Fayence, France Archives - bruckfamilyblog.com

POST 119: THE FRENCH CONNECTION, ERNST & FRANZ MOMBERT

Note: In this post, I supplement what I have learned about the French brothers who owned the fruit farm in Fayence in the Vars region of France. This is the last place where some of my family, including Ernst Mombert and my beloved aunt Susanne Müller née Bruck, took refuge before they were arrested by the Vichy French in late August 1942; from here, they were transported to Drancy, outside Paris, and deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau on September 7, 1942, a trip on which they likely killed themselves, or, upon arrival, were murdered. I also provide some historic and geographic context for some of the events that affected my family.

POST 23: MY AUNT SUSANNE’S FINAL JOURNEY

In Post 22, I explained to readers the circumstances that led my uncle and aunt Dr. Franz and Susanne Müller to depart Fiesole, Italy, a Tuscan village located outside Florence, around September 16, 1938, in favor of France. Adolph Hitler visited Florence on May 9, 1938, escorted by Italian Duce Benito Mussolini. On the heels of this visit and at the bequest of Hitler, Fascist Italy began to enact racial laws directed primarily against Italian and foreign Jews resulting in many leaving the country, including my aunt and uncle.

My uncle Dr. Franz Müller’s first marriage resulted in two children, Peter Müller-Munk and Karin Margit Müller-Munk. Peter, who dropped the umlaut in his surname upon his arrival in America in 1926, went on to become a world-renowned silversmith and industrial designer in Pittsburgh. Peter’s sister Margit Müller-Munk departed Germany, probably in around 1933 or 1934, and wound up getting married to Francois Mombert on December 4, 1934, in Fayence, in the Vars region of France.

The Mombert family originally hailed from Freiburg, Germany, and in Germany Francois was known as Franz, hereinafter referred to by his German name. The circumstances that led Franz and Margit to settle in Fayence was the result of Franz’s younger brother Ernst (known as Ernest in France) buying a fruit farm there. Archival records from the Archives Départementales du Var (www.archives.var.fr) in Draguignan, France, place Ernst’s acquisition of the property in December 1933 (Figure 1), which suggests that Ernst departed Germany soon after the Nazis seized power on January 30, 1933. It’s unknown why Ernst purchased property and settled in Fayence, since there’s no evidence he knew or had family living there. He could not envision the lengths to which the Nazis would eventually go to eradicate Jews, so probably felt that purchasing a property in a small town in France and eventually becoming a French national offered some security and would afford him some level of protection. As a related aside, there is no evidence Ernst Mombert ever obtained French citizenship.

Figure 1. Archival record from the “Archives Départementales du Var” in Draguignan, France placing Ernst Mombert’s acquisition of his fruit farm in Fayence on the 1st of December 1933

Little is known about Ernst Mombert. I came upon a fleeting reference to him in an obscure French publication entitled “quelques camps du sud-est 1939-1940,” “Some Camps in the Southeast (of France) 1939-1940,” by André Fontaine. I initially misconstrued who was being detained in these internment camps thinking they were established by the Vichy French to imprison Jews following Germany’s conquest of France in June 1940. While in fact many Jews were interned in these camps, they had been established by the French authorities for a different reason.

Some brief history. WWII began with the German invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939. The next day, France decreed a national mobilization. Internment sites for the nationals of the German Reich (i.e., German, Austrian, and Czech emigrants) were planned and requisitioned in every French département, the administrative divisions of France. By the 3^rd of September, the French Minister of the Interior sent a telegram to each prefecture concerning the “concentration of foreigners from the German empire.” Immediately notification about the planned roundups were circulated and posters put up in the town halls. All male nationals of the German Reich over 17 and under 50 years of age were required to report for incarceration. Male nationals from the department of Var were initially detained in le camp de la Rode near Toulon. Toulon is a city on the French Riviera and a large port on the Mediterranean coast, with a major naval base, located 74 miles southwest of Fayence, France. (Figure 2)

Figure 2. Generalized map showing the distance from Fayence, France, where Ernst Mombert owned his fruit farm, to Toulon, where he was initially incarcerated in “le camp de la Rode” in 1939

Judging from André Fontaine’s publication, it appears the gathering and detention of nationals of the German Reich took place in short order. Swept up in this roundup were many Jewish refugees, incredibly, a handful of French legionnaires, siblings of soldiers who were in the French Army, and even an Alsatian who had never been to Germany and spoke no German (i.e., Alsace–Lorraine is a historical region, now called Alsace–Moselle, located in France. It was created in 1871 by the German Empire after the region was seized during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. It reverted to French ownership in 1918 following WWI). Very quickly, the legionnaires were released, and the Austrian and Czech nationals were separated from the Germans resulting in the Germans being more closely guarded. The irony is not lost on most readers that many of the German nationals that continued to be detained were Jewish refugees and anti-Nazis, many more anti-Nazi than the French.

André Fontaine includes a short description of Ernst Mombert, which I quote here mostly because of the physical characteristics he describes: “MOMBERT Ernst, philosophe de valeur. Il est très brun et atteint de strabism; il vient de Fayence où il a une plantation d’arbres fruitiers. Son frère Franz n’est pas au camp.” (1988:184) Translated: “MOMBERT Ernst, a noted philosopher. He is very darkly complected and is cross-eyed; he comes from Fayence where he has a fruit tree plantation. His brother Franz is not in the camp.”

The duration of the German nationals stays in the camp de la Rode in Toulon appears to have been a short one. André Fontaine reports that on September 16, 1939, a train carrying the prisoners departed Toulon in the direction of Camp des Milles, outside Aix-en-Provence. (Figure 3) The latter was a French internment camp, opened in September 1939, in a former tile factory near the village of Les Milles, part of the commune of Aix-en-Provence. I will have a little more to say about Ernst Mombert’s connection to Camp des Milles later.

Figure 3. Generalized map showing the distance from Toulon, where “le camp de Rode” was located, to Aix-en-Provence where Camp des Milles is situated and where Ernst Mombert was moved to around the 16th of September 1939

André Fontaine describes (1988:185-186) the detainees’ arrival in Camp des Milles: “Le 16 septembre 1939, on annonce le départ de Toulon: un camion prend les bagages à 18 h et le train part à 21 h. L’arrivée n’a lieu que le lendemain matin à Aix-en-Provence, soit après 15 h de train pour effectuer 90 km. Deux camions attendent à la gare. Les soldats ardéchois se montrent accueillants, serviables et souriants, surtout quand ils comprennent qu’un Allemand vient de les prendre comme les Millois pour des Arabes en raison de leur teint basané et de leur chéchia rouge; l’un d’eux s’exclame: ‘des Arabes de l’Ardéchiou !’

Arrivés à la tuilerie, ils trouvent la grande cour vide car les internés se sont barricadés ; ne leur a-t-on pas annoncé des prisonniers nazis !… Les officiers et les sous-officiers sont en train de déjeuner. A 14 h, c’est l’ouverture des bureaux où sont employés des internés. E.E. Noth, devenu homme de confiance, dit à propos de Kantorovicz : ‘Celui-là, c’est vraiment un réfugié !’

Lorsqu’un nouveau convoi est attendu, une forte effervescence règne dans le camp. Très tendus, les militaires recommandent aux internés de se méfier des arrivants, membres de la cinquième colonne : ‘Restez dans vos dortoirs, fermez les volets; la grande porte sera close.’ Ils doublent la garde, installent des chevaux de frise devant le poste de police. Au début les détenus se demandent quels nazis ils vont devoir affronter. Et à chaque détachement ils guettent derrière les volets et voient arriver au loin des pauvres hères, amaigris, courbés, pâles, assoiffés. Ils n’ont rien d’ennemis redoutables. Parfois même ils reconnaissent certains d’entre eux. Mais il est interdit de pousser les volets pour leur parler.”

Translated: “On September 16, 1939, the departure from Toulon was announced: a truck took the luggage at 6 pm and the train left at 9 pm. The arrival was only the next morning in Aix-en-Provence, after 15 hours of train to cover 90 km. Two trucks were waiting at the station. The soldiers from the Ardèche were welcoming, helpful, and smiling, especially when they understood that a German had just mistaken them, like the Millois, for Arabs because of their swarthy complexion and their red fez; one of them exclaimed: ‘Arabs from the Ardéchiou!’

When they arrived at the tile factory, they found the large courtyard empty because the internees had barricaded themselves; had they not been told that there were Nazi prisoners! The officers and non-commissioned officers were having lunch. At 2 p.m., the offices where the internees were employed opened. E.E. Noth, who had become a trusted man, said of Kantorovicz: ‘This one is really a refugee!’

When a new convoy was expected, the camp was in an uproar. The soldiers were very tense and advised the internees to be wary of the arrivals, who were members of the Fifth Column: ‘Stay in your dormitories, close the shutters; the main gate will be closed.’ They doubled the guard and set up frieze horses in front of the police station. At first the prisoners wonder which Nazis they will have to face. And with each detachment they watch behind the shutters and see poor, emaciated, bent, pale, thirsty men arriving in the distance. They are not fearsome enemies. Sometimes they even recognize some of them. But it is forbidden to push the shutters to talk to them.”

Just a few observations about Mr. Fontaine’s description of the German nationals’ arrival at Camp des Milles. The French clearly sought to have the current detainees believe the new arrivals were hard-bitten Nazis of the German Reich living “underground” in France as members of a Fifth Column even though the current detainees were also Germans; the truth is that many of the new arrivals were foreign refugees, including Jews who’d sought to escape the Nazis. One of the existing detainees even recognized one of the new arrivals as a real refugee, not a Fifth Columnist. Curiously, the new German arrivals were guarded by soldiers from the Ardèche department of southeastern France who had been mistaken as Arabs because of their swarthy complexion and the red fez hats they wore; the existing detainees had also mistaken them as Arabs.

Mr. Fontaine tells us that the nationals of the German Reich were held in various camps in the southeast of France including Fort Carre (Antibes); Camp de Forcalouier (Forcalquier); Volx Camp (near Manosque); Camp des Mées (Les Mées); Camp de Marseille (Marseille); Camp des Garrigues (north of Nimes); Le Brebant (in Marseille); Camp de Carpiagne (south of Marseille); and Camp de Loriol (department of Drôme). While not entirely clear, it appears that detainees from some but not all of these camps were transferred to the larger camp at Camp des Milles, the former tile factory. Such was clearly the case with Ernst Mombert. (see Figure 3)

I was particularly interested in learning when or if the German nationals were released from detention to try and get an understanding of when Ernst Mombert might have been liberated. A little more history is relevant.

The Battle of France began on May 10, 1940. The Battle of France, also known as the Western Campaign, the French Campaign, and the Fall of France, was the German invasion of France, Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands during the Second World War. It ended just six weeks later, on June 25^th, when the French government capitulated to Nazi Germany after a disastrous, humiliating defeat. By that time, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg had also fallen to the Germans, leaving Adolf Hitler in complete control of Western Europe. On June 22^nd the French signed an armistice with the Germans, near Compiègne. The armistice provided for the maintenance of a quasi-sovereign French state and for the division of the country into an occupied zone (northern France plus the western coast) and an unoccupied southern zone referred to as Vichy France. France was made responsible for the German army’s occupation costs. The French army was reduced to 100,000 men and the navy disarmed in its home ports.

According to André Fontaine, almost all the former detention centers were dissolved in May 1940; this would roughly correspond with the beginning of the Battle of France. The former detainees incarcerated in Antibes, Camp des Milles, Les Mées, Manosque, Marseille, and Forcalquier were taken to the camp of Albi (Figure 4), where most were liberated, under the pretext they had been part of the French army. From supposed Fifth Columnists to members of the French Army is very much a stretch. Are we meant to understand that the German detainees were released and immediately mobilized into the French Army at the beginning of what is called the “Phoney War?” The Phoney period began with the declaration of war by the United Kingdom and France against Nazi Germany on the 3^rd of September 1939, after which little actual warfare occurred, and ended with the German invasion of France and the Low Countries on the 10^th of May 1940.

Figure 4. Generalized map showing the distance from Camp des Milles (Aix-en-Provence) to Albi, where Ernst Mombert may have been released from detention in around May 1940

Other former detainees fell into the hands of the Germans at the end of the Battle of France. If they were not of Jewish descent and volunteered to return to the Reich they were not mistreated. The Jews, however, were transferred to the Dachau concentration camp.

Again I quote André Fontaine (1988:205-206) on the fate of some of the other detainees: “L’émissaire d’Eleanor ROOSEVELT, Varian FRY, et son “Comité américain de Secours (CAR)” permettent l’émigration d’environ 1500 personnes et les Oeuvres juives “Hicem” beaucoup plus. Les Etats-Unis font appel aux grands savants comme les prix Nobel MEYERHOF et REICHSTEIN. Le Mexique accueille les communistes. Mais à partir du 3 août 1942, la “solution finale de la question juive” décidée par la conférence de Wannsee en janvier 1942 trouve son application après les déportations de la zone occupée dans tous les grands camps de la zone sud. Le Vernet (Ariège), Gurs, les Milles, Rivesaltes (Pyrénées orientales). Des rafles ont lieu dans villes et campagnes. Des milliers de familles entières de juifs étrangers (pauvres ou riches mais souvent érudits ou tout au moins de valeur) arrivés depuis 1936 sont transférés à Drancy (puis Auschwitz) et ce dans la France dite libre du maréchal PETAIN. On livre des enfants de deux ans, d’anciens militaires français; tous s’étaient placés sous la protection de la France, dite terre d’asile. On ne peut que déplorer ces faits sans s’empêcher de penser au mot de Romain ROLLAND : “Intelligence – Amour !“

Translated: “Eleanor ROOSEVELT’s emissary, Varian FRY, and his ‘American Rescue Committee (CAR)’ allowed the emigration of about 1500 people and the Jewish Works ‘Hicem’ many more. The United States called upon great scientists such as the Nobel Prize winners MEYERHOF and REICHSTEIN. Mexico welcomed the communists. But from August 3, 1942, the ‘final solution of the Jewish question’ decided by the Wannsee conference in January 1942 found its application after the deportations from the occupied zone in all the big camps of the southern zone. Le Vernet (Ariège), Gurs, les Milles, Rivesaltes (Pyrénées orientales). Roundups took place in towns and countryside. Thousands of entire families of foreign Jews (poor or rich but often educated or at least valuable) who had arrived since 1936 were transferred to Drancy (then Auschwitz) in the so-called free France of Marshal PETAIN. Children as young as two years old, former French soldiers, were handed over; they had all placed themselves under the protection of France, the so-called land of asylum. One can only deplore these facts without stopping oneself from thinking of Romain ROLLAND’s words: ‘Intelligence – Love!’”

Ernst Mombert did not meet his fate at Dachau. The circumstances and timing of Ernst Mombert’s liberation or escape from a detention center are unknown. What is clear is that he returned to his fruit farm in Fayence probably sometime in early to mid-1940, before he was again arrested in August 1942, this time by the French collaborators, the Vichy. Ernst was arrested at the same time as my Aunt Susanne in late August 1942, probably on the 26^th of August. According to a brief reference I found on the home page of “AJPN.org,” “Anonymous, Just, and Persecuted during the Nazi period in the communes of France,” “the roundup of foreign Jews by the Vichy police in the Alpes-Maritimes, the Basses-Alpes (54 people) and the Principality of Monaco” took place precisely on the 26^th of August 1946. (Figure 5) These roundups took place in one of the 18 administrative regions of France known as “Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur” which includes the department of Var and the commune of Fayence. (Figures 6a-b)

Figure 5. Screen shot from the “AJPN.org” website stating that “the roundup of foreign Jews by the Vichy police in the Alpes-Maritimes, the Basses-Alpes (54 people) and the Principality of Monaco” took place on the 26th of August 1942

Figure 6a. Map showing the 13 administrative regions of metropolitan France including “Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur” in the southeast of France

Figure 6b. The administrative region of “Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur” circled where the department of Var and the commune of Fayence are located

Ernst Mombert’s fate mirrors that of my Aunt Susanne. They were arrested on the same day, taken briefly to Draguignan (Figure 7), detained for some days at Camp des Milles (Aix-en-Provence) (Figure 8), transported to Avignon (Figure 9), then to Drancy (Figure 10), outside Paris, before being deported to Auschwitz on the 7^th of September 1942 (Figure 11); on Serge Klarfeld’s list of deportees their names appear on the same page. (Figure 12) There is perverse irony that Ernst Mombert having been held in Camp des Milles for being a citizen of the German Reich in 1939 and a supposed Fifth Columnist would again find himself interned here in 1942, this time for being Jewish, on the way to his ultimate fate.

Figure 7. Generalized map showing the distance from Fayence to Draguignan, the first place the train carrying Ernst Mombert and my Aunt Susanne stopped for half-an-hour after being arrested by the Vichy French on the 26th of August 1942

Figure 8. Generalized map showing the distance from Draguignan to Camp des Milles (Aix-en-Provence), Ernst and Aunt Susanne’s second stop on their way to Drancy, outside Paris, and ultimately to Auschwitz-Birkenau

Figure 9. Generalized map showing the distance from Camp des Milles (Aix-en-Provence) to Avignon, Ernst and Susanne’s third stop on their way to Drancy

Figure 10. Generalized map showing the distance from Avignon to Drancy, outside Paris, Ernst and Susanne’s final stop before being deported and murdered in Auschwitz

Figure 11. The original Nazi list of deportees to Auschwitz from the 7th of September 1942 with “Ernest Mombert’s” name (from Arolsen Archives)

Figure 12. Serge Klarfeld’s recreated list of Jewish deportees to Auschwitz from the 7th of September 1942 with the names of “Ernest Mombert” and my aunt “Suzanne Muller” on the same page; my aunt is incorrectly shown as having been born in “Ratisbonne” rather than “Ratibor”

Contemporary witness accounts from the day Ernst and Susanne were arrested in Fayence indicate that my aunt was in hiding when the Vichy French showed up. She might have been able to escape had she been willing to forsake the older inhabitants of the fruit farm that included Ernst and Franz Mombert’s mother, as well as my grandmother and uncle. By my count, seven people were living on Ernst’s property at the time, though some of the younger ones may have joined the French Resistance. Regardless, this is not who my aunt was, and she would never have allowed anyone to be deported in her stead, so she turned herself in. It is an enduring mystery why all the Jewish residents at the fruit farm were not arrested simultaneously, though it is self-evident they would all eventually have been murdered had the Nazis prevailed during WWII.

As I related in Post 22, my wife Ann and I visited Fayence in 2014, then again in 2015, to learn more about my family’s connection to the town. Ernst Mombert’s brother, Franz survived WWII. Ownership of the fruit farm his brother had owned passed to him on September 6, 1947. (Figure 13) In 2014, my wife and I showed up unexpectedly on the doorsteps of the current owner of the property, a Mme. Monique Graux, who has since passed away. She related that she and her husband had purchased the farmhouse, which dates from around 1740, in the early 1960’s from a gentleman who bought it from Franz Mombert but owned it just briefly. Franz Mombert’s first wife, Margit Mombert née Müller-Munk, died in Fayence on the 22^nd of March 1959, and sale of the property seems to have occurred after her death. Following disposal of the estate in Fayence, Franz remarried and moved to Switzerland, living first in Ascona (Figure 14), then to nearby Muralto (Figure 15), on the outskirts of Locarno. Franz passed away there on the 29^th of January 1988.

Figure 13. A French real estate record showing that exclusive ownership of the fruit farm in Fayence was transferred to Franz (Francois) Mombert on September 6, 1947, slightly more than five years after Ernst Mombert was deported to Auschwitz

Figure 14. The apartment building in Ascona, Switzerland where Franz Mombert lived with his second wife after he sold the fruit farm in Fayence in around 1960

Figure 15. The apartment building in Muralto, outside Locarno, Switzerland, where Franz and his second moved following their departure from Ascona

While Ernst was the only member of his immediate family who was a direct victim of the Nazis, there are Stolpersteine, concrete cubes bearing a brass plate inscribed with the name and life dates of victims of Nazi extermination or persecution, for Ernst, Franz, and their parents in Giessen, Germany (Figure 16), the last place the Mombert family lived in Germany before emigrating to France. Interestingly, there also exists a memorial in the administrative region of Île-de-France, centered around Paris, bearing the names of “Ernest Mombert” and other victims of the Shoah, “a structure erected in honor of someone whose remains lie elsewhere.” (Figure 17)

Figure 16. The “Stolpersteine” for Ernst and Franz Mombert and their parents in Giessen, Germany, the last place they resided before emigrating to France

Figure 17. The memorial in the administrative region of Île-de-France, centered around Paris, bearing the names of “Ernest Mombert” and other victims of the Shoah

REFERENCES

AJPN.org. “Anonymous, Righteous and Persecuted during the Nazi period in the communes of France”

Fontaine, André. Quelques camps du Sud-Est, 1939-1940 [réfugiés allemands], Recherches régionales. Centre de documentation des Alpes-Maritimes, 1988, 29e année, n° 3, p. 179-206.

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 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 79: DR. OTTO BRUCK’S PATH TO THE FRENCH FOREIGN LEGION

Note: Beginning with this post, I shift to the timing and chain of events that led to my father’s enlistment in the French Foreign Legion in November 1938, followed in an upcoming post by a discussion of my father’s time in this French military unit.

Post 71: A Day in The Life of My Father, Dr. Otto Bruck—22^nd of August 1930

Figure 1. My father’s first cousin, Jeanne “Hansi” Goff née Löwenstein, daughter of Rudolf and Hedwig Löwenstein, in Zoppot, Free City of Danzig [today: Sopot, Poland] on the 8th of March 1929

Figure 2. My father’s first cousin, Jeanne “Hansi” Goff née Löwenstein, daughter of Rudolf and Hedwig Löwenstein, in Danzig [today: Gdansk, Poland]

My father received his dental accreditation from the University of Berlin’s Zahnheilkunde Institut, Dentistry Institute, on the 31^st of May 1930. Soon thereafter, he moved to the Free City of Danzig, Freie Stadt Danzig in German, where he apprenticed with a Dr. Fritz Bertram. I think his relocation to Danzig may have been related to the fact that he was very close to his aunt and uncle, Rudolf Löwenstein and Hedwig Löwenstein née Bruck, and two of their three children, Jeanne (Figures 1-2) and Heinz Löwenstein, who all lived there. In Post 71, I described the tragic circumstances of Rudolf Löwenstein’s death in a plane crash in then-Czechoslovakia on the 22^nd of August 1930, when my father resided with him and his family.

By April 1932, my father had gained enough technical expertise to strike out independently, and open his own dental practice in the nearby town of Tiegenhof [today: Nowy Dwór Gdański, Poland]. While this was undoubtedly a signature achievement in my father’s life, slightly more than eight months later, on the 30^th of January 1933, Hitler was appointed Germany’s Chancellor by the President Paul von Hindenburg, and then became Führer in 1934. An October 1934 picture of the office building in Tiegenhof where my father lived and had his practice was festooned with Nazi flags (Figure 3), clearly demonstrating the predictable impact of political developments in Germany on the Free City of Danzig and the looming danger. By April 1937, my father was devoid of clients, so he shuttered his practice. Judging from the dates on his photos, he appears to have stayed in Tiegenhof until fall of that year.

Figure 3. Office building at Markstrasse 8 in Tiegenhof in 1934 where my father had his dental practice and living quarters, festooned with Nazi flags

I think my father then briefly went to Berlin to “lose” himself in the relative anonymity of a larger city. His adored sister Susanne and her husband, Dr. Franz Müller, had already fled Berlin in favor of Italy by March 1936. However, his older brother, Dr. Fedor Bruck, who would ride out the entire war in Berlin hidden by friends and family, was still practicing dentistry in Berlin in 1937 under the auspices of a non-Jewish dentist when this was still feasible. Perhaps, my father stayed briefly with his brother, but, regardless, by March 1938, his dated pictures place him in Vienna, Austria between the 5^th and 9^th of March. (Figure 4) His ultimate destination though was Fiesole, Italy, where his sister and brother-in-law were then living. His entered Italy on the 10^th of March 1938 but arrived in Fiesole only on the 26^th of March (Figure 5), spending the intervening period skiing in the Dolomites.

Figure 4. Series of photos my father took between the 5th and 9th of March 1938 in Vienna, Austria, after he’d fled Germany that month

Figure 5. Page from the registration log archived at Fiesole’s “Archivio Storico Comunale,” the “Municipal Historic Archive,” showing my father’s arrival in Italy on the 10th of March 1938 and in Fiesole on the 26th of March for a planned two-month stay

During Italy’s Fascist era, all out-of-town visitors were required to appear with their hosts at the Municipio, City Hall, provide their names, show their identity papers, indicate their anticipated length of stay, and complete what was called a “Soggiorno degli Stranieri in Italia,” or “Stay of Foreigners in Italy.” The surviving records for Fiesole are today kept at a branch of the Municipio called the “Archivio Storico Comunale,” the “Municipal Historic Archive.” (Figure 6) These registration logs and forms, while highly intrusive, are enormously informative for doing genealogical research, uncovering names of visitors, and establishing timelines for these guests. (Figure 7)

Figure 6. My friend, Ms. Lucia Nadetti (left), Director of Fiesole’s “Archivio Storico Comunale,” with another friend, Ms. Giuditta Melli, in June 2015 at the Municipal Archive

Figure 7. My wife, Ann Finan, researching historic records at Fiesole’s “Archivio Storico Comunale” in June 2014

While 1938 was hardly a serene time, by June or July, my father nonetheless decided to tour parts of Italy and adjoining Switzerland, including Florence, Rome (Figure 8), Pompeii (Figure 9), Naples, Sorrento, the Island of Ischia, and Ascona; his travels lasted until September. By the 15^th of September 1938, he was back in Fiesole according to a surviving immigration register on file at Fiesole’s “Archivio Storico Comunale.” This record indicates an anticipated two-week visit, though it’s not clear how long my dad actually stayed. (Figure 10)

Figure 8. My father’s August 1938 photo of the Colosseum in Rome

Figure 9. My father’s August 1938 photo of the “Dancing Faunus Statue of Pompeii”

Figure 10. Page from the registration log archived at Fiesole’s “Archivio Storico Comunale,” the “Municipal Historic Archive,” showing my father’s return to Fiesole on the 15th of September 1938 for a planned two week stay

Let me briefly digress and provide some historical context for what was happening in Italy at the time. On the 9^th of May 1938, Adolph Hitler had visited Florence escorted by Italian Duce Benito Mussolini, and toured some historic sites. Soon after, on July 14, 1938, Mussolini embraced the “Manifesto of the Racial Scientists.” Basically, this Manifesto declared the Italian civilization to be of Aryan origin and claimed the existence of a “pure” Italian race of which Jews were no part. Between September 2, 1938 and November 17, 1938, Italy enacted a series of racial laws, including one forbidding foreign Jews from settling in Italy.

It quickly became apparent to my father, his sister, her husband, and my grandmother, Else Bruck née Berliner, also living in Fiesole, that remaining in Italy was no longer possible. Again, according to records on file at Fiesole’s “Archivio Storico Comunale,” my aunt and uncle are deleted from the population records of the city, in Italian “Data dalle quale decorre la cancellazione dal Registro di popolazione,” beginning on the 16^th of September 1938. (Figures 11-12) Thus, my father’s arrival and registration in Fiesole the day before was likely timed to help his relatives pack up and leave, though he may have stayed longer.

Figure 11. Emigration record from Fiesole’s “Archivio Storico Comunale,” the “Municipal Historic Archive,” showing my aunt and uncle, Susanne and Franz Müller, were deleted from the population records of Fiesole on the 16th of September 1938

Figure 12. My aunt and uncle, Susanne and Franz Müller, standing by the entrance to the Villa Primavera in Fiesole, where they lived, perhaps around the time they permanently moved to France in September 1938

The next stop along my family’s odyssey was Fayence, France, roughly 42 miles west of Nice, France; Fayence is one of the “perched villages” overlooking the plain between the southern Alps and the Esterel massif. My uncle Dr. Franz Müller’s daughter by his first marriage, Margit Mombert née Müller, lived there with her husband, brother-in-law, and mother-in-law on a fruit farm the family owned. I discussed this in Post 22 so refer readers to that publication. I place my aunt, uncle and grandmother’s arrival in Fayence towards the end of September 1938. While the collaborationist government of Vichy France would not be established in the southern part of metropolitan France until July of 1940, my ancestors’ recent displacements and the reach of the Nazis would have made them extremely nervous. Clearly, in the case of my father, riding out the impending storm in France or elsewhere in Europe was not a viable option at the age of only 31.

Coincidentally, by 1938, but likely years before, his widowed aunt Hedwig Löwenstein née Bruck and her two children, discussed above, with whom my father had lived in Danzig between 1930 and 1932, had relocated to Nice, France. (Figure 13) Hedwig’s daughter, Jeanne “Hansi” Goff née Löwenstein (1902-1986), was close to my father throughout his life. Realizing the danger he was in, she advised him to enlist in the French Foreign Legion, which is precisely what my father, Dr. Otto Bruck, did.

Figure 13. In March 1946, my father’s widowed aunt Hedwig Löwenstein née Bruck with her three grown children, Hansi, Heinz and Fedor (seated), after she’d immigrated to Nice, France

In one of my father’s surviving post-WWII letters, dated the 7^th of January 1946, he requested a Carte d’identité, an identify card, from the Department of Alpes-Maritimes in southeast France, where Nice is located. In this letter, my father provides some dates that help establish where he was at various times before and during the war. According to this correspondence, by October 21, 1938, my father had arrived in Paris, France, where he applied for admittance to the French Foreign Legion, to which he was conscripted on the 9^th of November 1938 for a five-year hitch. So far, I’ve been unable to determine my father’s whereabouts between September 16, 1938, when he was in Fiesole, Italy, and October 21, 1938, when he arrived in Paris.

The French Foreign Legion is a military service branch of the French Army established in 1831. The Legion is unique in that it is open to foreign recruits willing to serve in the French Armed Forces. My father was given a French nom de guerre, an alias, “Marcel Berger.” (Figures 14a-b) From the French Foreign Legion, I was able to obtain my father’s “Livret Matricule,” military file, which states that Marcel Berger was born on the 6^th of January 1907 in Strasbourg in the French Department of Bas-Rhin, and that his profession was “Chirurgien dentist,” dental surgeon. (Figure 15) While my father’s profession is correctly indicated, he was in fact born on the 16^th of April 1907 in Ratibor, Germany [today: Racibórz, Poland]. My father’s fluency in French would have afforded him a measure of protection had he been taken prisoner.

Figure 14a. Front side of my father’s dog tag from the French Foreign Legion with his “nom de guerre,” “Marcel Berger”

Figure 14b. Back side of my father’s dog tag from the French Foreign Legion indicating he was supposedly born in Strasbourg, France on the 6th of January 1907

Figure 15. The cover page of my father’s “Livret Matricule,” military file, from the French Foreign Legion showing, among other things, his “nom de guerre,” “Marcel Berger,” and his enlistment date, the 9th of November 1938

Readers may think the title of this post somewhat odd, as though to imply that my father’s enlistment in the French Foreign Legion was somehow preordained. While my father was very much inclined to believe in kismet, fate, I am a strong believer that you control your own destiny. That said, realistically, without an exit visa to a “sanctuary” country a Jewish person’s options would have been extremely limited in the lead-up to WWII, so my father was fortunate the French Foreign Legion was open to him and that he was unmarried and had no children to look after.

In the following post, I will provide substantially more background on the history of the French Foreign Legion during WWII to account for the Legion’s “conflicted” role at the time and explain how my father was able to travel to France in 1941 “across enemy lines” to visit his beloved sister Susanne one final time.

POST 23: MY AUNT SUSANNE’S FINAL JOURNEY

Note: This is the last in the series of articles discussing my Aunt Susanne Müller, née Bruck, spanning from 1936, when she left Berlin with her husband Dr. Franz Müller, to the moment she was arrested in Fayence by the Vichy French in August 1942. It describes the final two-and-a-half to three weeks of her life and that of Ernst Mombert, her step-daughter’s brother-in-law. Surviving documents in my father’s personal papers, along with records publicly available, allow me to track the precise route my Aunt Susanne and Ernst took to their deaths in Auschwitz.

My Aunt Susanne and her step-daughter’s brother-in-law, Ernst Mombert, were arrested by the Vichy French in Fayence, France, probably around the third week of August 1942. Their arrests were the result of the implementation of the so-called “Final Solution to the Jewish Question.” On January 20, 1942, Nazi officials had convened in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee to discuss the implementation of the Final Solution, whereby most of the Jews of German-occupied Europe would be deported to Poland and murdered. Following the Wannsee Conference, the deportation of Jews throughout Nazi-occupied areas to extermination camps increased in momentum. In France, the deportations, which had begun in March 1942, reached their peak in the summer of 1942, overlapping with the arrest of my relatives. Involvement of French authorities intensified during this period.

Arrests of individual Jews in the occupied zone of France had begun around 1940, and general round up in 1941. By March 1941, the Vichy State created the Commissariat General aux Questions juives (“Commissariat-General for Jewish Affairs”), which managed the seizure of Jewish assets and organized anti-Jewish propaganda. Around this same time, the German began compiling registers of Jews living in the occupied zone. The Second Statut des Juifs of June 2, 1941 systematized registrations across all of France, including the unoccupied parts of France controlled by the Vichy government where Fayence was located. Because Jews in the unoccupied zone were not required to wear the yellow star-of-David badge, these records would provide the basis for future rounds-ups and deportations. No doubt, my relatives’ names were on these registers.

In Post 22, I told readers seven members of my family once lived at the fruit farm in Fayence, although only two were ever arrested by the French collaborators. It remains unclear why the other five were never seized. While I’m disinclined for various reasons to credit local French authorities for having played a role in protecting my family during WWII, supposedly 75% of the roughly 330,000 Jews in metropolitan France in 1939 survived the Holocaust, which is one of the highest survival rates in Europe. This story, however, is about Aunt Susanne and Ernst Mombert, my relatives who did not survive.

Figure 1-From Fayence, my aunt and Ernst Mombert were taken to Draguignan, Aix-en-Provence and Avignon, before being transported to Drancy, outside Paris

Figure 2-A headstone with the Star of David in the American Cemetery in Draguignan

Soon after my Aunt Susanne was arrested, she and Ernst Mombert were transported approximately 20 miles to the nearby town of Draguignan. (Figures 1 & 2) Whether they were taken there by train or other conveyance is unknown. The priority that the Nazis and their henchmen placed on the extermination of Jews following the Wannsee Conference suggests arrested Jews were brought to major transit centers in a matter of weeks for deportation to concentration camps. Susanne and Ernst wrote an undated postal card to the Mombert family in Fayence from Draguignan, postmarked August 26, 1942, that survives in my father’s personal papers; their stay in Draguignan was brief, only half-an-hour. (Figure 3) An acquaintance from the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles tells me Jewish detainees were encouraged to write postal cards so Nazis could identify and root out surviving family members.

Figure 3-Postal card mailed by my aunt and Ernst from Draguignan

My dear ones, We have just arrived in Draguignan and will leave in half-an-hour for aux Milles. Once again, I remind you to ask David to come for the pump, at any price, even if you must pick him up by car. Vegetables, be careful with the string-beans, water every other day—cabbage twice weekly. Cucumbers every other day—pick the corn—chase the birds, as directed by Marius. Tomatoes water once a week. Special attention: Carrots! bugs on cabbage. Take care of the old and the young. Don’t worry. Before sending the certificates, wait until our address has arrived. Love to all, Susanne, Ernst

Figure 4-Camp des Milles Detention Camp in Aix-en-Provence, now a museum, where my aunt and Ernst were briefly interned in August 1942

Figure 5-The holding area inside the former tile factory at Camp des Milles in Aix-en-Provence where Jewish internees were held during WWII

From Draguignan, Susanne and Ernst were then transported approximately 76 miles to the notorious French detention center at Camp des Milles in Aix-en-Provence, a place that is today a museum. (Figure 4) While it was never an extermination camp, unlike Auschwitz where Susanne and Ernst were murdered, it is extremely foreboding because it survives virtually intact and gives one a real sense of what awaited the Jewish internees. (Figure 5) Susanne and Ernst wrote a second postal card from here, dated August 24, 1942, postmarked five days later. (Figure 6)

Figure 6-The postal card mailed by my aunt and Ernst from Camp des Milles

August 24, 1942 Dearest Peterle, How are you? Did the doctor come? Take care of yourself and don’t lose courage—me, I am well—I have met some acquaintances from Hyères, a woman doctor from Berlin who knows you—well, we will see what happens to us. Ernst has also met some people he knows—we talk quite often. Mummi, how are you? And Margit and the rest of the family? Don’t work too hard—for the five of you there will be enough from the property. Go to Sénégnier and explain our situation to him. My thanks to all of you as well as to our friends for their kindness. My love to all of you. Thousand kisses, Papstein! Susanne

Next, Susanne and Ernst were taken 56 miles to Avignon, whose bridge is the subject of a children’s well-known French nursery rhyme, Sur le pont d’Avignon, although most certainly this was not on their minds. The last words my Uncle Franz and the Mombert family heard from Susanne and Ernst came from the third and final postal card mailed from there. The card is dated September 2, 1942 and postmarked the same day. (Figures 7 & 8)

Figure 7-The last words ever written by my aunt to my Uncle Franz following her arrest in August 1942, sent from Avignon

September 2, 1942

Dearest Franzl, Up to now, the trip has not been too bad. I stayed together with some very nice ladies. We are well fed, too well for my taste. I am so sad that I cannot send you anything (chocolates, sardines, cookies). All these things come from the Quakers and from the Union of the Israelites of France. . . but what does it mean to us? In any case, I have decided to hold on to be reunited with all of you. Do not lose your patience and courage. They have loaded all and everyone in wagon trains—old people, children, the sick, etc. Kisses, embraces for all of you and good wishes. Susanne

P.S. Maybe I will be able to send you something else.

Figure 8-Dr. Franz Müller in Fayence, after my aunt’s arrest, sadness seeping from every pore

In this last postal card, my Aunt Susanne mentions the Union Générale des Israélites de France (UGIF), along with the Quakers, as the providers of charitable donations. The Germans created the UGIF on November 29, 1941 to more closely control the Jewish community. Through this organization, the Germans were thus able to learn where local Jews lived. Many of the leaders of the UGIF were themselves ultimately deported to concentration camps.

Figure 9-Cattle car on railroad siding at Camp des Milles seen today

In this final postal card, my Aunt Susanne also mentions that by the time Jewish detainees had arrived in Avignon, they had been loaded into cattle cars, likely in Camp des Milles. The Société Nationale des Chemins de Fer Français (SNCF), the state-owned railroad system of France, was an active participant in the transport of Jewish detainees to the extermination camps, and evidence of their complicity can be seen even today in railroad sidings at Camp des Milles. (Figure 9)

My relatives never again wrote words that have been handed down to the present. The three postal cards, all written in French, selflessly remind the surviving family to carefully water and tend to the fruits and vegetables on the farm on which their survival clearly depended. The mundane nature of Susanne and Ernst’s final words is a poignant reminder of how ordinary Jews were trying to lead normal lives when their everyday existence was so tragically interrupted by the Nazis.

Figure 10a-Serge Klarsfeld’s report containing names of Jewish deportees aboard Convoy 29 from Drancy to Auschwitz-Birkenau

Figure 10b-Page from Serge Klarsfeld’s report with my Aunt Susanne & Ernst Mombert’s names

From Avignon, my relatives were taken more than 430 miles to Drancy, a suburb outside Paris, which was an assembly point for Jews being deported to concentration camps. My Aunt Susanne and Ernst Mombert are known to have survived until at least September 7, 1942. Both of their names appear, coincidentally on the same page (Figures 10a & 10b), on a list of 1000 Jewish prisoner deported from Drancy, a suburb of Paris, destined for Auschwitz, aboard Convoy 29, which departed Drancy at 8:55am and arrived in Auschwitz two days later. (Figures 11a & 11b) My aunt, correctly identified as a German national, is incorrectly shown having been born in “Ratisbonne” rather than Ratibor, Germany.

Figure 11a-Route that Convoy 29, holding my Aunt Susanne & Ernst Mombert, took between Drancy and Auschwitz from September 7 to September 9, 1942 (SOURCE: Yad Vashem)

Figure 11b-Stops that Convoy 29 made between Drancy and Auschwitz from September 7 to September 9, 1942

Figure 12-Cattle car at Auschwitz-Birkenau of the type that transported Jews to their death

Serge Klarsfeld, a Romanian-born French activist and Nazi hunter known for documenting the Holocaust to enable the prosecution of war criminals, compiled the lists using surviving German documents. The nationality of only 893 deportees was recorded from Convoy 29, possibly because some arrived from the unoccupied zone only a few hours before the convoy was slated to leave for Auschwitz. The German record of deportees was divided into seven sub-lists, and while both Susanne and Ernst originated from the unoccupied zone, they were likely identified as coming from Camp des Milles. The convoy contained 435 women and 565 men. Upon arrival in Auschwitz (Figure 12), except for 59 men and 52 women, the remaining deportees were immediately gassed to death. (Figures 13 & 14) According to my father, his sister always carried a poison pill in a locket, and I choose to believe she took her own life before the convoy arrived in Auschwitz.

Figure 13-Expended Zyklon B canisters once containing pellets used to gas Jews at Auschwitz-Birkenau

Figure 14-Crematoria at Auschwitz-Birkenau

It is impossible to pinpoint the actual date my relatives were arrested in Fayence. Cancellation dates on the postal cards and Susanne and Ernst’s arrival in Drancy no later than September 7^th suggest it cannot have taken more than three weeks before they were murdered, no later than September 9^th. The ultimate irony is that my aunt moved to Fayence, almost 1000 miles away from where she was born in Ratibor, Germany, only to be hauled back and murdered less than 70 miles from her hometown. Stolpersteins, the small, brass memorials commemorating individual victims of Nazism, have been placed, respectively, at the last residences in Berlin and Giessen, Germany where my Aunt Susanne and Ernst Mombert and his family lived. (Figures 15 & 16)

Figure 15-Stolperstein for my Aunt Susanne located in front of her last residence in Berlin-Charlottenburg, Kastanienallee 39

Figure 16-Stolpersteins for four Mombert family members, including Ernst Mombert, in front of their last residence in Giessen, Germany

POST 22: MY AUNT SUSANNE, NÉE BRUCK, & HER HUSBAND DR. FRANZ MÜLLER, THE FAYENCE YEARS

Note: This post is the next chapter in my Aunt Susanne and Uncle Franz’s story, following their departure from Fiesole, Italy around September 16, 1938. Their exodus came on the heels of enactment of racial laws by Fascist Italy beginning in 1938 enforcing discrimination mainly against Italian and foreign Jews. The final destination, at least in the case of my Uncle Franz, was Fayence, France, 230 miles almost due west as the crow flies across the Ligurian Sea. Why my aunt and uncle fled here was a decision shrouded in mystery, but one I eventually worked out with the assistance of an American researcher studying Dr. Franz Müller’s renowned son, Peter Müller-Munk.

Figure 1-View of the countryside surrounding Fayence across the tiled rooftops

Fayence is located in France’s Var region. (Figure 1) It’s a charming small town of medieval origin that was once fortified and is considered one of a series of “perched villages” that overlooks the plain between the southern Alps and what’s called the Esterel massif, which borders the Mediterranean Sea between Cannes and Saint-Raphaël. Fayence is slightly more than 40 miles west-southwest of the beautiful seaside town of Nice, along France’s Côte d’Azur. Nice is where my parents met in 1946, and a place I spent some enjoyable summers with my maternal grandmother. I’ve been told my grandmother even took me on an outing to Fayence as a child, though I have no recollection of this. But, like Fiesole, Italy, Fayence is a place I associate with my aunt and uncle.

Following my aunt and uncle’s departure from Fiesole, likely in the company of my grandmother and my father, I presume they traveled by train through Nice on their way to Fayence. Since my father had an aunt and cousins who lived in Nice, they may even have spent a few days there along the way. Unlike Fiesole, La Mairie or L’Hôtel de Ville (City Hall) in Fayence does not appear to have maintained immigration or emigration logs during this period, so it’s impossible to pinpoint my relatives’ arrival there. Suffice it to say, by early October 1938, they were likely in place.

Figure 2-Ms. Jewel Stern, art historian, who has spent many years researching Dr. Franz Müller’s son, Peter Müller-Munk

I learned why my aunt, uncle, and grandmother settled in Fayence because of my family tree on ancestry.com. One day, I was contacted via my tree by a woman from Coral Gables, Florida, Ms. Jewel Stern (Figure 2), wanting to speak with me about my uncle. Ms. Stern was trying to learn all she could about Dr. Franz Müller’s renowned son, Peter Müller-Munk. She explained that not only did my uncle have a son by his first marriage, but he also had a daughter, Karin Margit Müller-Munk, a fact I was unaware of. She was married to a man named Franz (“Francois” in France) Hermann Mombert, who with his brother Ernst owned the fruit farm in Fayence where my family sought refuge in 1938. Margit’s brother came to America in 1926 and went on to become a world-renowned silversmith and industrial designer in Pittsburgh, thus, he was known to me unlike his sister, who died relatively young and anonymously in Fayence. Ironically, through Ms. Stern I learned a lot about my own extended family.

Figure 3-My father, Dr. Otto Bruck, in his French Foreign Legion uniform in December 1941 in Constantine, Algeria

Among my father’s pictures are two sets of photographs from Fayence, the first taken between September and November of 1941, the second precisely on March 2, 1947. Some context is necessary. With few other options available to my father after leaving Fiesole, Italy, barely a month later, on October 21, 1938, he enlisted in the French Foreign Legion in Paris. He was stationed in Saïda and Ouargla, Algeria (Figure 3), as a member of the “1ère Batterie Saharienne Porteé de Légion.” Because of his Jewish origins, my father, like all other Jewish enlistees at the time, was given an alias; during his time as a legionnaire, he was known as “Marcel Berger.” (Figures 4a & 4b) Because my father spoke fluent French he easily passed as a Frenchman.

Figure 4a-My father’s French Foreign Legion dog tag using his pseudonym,”Marcel Berger”

Figure 4b-Reverse of father’s French Foreign Legion dog tag showing “Marcel Berger” was born in Strasbourg, France on December 6, 1907

Figure 5-Taken in November 1941 in Fayence, one of my father’s last pictures of his sister Susanne

Between September and November of 1941, my father visited the south of France while on leave from the French Foreign Legion (FFL). It was during this time that he last saw his sister Susanne (Figure 5) and took photos in Fayence. (Figures 6 & 7) What imbues this visit with historic interest is the fact that as a soldier in the FFL, he was able to travel, likely under his pseudonym, across “enemy” lines from Algeria to France. One must assume such travel was possible only because the FFL was ostensibly allied with Vichy France—a regime that, until November 1942, was most powerful in the unoccupied, southern “free zone” centered on the commune of Vichy. In theory, Vichy France also represented the French Colonial Empire, of which Algeria was a part, so this may explain how my father was able to travel between Africa and France in the middle of WWII.

Figure 6-My father’s October 1941 photograph showing Rue de la Bonnefont headed up to the left

Figure 7-My photograph taken at the same intersection in Fayence as Figure 6 in July 2014

Figure 8-My father’s French Foreign Legion regiment on deployment in Amguid, Algeria

As an aside, the Vichy Government, which had enacted anti-Semitic laws in the 1930’s and 1940’s, would occasionally send one of their envoys to liaise with FFL military units based in North Africa, ostensibly to root out Jews; during these visits some commanders, perhaps because of their antipathy and disdain for the Vichy Government, sent their foreign regiments on random deployments deep into the Sahara. (Figure 8) Regardless of the reason, this likely saved Jewish lives, including my father’s life.

The second set of pictures from Fayence was taken on March 2, 1947. (Figures 9 & 10) My father and one of his first cousins visited the Mombert family with whom my grandmother was still living to celebrate her 74^th birthday the next day. At the time, my father worked as a dentist in Nice, an intriguing story that will be the subject of a future Blog post. The two sets of pictures from Fayence, along with letters and documents I’ve located, indicate seven members of my family once lived there. These included my Aunt Susanne, my Uncle Franz, my grandmother “Mummi,” as she was known, Francois and Margit Mombert, along with Francois’s brother Ernst and their mother, Nellie Mombert. Their vital data is summarized in the table at the end of this post.

Figure 9-My grandmother and father in Fayence on March 2, 1947, a day before my grandmother’s 74th birthday

Figure 10-On March 2, 1947 in Fayence seated left to right: Cornelia “Nellie” Mombert, my grandmother, and Hansi Goff (Jeanne Loewenstein); Francois Mombert (standing)

Figure 11-Peter Müller-Munk’s iconic industrial design of the Texaco gas pump

Ms. Stern spent over 20 years studying and collecting the works of Peter Müller-Munk and learning about him and his family; her goal, which came to fruition in 2015, was to develop a special exhibit at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh on Peter’s amazing works. (Figure 11) To learn about Peter’s father, Ms. Stern enlisted one of her Parisian friends to travel to Fayence, visit L’Hôtel de Ville, find Dr. Franz Müller’s final resting place and that of his daughter (Figures 12, 13 & 14), obtain copies of their death certificates, take pictures of the fruit farm where my aunt and uncle had lived, and more. Ms. Stern graciously shared all this information with me, and, in turn, I rounded out my uncle and aunt’s story by providing pictures, documents, and history about their lives in Berlin and Fiesole. It was mutually beneficial.

Figure 12-The Cimitiere Ancien where Dr. Franz Müller & his daughter Margit Mombert are buried

Figure 13-The eroding tombstone of Dr. Franz Müller & his daughter Margit Mombert

Figure 14-The barely legible names of Dr. Franz Müller & his daughter on their tombstone

In 2014, my wife and I retraced the steps taken by Ms. Stern’s friend and visited Fayence. Additionally, Ms. Stern told us of an elderly local woman who had once worked for Francois Mombert beginning in 1941 when she was 15, so we planned through our contact at L’Hôtel de Ville (Figure 15), Mme. Claudine Clary (Figure 16), to interview this Mme. Marie-Rose Siri. Immediately upon our arrival in Fayence, we spoke with Mme. Clary, who, among other things, explained where my uncle and his daughter are buried and told us their graves will soon be evacuated if their tombs are not restored and maintenance fees paid. (Figure 17)

Figure 16-Director of Fayence’s L’Hôtel de Ville, Mme. Claudine Clary

Figure 17-Posted sign on the tombstone of Dr. Franz Müller & his daughter saying their graves will be evacuated

Our visit with Mme. Siri and her daughter, Martine Siri (Figure 18), had been pre-arranged. My fluency in French meant I could converse directly with Mme. Siri. I was particularly curious about one picture taken in Fayence (Figure 19), showing my aunt and uncle eating lunch with his daughter and son-in-law, Margit and Francois Mombert. A young lady is serving them, and I was curious whether Mme. Siri recognized herself, but unfortunately not. As a young girl, Mme. Siri did household chores and helped harvest and package fruit for eventual sale in Cannes; the farm produced apricots, peaches, apples, and later artichokes and strawberries. Mme. Siri recalled that Ernst Mombert, who had severe “strabisme,” or crossed eyes, was nonetheless able to work in the orchards.

Figure 18-Mme. Marie-Rose Siri, right, with her daughter Martine in 2014

Figure 19-Margit Mombert, Dr. Franz Müller, my Aunt Susanne & Francois Mombert being served lunch in Fayence

Mme. Siri fondly recalled Francois. She remembered collecting mushrooms with my Aunt Susanne, and my aunt’s ability to discern edible fungi. Poignantly, Mme. Siri told the story of when my Aunt Susanne was arrested by the Vichy in late August 1942; she was in hiding at the time, and the officials left word that if she did not present herself to the authorities, they would instead arrest one of the elderly members of the family. This is not something my aunt would ever have countenanced so she turned herself in.

Mme. Siri mentioned something intriguing, specifically, that Francois Mombert and possibly also his wife were part of the French Resistance. When the French collaborators came to the fruit farm along Chemin Banegon in late August 1942, they only arrested my Aunt Susanne and Ernst Mombert even though the three elderly members of the family were certainly present. Why all the Jews at the farm were not seized then is unclear.

While Mme. Siri’s memories of my family’s years in Fayence are few, what she was able to recall brought them to life, if only dimly.

Figure 20-Street on which the Mombert house was located

Before leaving Mme. Siri, she and her daughter explained how to get to the nearby house once located along Chemin Banegon (Figure 20) where the former Mombert homestead is located. I was very interested in seeing the place. In doing family history, chutzpah is sometimes required. Showing up unannounced on the doorsteps of a stranger’s house situated in a rural setting in a foreign country is an example. To say we startled the current owner, Mme. Monique Graux, would be a mild understatement. Fortunately, Mme. Graux was intrigued by the nature of our unplanned visit, and, entirely because of my wife’s warm and sympathetic countenance, invited us in and showed us around her home, inside and out. (Figures 21 & 22)

Figure 21-Me kneeling by Mme. Graux, current owner of the house where my family once lived in Fayence

Figure 22-The former Mombert farmhouse located on a renamed street called Chemin du Fraisse

Mme. Graux claimed she and her husband purchased the house along Chemin Banegon around 1960 from a gentleman named M. Lebreton, who’d owned it for only two-and-a-half years and bought it from Francois Mombert. Mme. Graux never met Francois Mombert nor his wife, so could tell us nothing about them. She explained the house dates from 1740 and was historically used to tan animal hides. Given that Margit Mombert died in Fayence on March 22, 1959, sale of the house before her death strikes me as a bit improbable. Curious as to when Mme. Graux and her husband purchased the farmhouse, I asked Mme. Clary about obtaining a copy of l’acte de propriété, the deed of ownership; the notary company informed her I could not get it because I am not related to the current owner.

Figure 23-M. Alain Rebuffel (left) standing alongside me in his winery

Near our hotel was a winery where we wanted to do a tasting. As Americans traveling abroad, we typically stand out, so it intrigues the French when they hear someone obviously American speak their language with only a hint of an accent. Such was the case when we visited this winery, and the owner engaged me in conversation. The reason for our visit to Fayence came out, and the owner, M. Alain Rebuffel (Figure 23), remembered his grandfather talking about knowing my family; he recalled his grandfather was more kindly disposed towards Jews than his grandmother, who wanted nothing to do with them. Interestingly, Mme. Clary told us her father similarly remembered my family.

Figure 24-M. Roger Faye (left), custodian of the Cimitiere Ancien

M. Rebuffel suggested we speak with his uncle, M. Roger Faye (Figure 24), who is the custodian at the cemetery where Dr. Franz Müller and his daughter are interred and lives in the adjacent house. Upon our visit to the cemetery, we examined and photographed the now crumbling tomb of my uncle and his daughter. Then, we called on M. Faye, who mentioned that several years earlier he had evacuated a tomb belonging to a member of the Mombert family, whose name he could not remember. I ultimately worked this out when I discovered an on-line biography about Francois and Ernst’s father, Paul Karl Mombert. He was a professor at the University of Giessen in Germany, who like my Uncle Franz, was fired in 1933. He was imprisoned by the Nazis, but eventually released; he died from cancer shortly thereafter, on December 1, 1938, in Stuttgart, Germany, and his ashes were sent to Fayence. There is no doubt that the Mombert tomb evacuated in Fayence was that of Paul Mombert.

Figure 25-Real estate register page showing Ernst Mombert purchased property in Fayence in December 1933 & that land was transferred to his surviving brother in 1947

Following my return to the States in 2014, I contacted the Archives Départementales du Var in Draguignan, France to inquire about Fayence real estate records and determine precisely when Ernst and Francois Mombert purchased the property along Chemin Banegon. Fortunately, the historic records have survived and place acquisition of the farm in December 1933. (Figure 25)

Figure 26-Real estate register page for Francois Mombert

As mentioned above, Ernst Mombert was arrested along with my Aunt Susanne by the Vichy collaborators in August 1942, and neither survived. The real estate records reveal a minor, but interesting historical fact. They indicate that on September 6, 1947, exclusive ownership of the farm was transferred to Francois Mombert (compare Figure 26 to Figure 25), that’s to say, almost five years to the day after Ernst Mombert was deported to Auschwitz. In the case of my Aunt Susanne, deported to Auschwitz the same day as Ernst, it took the Comune de Fayence seven years, until 1949, to officially declare her dead. (Figure 27) The wheels of bureaucracy grind slow.

Figure 27-My Aunt Susanne’s Declaration of Death issued by the Comune de Fayence in 1949

Figure 28-Francois Mombert & Karin Margit Müller-Munk’s Marriage Certificate dated December 4, 1934

Ms. Stern learned much about Peter Müller-Munk from the personal papers of his aunt, Marie Munk, one of the first female lawyers in Germany. Marie became a judge in 1930, but, like many Jews, was dismissed from her judicial position in 1933. She eventually came to the United States, obtained her law degree here, and had a notable career as a women’s rights activist. Marie Munk’s papers are archived at Smith College, and in one letter, the date of her niece’s marriage to Francois Mombert on December 4, 1934 is mentioned. Unknown initially when and where they’d been married, it took Ms. Stern and me a long time to track this down. On a second visit to Fayence in 2015, in passing, I mentioned this date to Mme. Clary who immediately checked her office records and located Francois and Margit’s marriage certificate. (Figure 28) Interestingly, after Margit’s death in 1959, Francois Mombert continued to correspond with Marie.

The next Blog post will be the final chapter about my Aunt Susanne’s abbreviated life.

Below readers will find the vital events of the seven family members I’ve determined lived in Fayence.

NAME	EVENT	DATE	PLACE

Else Bruck, née Berliner	Birth	March 3, 1873	Ratibor, Germany (today: Racibórz, Poland)
	Death	February 16, 1957	Manhattan, New York
Cornelia “Nellie” Mombert, née Gieser	Birth	1880
	Death	1963	Freiburg, Germany
Ernst Mombert	Birth	July 9, 1911	Freiburg, Germany
	Death	~ September 1942	Auschwitz-Birkenau, Extermination Camp, Poland
Franz (“Francois”) Hermann Mombert	Birth	February 21, 1909	Freiburg, Germany
	Marriage	December 4, 1934	Fayence, France
	Death	January 29, 1988	Locarno, Switzerland
Karin Margit Mombert, née Müller-Munk	Birth	September 23, 1908	Berlin, Germany
	Death	March 22, 1959	Fayence, France
Franz Robert Müller	Birth	December 31, 1871	Berlin, Germany
	Marriage	April 18, 1931	Berlin, Germany
	Death	October 1, 1945	Fayence, France
Susanne Müller, née Bruck	Birth	April 20, 1904	Ratibor, Germany (today: Racibórz, Poland)
	Death	~ September 1942	Auschwitz-Birkenau, Extermination Camp, Poland