Category: Elisabeth “Lisa” Pauly née Krüger

POST 40, POSTSCRIPT: ELISABETH “LISA” PAULY NÉE KRÜGER, ONE OF GERMANY’S SILENT HEROES—DISCOVERING HER HUSBAND’S FATE

Note: In this post, I relate the forensic work I undertook to learn the fate of Franz Pincus/Pauly, husband of Lisa Pauly, one of Germany’s “silent heroes” during WWII. Franz Pincus and my uncle Dr. Fedor Bruck were second cousins, and though Franz died in 1941 before my uncle was forced “underground” in 1942 by the Nazis, Franz’s widow sheltered my uncle for periods during his 30 months in hiding.

Related Posts:

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

Post 44: A Trove of Family History from The “Pinkus Collection” at the Leo Baeck Institute

Post 48: Dr. Ernst Neisser’s Final Days in 1942 in the Words of His Daughter

Post 49: Guide to the Landesarchiv Berlin (Berlin State Archive) Civil Registry Records

Post 57: Disappeared Without A Trace, Maria Pohlmann b. Pauly

 

Figure 1. Translation of affidavit written by Elisabeth “Lisa” Pauly née Krüger on February 3, 1947, on behalf of my Uncle Dr. Fedor Bruck, intended for the American Embassy

 

On February 3, 1947, Elisabeth “Lisa” Pauly née Krüger, one of my uncle Dr. Fedor Bruck’s protectors in the course of his thirty months spent “underground” eluding the Nazis in Berlin during WWII, wrote a letter of reference for him. (Figure 1) In this recommendation, Lisa Pauly mentioned that her husband had died in 1941, without naming him or specifying a cause of death. By referring to the Pauly Stammbaum, family tree (Figure 2), I was able to figure out her husband was Franz Pincus, although for a very long time I was uncertain this was really Lisa Pauly’s spouse. As I explained to readers in the original post, I was only able to confirm “Franz Pincus” and “Franz Pauly” were the same person by systematically going through 1920’s and 1930’s Berlin Address Books checking both names residing at the same address. Employing this approach, as discussed in the original post, I eventually found a “Franz Pincus” living at Deidesheimer Str. 25 in Friedenau in 1928 (Figure 3), and by 1930 discovered a “Franz Pauly” residing at that same address. (Figure 4) For whatever reason Franz changed to using his mother’s maiden name, though both Pincus and Pauly were Jewish.

Figure 2. Pauly Stammbaum section showing “Franz & Lisa.” Franz Pincus was the son of Dr. Oscar Pincus & Paula Pauly, but changed his surname to “Pauly” between 1928 and 1930

 

Figure 3. 1928 Berlin Phone Directory listing “Franz Pincus” living at Deidesheimer Str. 25 in Friedenau
Figure 4. By 1930, “Franz Pauly” was now living at Deidesheimer Str. 25 in Friedenau

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Having uncovered Lisa Pauly’s husband’s name from the Pauly Stammbaum, I next turned to ancestry.com to see what more I might learn. As alluded to in the previous paragraph, I found Franz Pincus/Pauly listed in multiple Berlin Address Books in the 1920’s and 1930’s. I also found a family tree on ancestry.com providing his purported place and date of birth, in Posen, Germany [today: Poznan, Poland] on the 23rd of October 1898 (Figure 5a); this same tree showed that Franz Pincus’s sister, Charlotte Lieselotte “Lilo” Pincus, had been born in Posen on the 30th of December 1895. (Figure 5b)

Figure 5a. Page from “Schlesische Jüdische Familien,” Silesian Jewish Families tree, showing Lisa Krüger was married to Franz Pincus, purportedly born in Posen on the 23rd of October 1898 (Franz and his sister Charlotte’s years of births were transposed on this family tree), with notation that he went by the surname “Pauly”
Figure 5b. Page from “Schlesische Jüdische Familien,” Silesian Jewish Families tree, showing Charlotte Pincus purportedly born on the 30th of December 1895 in Posen (Charlotte and her brother Franz’s years of births were transposed on this family tree)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When I stumbled upon a picture of Franz and Lilo as children, attending the 1901 wedding of their aunt Maria Pauly to Alexander “Axel” Pohlmann [see Post 57], where Franz looks decidedly older than his sister (Figures 6a-b), I knew Franz and Lilo’s year of births were incorrect. This allows me to reiterate a point I’ve repeatedly made to readers to question vital data found in family trees on ancestry and elsewhere unless you have the original documents to corroborate dates. So, while I was able to conclude Franz and Lilo Pincus were not born, respectively, in 1898 and 1895, I had not yet resolved in what year they’d been born.

Figure 6a. Alexander “Axel” Pohlmann and Maria Pauly on their wedding day, 30th September 1901 in Posen, Germany, with the name of some congregants identified in the margin of the photo
Figure 6b. Closeup of Franz Pincus and his younger sister Charlotte “Lilo” Pincus as children in 1901

 

 

I then remembered the Pinkus Family Collection [See Post 44] archived at the Leo Baeck Institute in New York which is accessible online. Thinking this might include a chart with Franz and Lilo Pincus’s names, along with that of their parents, I scoured the online documents, and eventually stumbled on a page with all their names. (Figure 7) This page confirmed what I had suspected, namely, that their years of birth had been transposed. It turns out, Franz Pincus was born in 1895, and his sister Lilo in 1898; the family tree on ancestry.com, however, correctly noted their respective dates of birth, the 23rd of October for Franz, and the 30th of December for Lilo. This same page also noted Lisa Pauly née Krüger’s place and date of birth, in Berlin on the 20th of December 1890. With the help of Mr. Peter Hanke, affiliated with “forum.danzig.de,” I was able to track down copies of both Franz and Lilo Pincus’s original birth certificates. (Figures 8-9) So far, however, I’ve been unable to pinpoint which borough in Berlin Lisa Pauly was born so have not found her birth certificate.

 

Figure 7. Page from the Pinkus Family Collection archived at the Leo Baeck Institute with Franz Pincus/Pauly and his immediate family’s vital data proving he was born in 1895 and his sister Charlotte Pincus in 1898

 

Figure 8. Franz Pincus’s birth certificate from Posen, Germany showing he was born on the 23rd of October 1895
Figure 9. Charlotte Pincus’s birth certificate from Posen, Germany showing she was born on the 30th of December 1898

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Having located Franz Pincus’s birth certificate, I now set out to try and find his death certificate. From the 1947 letter of recommendation his wife Lisa had written for my Uncle Fedor, I only knew he’d died in 1941, and assumed to begin with that he had died at Maßmannstraße 11, where he and Lisa Pauly resided at the time in the Steglitz Borough of Berlin. I erroneously assumed locating his death register listing in the Landesarchiv Berlin database would be relatively straight-forward; I was sorely disappointed.

 

At the risk of sounding pedantic, let me explain to readers how and where I was eventually able to locate Franz Pincus’s death register listing. This requires reviewing findings I discussed in Post 48, the publication describing Dr. Ernst Neisser’s final days in September-October 1942 in Berlin after he and his cousin Luise Neisser, with whom he lived, were told to report to an old age transport. To remind readers, the elderly Ernst and Luise Neisser opted to commit suicide rather than report for deportation. Because Luise died immediately after taking poison, I easily located her death register listing under the records of Berlin-Charlottenburg, but I was unable to find Ernst’s name listed in the records of this Berlin borough. Ernst, I later learned from a letter his daughter wrote in 1947, lingered for several days before dying, so I reckoned he might have died in another borough. I eventually figured out the only place in Berlin where Jews could still receive medical attention by 1942, or where they were brought to die in case of “failed” suicide attempts, was the Jüdisches Krankenhaus Berlin, the Berlin Jewish Hospital, in the Wedding Borough of Berlin. Having worked this out, I was then able to find Ernst Neisser’s death register listing under records for 1942 in the Wedding Borough and order his death certificate from the Landesarchiv Berlin.

 

In trying to track down Franz Pincus’s death register listing, I decided to apply the same logic and “assume” he might also have died in the Wedding Borough of Berlin for unknown reasons. Obviously, I had no way of knowing then whether Franz Pincus’s death ultimately was from a “failed” suicide attempt, war wounds, fatal disease, or natural causes. Nonetheless, my logic turned out to be sound, and, as in the case of Ernst Neisser, I located Franz Pincus’s death register listing under 1941 in the Wedding Borough. (Figures 10a-b) Naturally, I ordered a copy of Franz’s original death certificate uncertain what new information it might include.

Figure 10a. Cover of the Landesarchiv Berlin register for the Berlin Borough of Wedding (1941) with Franz Israel Pincus’s 1941 death register listing
Figure 10b. Closeup of Franz Israel Pincus’s death register listing showing he died on the 2nd of August 1941

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Franz’s typed death certificate arrived several weeks later. (Figure 11a) My cousin translated the form and it included several new pieces of information. (Figure 11b) Franz had been given the added middle name of “Israel” as was required of all Jewish-born males during the Nazi era. It confirms he died on the 2nd of August 1941 in the Berlin Jewish Hospital of a ruptured appendix. And, at the bottom of the certificate, it shows he’d gotten married on the 12th of May 1928 in Berlin’s Friedenau Borough, or so my cousin and I both read.

Figure 11a. Franz Israel Pincus’s death certificate, Nr. 3681; circled at the bottom is the date he and Elizabeth Krüger married, initially misread as year 1928
Figure 11b. Translation of Franz Israel Pincus’s death certificate

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Armed with a new vital event to check out, I again immediately turned to the Landesarchiv Berlin database trying to locate Franz Pincus and Elisabeth Krüger’s marriage register listing. Surprisingly, I was unable to find it even though the precise date and number of the certificate, Nr. 241, were furnished. I’ve previously encountered this situation, even with exact dates and specific Berlin boroughs in hand, where it is not always possible to track down listings of vital events. The reason for this is not clear to me.

Just in the last few days, collecting and organizing newly acquired information for this post, I reexamined Franz’s typed death certificate hoping something new might reveal itself, and indeed it did. While the marriage year clearly seemed to be 1928, I began to question whether the typed “8” might not be a “3,” so checked the marriage listings under “K” (for Krüger) for 1923 and was rewarded by finding Elisabeth Krüger and Franz Pincus’s names in the Berlin-Friedenau Landesarchiv database. (Figures 12a-b) I’ve now ordered and await the actual marriage certificate but detected a notation in the register that Franz Pincus changed his surname to Pauly, a footnote obviously made some years after Franz got married.

Figure 12a. Cover of the Landesarchiv Berlin register for the Berlin Borough of Friedenau (1916-1924) with Franz Pincus and Elizabeth Krüger’s 1923 marriage register listing
Figure 12b. Closeup of Franz Pincus and Elizabeth Krüger’s 1923 marriage register listing with the certificate number, Nr. 241

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A recent check in MyHeritage for Franz Pincus yielded a “German Minority Census, 1939” form which corroborates some of the aforementioned information, namely, Franz’s dates of birth and death, and he and his wife’s ages and residence in Berlin-Steglitz in 1939. (Figure 13) The information from MyHeritage was late in coming and might have short circuited other searches I did.

Figure 13. “German Minority Census, 1939” page from MyHeritage for Franz Pincus confirming his birth and death dates, he and his wife’s ages, and their residence in Berlin-Steglitz

 

Franz Pincus’s sister, Charlotte “Lilo” Pincus, I discovered from ancestry.com rode out the war in Scotland; as a German foreigner, she was briefly interned before being released and allowed to teach. (Figure 14) She returned to Berlin after the war. A small metal sign bearing her name has been placed at the Christus-Friedhof in Mariendorf, Berlin, showing she died on the 6th of September 1995. (Figure 15)

Figure 14. 1939 “Female Enemy Alien” card for Charlotte Pincus showing she lived in Alva, Clackmannanshire (Scotland), was “Exempted from internment,” and was a teacher during the war
Figure 15. A small metal sign bearing Charlotte Pincus’s name placed at the Christus-Friedhof in Mariendorf, Berlin, showing she died on the 6th of September 1995

 

 

 

 

 

 

From time to time, I stumble across a family letter or diary mentioning the people about whom I write. In writing this post, I recalled a brief mention of Franz and Lilo Pincus in a letter Suse Vogel née Neisser, daughter of the Dr. Ernst Neisser discussed above, wrote in 1972 to her first cousin, Klaus Pauly. (Figure 16) Klaus developed the Pauly Stammbaum, and he asked Suse Vogel’s assistance in identifying some of the people in the picture taken at Maria and Axel Pohlmann’s 1901 wedding. This included Franz and Lilo Pincus (Figure 17), and translated below is what Suse Vogel wrote about them:

Figure 16. Circled section of November 22, 1972 letter written by Suse Vogel née Neisser identifying and briefly discussing Franz and Lilo Pincus
Figure 17. Closeup of Franz (upper) and Lilo Pincus as children in 1901

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“. . .The remaining little dwarfs bottom left: the upper one is obviously Franz Pincus-Pauly, below probably his sister Liselotte (is she calling herself Charlotte now?) I confess that I disliked her since childhood contrary to the nice ‘Blondel,’ her brother. And I was in agreement about that with bosom friend Aenne. Later, but long before Hitler-times, I declared to myself that Franz and Lilo were raised by their father strictly positivist. To my childish horror they did not ‘believe’ in anything. So, they were a priori ‘without faith, hope and love’ – sounds very presumptuous, but that’s how I felt as a young girl.”

 

While Suse Vogel’s words are not particularly complimentary, the mere fact I could find anything written about Franz and his sister, provides a fleeting glimpse into these long-gone ancestors and brings them to life in a small way.

  

FRANZ PINCUS/PAULY & HIS IMMEDIATE FAMILY

 

Name

(Relationship)

 Vital Event Date Place
       
Franz Pincus/Pauly

(self)

 Birth 23 October 1895 Posen, Germany (Poznan, Poland)
Marriage 12 May 1923 Berlin-Friedenau, Germany
Death 2 August 1941 Berlin-Wedding, Germany
Charlotte “Lilo” Pincus (sister) Birth 30 December 1898 Posen, Germany (Poznan, Poland)
Death 6 September 1995 Tempelhof-Schöneberg, Berlin, Germany
Elisabeth “Lisa” Krüger (wife) Birth 20 December 1890 Berlin, Germany
Marriage 12 May 1923 Berlin-Friedenau, Germany
Death 25 April 1977 Stuttgart, Germany
Oscar Pincus (father) Birth 23 April 1859 Insterburg, East Prussia (Chernyakhovsk, Russia)
Marriage 21 October 1893 Posen, Germany (Poznan, Poland)
Death 18 January 1934 Magdeburg, Germany
Paulina Pauly (mother) Birth 26 April 1872 Posen, Germany (Poznan, Poland)
Marriage 21 October 1893 Posen, Germany (Poznan, Poland)
Death 31 March 1922 Magdeburg, Germany

 

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

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

Related Posts:

Post 39: An Imperfect Analogy: Family Trees and Dendrochronology

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

NAME EVENT DATE PLACE
Josef Mockrauer

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

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

(Figure 5)

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

(Figure 6)

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

(Figure 7)

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

(Figure 8)

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

(Figure 9)

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

 

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

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

NAME EVENT DATE PLACE
Felix Bruck

(Figure 12)

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

(Figure 8)

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

(Figure 13)

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

(Figure 14)

 Birth 22 March 1870

 

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

(Figure 15)

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

(Figure 16)

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

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 16. Yet another great-aunt Elsbeth Bruck

 

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

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

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

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

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

Figure 19. Franz and Lilo Pauly as children in 1902

 

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

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

CITATION

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

POST 41: DR. OTTO BERGER & OTHER “SILENT HEROES” WHO HELPED MY UNCLE DR. FEDOR BRUCK SURVIVE THE NAZI REGIME

Note:  This post is about a handful of righteous Germans who provided life-saving support to my Uncle Dr. Fedor Bruck during the 30 months he lived “underground” in Berlin during WWII, hiding from the Nazis.  I relate the little I’ve been able to uncover about these “silent heroes.”

There exists in Berlin a museum, the “Silent Heroes Memorial Center,” dedicated to the resistance to persecution of the Jews between 1933 and 1945.  A catalog developed by the Memorial Center describes the heroic role played by some people who resisted Nazi persecution of the Jews and provides some statistics about German Jews worth citing.  At the time the Nazis assumed power on January 30, 1933, there were roughly 500,000 German Jews.  This date marked the beginning of the ostracism, defamation and disenfranchisement of these Jews, key stages of which were the boycott of Jewish-owned businesses beginning on April 1, 1933; the Nuremberg race-laws of September 1935; and the pogroms of November 9, 1938.  More than 30,000 Jewish men were imprisoned in concentration camps following the pogroms in 1938.

Of the 500,000 Jews in Germany when the Nazis assumed power, roughly 300,000 of them were able to flee Germany before the war began in the fall of 1939.  Of the 6 million Jews murdered during the Nazi genocide, more than 160,000 of them were German Jews.  Between 10,000 and 12,000 German Jews tried to escape deportation to extermination camps and other killing sites by fleeing underground, since emigration by 1942 was prohibited and virtually impossible even through illegal means.  About half this number did so in Berlin, including my Uncle Dr. Fedor Bruck, subject of multiple earlier Blog posts.  Fleeing underground required that hiding places be found and frequently changed because of the danger of being denounced or discovered.  Of the Jews who went “into hiding” in Germany, about 5,000 of them survived, more than 1,700 of them in Berlin.  The chances of survival were indeed small, yet my uncle managed it with the help of multiple silent heroes.  An interesting quote from the Memorial Center’s publication speaks to the network of non-Jewish supporters required to protect a solitary Jewish fugitive: “In the course of attempts to save Jews, networks of helpers often developed.  For every Jew who went underground, up to ten, and sometimes even more, non-Jewish supporters were involved . . .”  Clearly, multiple non-Jews placed themselves at risk to try and shelter a single Jew.

 

Figure 1a. Affidavit written by Elisabeth “Lisa” Pauly née Krüger on February 3, 1947, on behalf of my Uncle Fedor, intended for the American Embassy

 

Figure 1b. Translation of affidavit written by Lisa Pauly

 

 

In the previous post, Blog Post 40, I discussed Elisabeth “Lisa” Pauly née Krüger and how I discovered she was the wife of my Uncle Fedor’s second cousin, Franz Pincus/Pauly.  In a declaration, pledged under oath on February 3, 1947 (Figures 1a-b), Lisa provided a chronology of the timeframes and enumerated the network of helpers who enabled my uncle to survive in Berlin during his odyssey underground: 

October 1942            Hidden by Dr. Wolfgang Sieber & Frau von Werner

February 1943          Dr. Wolfgang Sieber arrested by the Gestapo; my uncle hidden by Lisa Pauly

July 1943                    My uncle finds refuge with Dr. Otto Berger

March 24, 1944       Dr. Otto Berger’s building bombed; my uncle again hidden by Lisa Pauly

May 1944                   Dr. Otto Berger again provided accommodation to my uncle in his new home

December 1944       Dr. Otto Berger found yet another home, and hid my uncle until the capture of Berlin by the Red Army

Figure 2. Letter dated October 12, 1942 sent to my Uncle Fedor by the “Jüdische Kultusvereinigung zu Berlin e.V.,” Berlin’s Jewish Cultural Association, telling him to report to an “age-transport.” Letter was signed by Philipp Israel Kozower who was murdered at Auschwitz, two years later to the day

My uncle’s trying ordeal began in October 1942 when friends warned him the Gestapo was preparing to pick him up for “questioning.”  In a letter dated October 12, 1942, he was informed he should present himself to a so-called “age-transport.” (Figure 2)  Interestingly, this letter was sent to my uncle by the “Jüdische Kultusvereinigung zu Berlin e.V.,” Berlin’s Jewish Cultural Association, and signed by a “Philipp Israel Kozower,” who two years later to the day, October 12, 1944, would himself be murdered in Auschwitz.

Knowing that an “age-transport” meant deportation to a concentration camp, my Uncle Fedor immediately fled to a good friend in Berlin-Dahlem, Dr. Wolfgang Sieber.  He, along with a Frau von Werner, provided refuge for a time.  However, on February 15, 1943, Dr. Sieber was arrested by the Gestapo in the very presence of my uncle; miraculously, my uncle escaped.  In the ensuing months, Lisa Pauly and other friends sheltered him, in-between periods spent hiding in greenways, coal cellars, and in secluded areas around Berlin.

 

Figure 3. Dr. Otto Berger (b. 15 April 1900-d. 22 May 1985), as a young man

 

During my uncle’s underground odyssey, the dentist Dr. Otto Berger (b. 4/15/1900-d. 5/22/1985) (Figure 3), was especially helpful.  Among all the righteous Germans who aided my uncle, Dr. Berger placed himself at risk for the longest time.   In a letter my Uncle Fedor wrote in 1964, he described his initial contact with Dr. Berger:

 

“I met Mr. Otto Berger in the spring of 1943. When he learned on this occasion that I lead an illegal life as a persecuted Jew, he provided me with food at that first meeting and offered to take me in. This happened a short time later and I moved in early July 1943 into the apartment of Otto Berger.”

Figure 4a. “Kennkarte,” Identity Card, in the name of Dr. Friedrich Burkhardt, that Dr. Berger was able to procure for my Uncle Dr. Fedor Bruck, matching his own initials
Figure 4b. “Kennkarte,” Identity Card, in the name of Dr. Friedrich Burkhardt, that Dr. Berger was able to procure for my Uncle Dr. Fedor Bruck, matching his own initials

Not only did Dr. Berger provide food and shelter to my uncle, but, perhaps most critically, he obtained illegal papers for him under the false identity of Dr. Friedrich Burkhardt, matching my uncle’s own initials. (Figures 4a-b, 5a-b) The identity cards for “Dr. Burkhardt” show he was born on July 18, 1890 in Jägerndorf, Upper Silesia, today Krnov, an Upper Silesian city in the northeastern Czech Republic.  Why my uncle selected this alias and location are unknown.

Figure 5a. False “Postal Identity Card” Dr. Berger was able to obtain for my Uncle Dr. Fedor Bruck in the name of Dr. Friedrich Burkhardt
Figure 5b. False “Postal Identity Card” Dr. Berger was able to obtain for my Uncle Dr. Fedor Bruck in the name of Dr. Friedrich Burkhardt
Figure 6. 1941 Berlin Phone Directory showing Dr. Berger lived at Händelplatz 1 in “Lfe” (=Lichterfelde) at the time, same place where he originally hid my uncle beginning in July 1943

In July 1943, Dr. Berger lived at Händelplatz 1 in Berlin-Lichterfelde (Figure 6), in southwestern Berlin, but on March 24, 1944, aerial bombardment by the Allies resulted in destruction of the building where Dr. Berger and my uncle lived.  Both barely managed to escape; of the 44 people cloistered in the bomb shelter, only nine survived.  Following this close call, my uncle temporarily again found refuge with his second cousin’s wife, Lisa Pauly, until Dr. Berger was able to secure new lodgings, a house with a garden in Berlin-Zehlendorf.  Here he spent the summer of 1944.  By this time, my uncle had lost all his personal property, given to friends for safe-keeping but incinerated, as well as his dental equipment, placed in a dental depot but likewise destroyed during aerial bombing; all he had left were a few items of clothing and a portfolio with his most important papers.  In December 1944, Dr. Berger was assigned new living quarters in Berlin-Steglitz, to which he and my uncle moved, a place fire-bombed on April 25, 1945, a day before Steglitz was conquered by the advancing Russians.

 

Figure 7. 1974 Berlin Phone Directory showing Dr. Berger’s address at the time

Dr. Otto Berger received various awards for his courageous commitment to helping those persecuted by the Nazi regime.  In 1964, he was honored by Berlin’s mayor Willi Brandt for his outstanding human commitment, followed in 1974 (Figure 7) by an invitation from the Federal President to the Bellevue Palace in order, as the President of the Confederation wrote, “. . .to get acquainted with Otto Berger, the man who gave unselfish help to the persecuted during the Nazi era.”

 

Posthumously, in 2008, Dr. Otto Berger was awarded the “Ewald-Harndt Medal” by the Dental Association of Berlin, a medal to “. . .honor colleagues who have made outstanding contributions to the dental profession.”  In bestowing this award, the Dental Association recognized “. . . Otto Berger, who in a selfless and exemplary manner, courageously and at the risk of his own life in the time of National Socialism. . .” actively helped my uncle and others persecuted by the Nazi regime.

Figure 8. Page from Yad Vashem website recognizing Dr. Otto Berger as “Righteous Among the Nations,” listing the type of aid he provided to my Uncle Fedor and other persecuted individuals

Then, again posthumously, in 2009 Dr. Berger was recognized by Yad Vashem as “Righteous Among the Nations” (Figure 8), an honor the State of Israel gives to non-Jewish individuals and organizations who opposed the Nazi regime to save Jews.

 

Figure 9a. The “Ewald Harndt-Medaille” posthumously presented to Dr. Otto Berger in 2008 by the Dental Association of Berlin
Figure 9b. The “Ewald Harndt-Medaille” posthumously presented to Dr. Otto Berger in 2008 by the Dental Association of Berlin

With the assistance of one of my German cousins, I was able to establish contact with Dr. Otto Berger’s grandson, Dr. Oliver Speyer, like his grandfather also a dentist.  Ostensibly, my reason for contacting him was to obtain a few photos of Dr. Berger for use in this post.  Much to my delight, Dr. Speyer sent me photos of the Ewald-Harndt and Yad Vashem awards given to his grandfather, awards prominently on display in Dr. Speyer’s dental office. (Figures 9a-b, 10)

Figure 10. The “Certificate of Honour” posthumously given to Dr. Otto Berger in 2009 by Yad Vashem
Figure 11. 1941 Berlin Phone Directory listing Dr. Wolfgang Sieber who hid my Uncle Fedor from around October 1942 until his arrest by the Gestapo in February 1943

Briefly, let me say a few words about some other silent heroes who played a role in my uncle’s survival, limited only because I’ve uncovered very little about them.  My uncle’s friend, Dr. Wolfgang Sieber, with whom my uncle straightaway sought safety in October 1942, was, as previously mentioned, arrested by the Gestapo in February 1943.  His name appears in Berlin Address Books only in 1940 and 1941 (Figure 11); what to make of this is not entirely clear but depending on the extent of Dr. Sieber’s involvement in sheltering other persecuted persons, he may have been incarcerated and not have survived the war. 

 

Figure 12. 1928 Berlin Phone Directory listing Lise Lotte von Werner shown living in Berlin-Wannsee at the time and showing her maiden name as “Tiemann”; Frau von Werner hid my uncle for periods between October 1942 and July 1943
Figure 13. Page from 1978 Berlin Phone Directory, last year Lise Lotte von Werner is listed

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the case of two other known silent heroes, specifically, Lisa Pauly and Frau von Werner, both survived into the late 1970’s, at least.  Because both Lisa and Frau von Werner’s addresses are provided in Lisa’s 1947 affidavit, I was able to track them through Berlin Address Books.  Frau von Werner’s full name was Lisa Lotte von Werner.  She is first found in a 1928 Berlin Phone Directory (Figure 12), then, again between 1951 and 1978 listed in Berlin Phone Directories at Petzower Straße 7 (Figure 13), the address in Lisa Pauly’s affidavit.  Similarly, Lisa Pauly is living at Massmannstraße 11 in Steglitz between 1966 and 1977, the address shown in her affidavit of 1947.   It is safe to assume both died of natural causes sometime after 1977-1978.

Let me briefly pick up the narrative as to where my uncle went following the capture of Berlin by the Russians, in his own words, cited only because it provides the identity of another, entirely unexpected, person who assisted my uncle during his underground odyssey:

 

“On April 26, 1945, Steglitz, in the southwestern part of the city, was occupied by the Russians.  Behind the advancing troops, I arrived, on May 4th, in the apartment of my former assistant Käthe Heusermann.  This apartment was situated at Pariserstraße 39-40 near Kurfürstendamm [in Berlin-Charlottenburg].  A friendship of twenty years tied my person and the family of Käthe Heusermann. . .”

Figure 14. My Uncle Dr. Fedor Bruck with a young Kathe Heusermann in his dental office in Liegnitz in Silesia, in the early 1930’s

 

To remind readers what I wrote in Blog Post 31, Käthe Heusermann (Figure 14), who’d once been my Uncle Fedor’s dental assistant in Liegnitz in Silesia [today: Legnica, Poland], eventually became Dr. Hugo Blaschke’s dental assistant; Dr. Blaschke was Hitler’s dentist.  Almost immediately after the end of WWII, Käthe Heusermann, who’d known Hitler had killed himself, a fact Stalin sought to conceal from the world, was arrested by the Russians and detained for many years.  Käthe Heusermann told her captors she’d occasionally supported my uncle during his time underground.  Quoting from Yelena Rzhevskaya’s book, “Memoirs of a Wartime Interpreter: From the Battle for Moscow to Hitler’s Bunker”:

 

“I liked everything about her [Käthe]: the lightness with which she walked on high heels, her voice, her womanly stoicism even in her present unclear situation.  Käthe was just somebody people liked, I sensed; she was a splendid person.  For many years she had supported Dr. Bruck.  Käthe got food vouchers for him in the Reich Chancellery, in Berchtesgaden, and at the Führer’s headquarters in East Prussia, it could, as Dr. Bruck pointed out to me, have been fatal.  Käthe herself never once spoke about that.” (p. 265)

 

This is difficult to wrap one’s head around that the dental assistant to Hitler’s dentist provided aid to my Jewish uncle during the war, a most unlikely ally.

 

There may have been other individuals, whose names are lost to us, who played lesser roles in keeping my uncle from being deported.  Perhaps, they were former dental patients of his who recognized him or army veterans with whom he fought during WWI who passed him on the street?  We will never know.  We only know the names of the people who provided most active support. 

 

The motivations for people to help persecuted Jews were obviously varied.  A few felt an obligation as family or friends, some probably did it out of human compassion, and others for religious or political reasons, but whatever their rationale, they placed themselves at risk and for this reason alone should be recognized.

 

REFERENCES

 

Lutze, Kay

2006    Die Lebensgeschichte des jüdischen Zahnarztes Fedor Bruck (1895-1982) Von Liegnitz nach New York.  Zahnärzttliche Mitteilungen 96, Nr. 10, 16.5 (p. 124-127)

Rzhevskaya, Yelena

2018    Memoirs of a Wartime Interpreter: From the Battle for Moscow to Hitler’s Bunker. Greenhill Books. London.

Silent Heroes Memorial Center

N.D.    Catalog: Resistance to Persecution of the Jews 1933-1945.  For detailed bibliographic data online, go to http://dnb.d-nb.de

POST 40: ELISABETH “LISA” PAULY NÉE KRÜGER, ONE OF MY UNCLE FEDOR’S “SILENT HEROES”

Note:  This post is about Elisabeth “Lisa” Pauly née Krüger, one of my Uncle Dr. Fedor Bruck’s “silent heroes,” who hid him in Berlin during WWII for periods of his 30-month survival “underground.”  Having learned she was married to my uncle’s cousin, I discuss how I worked out their exact relationship in what was on my part a clear case of over-thinking their consanguinity.

Related Post: POST 39:  An Imperfect Analogy: Family Trees And Dendrochronology

Figure 1. My Uncle Fedor in 1940, two years before he fled “underground”

Among my uncle’s surviving papers are two declarations, pledged under oath, identifying people who provided life-saving support to my Uncle Dr. Fedor Bruck (Figure 1) during the 30 months he lived “underground” in Berlin during WWII.  My uncle’s trying ordeal began in October 1942 when friends warned him the Gestapo was preparing to pick him up for “questioning,” detainment which would have led to his deportation to a concentration camp and certain death; straightaway, he went into hiding to avoid arrest.  The declarations written, respectively, on January 19, 1947 and February 3, 1947, were basically intended as letters of reference for the Americans.  They attested to my uncle’s “good character” and provided a brief chronology of how and with whose help he’d survived underground.  A little context is necessary.

Figure 2. Entrance to Kurfürstendamm 213, in Berlin’s Charlottenburg borough, where Hitler’s dentist, Dr. Blaschke, once had his office, as it looks today

As discussed in previous Blog posts, almost immediately after the war ended, my Uncle Fedor applied to what he described as the “pertinent authorities,” presumably the Russians in this case, for permission to take over the office and apartment of Hitler’s former dentist, Dr. Hugo Blaschke, which had survived the war unscathed. (Figure 2)  Permission was granted in early May 1945.  While my uncle’s situation may have seemed comparatively secure at the time, he’d apparently been warned by the Americans that he was at risk of being kidnapped by the Russians on account of his knowledge of Hitler’s fate, which Stalin sought to conceal.  My uncle no doubt realized his danger since both Blaschke’s dental assistant, Käthe Heusermann, and Blaschke’s dental technician, Fritz Echmann, both of whom he knew, had been taken away by the Russians in 1945, not to reappear again in the West for many years.  While my uncle maintained his dental practice in Blaschke’s former office until around July 1947, the declarations written in January and February 1947 strongly suggest my uncle was, so to speak, working on an exit strategy earlier.

Figure 3a. Affidavit written by Elisabeth “Lisa” Pauly née Krüger on February 3, 1947, on behalf of my Uncle Fedor, intended for the American Embassy
Figure 3b. Translation of affidavit written by Lisa Pauly

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One of the two affidavits provided to the American authorities on behalf of my Uncle Fedor was written by Elisabeth “Lisa” Pauly née Krüger. (Figures 3a-b)  She mentioned how she hid him in her home for brief periods during the war and described her kinship as the wife of my uncle’s cousin; Lisa did not provide her husband’s name but only wrote he died in 1941, cause unknown.  I first came across Lisa Pauly’s name in 2014 when I visited the Stadtmuseum in Spandau, outside Berlin, to examine the archived papers of two of my renowned great-aunts, Elsbeth Bruck and Franziska Bruck.  There, I discovered a letter written by my grandmother, Else Bruck née Berliner, on February 2, 1947, mailed from Fayence, France to my great-aunt Elsbeth in Berlin care-of Lisa Pauly living at Maßmannstraße 11 in the Steglitz borough of Berlin. (Figure 4)  Ultimately, this address proved to be useful for learning how long Lisa Pauly may have lived; more on this later.

Figure 4. Envelope containing letter my grandmother Else Bruck wrote in February 1947 to my great-aunt Elsbeth Bruck sent to her care-of Lisa Pauly living at Massmannstraße 11 in the Steglitz borough of Berlin

Let me digress for a moment.  In Post 33, I discussed the extraordinary lengths to which I went to finding two of my second cousins, born in Barcelona, but living outside Munich, Germany.  Once I had established contact with one of these second cousins, Antonio Bruck, he connected me to a third cousin, Anna Rothholz, who in turn put me in touch with yet other third cousins, brothers Peter and Andreas “Andi” Pauly.  This was a fortuitous development.  Peter and Andi gave me a detailed hand-drawn Pauly family “Stammbaum,” family tree, developed by their father years before these could be created on-line.  While I was still a long way from figuring out the hereditary connection between Lisa Pauly’s husband and my Uncle Fedor, this Stammbaum eventually paved the way for working this out, although not without some missteps.

Figure 5. Section of Pauly “Stammbaum,” family tree, with “Franz” and “Lisa” circled; Franz is shown as Dr. Oscar Pincus and Paula Pauly’s son

 

Figure 6. Page from “Schlesische Jüdische Familien,” Silesian Jewish Families tree, with Lisa Krüger’s name showing she was married to Franz Pincus, born in Posen on October 23, 1898, with notation that he went by the surname “Pauly”

As readers can see in Figure 5, a “Lisa” is highlighted, shown married to a “Franz” who died in 1941.  Based on the affidavit Lisa Pauly had written in 1947, logically, I knew this was she and her husband.  My confusion stemmed from the fact that Lisa’s husband was the son of Dr. Oscar Pincus and Paulina Charlotte Pauly, presumably named Franz Pincus.  I continued my search, convinced there had to be a different Lisa who’d married a Pauly.  After many fruitless months, I eventually began looking for her in Family Trees in ancestry.com.  I finally found her on a tree listed as “Lisa Krüger,” born in the year 1890. (Figure 6)  As discussed in Post 39, the tree is entitled “Schlesische Jüdische Familien,” Silesian Jewish Families.  There is a notation in German on this tree that Lisa Krüger was married to a Franz Pincus, born in Posen [today: Poznan, Poland] on October 23, 1898, and that he went by the surname “Pauly.”  I then realized my Uncle Fedor and Franz Pauly were second cousins, grandsons of sisters (Figures 7 & 8), and understood how badly I’d misconstrued their kinship.  This was clearly a case of my over-thinking things and ignoring what the Pauly Stammbaum had clearly indicated.

Figure 7. Rosalie Pauly née Mockrauer (1844-1927), Franz Pincus/Pauly’s grandmother, sister of Friederike Bruck née Mockrauer
Figure 8. Friederike Bruck née Mockrauer (1836-1924), Fedor Bruck’s grandmother, sister of Rosalie Pauly née Mockrauer; Friederike Bruck is my great-grandmother

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Why Franz Pincus decided to change surnames and take his mother’s maiden name is unknown.  Since both names are clearly Jewish and neither would have afforded an advantage in the Nazi era, I assumed Franz’s decision was made before the Nazis ever came to power.  And, I was able to prove this using Berlin Phone Directories available on ancestry.com.  Franz Pincus apparently changed his surname to “Pauly” between 1928 and 1930.  A 1928 Berlin Phone Directory (Figure 9) lists a “Franz Pincus” living at Deidesheimer Str. 25 in Friedenau in the southwestern suburbs of Berlin, but by 1930 “Franz Pauly” is living at this address. (Figure 10)

Figure 9. 1928 Berlin Phone Directory showing “Franz Pincus” living at Deidesheimer Str. 25 in Friedenau, a southwestern suburb of Berlin
Figure 10. 1930 Berlin Phone Directory listing “Franz Pauly” at Deidesheimer Str. 25 in Friedenau

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As mentioned earlier, I knew from the affidavit Lisa had written and the letter my grandmother had written to my great-aunt in 1947, addressed to Lisa, that she resided at Maßmannstraße 11 in the Steglitz borough of Berlin.  I searched both Lisa and Franz’s names in ancestry.com and found him listed at this address in Berlin Phone Directories between 1936 and 1940 (Figure 11), the year before he died.  Beginning in 1966 and continuing through 1977 (Figure 12), Lisa’s name appears at the same address, suggesting the apartment building survived the war and that Lisa had lived there continuously, possibly from 1936 onwards.  The disappearance of Lisa Pauly’s name from Berlin Phone Directories after 1977 may coincide with her approximate year of death.  As we speak, I’m working to obtain Lisa’s death certificate from the Bürgeramt Steglitz to confirm when she died.

Figure 11. 1940 Berlin Phone Directory listing Franz Pauly living at Maßmannstr. 11 in Steglitz
Figure 12. 1977 Berlin Phone Directory listing Elisabeth Pauly living at Maßmannstr. 11

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’ve been able to learn almost nothing more about Lisa and Franz Pauly.  While Peter and Andi Pauly have numerous Pauly family photos, they have none of either of them.  It’s an enduring mystery to me how Lisa Pauly avoided deportation to a concentration camp given that at least three of her husband’s Pauly aunts were murdered in the camps along with their husbands and some of their children.

In the subsequent post, I will tell readers about other silent heroes who enabled my uncle to survive his 30 months underground in Berlin during WWII, inasmuch as I’ve been able to work this out.

POST 39: AN IMPERFECT ANALOGY: FAMILY TREES AND DENDROCHRONOLOGY

Note:  In this post, I discuss a vague similarity between some family trees and an archaeological dating technique, known as dendrochronology, that is, tree-ring dating.

Regular readers may recall me mentioning how my formal training as an archaeologist, which is what I did professionally, has been enormously useful in doing forensic genealogy.  The inspiration for this story is drawn from archaeology, specifically, an archaeological dating technique known as dendrochronology, that’s to say, tree-ring dating.  Admittedly, with slightly flippant intent, in this Blog post, I touch on a parallel between family trees and dendrochronology, and briefly explain the technique to provide the necessary context.  Regardless of whether readers accept the notion of any connection between these matters, perhaps, they may come away with a better understanding of how this technique is used in archaeology.

For some time now, I have been researching one of my Uncle Dr. Fedor Bruck’s cousins, Elisabeth “Lisa” Pauly née Krüger, who will be the subject of the subsequent post.  Lisa Pauly helped my Uncle Fedor survive during his 30 months “underground” in Berlin during WWII.  I have a copy of a letter of recommendation she wrote on behalf of my uncle in 1947, along with a separate letter of reference written by a couple who also assisted my uncle during his years in hiding that mentions Lisa Pauly.  Despite having these letters and having found Lisa Pauly listed in Berlin Phone Directories between 1966 and 1977 at an address she is known to have lived at in the Steglitz borough of Berlin, I had until recently been unable to learn anything more about her.

Faced with this hurdle, I turned to “Family Trees” in ancestry.com, and, finally, found her on a tree listed as “Lisa Krüger,” born in the year 1890.  The title of the family tree in which I discovered her name is “Schlesische Jüdische Familien,” translated as “Silesian Jewish Families.”  Because I utilize the free institutional version of ancestry at my local library, it is not possible for me as a non-member to contact family tree managers; only members can send messages to other ancestry affiliates.  Consequently, I asked a friend of mine who volunteers at the Los Angeles Jewish Genealogical Society whether she could send an email on my behalf.  She graciously agreed to do this, and within a day, the family tree manager responded and invited me as a “Guest” to the “Schlesische Jüdische Familien.”  I was thrilled with this development.

I immediately opened the tree, and, to my amazement, discovered it includes 52,000 plus names!!  To provide some context, my family tree has about 500 names.  While seemingly faced with the daunting challenge of deciphering the connection between specific people in the larger tree and my own, I rationalized I might finally be able to discover the relationship between myself and people whose names I recognized if I could somehow find the names of one or more people on both trees.  I naively assumed all the names on the Silesian family tree would be bound together like tango partners on a dance floor.  I was sadly mistaken.  Instead, I discovered that what I thought was one large tree with all people interrelated was instead branches of discrete Jewish families from Silesia.  It was at this moment that a less-than-perfect archaeological analogy came to mind, namely, “dendrochronology.”

Dendrochronology, literally the study of tree time, is a multi-disciplinary science that provides accurate and precise dating information based on the analysis of patterns of tree rings, also known as growth rings.  It burst into the national consciousness with the publication in December 1929 in National Geographic of an article by an astronomer from the University of Arizona, Andrew Ellicott Douglass, detailing his 15-year endeavor to date archaeological sites in the American Southwest.  In the first half of the 20th Century, Douglass had established the Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research at the University of Arizona with the intent of better understanding cycles of sunspot activity; he had reasoned that changes in solar activity would affect climate patterns on earth, which would subsequently be recorded by tree-ring growth patterns.

Prior to publication of Douglass’ article, archaeologists had no idea, for example, how old Puebloan archaeological sites and cliff dwellings found in the Four Corners region of the United States were; archaeologists had estimated they were 2000 years old when tree-ring dates later confirmed they were only about 800 years old.  When archaeologists realized sites were younger than previously thought, they were forced to change their interpretations about the rate of development of prehistoric societies in the American Southwest.

Tree rings or annual rings are the result of new growth in the vascular cambium, the layer of cells nearest the bark.  Each year trees create a layer of new wood under the bark.  In temperate climates, generally, one ring marks the passage of one year in the life of the tree.  Critical to tree-ring dating, trees of the same species from the same region tend to develop the same patterns of ring width during any given period.  Thus, researchers can compare and match these patterns ring-for-ring with patterns from trees of the identical species which have grown at the same time in the same locale (and therefore under similar climatic conditions).  Chronologies can be built up when one can match tree-ring patterns of the same species from one tree to another in the same geographic area.  It is this pattern that can be used for dating purposes whenever a piece of wood is preserved, such as in an archaeological site; matching wood from prehistoric and historic structures to known chronologies developed from tree-ring data is referred to as “cross-dating.”  [NOTE: “Cross-dating” refers BOTH to “a method of establishing the age of archaeological finds or remains by comparing them with other finds or remains which sometimes have known dates” as well as to “a method of pattern matching a tree’s growth signals of unknown age (floating chronology) to that of a known pattern that is locked in time (master chronology).”]

Critical to the imperfect analogy I am drawing between family trees and tree-ring dating is this concept of a “floating chronology” versus a “fully anchored and cross-matched chronology.”  A floating chronology is a tree-ring sequence whose beginning and end dates are not known.  Thus, in the case of the Silesian family tree, the 52,000 plus individuals in it cannot directly be connected to one another in any linear sense, they’re “floating,” so to speak, branches of distinct Jewish families from Silesia.  This contrasts with what’s dubbed a “fully anchored chronology,” where the beginning and end dates of a tree-ring sequence that has been established are known.  In this instance, my own family tree where every person can linearly be connected to every other person in the tree would be so characterized. 

In the case of trees and tree-ring sequences, a fully anchored chronology extends back 8500 years for the long-lived bristlecone pine in the western United States, and for the oak and pine in central Europe going back 12,460 years.  Just as archaeologists are frustrated when they can’t cross-date a piece of wood from an archaeological site to a fully anchored chronology, genealogists are similarly disappointed when they are unable to connect branches of seemingly related families from the same general area with identical or familiar surnames.  In the case of my own family, I know multiple living people with the Bruck surname whose linear connection to myself can’t be drawn.  While, admittedly, not a perfect analogy, I argue there is some parallel between family trees where all individuals cannot be connected and floating chronologies that cannot be anchored in time.

In closing, I would emphasize one final point.  Lisa Pauly, my uncle and father’s cousin who I began this post discussing, appears in both my family tree and the “Schlesische Jüdische Familien” family tree.  However, because I can’t directly connect her on the Silesian tree to people with recognizable surnames, such as other Brucks, Berliners, Holländers, etc., I’m unable to determine how she is related to them, and, by extension, how I’m related to them.  More forensic work is necessary.