren

Am Freitagnachmittag um 4 Uhr verunglückte bei Iglau auf dem Wege nach Preßburg im Sturm ein Passagierflugzeug der staatlichen Fluggesellschaft. 10 Personen fand den Tod.

Das Flugzeug flog zunächst in großem Sturm und Regen. Bald nach dem Start stieß der Flugzeugführer auch noch auf dichten Nebel, so dass er die Orientierung verlor. Unterdessen wurde der Sturm immer heftiger. Die Maschine wurde hin und her geworfen und schließlich zu Boden geschleudert. Hier verfing sie sich in einem Baum, der umgerissen wurde. Dem Flugzeugführer gelang es noch einmal, die Maschine hochzureißen. Der Versuch einer Notlandung mißglückte jedoch. Das Flugzeug stürzte auf das Dach eines Hauses, fiel um und explodierte. Vier Personen verbrannten, 6 wurden durch den Aufschlag tödlich verletzt. Unter den Opfern der grausigen Katastrophe befindet sich auch der Dresdner Ingenieur Bernhard EIMANN. Der Pilot fand ebenfalls den Tod.

Die Unglücksmaschine wurde vor drei Monaten von Ford aus Amerika bezogen. Sie verfügte über Sitzplätze für 14 Personen und versah den Verkehr zwischen Prag und Preßburg.

TRANSLATION

“10 dead in a plane crash
Airplane crashed onto a roof – Lost orientation

On Friday afternoon at 4 o’clock on the way to Bratislava a passenger plane of the state airline was involved in an accident near Iglau. 10 people were killed.

The plane first flew in a heavy storm and rain. Soon after take-off, the pilot also encountered dense fog so that he lost his orientation. Meanwhile the storm became more and more violent. The plane was tossed back and forth and finally flung to the ground. Here it got caught in a tree that was knocked down. The pilot managed to pull the plane up once more. However, the attempt of an emergency landing failed. The plane crashed onto the roof of a house, fell over and exploded. Four people were burned, six were fatally injured by the impact. Among the victims of the gruesome catastrophe is the Dresden engineer Bernhard EIMANN. The pilot was also killed.

The crashed aircraft was purchased by Ford from America 3 months ago. It had seats for 14 people and provided traffic between Prague and Bratislava.”

TRANSCRIPTION

(“Danziger Allgemeine Zeitung (DAZ)” article from Monday the 25th of August 1930) (Figure 9)

Figure 9. “Danziger Allgemeine Zeitung (DAZ)” article from Monday the 25th of August 1930 discussing Rudolf Löwenstein’s death

Die Flugzeugkatastrophe bei Iglau

Zu dem schweren Flugunfall bei Iglau, über den wir Sonnabend berichteten, werden folgende Einzelheiten bekannt: Der auf dem Flug von Preßburg nach Prag verkehrende große, dreimotorige Eindecker geriet kurz vor Iglau in eine schwere Gewitterböe, weshalb sich der Pilot gezwungen sah, eine Notlandung vorzunehmen. Aus bisher noch nicht ganz geklärter Ursache, wahrscheinlich durch ein plötzliches Umspringen des Windes, überschlug sich aber der Apparat, noch ehe er den Boden erreicht hatte. Die schwere Maschine stürzte auf ein von Arbeitern bewohntes Haus, durchschlug das Dach und zerstörte auch einen Teil des Mauerwerks. Der Aufprall war so heftig, dass im Augenblick des Aufschlags eine Explosion des Benzintanks erfolgte.

In wenigen Sekunden war die Maschine in ein Flammenmeer gehüllt. Das Feuer griff auch trotz des starken Regens auf das Hausdach über. Die Feuerwehr löschte den Brand und versuchte die Passagiere aus ihrer furchtbaren Lage zu befreien. Die Hilfe kam jedoch zu spät. Von den 13 Insassen des Flugzeugs konnten vier nur mehr als verkohlte Leichen geborgen werden.Die Identität dieser vier Toten konnte noch nicht festgestellt werden.

Ein Danziger bei der Iglauer Flugzeugkatastrophe tödlich verunglückt

Wie wir erfahren, ist bei dem Flugzeugunglück in Iglau (Tschechoslowakei) auch ein Danziger Kaufmann, der Inhaber einer hiesigen Announcen-Expedition, Rudolf LÖWENSTEIN, ums Leben gekommen.

TRANSLATION

“The air disaster at Iglau

The following details are known about the serious air accident at Iglau, which we reported on Saturday: The large, three-engined monoplane flying from Bratislava to Prague was caught in a heavy gust of thunder shortly before Iglau, forcing the pilot to make an emergency landing. For reasons not yet fully explained, probably due to a sudden change in wind, the plane overturned before it reached the ground. The heavy machine crashed into a house inhabited by workers, punctured the roof and also destroyed part of the masonry. The impact was so violent that at the moment of impact the petrol tank exploded.

In a few seconds the machine was enveloped in a sea of flames. The fire also spread to the roof of the house despite the heavy rain. The fire brigade extinguished the fire and tried to rescue the passengers from their terrible situation. But help came too late. Of the 13 passengers on the plane, four were recovered as charred bodies, but the identity of the four dead could not yet be determined.

A man from Danzig was killed in the Iglau air disaster

As we learn, the plane accident in Iglau (Czechoslovakia) also killed a merchant from Danzig, the owner of a local advertising expedition, Rudolf LÖWENSTEIN.”

TRANSCRIPTION

(“Volksstimme” article from Monday the 25th of August 1930) (Figure 10)

Figure 10. “Volksstimme” article from Monday the 25th of August 1930 discussing Rudolf Löwenstein’s death

Danziger Kaufmann tödlich verunglückt

Bei der Flugzeugkatastrophe in Iglau – Tragisches Ende eines Besuchs in der Heimat

Die Flugzeugkatastrophe bei Iglau, über die wir am Sonnabend ausführlich berichtet haben, hat ein elftes Todesopfer gefordert. Der Kaufmann Rudolf LÖWENSTEIN, der Vater des bekannten, augenblicklich in Paris lebenden Danziger Malers Fedja LÖWENSTEIN, ist seinen Verletzungen erlegen.

Rudolf LÖWENSTEIN, der im 59. Lebensjahr stand, war auf dem Heimflug von Prag nach Danzig. Er hatte eine Geschäftstour in die Tschechoslowakei unternommen und damit einen Besuch seines Heimatortes Johannisbad verbunden. Der Rückflug nach Danzig sollte bereits einige Tage früher erfolgen, wegen des ungünstigen Wetters aber wurde der Start auf Freitag verschoben. Am Nachmittag erfolgte dann das furchtbare Unglück, das zu den schwersten Flugzeugkatastrophen überhaupt zu rechnen ist.

Vorläufig ist noch unbekannt, wie das Unglück geschah. Man nimmt an, dass das Flugzeug vom Blitz getroffen wurde. Die Machine stürzte auf das Dach eines Hauses, fiel um und explodierte.

Vier Personen verbrannten und sieben Passagiere, darunter Rudolf LÖWENSTEIN, wurden durch den Aufschlag tödlich verletzt. Die Leiche Löwensteins wird nach Danzig überführt und hier beigesetzt werden.

TRANSLATION

“Danzig merchant killed in accident

At the airplane disaster in Iglau – Tragic end of a visit to the home

The air disaster at Iglau, which we reported on in detail on Saturday, has claimed an eleventh life. The merchant Rudolf LÖWENSTEIN, the father of the well-known Danzig artist Fedja LÖWENSTEIN, who is currently living in Paris, succumbed to his injuries.

Rudolf LÖWENSTEIN, who was nearly 59 years old, was on his flight home from Prague to Danzig. He had gone on a business trip to Czechoslovakia, which included a visit to his hometown of Johannisbad. The return flight to Danzig should have been a few days earlier, but due to the unfavorable weather, the start was postponed to Friday. In the afternoon, the terrible accident occurred, which is one of the most serious aircraft disasters ever.

It is not yet known how the accident happened. It is assumed that the aircraft was struck by lightning. The plane crashed onto the roof of a house, fell over and exploded.

Four people were burnt and seven passengers, including Rudolf LÖWENSTEIN, were fatally injured by the impact. Löwenstein’s body will be transferred to Danzig and buried here.”

Figure 11. Flight path from Preßburg, Czechoslovakia [today: Bratislava, Slovakia] to Prague, showing where the Ford-Tri-Motor plane Rudolf Löwenstein was aboard went down near a town called Iglau, Czechoslovakia

According to the contemporary newspaper accounts, Rudolf Löwenstein, who at the time of his death was almost 59 years old, was on his way home to Danzig. The flight on which he was killed was flying from Preßburg, Czechoslovakia [today: Bratislava, Slovakia] to Prague, when it went down near a town called Iglau. (Figure 11) Rudolf had gone on a business trip to Czechoslovakia, which included a visit to his hometown of Johannisbad [today: Janské Lázně, Czech Republic]. The plane he was on got caught in a heavy rainstorm. Soon after take-off, the pilot became disoriented on account of dense fog, and attempted an emergency landing near Iglau. Possibly due to wind shear, the plane overturned before it could land, crashed into the roof of a house, and exploded; 11 of the 13 passengers aboard were killed. The plane was of a Ford type, possibly a Ford Trimotor 5-AT-B. (Figure 12) Production on this model started in 1925 by the companies of Henry Ford and ended on June 7, 1933. Designed to hold 15 to 17 passengers, it was intended for the civil aviation market, but also saw service with military units.

Figure 12. Picture of a Ford-Tri-Motor plane like the one on which Rudolf Löwenstein was a passenger when he died

Let me move on to where my father may have been on the 22^nd of August 1930 when his uncle Rudolf was killed. My father received his dental accreditation from the University of Berlin’s Zahnheilkunde Institut, Dentistry Institute, on the 31^st of May 1930. This was followed by two brief dental apprenticeships, first in Königsbrück, in the Free State of Saxony, Germany, then in Allenstein, Germany [today: Olsztyn, Poland], the latter of which ended on the 17^th of August 1930 (Figure 13); Allenstein is only a little more than 100 miles southeast of Danzig so he likely returned there by train after this apprenticeship.

Figure 13. Letter of recommendation given to my father on 17 August 1930 by Dr. Heinrich Krüger from Allenstein, Germany, for whom he briefly apprenticed

My father did not establish and open his own dental practice in Tiegenhof [today: Nowy Dwór Gdański, Poland] until the 9^th of April 1932. In the interim, he apprenticed with a dentist in Danzig, Dr. Fritz Bertram (Figure 14), and likely stayed with his Aunt Hedwig and Uncle Rudolf in Danzig, and possibly two of their three children living at home.

Figure 14. Dr. Fritz Bertram, the dentist for whom my father apprenticed between 1930 and 1932, sailing with friends in the Bay of Danzig

The plane Rudolf Löwenstein was flying was reported to have gone down at around 4pm on the 22^nd of August; already by the following day, the two Danzig newspapers had reported on the tragedy. Thus, it’s likely my father’s uncle was expected home the evening of the 22^nd of August, and that the family had already been notified or learned of the plane crash that ultimately resulted in Rudolf’s death. Clearly, ninety years after the incident, it’s impossible to know exactly how events played out on that day and when the family eventually learned of Rudolf’s tragic accident but it’s likely my father was present when the family heard about what had happened; it’s not clear from contemporary news accounts whether Rudolf was killed instantly or not. The fact Peter Hanke has not found Rudolf’s death certificate in Danzig may possibly mean it is to be found in the Czech Republic.

As an aside, while I have multiple photos of my great-aunt Hedwig and her three children (Figure 15), and know all their vital statistics, regrettably, I have no known pictures of Rudolf Löwenstein. None of Hedwig and Rudolf’s children bore any offspring, though two were married, so it’s been difficult to track down where their personal papers wound up after their deaths. So, for the moment, Rudolf remains faceless.

Figure 15. My great-aunt Hedwig Löwenstein née Bruck with her three children, Fedor (seated), Jeanne (“Hansi”) & Heinz in Nice, France in March 1946

RUDOLF LÖWENSTEIN & HIS IMMEDIATE FAMILY

Name (relationship)	Vital Event	Date	Place

Rudolf Löwenstein (self)	Birth	17 January 1872	Kuttenplan, Czechoslovakia [today: Chodová Planá, Czech Republic]
	Marriage	17 September 1899	Ratibor, Germany [today: Racibórz, Poland]
	Death	22 August 1930	Iglau, Czechoslovakia [today: Jihlava, Czech Republic]
Hedwig Bruck (wife)	Birth	22 March 1870	Ratibor, Germany [today: Racibórz, Poland]
	Marriage	17 September 1899	Ratibor, Germany [today: Racibórz, Poland]
	Death	15 January 1949	Nice, France
Fedor Löwenstein (son)	Birth	13 April 1901	Munich, Germany
Fedor Löwenstein (son)	Death	4 August 1946	Nice, France
Jeanne “Hansi” Löwenstein (daughter)	Birth	9 September 1902	Danzig, Free State [today: Gdansk, Poland]
	Marriage
	Death	5 May 1986	Nice, France
Heinz Löwenstein (son) (died as “Hanoch Avneri”)	Birth	8 March 1905	Danzig, Free State [today: Gdansk, Poland]
	Marriage	22 October 1931	Danzig, Free State [today: Gdansk, Poland]
	Death	10 August 1979	Haifa, Israel

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Figure 4b. Headstone of Josef Mockrauer’s grave

NAME	EVENT	DATE	PLACE
Josef Mockrauer (Figures 2, 3a-b, 4a-b)	Birth	18 June 1845	Leschnitz, Oberschlesien, Germany [today: Leśnica, Poland]
Josef Mockrauer (Figures 2, 3a-b, 4a-b)	Death	9 February 1895	Charlottenburg, Berlin, Germany
Esther Ernestine Mockrauer, née Lißner (Josef’s first wife)	Birth	30 October 1854	Dresden, Saxony, Germany
	Death	24 May 1934	Berlin, Germany
	Marriage	Unknown	Unknown
Elly Landsberg, née Mockrauer (Figure 5)	Birth	14 August 1873	Berlin, Germany
Elly Landsberg, née Mockrauer (Figure 5)	Death	15 May 1944	Auschwitz, Poland
Gerhard Mockrauer (Figure 6)	Birth	25 January 1875	Berlin, Germany
Gerhard Mockrauer (Figure 6)	Death	21 September 1886	Freienwalde, Märkisch-Oderland district, Brandenburg, Germany
George Mockrauer (Ernestine’s out-of-wedlock child) (Figure 7)	Birth	16 April 1884	Dresden, Saxony, Germany
	Death	Unknown	Unknown
Charlotte Mockrauer, née Bruck (Josef’s second wife) (Figure 8)	Birth	8 December 1865	Ratibor, Germany [today: Racibórz, Poland]
	Death	1965	Stockholm, Sweden
	Marriage	18 March 1888	Ratibor, Germany [today: Racibórz, Poland]
Franz Josef Mockrauer (Figure 9)	Birth	10 August 1889	Berlin, Germany
Franz Josef Mockrauer (Figure 9)	Death	7 July 1962	Stockholm, Sweden

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

Figure 6. Birth certificate for Josef and Ernestine Mockrauer’s son, Gerhard Mockrauer, indicating he was born on January 25, 1875

Figure 7. Birth certificate for Georg Mockrauer, Ernestine Mockrauer’s out-of-wedlock son, who carried the “Mockrauer” surname even though he was not Josef Mockrauer’s son

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

Figure 9. Josef and Charlotte Mockrauer’s son, Franz Josef Mockrauer

Figure 10. My great-great-grandfather Fedor Bruck

Figure 11. My great-great-grandmother Friederike Bruck née Mockrauer

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

Figure 13. My great-aunt Franziska Bruck

NAME	EVENT	DATE	PLACE
Felix Bruck (Figure 12)	Birth	28 March 1864	Ratibor, Germany (today: Racibórz, Poland)
Felix Bruck (Figure 12)	Death	23 June 1927	Berlin, Germany
Charlotte Mockrauer, née Bruck (Figure 8)	Birth	8 December 1865	Ratibor, Germany (today: Racibórz, Poland)
Charlotte Mockrauer, née Bruck (Figure 8)	Death	1965	Stockholm, Sweden
Franziska Bruck (Figure 13)	Birth	29 December 1866	Ratibor, Germany (today: Racibórz, Poland)
Franziska Bruck (Figure 13)	Death	2 January 1942	Berlin, Germany
Elise Bruck	Birth	20 August 1868	Ratibor, Germany (today: Racibórz, Poland)
Elise Bruck	Death	19 June 1872	Ratibor, Germany (today: Racibórz, Poland)
Hedwig Löwenstein, née Bruck (Figure 14)	Birth	22 March 1870	Ratibor, Germany (today: Racibórz, Poland)
Hedwig Löwenstein, née Bruck (Figure 14)	Death	15 January 1949	Nice, France
Robert Bruck	Birth	1 December 1871	Ratibor, Germany (today: Racibórz, Poland)
Robert Bruck	Death	30 December 1887	Braunschweig, Lower Saxony, Germany
Wilhelm Bruck (Figure 15)	Birth	24 October 1872	Ratibor, Germany (today: Racibórz, Poland)
Wilhelm Bruck (Figure 15)	Death	29 April 1952	Barcelona, Spain
Elsbeth Bruck (Figure 16)	Birth	17 November 1874	Ratibor, Germany (today: Racibórz, Poland)
Elsbeth Bruck (Figure 16)	Death	20 February 1970	Berlin, Germany

Figure 14. Another great-aunt, Hedwig Löwenstein, née Bruck

Figure 16. Yet another great-aunt Elsbeth Bruck

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

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

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

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

Figure 18. Page from the Pinkus Family Collection identifying Oscar Pincus and Paula Pincus née Pauly’s two children (“kinder” in German), Franz Pincus and Lisselotte “Lilo” Pauly. Here can also be seen that Franz Pincus married Lisa Krüger. [Citation: Series VII: Genealogical and historical materials on the Fraenkel family and others, undated, 1600s-1971; Pinkus Family Collection; AR 7030; Box 20; Folder 3; Page 307; Leo Baeck Institute]

Finally, from the Pinkus Collection, I was also able to confirm that Elisabeth “Lisa” Pauly née Krüger, discussed in Blog Post 40, one of the “silent heroes” who hid my Uncle Dr. Fedor Bruck during his 30-months “underground” in Berlin during WWII, was indeed married to Franz Pincus (Figure 18); Franz Pincus, readers may recall, died in 1941 as Franz Pauly, having taken his mother’s maiden name as his own surname. While the Pinkus Collection shed no additional light on exactly how Franz Pincus/Pauly died, I discovered Franz was the older rather than the younger of two siblings, contrary to what was in my family tree. This comports with a photo, attached here, showing Franz and his sister, Charlotte “Lisselotte or Lilo” Pauly, as children, found since I published Post 40; readers can clearly see Franz is the older of the two children. (Figure 19)

Figure 19. Franz and Lilo Pauly as children in 1902

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

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

CITATION

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

POST 42: “DIE SCHLUMMERMUTTER’S” PARTING GIFT TO MY FATHER, A SIGNET RING

Note: In this post, I tell readers a little more about a signet ring given to my father, Dr. Otto Bruck, by his landlady in 1937 upon his departure from Tiegenhof, where he had his dental practice in the Free State of Danzig. The post is based on information provided by one of the co-authors of a book on the history of Tiegenhof, Mr. Grzegorz Gola.

I apologize to readers at the very outset, as this Blog post is likely to be of interest to few of you and is more a reflection of my obsession with accuracy, recognizing I’m not an expert on many subjects I write about. When people with expertise on the matters I discuss enhance my understanding of these topics, I’m delighted.

From Blog Post 3, regular readers may recall the extraordinary lengths to which I went to learn the identity of a woman my father only ever referred to when I was growing up as “Die Schlummermutter,” translated roughly as “landlady.” With much letter-writing and the help of a gentleman from the Danzig Forum, I eventually learned Die Schlummermutter was named Frau Margaretha “Grete” Wilhelmine Gramatzki née Gleixner. She was born in Tiegenhof on June 13, 1885 and died there on February 24, 1942.

Figure 1. My father and “Die Schlummermutter” (Grete Gramatzki) in Tiegenhof in Spring 1933, with sisters Suse Epp (left) and Idschi Epp

Figure 2. Die Schlummermutter, or as she was locally known “dicke Grete” (fat Grete)

My father spoke of Grete Gramatzki with great affection, and the surviving pictures of the two of them together attest to this friendship. (Figure 1) She was an enormous woman, weighing more than 400 pounds, and someone I picture to be of outsize personality. (Figure 2) Given the close bond between “dicke Grete” (“fat Grete”), as she was known to locals, and my father, it comes as no surprise that upon my father’s departure from Tiegenhof, some months after Grete’s birthday in June 1937 (Figure 3), she gave him a parting gift. That souvenir was a signet ring (Figure 4) that had belonged to her husband, who I came to learn was Hans Erich Gramatzki. He was born on August 10, 1879 and died at an unknown date. My father arrived in Tiegenhof on April 9, 1932, and while multiple photos post-dating his arrival show Grete Gramatzki, none of her husband exist; I surmise he was no longer alive by the time my father moved to town.

Figure 3. Grete Gramatzki on what would have been her 52nd birthday on June 13, 1937, with an unknown friend on her left and my father’s then-girlfriend Erika on her right. My father left Tiegenhof shortly after this photo was taken

Figure 4. Signet ring given to my father by Grete Gramatzki, once belonging to her husband

“The main element of the coat of arms on the ring shows a sloped battle axe embedded in a shield on what was once a red background, today only very faintly visible. The Gramatzki family is Polish aristocracy of the so-called Topór tribe or clan, once living around Preußisch Eylau [today: south of Kaliningrad, Russia]. And, in fact comparing the ring’s coat of arms to that of the Topór tribe shows them to be remarkably similar.”

A signet ring is described as “. . .having a flat bezel, usually wider than the rest of the hoop, which is decorated, normally in intaglio, so that it will leave a raised (relief) impression of the design when the ring is pressed onto soft sealing wax or similar material.” Thus, in the case of the ring given by Die Schlummermutter to my father it is essentially the “signature” of the Gramatzki family and a mirror image of their family’s coat of arms, so I logically assumed. However, Mr. Grzegorz Gola remarked the following:

“In my opinion, this is a variant of the ‘oksza’ coat of arms. (Figure 5) It is very similar to the ‘topór’ coat of arms. (Figure 6) ‘Oksza’ is a battle axe with a sharp tip, inaccurately, a halberd. According to the rules of heraldry, ‘oksza’ is turned to the right [left, when looking at the impression that would be pressed onto soft sealing wax]. The Gramatzki family had a ‘topór’ coat of arms. The Gramacki family had a ‘oksza’ coat of arms. The name ‘Gramacki’ in Polish is pronounced almost identically to the German pronunciation of ‘Gramatzki.’”

Figure 5. The “Oksza” Polish Coat of Arms of the Gramacki family

Figure 6. The very similar “Topór” Polish Coat of Arms of the Gramatzki family

It’s not entirely clear what to make of this, that the ring given to my father, supposedly belonging to Grete Gramatzki’s husband, shows the Gramacki rather than the Gramatzki coat of arms. Possibly, the Polish Gramacki’s originally hailed from Germany or Prussia, and the Gramacki’s and Gramatzki’s have common ancestors.

Figure 7. The signet ring’s heraldic border; neither the Oksza nor the Topór coat of arms bear such a border

Mr. Grzegorz Gola noted one other thing:

“. . .it is interesting that the coat of arms has a heraldic border (a narrow strip on the edge of the coat of arms). (Figure 7) This is very rare in Polish coat of arms. Much more often, this occurs in Scottish, French or English coat of arms. Formerly, in Poland, this meant it was the coat of arms of a younger, newer branch of the family. (In England and France, the heraldic border meant the family of an illegitimate child.)”

Perhaps the first and second issues are interrelated, the slight variation in the shape of the battle axe and the presence of a heraldic border, indicating that Grete Gramatzki’s husband was from a younger branch of an older family or an offspring of an illegitimate son.

POST 38: THE EVIDENCE OF MY FATHER’S CONVERSION TO CHRISTIANITY

Note: In this post, I discuss the evidence for my father’s, Dr. Otto Bruck, conversion to Christianity from Judaism, confirmation of which I recently came upon completely inadvertently.

Growing up, my father, Dr. Otto Bruck, never discussed being born into the Jewish religion. If my memory is correct, I think I first learned about it when I was visiting my maternal grandmother in Nice, France as a child. At the time, we were walking through Vieux Nice, when she turned, pointed to a building, told me that’s where my father worked as a dentist after WWII, and mentioned he was Jewish; it would be many years before I understood the significance of all this. Regular readers may recall I discussed my father’s time in Nice after the war in Post 26 and touched on the fact that he was not legally permitted to practice dentistry in France because he was “apatride,” stateless. He was eventually caught and fled to America before he could be brought up on charges that were eventually dropped by the French authorities.

Figure 1. My Baptismal Certificate showing I was baptized on August 2, 1957, in Lyon, France

Because religion was not a part of my upbringing, I never gave much thought to it, although, ironically, I was eventually baptized as a Roman Catholic in Lyon, France on August 2, 1957, when I was six years old. (Figure 1) Given the events my father had lived through, it made sense to him I should have a religion. It’s always puzzled me, however, why my father thought that being baptized would afford me any protection if a future anti-Semitic political entity gained power and decided, as the Nazis had, that anyone with two Jewish grandparents is a Jew. Puzzles without answers.

Given my father’s casual attitude about many things, including relatives and religion, it’s not surprising that much of what I’ve learned about such matters has involved a lot of effort. Because my father considered himself German rather than Jewish, it would have made sense to me if he had converted to Christianity from Judaism. But, as I just remarked, because of my father’s casual attitude, it would also not have surprised me if he’d never made the effort to formally convert. Regardless, I’d never previously been able to find definitive proof either way.

The archives at the Centrum Judaicum Berlin include documentation that my father’s brother, Dr. Fedor Bruck, converted from Judaism at the Messiah Chapel in Berlin’s Prenzlauer Berg, Kastanienallee 22 on June 11, 1939, very late indeed. Similarly, the Centrum Judaicum Berlin retains archival records for my Aunt Susanne’s husband, Dr. Franz Müller, who converted much earlier, on November 25, 1901, but still lost his teaching position at Humboldt University many years later, in 1933.

I’m unaware of any comprehensive database that includes the names and records of Jewish converts in Germany. However, since conversion records survive at the Centrum Judaicum for both of my uncles, and since my father attended dental school in Berlin, I began the search for proof of my father’s own conversion here; they found nothing although it was suggested that knowing the specific church where he might have converted could prove useful. Knowing my father had also apprenticed in Danzig [today: Gdansk, Poland] for a short period after graduating from dental school, I contacted the archives there, again to no avail. The other place I reckoned where my father might have converted to Christianity was the town where he was a dentist between April 1932 and April 1937, Tiegenhof [today: Nowy Dwor Gdanski, Poland], although I had no idea at the time where to begin looking for such records.

I’ve learned, it was not uncommon beginning in the last half of the nineteenth century for German-Jews to convert to Christianity as a means of assimilating into German society. A virulent wave of anti-Semitism that had emerged in Germany in the 1880s may have been another factor in the decision of some Jews to convert.

Figure 2. Following a night of heavy drinking in which he totaled his Austin automobile, my father is standing by his 200cc Triumph motorcycle with a bandaged head, Tiegenhof 1934

I remember, as a child, my father talking about his time in Tiegenhof and how he drank heavily in those days. Multiple pictures from my father’s days there exist showing him visibly inebriated. (Figure 2) My father was by no means an alcoholic, and he justified his heavy drinking as “necessary to fit in.” I’ve mentioned in earlier posts that my father was an active sportsman, particularly an excellent tennis player. It’s highly likely there were barriers to becoming a member of the various sports and social organizations in Tiegenhof to which my father belonged, religion no doubt being one of them. Thus, I have concluded that if my father did not convert to Christianity before he arrived in Tiegenhof, the provincial mores of this small town may have necessitated he do so here. That said, until recently, I’d been unable to find any evidence my father ever converted.

Figure 3. Document found among my father’s papers initially thought to be dental invoice later determined to be receipt for payment in 1936 of Church Tax to “Evangelische Kirche” in Tiegenhof

Few of my father’s papers survive, but one document that has caught my attention only because it included the names of two members of the Joost family. (Figure 3) Readers must understand that on account of all the Tiegenhof-related documents, books, and address directories I’ve perused over the years, many family surnames are now extremely familiar to me; such was the case with the surname “Joost.” In reviewing this document, I was absolutely convinced it was a dental invoice because at the top of the paper it included my father’s name and identified him as a “zahnarzt,” a dentist. Still, it seemed odd my father would have saved only one invoice among the many he’d no doubt written over the years as a dentist.

Figure 4. Baptism register for Alfred Albert Joost, born 4 June 1898, baptized 11 September 1898, whose name appears on the 1936 Church Tax receipt issued to my father

Figure 5. Card from the “Heimatortskartei” (File of Displaced Germans) for Albert Joost, showing his date of birth as 4 June 1898, and his religion as “Ev.” (=Evangelical)

Figure 6. Card from the “Heimatortskartei” (File of Displaced Germans) for Albert Joost’s wife, Käthe Großnick, showing her date of birth as 26 January 1902

Setting aside this anomaly, I began to research in various databases the Joost names I found on the paper in question. As readers can see, towards the bottom left side is written “Alb. Joost,” while on the bottom right side is written “f. Alb. Joost Kathe Joost.” From ancestry.com, I discovered there lived a “Schneidermeister,” a tailor, in Tiegenhof, by the name of “Jacob Albert Joost,” born on July 27, 1865, who died on January 23, 1937. The profession was passed on to his son, “Alfred Albert Joost,” born on June 4, 1898 (Figure 4-5), who died on February 18, 1975; he was married to Käthe Großnick. (Figure 6) The existence of the father and son tailors was confirmed by various Tiegenhof Address Books. (Figures 7-10) Because both father and son had Albert in their name, I was uncertain whether the presumed dental work had been done on the father or son.

Figure 7. 1925 Tiegenhof (Kreis Großes Werder) Address Book listing Albert Joost’s residence as Vorhofstraße 44

Figure 8. 1927-28 Tiegenhof (Kreis Großes Werder) Address Book listing both father Alfred Joost and son Albert Joost residing at Vorhofstraße 44

Figure 9. 1930 Tiegenhof (Kreis Großes Werder) Address Book listing Albert Joost’s residence as Vorhofstraße 44

Figure 10. 1943 Tiegenhof (Kreis Großes Werder) Address Book listing Albert Joost’s residence as Adolf-Hitler Str. 44 in the Nazi Era

To resolve this confusion, I asked one of my cousins to decipher the document. I learned the document was a receipt not for dental work, as I’d thought, but for payment of a church tax. Like in Germany and several other European countries, in the Free State of Danzig, where Tiegenhof was located, members of the Protestant or Catholic Churches were compelled to pay a church tax of 7.5% of their income. In 1936, my father was obviously a member of the Evangelische Kirche in Tiegenhof (Figures 11-14), and his annual tax amounted to 90 Guilden 90 Pfenninge; he was permitted to pay his obligation in four installments. The first payment of 22 Guilden 74 Pfenninge was made on October 6, 1936, and it was receipted by “Alb. Joost,” while the second and third installments were made on December 29, 1936. Kaethe Joost was the authorized representative of Albert Joost, so the “f” in “f. Alb. Joost Kathe Joost” stands for “fuer,” “for” or “in place of,” indicating she signed the receipt in lieu of her husband. The last installment would have been due on March 15, 1937, a payment my father is unlikely to have made because by then he would no doubt have been expelled from the Church for being of the “Jewish race.” By mid-1937, my father had left Tiegenhof.

Figure 11. The former “Evangelische Kirche Mit Pfarrhaus” (Church and Rectory) in Tiegenhof

Figure 12. The former Evangelical Church in Tiegenhof torn down during Poland’s Communist Era

Figure 13. A schematic drawing and model of the former Evangelical Church in Tiegenhof

Figure 14. A plan of the town of Tiegenhof showing the locations of the Catholic and Evangelical Churches

Having found the clear-cut proof that my father had converted to Christianity and knowing he’d been a member of Tiegenhof’s Evangelical Church, I contacted Mr. Peter Hanke from the Danzig Forum asking him whether conversion records for this church still exist. He told me he’d never found such records, and that they’d likely not survived the turmoil of WWII. This was disappointing but hardly unexpected.

Interestingly, Peter did find a brief reference to Albert Joost in Vol. 36 of the “Tiegenhofer Nachrichten,” the one-time annual journal for former German residents of Tiegenhof and their descendants. In German it says: “Bei Joost war fruehmorgens um 4 Uhr Licht, um diese Zeit arbeitete er bereits in seiner Werkstatt; um 9 Uhr abends war immer noch das Petroleumlicht in der Werkstatt zu sehen. Der war einer von den Tiegenoertern, die ich nie in einem Gasthaus gesehen habe, aber jeden Sonntag im blauen Anzug in der Kirche.” Translated: “Joost was already at work at 4 a.m. in the morning. At 9 p.m. the kerosene lamp could still be seen in his workshop. That man was one of the “Tiegenoerter,” never seen in a tavern but come Sunday always wore a blue suit to church.” Possibly, Albert Joost was the “tithe collector” with his wife for Tiegenhof’s Evangelical Church.

Proof of my father’s conversion to Christianity came in a most roundabout way. As mentioned, it’s highly unlikely his actual conversion document survived WWII, but the important thing is that my father’s attempt to assimilate into German society ended in failure and he was still forced to flee to save himself.