Note: In this post, I detail further discoveries about Heinz Löwenstein, my father’s first cousin, and his successful escape from Stalag VIIIB in Lamsdorf [today:Łambinowice, Poland] in around November 1943. Relying on an account of the escape of South African Lt. Colonel Charles Telfer Howie held in the same Stalag, I infer the means and route by which Heinz might have escaped.
With the help of Brian Cooper, an English friend who specializes in the study of English World War II prisoners of war, I’ve written multiple posts about the whereabouts and survival during the war of Heinz Löwenstein, my father’s first cousin. Because I met him as a child and heard confusing accounts that he was an “escape artist,” his story has always intrigued me. What could this possibly mean in the context of the mass arrests and deportation and internment of Jews in extermination camps? It seemed unlikely that Heinz could have escaped from one of these. Because no one bothered to explain this, my childhood imagination conjured up wild explanations, none of which in retrospect approach reality.
As readers know, I’ve written extensively about Heinz’s wartime experiences and escapades. I refer followers to these earlier stories of Heinz’s enlistment in the British Pioneer Corps in Palestine in around 1935, his capture during the Battle of Greece in April 1941, his subsequent incarceration in Stalag VIIIB in Lamsdorf [today: Łambinowice, Poland] in 1941 (Figure 1), his multiple escapes from there between 1941 and 1943, and more.
Relying on prisoner records, POW liberation questionnaires and exit interviews, and various books and accounts by former POWs, I thought I’d exhausted what more I would learn about the circumstances of Heinz’s internments and escapes. However, following the publication of my most recent post, Post 163, Brian brought to my attention two additional books he uncovered where he’s mentioned. The first is entitled “Agent by Accident” by Claerwen Howie, the second “Facing Fearful Odds” by John Jay. Because Heinz is featured prominently in Claerwen Howie’s book, I will focus on this one because it provides in-depth details on how her father-in-law, Lt. Col. Charles Telfer Howie, escaped from Stalag VIIIB in Lamsdorf, the same Stalag in which Heinz was incarcerated.
As a quick correction, I mistakenly noted in Post 163 that Lt. Col. Howie had escaped from Stalag VIIB in Memmingen, Bavaria, near Munich. At the time, I questioned the likelihood of this having happened since Howie and his fellow escapee, Tibor Weinstein, eventually wound up in Budapest, Hungary, a great distance from Munich across very hostile territory. While Howie and Weinstein traveled a large distance following their escape from Stalag VIIIB, it involved a more direct and less dangerous route.
Claerwen Howie’s book is based on in-depth interviews she conducted with her father-in-law and on question-and-answer sessions she had with some of his contemporaries, including people who helped him escape from Stalag VIIIB and Hungarians, Dutchmen, and Brits he met and who assisted him once he reached Hungary. Though Heinz Löwenstein made his getaway from Stalag VIIIB perhaps a month after Howie, he likely followed a similar trajectory to freedom. For this reason, I discuss in detail Howie’s escape as a way of describing the situation at Stalag VIIIB as well as talking about some of the issues and challenges both men likely faced.
Charles Telfer Howie was a Lt. Colonel in the South African army captured by German Generalfeldmarschall (field marshal) Erwin Rommel’s troops during the Siege of Tobruk, in Libya, as part of the Western Desert campaign of the Mediterranean and Middle East theater of WWII. To remind readers, following his flight from Stalag VIIIB Howie made his way to Budapest and coordinated with opposition leaders in Hungary on an ultimately unsuccessful effort to get Hungary to abandon the Axis alliance in favor of the Allies prior to the Nazi occupation of Hungary on the 19th of March 1944. Self-proclaimed “Captain” Roy Natusch, an escapee from Stalag XVIIIA in Wolfsburg, Austria who similarly made his way to Budapest and met Howie, also discussed in Post 163, was intimately involved in Howie’s clandestine efforts to “flip” Hungary.
In any case, in the wake of his capture in Tobruk, Howie arrived in Stalag VIIIB in Lamsdorf on Sunday, the 19th of September 1943, following a lengthy and interrupted journey that included stays in Benghazi, Libya; and Lecce, Bari, Aversa, Florence, and Modena, Italy. Knowing that as an officer he would within days be transferred to an Oflag (Offizierslager), an officers’ camp where security was tighter, Howie wasted no time establishing contact with the camp’s escape committee. He immediately looked for the first non-commissioned officer who could take him to the Vertrauensmann or SBO, Senior British Officer, in charge of the camp. This was Regimental Sergeant-Major Sherriff of the Welsh Guards, also captured in Tobruk. Coincidentally, Sherriff was a WWII prisoner who was returned to the same Stalag where he’d been held as a POW during WWI.
The escape committee included many Canadiens who’d been captured on the 19th of August 1942 during the disastrous raid on heavily fortified Dieppe; ergo, it was informally referred to as the “Dieppe escape committee.” Operation Jubilee or the Dieppe Raid was a catastrophic Allied amphibious attack on the German-occupied port of Dieppe in northern France, during WWII. Over 6,500 infantry, predominantly Canadian, supported by a regiment of tanks, were put ashore from a naval force operating under the protection of Royal Air Force (RAF) fighters. The port was to be captured and held for a short period, to test the feasibility of a landing and to gather intelligence. While the operation was a fiasco with mass casualties, particularly among the Canadians, the Allies learned lessons that influenced the success of the D-Day landings.
According to what Lt. Col. Howie reported to his daughter-in-law, conditions in Stalag VIIIB were predictably deplorable. There was chronic overcrowding which affected the men’s health. Dysentery, fleas, and lice were constant problems; food rations were poor, the water supply inadequate, and coal to heat the barracks meager. Each prisoner was given one thin blanket and a spoon. Red Cross parcels were relied on to supplement what prisoners were meted out.
The large camp was surrounded by two barbed-wire fences running parallel to one another. Adjacent to the outer fence was a path along which the guards patrolled. Approximately six feet from the inner perimeter fence was a low tripwire. Crossing this wire would result in being shot. The Stalag was divided into compounds, and while movement between them was not allowed, the prisoners found ways around this restriction. Each compound contained block-like barracks that included a central washroom, an office and work area, and three-tier bunks, reaching from concrete floor almost to the ceiling. The bunks formed three rows with spaces in between. Each block housed 324 men.
One of the key members of the escape committee was a Canadian sergeant named Laurens Pals. Originally from the Netherlands, he went to Canada in his mid-twenties. When the war broke out, he joined the Canadian Light Infantry and was initially dispatched to England. Because he was fluent in French, German, and Dutch, he was sent on intelligence courses including one studying German documents, information that was to become invaluable to the escape committee. Pals was captured during Operation Jubilee in Dieppe.
A POW could improve his situation by going to a work camp, several hundred of which surrounded Stalag VIIIB. Beyond the opportunity for a POW to improve his situation and living conditions, these outside assignments provided an opening to obtain tools, documents, local currency, civilian clothing, train schedules, and other information needed by the escape committee.
Readers will recall from earlier posts that most of Heinz Löwenstein’s escapes took place from work camps to which he’d been detailed. The fact that Heinz had been born in Danzig and was therefore fluent in German meant the escape committee would have looked more favorably upon his escape attempts because of a greater chance of success.
Let me say a little about such attempts. It was a prisoner’s duty to try to escape. SBO Sherriff had reached agreement with the Canadians to back their attempts. They agreed that escape plans would be common property. Information and equipment that had been obtained by prisoners out on working parties would be shared. Forgers and tailors from other sections would give their services. While only a few men would ultimately escape, the combined skills of a great number was needed.
Planning and preparation for any escape typically required weeks, if not months. The Dieppe escape committee had selected Hut 19 in their compound as the barrack from which an escape tunnel would be sunk because it was closest to the perimeter fence. (Figure 2) It was dug immediately below the pair of three-tiered bunks pushed up against the wall facing the fence. Twenty men were involved in the work. The large amount of excavated soil had to be disposed of to avoid raising German suspicions. As tunneling progressed, tools and lights had to be improvised, and a system constructed for pushing clean air down a ventilation pipe. Also, because the soil was sandy, the tunnel was shored up using bed boards from the POWs’ bunks. By April 1943, a tunnel roughly 135 feet long which had its exit roughly 20 feet outside the perimeter fence had been completed.
Simultaneously, other POWs worked on obtaining civilian clothes or tailoring POWs uniforms into them. Alterations were made and uniforms dyed. Guards’ movements were studied. Outside the Stalag, potential escape routes were assessed with an eye towards escapees avoiding drawing unwelcome attention and blowing their cover. Work parties obtained other useful information including train schedules; details on the level of security at nearby railway stations; and examples of documents travelers in Germany required.
Obviously, the German documents had to be forged. As I learned and discussed in earlier posts, Heinz Löwenstein was a first-rate forger. Given that Heinz’s brother Fedor Löwenstein was a well-known abstract artist and that his sister Jeanne Loewenstein reputedly also a skilled painter, I’ve periodically wondered whether their ability to expertly illustrate ran in the family?
Regardless, the German documents which had to be forged included an identity card, an Arbeitskarte or work permit, a document from the police indicating the bearer was allowed to travel and, most importantly, an Ausweis or civilian identity card which had to be always carried; to advance the deception a letter or two from an escaper’s fictitious wife, girlfriend, or employer, was also forged. It goes without saying that well-forged documents could make the difference between a successful or failed escape.
Claerwen Howie recounts an amusing anecdote about Sergeant Laurens Pals. Upon reaching Stalag VIIIB, because of his intelligence training he felt he could successfully escape and return to England. The escape organization handed him a small hand drawn map of Germany to plan his escape with the approximate position of Berlin and Stalag VIIIB, as well as a forged Ausweis; he dismissed both as useless, claiming the eagle on the Ausweis “looked like a chicken.” The escape committee was insulted, and a court of inquiry was convened to investigate the incident. Pals convinced everyone his observations were accurate, and he was rewarded by being asked to head up the escape organization for the entire camp.
Pals was extremely resourceful, and within weeks obtained examples of French, Belgian, and Dutch identity papers. He found men in camp who ingeniously could carve the various stamps found on official documents from rubber soles. Incredibly he even managed to smuggle in a typewriter. Dyes, inks, and suitable paper for creating authentic-looking documents were exchanged for cigarettes which came in the Red Cross parcels or were stolen by POWs out on work parties. Because of frequent unannounced searches by the Germans, these materials had to be carefully hidden, although the remote possibility of betrayal by spies still loomed.
The fact that Howie wanted to escape within days of his arrival at Stalag VIIIB presented obvious challenges. Yet, by the time Howie asked to be put in touch with the escape committee, several things that needed to happen had already been completed. The tunnel had been dug, documents forged, civilian clothes prepared, and careful studies undertaken of the various routes prisoners could follow.
The escape committee preferred POWs who were fluent in a foreign language, preferably German, which Howie was not. Pals suggested he recruit a POW to accompany him, but he was unable to find someone. Still, the escape committee was impressed with Howie’s escape plan, so agreed to help him. Howie proposed heading east towards Hungary following his escape to minimize the distance he would have to travel. His plan initially had been to reach Hungary, then dogleg south towards Yugoslavia to connect with Tito’s partisans before eventually rejoining the Allies.
Pals came to be the primary person on whom Howie relied for his escape. He recruited a Hungarian-born Jew who was fluent in German and had a good knowledge of the local countryside and the countries through which they would pass to accompany him; his name was Tibor Weinstein, though he went by the alias “Tom Sanders.” Like Heinz, Tibor was captured during the Battle of Greece though only in the final throes of the battle when Crete was seized.
Pals and his committee had already learned from previous attempts that the best identity they could give an escaper would be that of a foreign worker because thousands were constantly moving about German-occupied territory. In Howie’s case, the false identity they created was that of a Dutch engineer on his way east to a sugar beet factory near the Austro-Hungarian. The committee theorized that if Howie was stopped the Afrikaans he spoke might fool the average German soldier into thinking it was Dutch.
Given that Howie’s escape window was narrow, he opted to flee via the tunnel rather than await assignment to an outside work party. The fact that he’d arrived only days earlier also meant that he would not instantly be recognizable by the guards and that his disappearance might be less noticeable. Howie and Weinstein’s initial nighttime escape was planned for the 25th of September 1943, a mere six days after Howie’s arrival.
The night of Howie’s and Weinstein’s planned escape it rained so their departure was postponed. When they awoke the next morning, the rain had cleared, so a risky daylight escape was decided. Howie only received his forged documents including a testimonial declaring his value to the sugar beet industry at the last minute; the money to buy train tickets was given to Weinstein. He was only introduced to Heinz Loewenstein, who had forged his documents, and to his traveling companion Tibor Weinstein on the morning of his departure. Admittedly, Howie’s stay at Stalag VIIIB was brief, but this appears to have been the only time Howie and Loewenstein met in Lamsdorf.
After saying their quick goodbyes, Howie suffered a brief moment of doubt realizing he had to crawl through the claustrophobic tunnel, an experience that seemingly caused him a lifetime of nightmares imagining being trapped in a tiny, dark passage.
A brief observation. Given that Claerwen Howie’s account is a retelling of her father-in-law’s wartime experience, I’m enormously impressed with the authenticity and detail with which she recounts the story. Unfeasible events which typically litter Hollywood movies are rare. One example of an accurate portrayal is the greatcoats the escapees wore as they crawled through the tunnel to protect their civilian clothes. Another trivial example is the civilian shoes Howie was given, which were several sizes too large and ultimately caused Howie’s feet to blister; Hollywood would have you believe that everything fit perfectly. Suffice it to say, the escape committee tried to leave as few things to chance as possible.
The escape route had been finalized by Sergeant Pals. (Figure 3) Howie and Weinstein would travel through eastern Silesia, then head south towards Vienna, and from there cross into Hungary. Their first destination would be Budapest where Tibor had family and where it was felt that Howie would be able to obtain accurate information on how to proceed to Yugoslavia. The escape committee only gave the escapees enough money to reach the Austrian border, after which they would have to manage on their own.
Since Howie and Weinstein’s escape took place during the day, the prisoners staged a wrestling match to distract the guards manning the watch tower closest to the trapdoor. Following their flight, they walked not to the nearest train station but the second nearest one in Falkenberg; the escape committee felt that if the authorities had been alerted to their escape, they would first check the nearest train depot.
Howie and Weinstein successfully arrived by train in Vienna. While awaiting the connecting train to a town near the Austro-Hungarian border called Bruck-an-der-Leitha (Figure 4), Gestapo agents checked their papers and seemed to accept their authenticity. Concerned this was a ruse and that the Gestapo agents had alerted the conductor, they jumped from the train. With no money to buy replacement tickets, they were forced to walk to Bruck-an-der-Leitha, a center for sugar beet processing. This destination fit neatly with Howie’s cover story.
Let me briefly digress on a personal note. Many years ago when I first started my genealogical research I came upon a pretentiously titled book at the Mormon Library about my family, “A Thousand Year History of the Bruck Family.” The author claims my family, then known as “Perlhefter,” originally came from Hungary, and purchased the right to be toll keepers on the bridge in Bruck-an-der-Leitha. The family eventually sold the concession and moved to Vienna and changed their name to “Bruck” because of this connection. In 2014, during a 13-week trip visiting places connected to my Jewish family’s diaspora, my wife and I stopped there. (Figure 5)
Another thing that speaks to the authenticity of Claerwen Howie’s account of her father-in-law and Weinstein’s escape are the protocols the former POWs established to avoid being caught. Aware there were likely many German informers in the area through which they were traveling, they called one another by their forenames, did not stay in one place too long, and did not approach locals, even though they were desperate for food and water.
Howie and Weinstein crossed into Hungary near Nickelsdorf, virtually atop the Hungarian border. Near the largish town of Csorna, they came upon some Polish workers who gave them shelter, food, water, and what money they could spare. Along with money Weinstein got from selling his woolen Red Cross vest, they had enough to buy train tickets to Budapest.
So much for Howie and Weinstein’s story though there is much more to it. I’ve related their tale as a way of inferring how Heinz Löwenstein’s escape might have unfolded, and the route he might have taken to get to Hungary.
I surmise Heinz successfully escaped directly from Stalag VIIIB through the tunnel in Hut 19. It’s likely Heinz’s three previous unsuccessful escapes from work camps taught him lessons he applied to finally escape triumphantly. Heinz no doubt forged his own documents.
I suspect Heinz reached Hungary via the same route as Howie and Weinstein had taken. Claerwen Howie writes that the Dieppe escape committee knew enough about railway timetables and local costs to get escapees to Bruck-an-der-Leitha. Taking a different route might have created challenges for which Heinz was unprepared.
Howie and Weinstein we know reached Budapest. Like “Captain” Ray Natusch (see Post 163), Heinz however was probably arrested by Hungarian soldiers in the countryside and briefly incarcerated in Komárom, Hungary. This is supported by a footnote in Claerwen Howie’s book stating that Heinz Löwenstein arrived there on the 1st of December 1943, and was transferred to Szigetvár, Hungary on the 19th of December 1943. This means Heinz likely escaped from Stalag VIIIB during the last week of November, so roughly a month after Howie and Weinstein crawled their way out.
In the book by Francis Jones entitled “The Double Dutchman,” we learn that on account of his language skills Heinz Löwenstein was tasked with establishing contact with the Hungarian resistance while he was being detained in Szigetvár, Hungary; the aim was to have the Hungarian resistance connect the former POWs to Tito’s partisan forces in Yugoslavia so they could rejoin the Allied forces. Had it not been for Lt. Col. Howie’s clandestine efforts in Budapest to flip Hungary and his personal visit to Szigetvár to reinforce his order that the POWs not try to escape upon the threat of a post-WWII court martial, no doubt Heinz would have done another disappearing act. Incidentally, Heinz and Howie met for the second and last time in Szigetvár before all the POWs were recaptured following Germany’s invasion of Hungary on the 19th of March 1944.
In closing, I would say given Heinz’s numerous escapes from German stalags and his skills as a forger that finding additional accounts of his exploits is still possible, perhaps even probable. That said, the general outline of the places where Heinz was imprisoned and his contribution to the war effort even as a POW are now well-documented. So I again thank my English friend Brian Cooper for helping me work this out and solve the mystery of Heinz’s Houdini acts!
REFERENCES
Howie, Claerwen. Agent by Accident. Lindlife Publishers CC, 1997.
Jay, John. Facing Fearful Odds: My Father’s Story of Captivity, Escape & Resistance 1940–1945. Pen & Sword Military, 2018.
Jones, Francis S. The Double Dutchman: A story of wartime escape and intrigue. The Dunmore Press Limited, Palmerston North, New Zealand, 1977.
Note: In this lengthy post, I compile the substantial amount of evidence I’ve collected related to my father’s first cousinHeinz Löwenstein’s exploits during WWII. This post would not have been possible without the substantial contributions of Mr. Brian Cooper from England who ferreted out most of the primary source documents and books citing Heinz. I’m eternally grateful.
My last three posts (Post 160,Post 161, & Post 162) have largely dealt with Fedor Löwenstein (1901-1946), one of my father’s first cousins, a renowned painter. He moved to Paris in 1923, attracted by the artistic influence of the capital. He was part of an artistic movement that dominated there, designated as the École de Paris, the School of Paris. This does not refer to any school that really existed, but rather to a movement 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. His early works were marked by the influence of cubism, whose main representatives worked in Paris, although his subsequent productions evolved towards abstraction.
In Post 160, I provided an update on my now ten-year old claim against the French Ministry of Culture’s (Premier Ministre) Commission pour la restitution des biens et l’indemnisation des victims de spoliations antisemites (CIVS), Commission for the restitution of property and compensation for victims of anti-Semitic spoliation. In brief, my claim involves a request for compensation and repatriation of 25 works of art produced by Fedor Löwenstein confiscated by the Nazis in December 1940 at the Port of Bordeaux. The works were destined for New York for an exhibition at the Nierendorf Gallery but only three paintings are believed to have survived the Nazis’ destruction of his so-called “decadent art.”
In Posts 161 and 162, respectively, I discussed photos and letters that have been discovered and/or have survived among the personal effects of two of Fedor’s girlfriends, the Corposano Studio dancer Doris Halphen and the renowned artist Marcelle Rivier (1906-1986).
In this post, I shift my attention to Fedor Löwenstein’s younger brother Heinz Löwenstein (1905-1979) (Figure 1), specifically his whereabouts during WWII. His capers and adventures during the war are bookworthy. I’ve previously explored this topic relying on detailed information unearthed by an English gentleman named Brian Cooper from Maidstone, Kent, England. (Figure 2) Brian specializes in studying and researching British WWII prisoners of war and coincidentally stumbled upon a mention of Heinz Löwenstein and an alias he used, “Henry Goff,” while investigating his uncle incarcerated in a German stalag during the war. Since writing Post 137 and Post 137, Postscript, with Brian’s help and guidance, I’ve discovered an astonishing amount of new information which I discuss below.
Unlike Fedor Löwenstein, who died prematurely of Hodgkin lymphoma in 1946 in Nice, France before I was born, as a child I met both of Fedor’s younger siblings, Jeanne “Hansi” Goff, née Löwenstein (1902-1986) and Heinz Löwenstein. Both Hansi and Heinz were my father’s closest cousins. Hansi was an austere person who seemingly disliked children; by contrast, her brother Heinz was exceedingly affable and charismatic. Throughout her life, Hansi retained her married name “Goff,” a name I will return to below as I relate the story of her brother’s wartime escapades.
As a brief aside, from the report that the CIVS’ forensic genealogist prepared in connection with my claim against the French Ministry of Culture, I learned that Hansi’s husband’s name was “Georges Goff.” To the best of my knowledge, Georges and Hansi never had any children, or at least none that survived to adulthood. To date, I have been unable to learn whether they divorced or whether Georges died prematurely; regardless, Hansi never remarried.
As many readers whose relatives survived WWII can probably attest to, my own relatives were rather reticent to talk about their experiences during the war. My father occasionally alluded to Heinz Löwenstein’s wartime exploits but in such vague terms that as a child I never understood what those escapades entailed. My childhood fantasies filled in the blanks in ways that now seem phantasmagoric. I never anticipated I would learn the truth but thanks to Brian, I’m now able to fill in more of Heinz’s story.
Let me start by reviewing what I presented earlier, then move to the more recent discoveries so the entire story is told somewhat linearly.
Brian Cooper first contacted me in February 2023 after coming across my Post 16 where I discussed my great aunt, Hedwig Löwenstein, née Bruck (1870-1949), and her three children, including Heinz. (Figure 3) In his own research on British prisoners of war, he’d come across the name Heinz Lowenstein (without an umlaugh over the “o”). Initially uncertain whether the Heinz he’d come across and my ancestor were the same person, two threads in my post convinced him they were one and the same. First, as mentioned, Heinz Lowenstein used the alias “Henry Goff,” Goff being his married sister’s surname. Second, he learned that my father’s cousin Heinz Löwenstein had the same date of birth, the 8th of March 1905, as the prisoner of war records indicate for the Heinz Lowenstein he’s been researching.
I immediately asked Brian why he was interested in Heinz Löwenstein. Though very familiar with this branch of my extended family, I assumed there was an ancestral connection of which I was unaware. Amazingly, it turns out Brian’s uncle, Harold William Jackson from the 2nd Battalion Northamptonshire Regiment, captured in 1940 in France, was interned in one of the same Stalags as Heinz had been held, namely, Stalag VIIIB/Stalag 344 in Lamsdorf, Silesia [today: Łambinowice, Poland]. More on this below but suffice it to say that unlike Heinz who was at multiple Stalags and work labor camps throughout his captivity, Brian’s uncle was apparently only imprisoned in Stalag VIIIB until January 1945 when the Nazis began marching the still able-bodied prisoners-of-war west as the Red Army was approaching. By contrast with my father’s cousin Heinz Löwenstein, Brian’s uncle’s fate is unknown. Whether Heinz and Brian’s uncle knew or ever ran into one another is similarly unknown.
Until Brian Cooper provided documentary evidence, I had no idea where Heinz spent the war nor how he survived. The primary source of information on Heinz Löwenstein’s whereabouts and movements during the war can be found in the UK National Archives. Specifically, records created or inherited by the War Office’s Armed Forces Services containing “German Record cards of British and Commonwealth Prisoners of War and some Civilian Internees, Second World War,” found in Catalogue WO (for War Office) 416 are pertinent. Three entries related to Heinz Löwenstein, or his alias “Henry Goff,” can be found in this dossier. The National Archive website provides a summary of these German Record cards, but Brian obtained complete copies of the originals, which form the basis for the detailed synopsis he compiled of Heinz’s wartime activities.
The most informative German Record card in terms of tracking Heinz Löwenstein’s movements during the war is record number WO 416/412/223 (Figure 4a-d), alternately referred to as his Personalkarte, his personnel card. This card includes his picture, his father’s first name, his mother’s maiden name, his religion, and his date and place of birth, all previously known to me, confirming this was my father’s first cousin. Unknown to me was his service number (i.e., 8576), his service (i.e., Palestinian Army), the regiment or squadron he was a member of (i.e., Corps of Signals), his profession (i.e., electrician), the place he was captured (i.e., Greece), the date of his capture (29th April 1941), his POW number (i.e., 8576), and the camp name and number where he was initially interned (i.e., Stalag XVIIIA which was located in Wolfsberg, Austria).
Prior to being contacted by Brian, I’d already learned that Heinz married a divorcee named Rose Nothmann, née Bloch in Danzig, Germany [today: Gdańsk, Poland] on the 22nd of October 1931; interestingly, she was eleven years his senior. An illegible notation in the upper righthand corner of the marriage certificate indicates they got divorced, an event I assumed had taken place in Danzig. However, from Heinz’s Personalkarte where he named his wife Rose Löwenstein living in Palestine as his next of kin, I now realize the divorce likely took place after Heinz returned from the war.
Another thing I concluded from Heinz’s Personalkarte is that he and his wife moved to Palestine from Danzig where he enlisted in the English Army, probably in around 1935. Two POW lists published, respectively, in September 1944 (Figure 5) and April 1945 (Figure 6) indicate the regiment/unit/squadron Heinz was a member of, “3 L. of C. Sigs.” This refers to the “3 Line of Communication Signals [Royal Corps of Signals, often simply known as Royal Signals].” For readers, like me, unfamiliar with the work of this squadron, this unit is responsible for providing full telecommunications infrastructure for the Army wherever they operate. Signal units are among the first deployed, providing battlefield communications and information systems essential to all operations.
As mentioned above, Heinz’s Personalkarte shows he was captured on the 29th of April 1941 in Greece. Before discussing where he is likely to have been captured, let me provide readers with a general overview of the Battle of Greece. This battle, also known as the “German invasion of Greece” or “Operation Marita,” was the attack of Greece by Italy and Germany during World War II. It began on the 28th of October 1940 with the Italian invasion of Greece from the west via Albania, then a vassal state of Italy. Greece, with the help of British air and material support, repelled the initial Italian attack and counterattack in March 1941.
Realizing that the bulk of Greek troops were massed along the Greek border with Albania and that Italy was in trouble, German troops invaded from Bulgaria to Greece’s north on the 6th of April 1941, opening a second front. The Greek Army was quickly outnumbered even with the reinforcement of small numbers of British, Australian, and New Zealand forces. The Greek forces were outflanked by the Germans at the Albanian border, forcing their surrender. British, Australian, and New Zealand forces were overwhelmed and forced to retreat southwards down the Greek peninsula, with the goal of evacuation. For several days, Allied troops were able to delay the German advance, allowing ships to be positioned to evacuate the units defending Greece. Still, by the 27th of April the German Army captured Athens, and reached Greece’s southern shores by the 30th of April. The conquest of Greece was completed a month later with the capture of the island of Crete. An intriguing footnote is that Hitler later blamed the unsuccessful German invasion of the Soviet Union on Mussolini’s failed conquest of Greece.
Knowing that Heinz was taken prisoner on the 29th of April, Brian reasons that he was seized in or near Kalamata on the Peloponnesian peninsula. Based on testimony from others, we know that POWs were quickly moved to a prison compound at Corinth, then shortly thereafter to Salonika. On their way to Salonika, the prisoners stopped briefly in Athens before continuing northwards. However, when they reached the tunnel below the Brallos Pass, north of the town of Gravia, the prisoners had to dismount because the tunnel had been rendered unusable by explosives during the recent retreat by Allied soldiers. Thus began what is referred to as “The March,” the destination of which was the town of Lamia 40 miles north. This involved a long slog uphill, followed by a precipitous downhill walk in unpleasantly hot weather.
A Facebook account about the “Battle of Kalamata 1941” estimates that by September 1941, 12,000 POWs had passed through the “Salonika Transit Camp Frontstalag 183,” on their way to the central Europe Stalags They included many nationalities—Scots, English, Australians, New Zealanders, Serbs, Indians, Palestinian Jews, Cypriots, Arabs, and Greeks. Many of the POWs died, and a few daring ones escaped.
From Heinz’s Personalkarte we know he was initially imprisoned in Stalag XVIIIA in Wolfsberg, Austria after being transported by cattle truck from the Salonika Transit Camp. A different German Record card for Heinz Lowenstein, WO 416/228/460, records his transfer from Stalag XVIIIA in Wolfsberg, Austria to Stalag VIIIB in Lamsdorf on the 28th of July 1941. (Figures 7-8) The earliest date on Heinz’s Personalkarte, German Record card WO 416/412/223, is the 8th of July 1941, which corresponds to the date he was inoculated against typhoid, perhaps upon his arrival at Stalag XVIIIA in Wolfsberg. (see Figure 4b)
Another interesting detail recorded on Heinz’s Personalkarte are the solitary confinements he was made to endure for neglecting or disturbing work operations and for two escapes. Remarkably, Heinz’s escape from work labor camp designated as “E479” in Tarnowitz is recorded in a book by Cyril Rofe entitled “Against the Wind.” Cyril himself escaped from a work camp that was subordinate to Stalag VIIIB on his third attempt, eventually making his way to Moscow before being repatriated via Murmansk. I refer readers to Post 137 for the verbatim description from Cyril Rofe’s book of Heinz’s escape, a compelling read.
Following Heinz’s release from the brig in August 1943 after his third escape, possibly in September 1943 or slightly later, Heinz made a successful fourth escape from Stalag VIIIB/Stalag 344 or one of its subordinate work labor camps. The evidence for this comes from War Office record WO 224/95 (see Post 137, Figures 21a-d) which places him at Camp Siklós in Hungary in November 1943.
Record WO 224/95 is a Visit Report by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) written on the 16th of November detailing prison conditions at the Camp Siklós Hungarian detention center inspected on the 8th of November 1943. While referred to as Camp Siklós the holding facility had in fact been moved from Siklós to Szigetvár on the 12th of August 1943 due to the poor conditions prevailing at Siklós; Siklós is approximately 39 miles southeast of Szigetvár. Attached to this report is a list of 20 army personnel, presumably all POW escapees, including “Henry Lowenstein.” Based on the Visit Report from the ICRC it is unclear when and where Heinz was arrested in Hungary following his escape from Stalag VIIIB/Stalag 344 (Lamsdorf) but no later than the 8th of November, probably earlier, he was in Hungarian custody. Szigetvár, incidentally, was the castle estate of Count Mihaly Andrassy, and incarceration conditions there were excellent.
The ICRC visit to Camp Siklós (Szigetvár) was conducted in its capacity as a Protecting Power which was formalized in the Geneva Convention of 1929. Protecting powers were allowed to inspect prisoners of war camps, interview prisoners in private, communicate freely with prisoners, and supply books for the prison library.
Let me provide some historical context regarding Hungary’s situation vis a vis Nazi occupation at the time that Heinz was detained there.
In March 1944, Hungary was invaded and occupied by Nazi Germany. Before the Nazi invasion, Hungary had not formally declared war against the United Kingdom, so any British POW escapees, if caught by the Hungarian authorities, would expect no more than internment by Hungary as a neutral power. There was no concern that British POWs would be returned to German control. Based on the existing War Office records, as mentioned, Heinz escaped from Stalag VIIIB in Lamsdorf and somehow made his way to Hungary before the Nazi occupation.
Now we get to the murkiest part of Heinz’s story. From one moment to the next, he went from being known as “Henry Lowenstein” to being “Henry Goff.” (To remind readers, the surname “Goff” was Heinz’s sister’s married name.) As a Hungarian internee, Heinz was known as “Henry Lowenstein,” but at some point, after he was recaptured by the Germans following their invasion of Hungary on the 19th of March 1944, he became known as “Henry Goff.” Exactly when this happened is unclear. The Hungarians knew Henry’s real identity and presumably would have shared this information with the Germans following their takeover of the internment camp at Szigetvár. We know from War Office record WO 416/141/191 (see Post 137, Figure 22) that “Henry Lowenstein” becomes “Henry Goff,” born on the 8th of March 1905 in Manchester, England. Presumably after he becomes Henry Goff, he is also assigned a new POW number, No. 156116. From Heinz’s point of view, the change of surname and birth place was presumably an insurance policy because of his Jewish faith. Together with his new POW number, he presumably thought that his chances of survival improved, although how much danger he was in is uncertain.
WO 416/141/191 record tells us Heinz was returned to the Stalags in Austria after he was recaptured in Hungary. All I knew for certain is that by the 28th of July 1944, Henry Goff was transferred from Stalag XVIIA in Kaisersteinbruch, Austria to Stalag XVIIB in Gneixendorf, Austria. (Figure 9).
Prior to obtaining the recently acquired information, the above formed the basis for what I discussed in Post 137 and Post 137, Postscript. Since these earlier posts, I’ve obtained: excerpts from two books Brian found discussing Heinz; two “Liberation Questionnaires” alluding to Henry Lowenstein and Henry Goff; dossiers from the ICRC related to both Lowenstein and Goff; reference to Henry Lowenstein in a so-called “Mentioned in Despatches,” which would have been a condition of obtaining certain war decorations; a group photo taken in a German Stalag showing Heinz; and more. These documents provide a better picture of Heinz’s movements during the war and a more nuanced understanding of how his actions fit into broader events going on at the time. Let me systematically review these new findings.
Brian Cooper brought to my attention a book entitled “The Double Dutchman: A story of wartime escape and intrigue” by Francis S. Jones. Heinz is prominently featured in this book. Let me review some of the details.
The story is primarily about a New Zealand soldier, captured like Heinz Löwenstein during the Battle of Greece in April 1941, by the name of Roy Natusch. He was interned in Stalag XVIIIA in Wolfsberg, and like Heinz escaped from a work camp with two other internees, Lance-Bombardier David “Dai” Tom Davies and Joe Walker. The work camp from which they fled was located not far from the Hungarian border in a place called Gaas, Austria. (Figure 10) The author does not specify the exact date of their get away, but I place it in the Fall or Winter of 1943. Following their nighttime escape, the three internees tried to get as far into Hungary as possible; they were trying to avoid being recaptured by the German-influenced Hungarian border squads who would have handed them back to the Germans.
Let me reiterate what I previously mentioned. Following the beginning of WWII, the British and Americans declared war on Hungary, an ostensible ally of Germany and Hitler. However, the declaration of war was not reciprocated by the Hungarian government, and as mentioned above, any escaped Allied prisoners who made their way to Hungary were merely incarcerated but not sent back to the Germans. Clearly, this is what happened to Heinz Löwenstein.
While Roy Natusch was only a Corporal, with the agreement of his two companions, he passed himself off as a Captain knowing that if the three were captured by the Hungarians an officer would be better treated. Eventually, the three escapees were in fact arrested by Hungarian police or military, and temporarily interned in Komárom, Hungary, near the then-Czechoslovakian border. Had they avoided capture and internment by the Hungarians, Roy and his traveling companions had always intended to do a dog-leg through Hungary into then-Yugoslavia (i.e., head east into Hungary, then turn southwards towards Yugoslavia), linking up with Tito’s Partisans and being repatriated with the Allies in Italy. This was not to be their fate, at least not immediately.
As an officer, or at least claiming to be one, Roy quickly came to the attention of the only other escaped Allied officer in Hungary, a real officer, the South African Lieutenant Colonel Charles Telfer Howie hiding in Budapest (i.e., Komárom and Budapest are only about 60 miles apart). Along with a Private by the name of Tom Sanders, Howie had escaped from Stalag VIIIA in Lamsdorf [today: Łambinowice, Poland].
While at Komárom, Roy Natusch was visited by a Colonel Utassy from the Hungarian War Office along with a Foreign Service Officer, presumably to be vetted for possible involvement in a plot to change the course of the war. He eventually made his way to Budapest where he met other members of the Hungarian resistance and was introduced to Lt. Colonel Howie. While Howie could have left Hungary and rejoined the Allies, he consciously decided to remain there. Clandestinely, he was working with the various opposition factions in Hungary to switch them from the Axis to the Allied side. This was a particularly precarious undertaking since Budapest and more generally Hungary had Nazi spies everywhere. Moreover, it was an open secret that as soon as the Soviets got anywhere near Hungary, a day which was quickly approaching, the German troops would invade the country and quickly seize Budapest.
At the time Natusch met with Lt. Colonel Howie, Germany had not yet invaded Hungary, however. Howie dispatched Natusch to the detention camp in Szigetvár at Count Andrassy’s castle estate with specific orders that the detained British POWs there not attempt to escape to Yugoslavia, or they would be court-marshalled after the war. Sargeant Major Norman McLean was ostensibly in charge of the soldiers. As noted above, Heinz Löwenstein was among the twenty or so British soldiers confined there and was considered the “intellectual of the camp”; here is where Roy Natusch first encountered Heinz. With Heinz’s nod of approval, the British soldiers put off their escape attempt, a fateful decision, as it turned out. By the time Natusch and Howie made their request, Heinz, the point of contact because of his fluency in multiple languages, had already contacted a local Hungarian who would have facilitated their escape by accompanying them to the Partisans in Yugoslavia. The distance from Szigetvár to the Yugoslav border was less than 15 miles, although the march to reach Partisan lines once inside Yugoslavia was long and dangerous because the Wehrmacht troops were active in the northern part of the country.
The British representatives who were supposed to negotiate with the Hungarian opposition were to be dropped by parachute on the plains near Szigetvár, and the British soldiers were expected to gather the inexperienced parachutists and bring them to Budapest. Howie had assured the British soldiers that in the event of a sudden German invasion, he would notify them by phone and/or send one of his men to warn them so they could quickly flee to Yugoslavia to join the Partisans.
As it turned out, Germany’s sudden invasion of Hungary took place on the 19th of March 1944, and came from three directions, Yugoslavia, Romania, and Germany. As expected, the Wehrmacht immediately headed for Budapest and the internment camp at Szigetvár where they recaptured all the British soldiers, including Natusch and Löwenstein. The warning the soldiers had been awaiting from Lt. Colonel Howie never arrived because the phone lines were immediately cut throughout the country upon Germany’s invasion, and the man Howie sent to warn the soldiers instead decamped for Romania.
Because of Natusch’s knowledge of “The Mission” (i.e., the Allies plan to try and peel off Hungary from the Axis alliance) and the players involved, he was a wanted man. Under torture, Natusch could have divulged the names of no fewer than eleven co-conspirators. For this reason it was imperative he escape the clutches of the Gestapo. Fortunately, he managed to escape at Szigetvár despite being guarded by seven Wehrmacht soldiers. Following his getaway and subsequent travails, he eventually made his way back to Budapest in the company of another British escapee, and reestablished contact with Lt. Colonel Howie who was in hiding. In Budapest, through contacts he had there, he connected with some Dutch soldiers, including a Lieutenant Eddie van Hootegem. The latter would wind up giving him his identity card, so for a period this was his alias. However, when he and two other Dutch officers (Lieutenant Frank Brackel & Lieutenant Joob Sengor) were arrested in Budapest and taken to Buda prison, together they crafted an elaborate explanation for why the purported Dutch soldier “Eddie” was unable to speak Dutch.
Suspicious of his explanation, the Germans transferred Roy Natusch, now Eddie van Hootegem, along with a contingent of almost a hundred Hungarians, Poles, French, and Jews, and non-descripts, by train from Buda prison. The Wehrmacht intended to take Roy/Eddie to an Oflag, a prisoner of war camp for officers established by the Germans during WWII, in Neubrandenburg, about 120 miles north of Berlin. This presented a major problem for Roy since they would ultimately have discovered he was Natusch, not van Hootegem.
On their way to Neubrandenburg (Figure 11), however, the prisoners were unloaded in Stalag XVIIA [Kaisersteinbruch, Austria]. Roy once again had the good fortune to run into Heinz Löwenstein there, who had by now assumed his own alias, the previously mentioned “Henry Goff.” As a side note, Francis Jones, author of “The Double Dutchman,” incorrectly claims Heinz’s alias was “Henry Lewis.” Regardless, Roy had learned from his time in Szigetvár that Heinz was a master forger, so he asked him to prepare a set of papers so that he could pass as an Italian.
Below is how Francis Jones describes the episode and the results:
“Henry Lowenstein appeared a few hours later and got past the guards without difficulty. ‘Here you are, sir,’ he said. ‘It’s finished. He glanced around nervously. ‘Best hide it. I’m not sure about these guards.’ Natusch put the slim package he’d been given into his breast pocket. The Palestinian was as jumpy as a cat. ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t do anything for your friends [EDITOR’S NOTE: THE AFOREMENTIONED BRACKEL & SENGOR]’ he went on, ‘but there was only enough material for you.’ Pride of craftsmanship calmed some of Henry’s agitation. ‘You’ll find a passport there, properly stamped,’ he announced, ‘a travel warrant, also stamped, and a couple of letters. You’re Mario Brioni, sir. That’s if you want to be Italian. I’d better go now, sir. Good luck.’ He shook hands with Natusch, gave Frank and Joob a half-bow, and left.
The New Zealander passed the little folder to his two friends without a word and stayed on the alert whilst they examined him it. The verdict came quickly. ‘It’s perfect,’ Frank said slowly. His eyes were wide with admiration. ‘This is first-class work.’ Joob Sengor, taking longer over his examination, agreed, and with that, Natusch was really satisfied. Joob was a protégé of the great Bentinck [EDITOR’S NOTE: A DUTCH FORGER], and a connoisseur of forgery. He put the documents back into his pocket and breathed thanks once again to the ever-helpful Henry Lowenstein.”
What the Germans had failed to do in Budapest, namely check his photo and fingerprint files in Berlin, they would certainly have done in the Oflag in Neubrandenburg; obviously, they would quickly have learned his real identity and turned him over to the Gestapo for interrogation. This meant that Natusch couldn’t risk facing new interrogators and had planned to jump off the train en route to the Oflag and change his identity from Eddie van Hootegem to Mario Brioni, who happened to be a fictitious Italian traveling legitimately. Incidentally, Roy had opted for an Italian surname because he spoke passable Italian and thought he could fool most Germans.
Roy’s intention after he jumped from the train was to travel in the opposite direction along the same line from Stettin [today: Szczecin, Poland] towards Hegyeshalom, near the Austrian-Hungarian border. Stettin lay 30 miles east of Neubrandenburg, which made the revised journey feasible. Roy was concerned that if his luck failed some attentive German might check and discover there was no such person as Mario Brioni. If this happened, he knew that he could no longer be Eddie van Hootegem, a Dutchman who didn’t speak Dutch, and certainly not be himself. Henry Lowenstein again came to his rescue and offered him his own identity since he now went by Henry Goff. Roy jumped at the offer, so Lowenstein gave him his identity tag. This was the last interaction between Heinz and Roy documented by Francis Jones.
As fate would have it, when Roy jumped off the train at the stop before Breslau [today: Wrocław, Poland], he was seriously hurt. Knowing he would be recaptured because of his injuries he ditched the identifications for both Mario Brioni and Henry Lowenstein. He was arrested at the train station near Breslau by one of the three guards escorting him to the Dutch Oflag in Neubrandenburg. On the 2nd of August 1944 two guards from there came to collect Roy. Because his Hungarian civil papers were in order, upon his arrival in the Oflag he continued to pass himself off as Eddie van Hootegem. However, eventually he gave up the ghost and admitted to his interrogators that he was Roy Natusch, an escapee from Stalag XVIIIA in Wolfsberg. Fortunately, the Germans didn’t immediately make the connection that he was wanted by the Gestapo; consequently, they sent him back to Stalag XVIIIA where he’d originally escaped from years before. Knowing he was still in danger, he quickly had himself assigned to a work party in a place called Radkersburg near the Yugoslavian border. With help from the Hungarian resistance, he escaped across the border and after a dangerous journey through German lines reached the Partisans. From there he was eventually repatriated in Italy.
I’ve gone into so much detail about Roy Natusch because his story sheds a lot of light on Heinz Löwenstein/Henry Goff.
Another book published in 2016 citing Heinz was co-authored by David “Dai” Tom Davies, the Lance-Bombadier with whom Roy Natusch originally escaped from Stalag XVIIIA, and Ioan Wyn Evans. In the book, entitled “All for Freedom – A true story of escape from the Nazis,” he writes of Heinz during his time in Szigetvár:
[Page 101] “There was an exceptionally interesting character in our midst. A French Jew named Henry Lowenstein. Extremely able, he spoke many languages, but his greatest accomplishment was his ability to forge documents. He could make copies of official documents that would look every bit as authentic as the originals.”
[Page 103} “We needed to utilise Henry Lowensten’s forging skilled to make passports. We went to a photography shop in Szigetvar where two Jewish women very kindly took our pictures, free of charge. Lowenstein then made passports for us. We were given those so that we had ‘official documents’ if we were stopped by the authorities at any time.”
The reference to passports would presumably have been some type of Hungarian identity card rather than what we commonly call a passport. The German occupation of Hungary obviously forestalled their use as all the British escapees in Szigetvár were retaken on the 19th of March 1944. Upon their recapture, Davies and the other internees were sent to Dulag 172 in Zemun, Yugoslavia [German: Zemlin/Semlin] near Belgrade [today: Zemun, Serbia]. (Figure 12)
“We were taken to a place called Zemun. This was a Nazi concentration camp on the outskirts of Belgrade. Without a shadow of a doubt, it was the most awful place I had ever seen. Yes, I’d been held in pretty miserable places before. But they were nothing like this. Everywhere else paled into insignificance compared to Zemun.
It was difficult to comprehend what happened there and what would happen. It is absolutely impossible to describe Zemun to anyone who hasn’t been there, felt it, and smelled it. For me, this was simply hell on earth. The Nazi’s name for Zemun was Semlin, and it was located on the site of the old Belgrade Exhibition Grounds. There were several large buildings there known as pavilions. The Nazis had first taken people there to be incarcerated in 1941. At that time it was a Judenlager, a camp where the Jewish people were imprisoned. Thousands of Jews had been taken there, men, women and children. They weren’t guilty of any crimes, of course. They had simply been taken there because they were Jews, and Hitler hated them. And the horrible truth was that once the Jews arrived at Zenum, there was little chance they would leave alive.
The Nazis had these gas vans, also known as death vans. Cruelly, they would pile about 80 to 100 Jews at a time, including elderly people and young children, into the back of the large vans, and they would expose them to a poisonous gas which would kill them. Can you imagine such a thing? Apparently, 6,300 Jews were killed at Zemun between Marh and May 1942. That was just cold-blooded, inhuman cruelty.
After they had killed almost every single Jew to enter Zemun, the Nazis changed the camp status. From the middle of 1942 onwards it became an Anhaltelager, a camp where political prisoners were held. These were mostly Partisans from Yugoslavia, who now supported the Allies in the war. In truth, these people weren’t politically active. They were just ordinary Serbians from different parts of Yugoslavia. Many of them had just helped Partisan soldiers by offering them food or giving them shelter overnight, whilst several of them were just families and old people who happened to live in villages where there was support for the Partisans. They weren’t guilty of any real crimes.
By the time that we reached Zemun in March 1944 there were people of all ages and backgrounds there, many of them women and children. There were some Jewish people, but not many.
In the block where we were held, there wasn’t even a roof over our heads. To all interests and purposes, we were outdoors, exposed to the elements. In terms of hygiene and sanitation it was awful. I can’t remember seeing a single toilet there. It was absolutely disgusting. The stench was unlike anything I’d come across before – a potent mixture of the worst odours of life mixed with the unmistakable, lingering aroma of death.
As you can imagine, there was little food, and what we were given was incredibly bad. I remember a very weak cabbage soup, which looked like dirty water and tasted even worse. There was the odd scrap of stale bread, and tiny amounts of water. But there was nothing that was remotely nourishing. Nothing. People were starving there. Every single day there were several deaths. People were just dying on their feet.
There were scenes of unfathomable cruelty. I remember one day seeing a woman with a baby queuing for some food and holding a small bowl. When she got to the front, she was given a few drops of that horrible cabbage soup. Starving, she turned to the officer, and asked if she could have some more. But, instead of giving the young mother an extra spoonful, the officer knocked the bowl out of her hand and laughed in her face. Those of us waiting behind the woman were incensed by what we saw, and it was only the presence of heavily armed guards that prevented a riot. The sad truth was, though, that no one could really challenge these guards. Such bravery would have been folly: we would probably have been shot dead there and then. The only way we could help the young mother was by offering her some of the contents of our own meagre bowls. The poor woman didn’t get much, but it was better than nothing, and it was some kind of moral support.
It was little wonder that many lost their heads in such an atmosphere. Some poor desperate souls would run at the large wire fences and try to clamber over. Such attempts were futile, however. As they struggled to gain footholds on the fence, they were unceremoniously shot in the back. Very often the guards would leave their bodies there to decay, a reminder and warning to others who harboured similar thoughts of escape. The message was clear and stark. There was no way out.
We were kept in the block with no roof for several days, before a dozen or so of us were moved to another area of the camp. It was still unpleasant.”
While Zemun is today located in Serbia, according to Dai Davies the camp guards were Croatians. During an air raid that took place on the 16-17 April 1944, Davies escaped with three other internees. Like Ray Natusch, all were eventually repatriated to Italy via southern Yugoslavia.
Let me return briefly to the puzzling question of when Heinz Löwenstein possibly adopted the name Henry Goff. Brian Cooper believes this took place after Heinz arrived in Dulag 172. As the war went on, Brian knows from other cases that the German paperwork system broke down presenting Heinz with an opportunity to take on an alias. One must also remember that Heinz was a master forger, and there’s no reason to believe he wouldn’t have created a set of papers for himself bearing the Henry Goff name.
We know from the Visit Report the ICRC made to Szigetvár that Heinz was known to Hungarian authorities as Henry Lowenstein. We also know that the Germans headed straight to Szigetvár on the 19th of March 1944 after they invaded Hungary. No doubt, the Germans would have been told by the Hungarians the names of the POWs being detained there, so Heinz was no doubt still known as Lowenstein then. I also know from a prisoner card I obtained from the ICRC (see discussion below) that on the 24th of March 1944 he was transferred from Szigetvár under the name of Henry Lowenstein.
Aware of the potential dangers of being returned to German “care,” he probably decided to become Henry Goff if the opportunity arose. He would have let his fellow detainees know his alias. I assume he would have gotten rid of his German POW dog tag with his actual name and POW number from Lamsdorf to make it harder to trace him in the German war records. However, Francis Jones tells us on pages 151-52 that Lowenstein gave his Heinz Löwenstein dog tag to Ray Natusch when they briefly met again in Stalag XVIIA in Kaisersteinbruch, Austria after their escape and recapture. Perhaps Heinz was able to retain and hide his original dog tag? It seems Heinz only got his new POW number upon his arrival at Stalag XVIIIA (Wolfsberg) from Dulag 172 when he was telling the Germans that he was Henry Goff and before he was transferred to Stalag XVIIA.
Support for the notion that Henry Lowenstein became Henry Goff at Dulag 172 comes from a “Liberation Questionnaire” completed after the war by a Robert Vivian Sunley, one of the British POWs at Szigetvár. He writes:
“After removal from Hungary we were taken to Dulag 172 Belgrade and imprisoned. Following an American Bombing Raid I attempted an escape in the company of Pte Heinrich Lowenstein, a Palestinian of the Signal Corps then under the name of Henry Goff. We were spotted by the guard and fired upon, narrowly escaping death, and returned to closed imprisonment.”
Corporal Joseph Crolla was interned with Heinz in Szigetvár. Following the war, he also completed a “Liberation Questionnaire,” which corroborates some of the detailed information provided above. I quote:
“I went back and collected the other three who we had left to watch our kit. We all filed into the wagon (which was full of salt) except Hall who climbed in through the window after he had put a new seal on the door of the wagon. We were ten (10) days inside the wagon which was pretty tough owing to water difficulties, but between Hall and I in turns we got out of the wagon and found water. On the 4th of December 1942 we arrived at our destination a place called Hegyeshalom (on the Hungarian border) so we got out of the wagon and started walking further into Hungary. We must have walked twenty to thirty miles until we came to a barn where we bedded down for the night. The next morning we were rudely awakened by the farmer who was quite annoyed and scared to find five men sleeping in his hay but we bluffed him for a while by saying we were German soldiers who had wandered over the border while on maneuvers and were trying to find our way back again to Austria but had got lost. He invited us into his house for some breakfast, and at the same time sent his wife for the police (Gendarmes) who after we had a wash and something to eat arrived and took us away to a place called KOMOROM where we got treated not too badly, on Xmas day we were taken to Siklos Vaar, Siklos where we stayed until a Graf Andrassy, Szigetvar Hungary took us to his estate and gave us our freedom. We lived with this Graf until the Germans occupied Hungary on the 19th of March 1944, during this time there arrived two officers (at different times) first to come was a Colonel Howie (South African captured at Tobruck) and secondly a Captain Natusch (British, captured at Tunis). [EDITOR’S NOTE: ACCORDING TO FRANCIS JONES, ROY NATUSCH WAS CAPTURED IN KALAMATA, GREECE IN APRIL 1941 (p. 165)] Colonel Howie gave an order that anyone attempting to escape would find themselves on a Court Martial when returning to England. He also promised us that he would at least give us twenty (24) four hours warning if the Germans invaded Hungary so we could get away to Yugoslavia to join the Partisans as he had arranged everything for us, but without any warning the Germans walked into Hungary at 5:30 in the morning and recaptured all of us except Colonel Howie who was in Budapest at the time. Captain Natusch escaped that night although he had an escort of 7 Germans with Tommy guns, the Germans didn’t waste much time with the rest of us for before we knew what was happening we were on our way to a Dulag at Semmlin just across the River Sava from Belgrade, we had not a chance to get away as were heavily guarded until Easter Sunday (April 27 1944) when the Americans bombed our camp killing about 1500 prisoners of war (Italians and Serbs) during the raid that night five of us managed to get away (George Ratcliffe, Chestshires, John McAteer A.& S.H., John Martin Australian, Harry Grant Australian, and myself) but after two days of walking through bog country we walked into an Anti-Aircraft post and were recaptured, the Germans took us back to our camp the next day after a bit of trouble as the Croat people wanted to hang us as they thought we were American airmen, so after a bit of stone throwing and spitting we managed to get clear of the area, which was bombed to the ground. When we got back to the camp about midday there was another air raid on so for punishment, we were not allowed to go into the trenches but had to stand up out in the open with guards in the trenches round about us with orders to shoot to kill if any of us tried to make a break, they also took our boots and trousers from us. That same night McAteer and I got away again but were caught the very next morning by a German patrol and taken back to camp which was a blazing inferno, and the huts which were not on fire we soon put a match to them. A few days later all of us (about 12 British and 8 or ten American airmen) were put into a wagon (after removing our boots and trousers) and taken to Stalag 17A. Kaisersteinbruch Austria where we all got a severe interrogation then locked up together in a shed away from the other British P.O.W’s During our stay at the Stalag we met Brigadier Davies and a Colonel or Captain Verral with ten or eleven other officers (British and American) one of them had his legs broken and was refused medical aid. These officers told us they were going to Berlin for interrogation.”
Knowing the ICRC had visited Camp Siklós (Szigetvár) in its capacity as a Protecting Power, Brian suggested I ask them about any documentary materials they might have in their archives on Heinz Löwenstein/Henry Goff. Because of the large number of archival searches they are asked to do, one can only submit applications by email twice a year on specific dates. I applied in September 2023, and the ICRC responded in December with information on BOTH Heinz and Henry. I attach the summaries sent by the ICRC (Figures 13-14) and will highlight a few new things I learned.
The ICRC staffer handling my application told me that in her 20 years of working there, she’d never come across a case like the one involving my father’s first cousin, and the Houdini act he orchestrated in adopting an alias and thus having two dossiers on file with the ICRC. Because the ICRC contact took a personal interest in my request, she even discovered materials that had been misfiled citing Heinz.
The documents include a letter dated the 19th of June 1941 (Figure 15), written by the Greek Red Cross to the ICRC in Geneva which lists British militiamen who are POWs in Greece and who are interned in Goudi (Athens) concentration camp. The list includes “H. Loewenstein,” says he’s in good health, and gives the name of his wife living in Jerusalem, Palestine as the person to be notified of his status.
One prisoner card shows the precise date that Henry Lowenstein, as his name was then written, was interned in Camp Siklós, the 24th of October 1943. (Figure 16) A different prisoner card dated the 8th of December 1943 seems to suggest he was transferred to the castle estate of Count Andrassy in Szigetvár on the 16th of November 1943. (Figure 17) An attached document of British POWs on the estate of Count Andrassy at that time lists 16 individuals, including Henry Loewenstein, with an extra “e.” (Figure 18)
Yet another prisoner card shows Henry was transferred from Szigetvár on the 24th of March 1944, five days after the Germans invaded Hungary. (Figure 19) A list of POWs from that exact date includes 24 names (Figure 20), including “Captain” Roy Natusch, who we know escaped during the transfer. We also know from Dai Davies’ book that the British POWs were transferred from Szigetvár to Dulag 172 outside Belgrade, Yugoslavia; the distance between these places is approximately 225 miles.
The ICRC accompanied by a representative from the Hungarian Red Cross visited Szigetvár on the 24th of January 1944, and submitted a report written in French on the conditions there, which were described as excellent. Some interesting details can be gleaned from this report. There were no Hungarian guards, only two soldiers who were administrative liaisons to Camp Siklós. Prisoners were free to wander close by, but they needed special authorization to roam more widely. The POWs were paid 5 Pengös a day with 2 Pengös a day deducted for food. Roy Natusch is mentioned in this report, stating that he had excellent lodgings in the Count’s manor. The report paints a unique picture of how POWs were humanely treated by Count Andrassy.
The ICRC sent a prisoner card (Figure 21) for Henry Goff dated the 29th of June 1944 indicating his transfer from Stalag XVIIA (Kaisersteinbruch, Austria) to Stalag XVIIB (Gneixendorf, Austria). Trivially, this tells us that Henry’s last encounter with Roy Natusch, which took place upon Roy’s transfer from Budapest to Neubrandenburg with a layover in Stalag XVIIA, had to have occurred before the end of June 1944.
Brian Cooper is a real wizard at unearthing and sleuthing out military documents and first-hand accounts from various archives, books, etc. One day he sent me a picture (Figure 22) he came across on Facebook, of all places, captioned as follows: “The Israeli Jewish soldiers of the UK Pioneers Corps in a photo taken in Lamsdorf (unknown date between 1941 and 1944).” He suggested I check each of the faces to see if Heinz might be among them. Astonishingly he is! He is the individual seated in the front row on the far left. Even though he was only between 36 and 39 years of age at the time, clearly internment made him look much older.
If this picture was indeed from Lamsdorf, I can narrow the period when it was taken to between the 28th of July 1941, when Heinz was transferred from Stalag XVIIIA (Wolfsberg, Austria) to Stalag VIIIB (Lamsdorf) and his final escape from Lamsdorf in Fall or Winter of 1943. Following his recapture in Szigetvár, Hungary, and his return to Austria in 1944 via Dulag 172 (Zemun, Yugoslavia) to Stalag XVIIA (Kaisersteinbruck, Austria) and Stalag XVIIB (Gneixendorf, Austria), he was never returned to Lamsdorf, so the picture was not taken in 1944.
Another item of interest Brian found for Henry Lowenstein was a reference to him in a so-called “mentioned in despatches,” under the dossier WO 373/103/370. (Figure 23)
The man who likely recommended this award for Heinz was Sergeant Major Norman McLean, ostensibly the senior military POW at Szigetvár prior to “Captain” Roy Natusch’s arrival. From McLean’s account, we can confirm that Heinz Löwenstein escaped from captivity four times, not including his short-lived escape from Dulag 172. Given his skill as a forger, Brian and I both wonder why he was allowed to escape Lamsdorf? One would think the camp leadership would have valued him more for his skills forging documents than risking his life on the lam, particularly as a Jew.
With this observation, I conclude this very lengthy and involved post. I’m not optimistic I’ll learn much more about Heinz Löwenstein’s daring exploits during the war. However, there’s always a chance of uncovering additional accounts from some of Heinz’s fellow internees. Another possibility I’m looking into is trying to determine whether the universal legatee in Israel involved in my claim with the French Ministry of Culture, who is one of the heirs to Fedor Löwenstein’s estate via Heinz, may have inherited a diary, documents, or photos from him. Hope springs eternal.
REFERENCES
Davies, D.T.A. & Ioan Wyn Evans. All for Freedom: A True Story of Escape from the Nazis. Gomer Press, 2016.
Jones, Francis S. The Double Dutchman: A story of wartime escape and intrigue. The Dunmore Press Limited, Palmerston North, New Zealand, 1977.
Rofe, Cyril. Against the Wind. 1st ed., Hodder & Stoughton, 1956.
Note: A stash of 60 letters written between January 1940 and June 1946 by my father’s first cousin Fedor Löwenstein to Marcelle Rivier, an accomplished artist and erstwhile girlfriend, was donated to Paris’ Institut national d’histoire de l’art (INHA). These letters form the basis of a two-part article written by Jérôme Delatour from INHA about the artist’s life during this period and the depressive climate of the Nazi Occupation. I synopsize some of M. Delatour’s discussions which augment what I’ve previously written about Fedor.
With so much of today’s interpersonal communications taking place via email, texts, social media, etc., I often consider that future genealogists and historians may not have written correspondence available to them to round out their understanding of people they study, whether they be ancestors or not. Absent contemporary letters, unless diaries are found, it may be difficult for researchers to develop a complete picture of their subjects nor the ordeals they confronted. Similarly, with so many of today’s pictures being stored in the cloud, it is fair to wonder how many of these images will be printed and survive. With this in mind, any time I gain access to a cache of letters and pictures left behind by one of my relatives, particularly when they were renowned, it is cause for celebration.
Readers are reminded that the previous two posts, Posts 160 and 161, largely dealt with Fedor Löwenstein.
The National Institute for Art History (INHA) was created in 2001 for the purpose of consolidating and promoting research in art history and heritage studies. Its main mission is the advancement of scholarly research and international cooperation in the field. It sets up research and educational programs as well as activities for the dissemination of knowledge that serve both art historians and the general public.
With its library, the INHA also provides a unique collection of resources and documentation in this field. The Institute is run jointly by the French Ministry of Higher Education and Research and the French Ministry of Culture.
The letters that were the source of the two-part article written by Jérôme Delatour were donated to the INHA in January 2016 by Danièlle and Bernard Sapet, owners of the Sapet Gallery in Valence, France. The collection consists of sixty letters signed by Fedor Löwenstein, 58 of them addressed to Marcelle Rivier and two to unknown recipients. The Sapets came into possession of these letters because of their association with Marcelle Rivier (1906-1986) when they assisted her in the final years of her life when she lived in Mirmande in the Drôme department of southeastern France. (Figure 3) Today the Sapets are the custodians of her house in Mirmande and of the artist’s archives.
Fedor Löwenstein’s letters to Marcelle Rivier provide details on some of the events discussed in earlier posts. Let me briefly review Fedor and Marcelle’s lives, then provide relevant background drawn from the letters.
Fedor Löwenstein was born in Munich in 1901 but was of Czechoslovakian extraction. He was part of the vast movement of Eastern European artists who made their way to Paris attracted by the cultural influence of the city. Before immigrating to France in 1923, Löwenstein had studied at the School of Decorative Arts in Berlin, then at the Academy of Fine Arts in Dresden.
The Eastern European artists contributed to the brilliance of the so-called École de Paris, the “School of Paris”; in reality, this name does not refer to any school that really existed, but rather to the movement 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.
In Paris he mixed with and became a student of the painter André Lhote (1885-1962) from Bordeaux. He exhibited at the Salon des Surindépendants before joining the “Groupe des Surindépendants” in 1936. The Salon and the Artistic Association of the Sur-Independents were founded in the autumn of 1928 by a few artists who no longer wanted an admission jury and questioned the restrictions imposed by the new regulations of the Salon des Indépendants promulgated in 1924.
Löwenstein’s early works were marked by the influence of cubism, whose main representatives worked in Paris, although his subsequent productions evolved towards abstraction (Figure 4), probably under the influence of André Lhote. In 1938, he painted “La Chute” (The Fall) (Figure 5), inspired by the signing of the Munich Agreement that dismantled then-Czechoslovakia that had been created in 1918. The composition and symbolism in the work are reminiscent of the convulsed and screaming silhouettes of Picasso’s Guernica, a lofty comparison.
Marcelle Rivier, Fedor’s future girlfriend, was French though she grew up in Argentina; she was characterized as a woman of “fiery temperament.” She was a saleswoman in an art gallery in Buenos Aires in 1924, a model from 1930 to 1934, a music-hall dancer in 1935, but above all a painter. (Figure 6) In the 1930s, she exhibited at the Salon d’Automne and the Salon des Tuileries. During the Occupation, she was a member of the Resistance, often exhibiting great carelessness and recklessness, according to Jérôme Delatour.
Marcelle Rivier arrived in Paris in 1928 and studied at the Léger and Julian academies. Like Löwenstein, she was a student of André Lhote and enrolled in his course. During the summer, he took his students to Mirmande in the Drôme, where the painter had settled in 1926.
In 1936, Marcelle Rivier married the well-respected journalist Ferdinand Auberjonois (1910-2004), though the marriage was short-lived. After a short stay in New York, she returned to Paris in 1938 and it was then that she met Löwenstein. At the time, Fedor was still involved with Doris Halphen, whom I introduced to readers in Post 161. However, by November 1939, Marcelle and Fedor were romantically involved, a tumultuous affair that lasted until October-November 1943. (Figure 7)
Let me now turn to the contents of some of Fedor Löwenstein’s letters
In a letter addressed to Marcelle Rivier dated the 11th of May 1940, Fedor Löwenstein wrote to her about the 25 paintings that are the subject of my restitution and repatriation claim against the French Ministry of Culture. In the spring of 1940, when he had to flee Paris as quickly as possible in the face of the advancing German army, Fedor nonetheless took the time to package and ship the 25 works of art for an exhibition to be held at the Nierendorf Gallery in New York. He wrote: “It is only on Monday that I will know if my paintings are leaving, or if I should abandon this dream. I had a bad feeling.” Löwenstein was right. As I’ve told readers in previous posts, his crates were seized on December 5, 1940, at the port of Bordeaux, and shipped to the Jeu des Paume in Paris, where most were torn to shreds with knives, then burned during the month of July 1943
Fedor Löwenstein was apparently back in Paris before the Nazis entered the city on the 14th of June 1940 but left the capital at the last minute for Mirmande.
In April 1941, Fedor left Mirmande to go to Nice to see his mother and sister who lived there, and in the vague hope of embarking for Mexico. In a scene that must have been oft repeated across Europe wherever Jews seeking to escape the Nazis waited for travel visas, Löwenstein wrote on the 24th of April 1941, of the gloomy and depressive atmosphere:
“On the Promenade des Anglais, where the spinach-green uniforms of German and Italian officers clash with the monotonous-azure blue, Jews from all over the world await the messiah in the form of an affidavit. The corpses are well dressed, they have only been able to save this and 20 marks and there are not 36 ways to escape the debacle. From time to time I meet an old acquaintance, thrown from the bottom of the sea by the tidal wave, we shake hands, and we are hardly surprised to see each other here – and besides, what is the point – and where? Get the hell out of here! But Lena, who was here for a few days (Lena is my Polish friend who lives in Marseille) wired [sic] to Hollywood so that [I] could go to Mexico. I will let myself be taken away, but I do not ‘feel’ my departure. . .”
In a letter from the 30th of April 1940, he writes:
“It is curious, all the same, this atmosphere of the morning coffee, this idleness in front of a piece of white paper and more umbrellas in front of the window of the café in a minute than all year on the square of the Champs de Mars in Mirmande. It smells of dampness, damp clothes, the smell of cooking, cat pee, and the national coffee. Apart from that, I have never been able to appreciate this ‘pearl of the Mediterranean’”
The above characterizations sounds very Kafkaesque.
Seemingly having been unable to obtain the affidavit necessary to immigrate to Mexico, and having nothing more to do in Nice, Löwenstein resolved to meet Marcelle Rivier in Mirmande in late 1941 and keep a low profile. Hence the interruption in letters between December 23, 1941, and June 4, 1943. However, the Nazi invasion on the 11th of November 1942, of the previously unoccupied zone of France, the southern part of the country where the Vichy regime operated, forced Fedor further into hiding. On a full moon night in February 1943, Marcelle Rivier evacuated him from Mirmande, disguised as a peasant woman. He went to Cliousclat where he was taken in by Mena Loopuyt (1902-1991), a Dutch painter, then hidden in the Abbey of Aiguebelle.
Löwenstein complained bitterly about the soul-sucking (my words) work that was required of him for protection by the monks. He was expected to contribute to the beautification of the monastery. He writes in a letter dated the 30th of September 1943:
“The work that has been stuck with me this time is so disgusting that I wonder how I will do it, having accepted the fruit jellies as an advance. Imagine tile plates on which, in relief, a nymph is picking flowers. All of this is the purest new style, but so disgusting as a ‘spirit’ and as a material that one must, I think, beat the sole throughout South America to find one’s equal. And I must color them. Yesterday I told Father A[bbé] that if I asked them to sing songs from the guardroom at the basilica, it would have the same effect on them as it would on me to ‘paint’ it.”
In what Jérôme Delatour characterizes as a “source of much pain and self-sacrifice,” Löwenstein was commissioned to paint the portrait of the abbot. The abbot was not at all pleased with the result, perhaps upset by the theft of 53 bottles of liquor from the abbey, exclaiming: “this is not my skin, not my eyes, I’m not so fat, what is this bosse (bump) on my head!” (30th of September 1943) Admittedly, the portrait of the abbot is not very flattering. (Figure 8)
Löwenstein’s letters of love and war reflect a self-awareness that as a Jew and a Czechoslovakian he was “doubly undesirable in the new Europe of the early 1940s.” On May 27, 1940, he wrote, “virtually all Czechoslovakia have been in a concentration camp with one foot. But the other, my good leg, is still at large. . .this morning at the consulate we were told we must provide letters written by Frenchmen, vouching for our entire loyalty to France.”
Löwenstein’s legitimate concerns were affirmed with the enactment by the Vichy regime of “The Law of 4 October 1940 regarding foreign nationals of the Jewish race,” which authorized and organized the internment of foreign Jews and marked the beginning of the policy of collaboration of the Vichy regime with Nazi Germany’s plans for the extermination of the Jews of Europe.
All Löwenstein’s letters mention his health problems: “slight itching, general weakness, sweating, without making me feel ‘really ill’’’ (8 January 1944), which spoke to the “enemy within.” Realizing he needed to be seen by a specialist, using the alias “Lauriston,” he traveled to Paris in November 1943. A blood test confirmed he was suffering from Hodgkin lymphoma, a blood cancer that primarily affects the lymphatic system and that was incurable at the time.
His nighttime description of occupied Paris is haunting:
“Going out in Paris at night is a bit tricky, especially when it’s raining like last night. Imagine when you get out of the subway, that you are immersed in black ink, indelible and absolute. Little by little, you can see around you other shadows that have come out of hell and are waiting like you for the moment when they ‘see’. . .Finally, the shadows, in groups, leave, feel the void, pierce the darkness, fall, rise, collide and arrive as if by a miracle, just like ants underground by instinct, in front of the theatre.” (26 November 1943)
Löwenstein spent the whole of 1944 in Paris, miraculously unmolested by the Nazis. His letters to Marcelle Rivier were rare at the time, as the couple had broken up in the autumn of 1943, although it’s possible that any letters from this period have disappeared. According to Jérôme Delatour, apart from a greeting card at the end of the year, there were no letters in 1945, and only two in 1946.
As Jérôme Delatour suggests, in his letters Fedor Löwenstein passionately captured a sense of the period’s depressive climate, the moral dissolution that accompanied the fall of France following the country’s rapid capitulation to Germany, and the time of the Occupation, dominated by material concerns and the price of and access to food. Even though the dangers were very real, Fedor’s letters seem almost to have distilled them to down-to-earth questions: “The valley is just a box full of dirty cotton. . .Everything froze and for the pockets of the people of Mirmande, a cauliflower at 4.50 is too expensive. We live on pasta, noodles and macaroni. . .For a vegetarian of my talent, it’s almost starvation. Already.” (Mirmande, 27 March 1940) Expectedly, rationing also affected the availability of art supplies.
Given his deteriorating condition and the Nazis changing fortunes in 1944-1945, following his departure from Paris, Fedor likely returned to Nice to spend his remaining days with his mother and sister. (Figure 9) The last words in his last letter to Marcelle Rivier were “Do you continue to paint?” (Nice, 21 June 1946) In this letter he also announced that he would be having a major exhibition in Cannes to coincide with the film festival there in September. Löwenstein was hospitalized on August 4, 1946, and died soon thereafter. (Figure 10) The first Cannes Film Festival opened on September 20th. Marcelle Rivier continued to paint until her death in 1986.
Note: In this post, I briefly consider the philosophical question whether the chance discovery of family photographs of my father’s first cousin Fedor Löwenstein found in a Paris flea market was fated or coincidental. The circumstances under which the event occurred was so improbable that a small part of me wonders if it was not predestined.
In several earlier posts, I’ve mentioned my friend Ms. Madeleine Isenberg (Figure 1) who volunteers at the Jewish Genealogical Society of Los Angeles assisting members doing ancestral research. Madeleine once wrote an article for a periodical entitled “Avotaynu” detailing one of her research endeavors. She quoted her English uncle who claimed there is no such thing as coincidence, it’s all “beshert,” a Hebrew word for predestination or fate. My father Dr. Otto Bruck would have agreed with him.
While I claim no adherence to this notion, I’ve come across several instances while doing ancestral research that make me think there may be an element of fate at work. Or, could it be as Branch Rickey, the brainy former General Manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers, once said that “Luck is the residue of design?” That’s to say, by planning and knowing where opportunities lurk, perhaps one is more apt to find oneself in a place where a coincidental find may be made. I don’t pretend to know the answer.
Buried in Post 21, published in February 2018, I recounted the story of a similar coincidental or fated event related to my family. Before moving to the subject of this post, I’ll review that earlier incident as it may have been overlooked by readers. Interestingly, it involves two elements of chance.
I estimate my uncle Dr. Franz Müller and aunt Susanne Müller, née Bruck, arrived in Florence, Italy in the early part of 1936, following their emigration from Germany to escape Nazi authoritarianism. Thanks to a friend my uncle knew in the Tuscan hill town of Fiesole, above Florence [Italian: Firenze] by the name of Dr. Gino Frascani, he and my aunt leased one of his villas, the Villa Primavera. (Figure 2) Eventually, in collaboration with an Austrian Jewish woman, Ms. Lucia von Jacobi (Figure 3), who’d also emigrated from Austria via Germany, my aunt Susanne and Lucia turned the Villa Primavera into a bed-and-breakfast. In Post 35, I discussed some of the guests who stayed there between 1937 and 1938 and their eventual fates.
In connection with my ancestral research, my wife Ann and I visited Fiesole and Florence in 2014, 2015, and 2016. Prior to our initial visit in 2014, I contacted the then-town archivist, Ms. Lucia Nadetti (Figure 4), at the “Archivio Storico Comunale,” the “Municipal Historic Archive,” and arranged to review pertinent documents. I’ve detailed the results of those archival investigations in Post 21, so refer readers to that post.
Curious whether my uncle and aunt had purchased the Villa Primavera when they arrived in Fiesole, Ms. Nadetti directed us to the “Conservatoria Dei Registri Immobiliari” in nearby Firenze (Florence) to check ownership records. Here, we learned the descendants of the former obstetrician/gynecologist Dr. Gino Frascani currently own two houses along Via Del Salviatino, the street where the Villa Primavera is located. However, the family no longer owns the villa though my uncle never purchased it.
The visit to the “Conservatoria,” however, resulted in the first of the two chance events mentioned above. In 2014, my wife and I were staying at a bed-and-breakfast on the outskirts of Fiesole, but rather than deal with Florence’s traffic to get to the Conservatoria, we took the bus. While trying to ascertain where to catch the return bus at the end of the day, an English-speaking Italian woman, Ms. Giuditta Melli (Figure 5), noticed our confusion and confirmed we were in the right place. Giuditta was headed on the same bus, so we exchanged pleasantries on the ride, and she invited us to visit the ceramic shop near the Conservatoria where she teaches. Two days later we dropped by and mentioned our reason for visiting Fiesole. Giuditta was literally moved to tears because she’d recently learned that her great-uncle was Jewish and had been deported to Buchenwald from Firenze by the Italian Fascists and murdered there; the house where Giuditta currently lives was once owned by this great-uncle. It should be noted that Giuditta is very familiar with the Villa Primavera as it’s located a stone’s throw from her home. Regardless, as we prepared to leave, we exchanged emails and promised to stay in touch. This has turned into an exceptionally warm and productive friendship, one that led to the discovery of the second chance event.
Following our visit to Fiesole in 2015, my wife and I had not anticipated returning in 2016. However, Giuditta made a surprising discovery while doing a casual online search of Lucia von Jacobi, the Austrian lady with whom my aunt ran the Pension Villa Primavera. As a result our plans changed. She learned of a professor, Dr. Irene Below (Figure 6), from Werther, Germany, who’d written a full-length book about Ms. Jacobi. Giuditta immediately contacted her, explained her interest in Lucia, told her of my aunt and uncle, and mentioned she was in touch and assisting me. Dr. Below was surprised to learn of Giuditta’s interest in people she’d studied and knew about, including my aunt and uncle. Consequently, Giuditta invited Irene and my wife and me for a get-together at her home in 2016.
Dr. Below explained how she came to write a book about Lucia von Jacobi. She arrived in Firenze in 1964 as a student intending to write about the history of art. While researching this topic, however, she happened upon magazines and diaries of an unknown person who turned out to be Ms. von Jacobi, a woman with very famous friends (e.g., Heinrich Mann and Thomas Mann, Gustaf Gründgens, etc.), and decided instead to write about her. Then, as fate would have it, in 1966, Dr. Below walked into an antiquarian shop in Firenze (Figure 7) and discovered the bulk of Ms. Jacobi’s personal papers, which she soon purchased with her parents’ financial assistance. For those unaware of events in Firenze in 1966, great floods along the Arno in November resulted in countless treasures being swept away and destroyed; if not for Dr. Below’s fortuitous discovery, the same would likely have happened to Ms. Jacobi’s papers.
Readers may rightly wonder how or why Lucia’s personal papers wound up in an antiquarian shop in Florence. A little bit of historical context is necessary to explain how this likely happened. In May 1938, Hitler paid his second visit to Italy since becoming Chancellor of Germany in 1933 and the first since the two countries signed the Axis agreement in 1936. Over the course of seven days, Hitler and his extensive entourage were treated to a massive display of fascist spectacle in three cities: Rome, Naples and Florence. Hitler’s tour of Florence took place on May 9, 1938.
Soon after on July 14, 1938, Mussolini embraced the “Manifesto of the Racial Scientists.” This Manifesto declared the Italian civilization to be of Aryan origin and claimed the existence of a “pure” Italian race to which Jews did not belong. Between September 2, 1938, and November 17, 1938, Italy enacted a series of racial laws, including one forbidding foreign Jews from settling in Italy. Ms. Jacobi had just returned to Firenze from Palestine, but after passage of the racial laws, she escaped in October 1938 to Switzerland, forced to leave all her possessions behind. As a related aside, this corresponds with the same time that my aunt and uncle emigrated from Italy to France. Dr. Below surmises that Lucia’s personal papers remained in the Villa Primavera until Dr. Frascani’s descendants sold the house, after which they were sold to an antique dealer.
As to belongings among Lucia’s personal papers that relate to my aunt and uncle, there were several relevant items. Dr. Below discovered a photograph of Ms. Jacobi with my Uncle Franz seated on the same chairs as a photo I possess showing my aunt and uncle. (Figures 8-9) Another picture shows my aunt and uncle in their Sunday best. (Figure 10) Irene also found a card written by my Aunt Susanne to Lucia on July 31, 1938, from Champoluc in the Aosta Valley of Italy, where my aunt and uncle had gone on vacation. Most interesting is the surviving second page of a letter my Aunt Susanne wrote to Lucia when Lucia traveled to Palestine for three months in the latter half of 1938.
Thus, a chance encounter with an Italian lady Giuditta Melli on the streets of Florence in 2014 led to learning about Dr. Below who in 1966 walked into an antiquarian shop in Florence where she happened upon Lucia von Jacobi’s personal papers, the Austrian lady with whom my Aunt Susanne co-managed the Pension Villa Primavera in Fiesole between 1936 and 1938. Dr. Below then wrote a book about Lucia von Jacobi that my dear friend Giuditta stumbled upon. Included in this stash of papers are several items related to my family. Is this coincidence or predestination? I’ll let readers decide.
This brings me to a discussion of another more recent chance discovery. This involves a cache of photographs portraying my father’s first cousin, Fedor Löwenstein (1901-1946), that were found in a Paris flea market by a man named Nicolas Neumann (Figure 11) from Somogy Éditions d’Art; this is a French art book publishing house founded in 1937. Readers will recall that Fedor Löwenstein is my father’s first cousin who was most recently discussed in Post 160 and is the subject of my restitution and repatriation claim involving the French Ministry of Culture. Readers are invited to peruse my earlier post. However, let me review a few salient facts.
As mentioned in Post 160, I originally filed my claim for restitution and repatriation of Fedor Löwenstein’s artworks in October 2014. This was filed with the French Ministry of Culture’s (Premier Ministre) Commission pour la restitution des biens et l’indemnisation des victims de spoliations antisemites (CIVS), Commission for the restitution of property and compensation for victims of anti-Semitic spoliation. In May 2015 I traveled to Paris to discuss my claim with the CIVS and met staff members Mme. Muriel de Bastier and her intern Mlle. Eleonore Claret. (Figure 12)
Several months later, Eleonore sent me photos of Fedor Löwenstein (Figure 13) from an exhibit on spoliated art that took place at the Centre national d’art et de culture Georges-Pompidou (“National Georges Pompidou Centre of Art and Culture”) in 2015. The origin of these photos was not explained so I sent an email to the Centre Pompidou requesting copies of the images and an explanation as to their source; I never heard back from them. I eventually ascertained the photos of Fedor Löwenstein that had been part of the 2015 museum exhibit at the Centre Pompidou originated from Nicolas Neumann’s find at the Paris flea market.
Mr. Neumann determined the documents he’d found probably belonged to Fedor’s onetime girlfriend, Doris Halphen. (Figure 14) Mr. Neumann loaned the documents and photos he had purchased for the 2015 exhibit to the Centre Pompidou. Nicolas is friends with the retired Director of the Kandinsky Library, M. Didier Schulmann, who convinced him to donate the materials in February 2017 to the Kandinsky Library which is part of the Centre Pompidou.
The eclectic body of documentation is referred to as the “Corposano Archive Fund-Doris Halphen.” The archival collection comprises three significant groups. The first, the most substantial, is composed of documentation from the Corposano dance studio; the second is about Fedor Löwenstein; and the last is made up of biographical photographs and family albums.
The Kandinsky Library provides the following description about Doris Halphen, the Studio Corposano, and Fedor Löwenstein:
“Doris Halphen was born in Prague and co-founded the Corposano studio with her Finnish collaborator Marianne Pontan in 1932 in Paris. They taught a very innovative dance method at the time: the Hallerau-Laxenberg method. (Figures 15-18) The documents in the collection, mostly photographs, are both portraits of dancers in the studio and advertising items. Press articles and dance magazines provide an overview of the context of dance in the 1930s and 1940s and an understanding of the Hallerau-Laxenberg method and its principles.
A second part of the collection consists of documentation on Fedor Löwenstein (1901-1946). Born in Munich on April 13, 1901, he studied at the School of Decorative Arts in Berlin, then at the Academy of Fine Arts in Dresden, where Oskar Kokoschka taught from 1919 to 1924. He joined France in 1923 and settled in Paris, attracted by the artistic influence of the capital. A lover of Doris Halphen, the painter’s Jewish and Czechoslovak condition forced him to leave Paris at the beginning of the war and take refuge in Mirmande in the Drôme. (Figure 19) The couple separated shortly afterwards, and Fedor Löwenstein lived a tumultuous passion with the artist Marcelle Rivier until October-November 1943.”
The collection includes unidentified biographical photographs of Doris Halphen that were probably taken at the beginning of the twentieth century in Prague. Additionally, there are two photographic albums that retrace the memories of two summers in Mirmande in the Drôme, including one from 1938. Fedor Löwenstein and Doris Halphen are the recurring characters.
My April 2024 visit to Paris to attend a CIVS committee meeting where my compensation claim was being discussed provided a perfect opportunity to visit the Kandinsky Library where the Doris Halphen collection is archived. Appointments must be scheduled in advance. With the grateful assistance of Mme. Florence Saragoza, who originally helped me file my claim in 2014, I was able to make last-minute arrangements to examine and photograph the collection.
Fortunately, Mme. Muriel de Bastier, whom I first met in 2015 and who still works at the CIVS, accompanied my wife and me to the Kandinsky Library; I say fortunately because the line to enter the Centre Pompidou extended for blocks, and I otherwise would never have been able to view the Doris Halphen Collection before the museum closed. Muriel graciously also arranged for us to meet M. Didier Schulmann, the former Director of the Kandinsky Library, who gave me an extremely useful orientation to the collection. (Figure 20)
During my all-too brief visit, I concentrated on photographing the album with pictures of Fedor Löwenstein and Doris Halphen. (Figure 21-23) Among the images unlikely to have been recognized by any other researcher were two of Fedor with his sister Jeanne “Hansi” Goff, née Löwenstein (1902-1986) that were taken in Mirmande. (Figures 24-25) Unlike Fedor who died in 1946 before I was born, I met Hansi in Nice, France on multiple occasions as a child.
An out-of-place picture I discovered in the collection was of the famous African American, Paul Robeson (1898-1976). He was an American bass-baritone concert artist, actor, professional football player, and activist who became famous both for his cultural accomplishments and for his political stances. Among the few pictures in Doris Halphen’s collection that is captioned it reads “Robeson at Wo-Chula.” (Figures 26a-b) I think this picture was taken in Chowula, Ghana, but the circumstances for its inclusion in Doris’ album is a complete mystery.
I’ve never met nor communicated with Nicolas Neumann so am in the dark regarding the precise circumstances under which he found Doris Halphen’s collection. Regardless, I imagine he’s one of the few people who would have realized the significance of what he’d found and had connections with the Kandinsky Library to ensure the materials wound up in an archive where they would be properly cared for. From a personal standpoint, what is gratifying is that I was able to track down a previously unknown to me cache of Fedor Löwenstein photographs. The more existential question is that Nicolas Neimann even found Doris Halphen’s surviving papers and photographs. Again, I ask whether this was fated or coincidental?
REFERENCES
Isenberg, Madeleine. (2012). The Rotter Relic. AVOTAYNU, Volume XXVIII (Issue 4, Winter 2012), pp. 27-31.
Studio Corposano – Doris Halphen. Circa 1900-1950, Centre Pompidou, Paris, Kandinsky Library – Documentation and Research Centre of the National Museum of Modern Art – Centre for Industrial Creation, Call number: COR 1 – 4.
Note: In this post, I update readers on a compensation and restitution claim I filed with the French Ministry of Culture in October 2014 related to family works of art seized by the Nazis at the Port of Bordeaux in December 1940. The paintings and etchings had been consigned for sale to an art gallery in New York City by my father’s first cousin, Fedor Löwenstein, when they were confiscated. I recently attended a meeting in Paris where the Ministry discussed my longstanding case
My wife Ann and I recently attended a meeting in Paris of the French Ministry of Culture’s (Premier Ministre) Commission pour la restitution des biens et l’indemnisation des victimes de spoliations antisemites (CIVS), Commission for the restitution of property and compensation for victims of anti-Semitic spoliation. This French agency is tasked with processing claims from Jewish heirs requesting restitution for and repatriation of works of art that were confiscated from their ancestors by the Nazis in France during World War II. The CIVS is specifically responsible for dealing with works of art that wound up in the possession of the Centre Pompidou, France’s Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, following the end of the war. After learning the origins of some of their holdings, the museum now tacitly acknowledges it does not have legal entitlement to the surviving works of art and is seeking to repatriate these artifacts and compensate rightful owners.
In 2014, I inadvertently discovered that three paintings seized by the Nazis at the Port of Bordeaux in December 1940 that were rendered by my father’s first cousin, Fedor Löwenstein (variously also spelled Lowenstein, Loewenstein, Loevenstein) (Figures 1-2), survive at the Centre Pompidou. It so happens that in 2014, the summer my wife and I spent 13 weeks in Europe visiting places stretching from Poland to Spain associated with my Jewish family’s diaspora, serendipitously these three painting were exhibited at the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Bordeaux.
In reviewing online materials discussing this show, I learned that Ms. Florence Saragoza was the curator of this museum exhibit. At the time Ms. Saragoza was coincidentally the director of an archaeological museum, the National Prehistoric Museum in Les Eyzies-de-Tayac, France (Figure 3); I say coincidentally because I too once worked as an archaeologist. In any event, I set out to contact Florence, and within two days after reaching out to her she responded with very moving words telling me, and I paraphrase, that it brought tears to her eyes to learn that Fedor Löwenstein has a living descendant. Florence and I are still in contact after ten years.
Acutely aware of my ancestral lineage, I quickly realized I’m Fedor’s closest surviving blood relative. Upon learning this, Ms. Saragoza asked me whether I wished to file a claim with the CIVS. I told her I did, and Florence graciously assisted me in doing so in October 2014. Because of Florence’s in-depth knowledge of Fedor’s personal history and artworks, I learned the consignment of art destined for New York the Nazis seized in December 1940 in Bordeaux included not only the three surviving paintings but also 22 other etchings and paintings that are believed to have been destroyed. For these no longer existing pieces of art, my claim requested restitution. Below I will explain in more detail the history of the artworks confiscated by the Nazis in France.
As many readers may know, claims from Jewish heirs whose ancestors had their artworks and personal property confiscated by the Nazis elsewhere typically take decades to resolve because the artworks and such are strewn around the globe and/or the heirs encounter stiff resistance from museums and purported owners who acquired the artworks under dodgy circumstances or with no provenance. Unlike such claims, as mentioned above, the French Ministry of Culture acknowledges its responsibility to repatriate seized items housed in the Centre Pompidou and, where the items are thought to have been destroyed, compensate heirs. That said, this does not mean the process is expeditious. To date my claim has been under review for ten years. Let me update readers on the status of my claim begun in 2014 though I hasten to add it has not yet been resolved to my satisfaction.
I first reported on the status of my claim in Post 105 published in 2021. Let me review what I disclosed at the time. At the outset, it is very important to point out that the CIVS did not initiate contact with me and the heirs to Fedor’s estate. Rather, I initiated contact with them and submitted my claim based on publicly available information I uncovered claiming the CIVS is searching for family to whom to repatriate looted art. This is significant as to where things stand today and the reason I seemingly have the Commission’s attention.
In 1940, while hiding out in a town called Mirmande in Drôme, the southernmost department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region of Southeastern France (Figure 4), Fedor traveled to Paris. There he selected small format works as well as six watercolors that he brought to be shipped to New York City. There is little information about the circumstances surrounding this project, but the paintings were sent to a harbor warehouse in Bordeaux for shipment to an American gallery. Unfortunately, the crates never left Bordeaux but were instead “requisitioned” by German military authorities on the 5th of December 1940, the date of a major seizure operation.
A special commando unit affiliated with the “Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg (ERR)” (Reichsleiter Rosenberg Taskforce) raided the warehouse where Fedor’s crates were stored, seized them, and had them shipped to Paris where they were stored at the “Jeu de Paume.” The ERR was a Nazi Party organization dedicated to appropriating cultural property during WWII and was led by the chief ideologue of the Nazi Party, Alfred Rosenberg, ergo its name. The Jeu de Paume was the seat of ERR’s processing of looted art objects confiscated from Jewish-owned collections in France. (Figure 5)
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. (Figures 6-7) 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 at the Centre Pompidou. 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 (“Composition (Paysage)” or Landscape) (Figure 8), Löwenstein 15 (“Peupliers” or Poplars) (Figure 9), and Löwenstein 19 (“Les Arbes” or The Trees). (Figure 10) 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. All three paintings were signed “Fedor Loevenstein,” though possibly the “v” was actually a “w.” (Figure 11) 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 curatorial attaché at the Jeu de Paume, Rose Valland. (Figure 12) 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 and all of Dalí’s. The paintings in the Loewenstein, Esmont (sic), M[ichel]-G[eorges] Michel collections are almost all shredded. . .” On July 23rd, she added “The paintings massacred in the Louvre’s sequestration were brought back to the Jeu de Paume. Five or six hundred were burned under German surveillance in the museum garden from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. . . . The paintings that remained in the Louvre were classified by category. . .”. It appears that Löwenstein’s three works that escaped destruction had been classified by the Louvre as “paintings of lesser importance,” while his remaining works were likely stabbed, shredded and/or incinerated. More on this below.
Florence Saragoza and her colleagues, using the notes left behind by Rose Valland, 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 a process of so-called “anamorphosis.” Suffice it to say about this process that since the paintings in the contemporary photos from the Jeu de Paume look somewhat distorted (see Figures 6-7), some digital manipulation was required to identify and attribute the works of art.
Beyond Löwenstein’s painting known as “Composition (Paysage)” which survives and is one of the objects of my claim, two other paintings by Löwenstein are partially or completely visible in the contemporary photos from the Jeu de Paume; one cannot be identified, and the second is titled “The Modern City.” Their status is unknown, but they are presumed to have been destroyed by the Nazis in the manner described above by Rose Valland.
As previously alluded to, 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 confiscated 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 reclassified as stolen works. This brings me to what I had learned by the time I filed my claim in 2014.
Following submission of my claim in October 2014 and acknowledgement of such by the CIVS in November of that year, no further action was undertaken by them until I was contacted in February 2017 by a forensic genealogist they contracted with. Having essentially already done all the genealogical fact-finding on my own, I turned over a copy of my research. The next time I corresponded with the Premier Ministre’s office was in June 2021 when they sent me an initial letter rejecting my claim.
I vented my bitterness and disappointment about this determination in Post 105, so I refer readers to that post. However, I will briefly review the basis for the French Ministry of Culture’s decision, and actions I have subsequently taken to attempt to right this perceived wrong.
Inasmuch as I can ascertain, I’m a “victim” of France’s legal system, which follows civil law rather than common law. Under civil law, codified statutes and ordinances are followed. In common law, past legal precedents or judicial rulings are used to decide cases at hand.
Historians believe the Romans developed civil law in around 600 C.E., when the emperor Justinian began compiling legal codes. Current civil law codes developed around the Justinian tradition of codifying laws as opposed to legal rulings.
The United States, Canada, England, India, and Australia are generally considered common law countries. Because they were all once subjects or colonies of Great Britain, they have often retained the tradition of common law. The state of Louisiana uses bijuridicial civil law because it was once a colony of France. Civil law countries include all of South America (except Guyana), almost all of Europe (including Germany, France, and Spain), China, and Japan.
Common law dates to the early English monarchy and began when the courts began collecting and publishing legal decisions. Later, those published decisions were used as the basis to decide similar cases.
Today the difference between common law and civil legal tenets lies in the actual source of law. While common law systems refer extensively to statutes, judicial cases are considered the most important source of law, allowing judges to actively contribute to rulings. For consistency, courts abide by precedents set by higher courts examining the same issue.
In the case of civil law systems, codes and statutes govern all eventualities and judges have a more limited role of applying the law to the case in hand. Past judgements merely provide loose guidelines.
What this means in terms of my claim against the French Ministry of Culture is that the rights to Fedor Löwenstein’s estate are determined by the civil code governing inheritance in France. Thus, the people whom Fedor specifically named in his will and their named heirs are deemed to be the rightful legatees. So, since Fedor left his estate to his sister Jeanne Goff, née Löwenstein (1902-1986) (Figure 13) and brother Heinz Löwenstein (1905-1979) (Figure 14) and neither of them had children, Fedor’s siblings left their estates to unrelated friends who in turn left their property to their heirs. Unlike me, these individuals are not blood relatives of Löwenstein.
France considers property left in a will a “universal legacy,” and a person who inherits the rights, obligations, possession, and debts of a testator’s title in property through a testamentary disposition is called a “universal legatee.” CIVS concluded these heirs, these so-called “universal legatees,” have a legal claim to Löwenstein’s property and damages that supersedes mine; this concept of universal legatees is an element of civil law.
The forensic genealogist identified two universal legatees to Fedor Löwenstein’s estate, one for each of Fedor’s siblings, making me a third-tier heir. Following the identification of these two universal legatees, the CIVS contacted both. They agreed to subrogate my claim, that’s to say, to substitute their names for mine on the compensation claim. How magnanimous of them!
In layman’s terms, then, it was on this basis that my claim for restitution and repatriation of Fedor’s paintings has been rejected.
Following publication of Post 105, I was contacted by one of my distant cousins. She and her extended family are involved in their own long-running case for compensation and repatriation of works of art stolen from one of her ancestors by the Nazis or the sales of which were forced at a much-reduced value. (See Post 131) My cousin suggested I contact her New York-based lawyer, who put me in touch with an American-trained French lawyer, who in turn referred me to a French lawyer specializing in cases like mine. Feeling I had nothing to lose I hired this lawyer.
Based on what I’ve detailed above, French civil law is clear as to my rights or the lack thereof to compensation and restitution related to Fedor Löwenstein’s estate. Thus, my lawyer was compelled to find another way to obtain some measure of justice on my behalf. The argument we made to the CIVS is that I should be eligible for a finder’s fee. Absent my discovery and hard work, neither of the universal legatees would have been aware that the CIVS had any Löwenstein paintings to repatriate, nor compensation to mete out. Insofar as I’m aware, neither of the universal legatees was even aware of Fedor Löwenstein’s existence prior to my endeavors. Furthermore, given the CIVS’ extreme workload it is highly unlikely they would have prioritized dealing with Fedor Löwenstein’s estate; absent my claim, the case might have languished for many more years, long after the legatees were dead.
The Latin term and legal theory quantum meruit applies and translates to “as much as he has earned,” and refers to the actual value of services rendered. It is defined as “payment for the value of goods or services as partial fulfillment of a contract, or when there is no contract specifying a price in the transaction.” Vis a vis my case, the universal legatees are receiving services from me (i.e., my research; submission of a claim application) on an unexpected basis from which they stand to benefit (i.e., repatriation of valuable paintings and monetary restitution). While they obtained these benefits without signing a contract for payment, or without obtaining a price for those services, given that we were previously unaware of one another’s existence, a reasonable person would know that payment is expected. As such there can be no doubt that I deserve to be paid for the services rendered and the benefits the legatees stand to receive.
The CIVS had seemingly agreed I should receive a finder’s fee, which, if true, would have been ground-breaking in terms of the previous claims that have come before the committee. This would have been unprecedented.
This pretty much brings readers up to date with where things stood prior to my recent trip to Paris.
Shortly before an upcoming vacation my wife and I already had planned to Spain and Portugal, my lawyer asked us whether we could come to Paris to attend a full CIVS committee meeting scheduled for April 26th. Among other business, my claim was to be discussed and hopefully resolved. My lawyer and I agreed that my attendance might be valuable.
One of the universal legatees resides in Haifa, Israel, the other in the environs of Nice, France. Neither legatee attended nor had a representative at the meeting. However, both have expressed their desire to committee liaisons that Fedor Löwenstein’s three paintings remain together in France and their apparent willingness to share a portion of the restitution. While I would prefer the paintings remain united, it is my preference they come to the United States as Fedor himself had wanted and be donated to an appropriate museum in America. However, as a non-universal legatee, I have no leverage to dictate this outcome.
Complicating matters in this regard is that the Premier Ministre has made it clear they consider these paintings to be part of France’s historical legacy and want them to stay in France. All three paintings which my wife and I had an opportunity to view (Figure 15) and handle during our recent visit to Paris, have evidence of large red “Xs” (Figure 16) Nazis scrawled across the canvases, indicating they were slated for immolation. Interestingly, the modest valuation of Löwenstein’s artworks is augmented by this desecration of the paintings.
Following the meeting in Paris, my lawyer and I requested an opportunity to contact the universal legatees, something we’d been discouraged from doing previously, to allow time to negotiate a fair agreement on restitution and repatriation. They supposedly agreed. Upon my return to the states, I wrote letters to both legatees, though neither has gotten back to me. Bewilderingly, amid these efforts, just as I was putting the final touches on this blog post, the CIVS rendered their “final” decision. Apparently, what the CIVS considers a “fair” finder’s fee is splitting the not insubstantial restitution money between the two universal legatees and “giving” the universal legatees and myself one painting each with an expectation that the paintings remain in France.
Note: In this very lengthy post, I discuss my father’s first cousin’s whereabouts during World War II, based on newly acquired information. As with other recent posts, I obtained the details from a reader whose uncle, serendipitously, was imprisoned in the same German prison camp in Lamsdorf, Silesia [today: Łambinowice, Poland] as my father’s relative. While researching his uncle, the reader came across the names of Heinz Löwenstein and his alias Henry Goff. Readers will discover than Heinz’s surname is spelled three ways, “Löwenstein,” “Loewenstein,” and “Lowenstein.”
To better understand all the places where my father’s cousin wound up, I’ve explored some of the historical events related to WWII. I’m disinclined to apologize for presenting this detailed background because of its relevance to Heinz’s story so I trust readers will understand and gloss over parts that are of limited interest.
I had the pleasure of meeting my father’s charismatic first cousin Heinz Löwenstein (1905-1979) once as a boy while vacationing with my parents in Nice, along France’s Côte d’Azur. (Figure 1) Since my father rarely spoke of his relatives, it would be many years before I would work out the ancestral connection. At the time I met Heinz, he had come to Nice from Haifa, Israel where he was living with his girlfriend to visit my father and his sister, Jeanne “Hansi” Goff née Löwenstein (1902-1986). (Figure 2) In time, I would learn that Heinz and Hansi were my father’s two closest cousins, born around the same time as he was.
On the rare occasions when my father spoke of his family, the stories were always understandably suffused with a huge note of sadness so, in retrospect, I’m not sure I was ever told the unabridged story. Absent a complete telling of actual events, I may have embellished or fabricated some of what I thought I heard. My recollection in the case of Heinz is that he survived World War II by escaping from a Nazi detention camp, or that he had himself intentionally captured for the purpose of helping other detained Jews escape, admittedly heroic and rather vague accounts. With the benefit of hindsight, I realize how implausible these scenarios seem but growing up they were believable. Paradoxically, what I’ve recently learned is not so far removed from what I imagined as a child.
Heinz’s story is a tangled web that I will attempt to unravel and present to readers in a comprehensible manner, though some may be left wanting, as I am. But then I modulate my disappointment by reminding myself I’m reconstructing a story without the benefit of the protagonist’s own words that took place almost 80 years ago. Of course, there will be some things that are unknown and unknowable.
I introduced Heinz Löwenstein to readers way back in Post 16 when I discussed what I knew about his mother, my great-aunt, Hedwig Löwenstein née Bruck (1870-1949), and his two siblings, Fedor Löwenstein (1901-1946) and Jeanne “Hansi” Goff née Löwenstein (1902-1986). (Figure 3) Heinz’s older brother Fedor may sound familiar as he was the subject of Post 105. (Figure 4) That post relates to my ongoing efforts to obtain compensation on behalf of my family from the French Ministry of Culture for paintings confiscated by the Nazis from Fedor in December 1940 at the port of Bordeaux that have languished in a French storeroom for more than 70 years.
Though I met Heinz as a child, as previously mentioned, prior to researching him I knew virtually nothing about his life. A salacious story circulated that his girlfriend was the wife in a couple Heinz lived with in Haifa (Figure 5); everybody was apparently fine with this odd arrangement. The only other thing I vaguely recall is what I’ve already alluded to, namely, that Heinz survived the war by being an “escape artist,” though what exactly this means was never clear.
Fast forward to the beginning of February of this year. Through my blog’s webmail, I received an intriguing email from an English gentleman, Mr. Brian Cooper (Figure 26), who I would later learn lives in Maidstone, County Kent, England, telling me he had come across Heinz Lowenstein (without an umlaugh over the “o”) in connection with his research on prisoners of war. As I’ve already mentioned and will illustrate, Heinz’s tale is a complicated one. Accompanying his email was a very precise timeline of Heinz’s time as a prisoner of war with primary source documents substantiating his findings. As an aside, the detailed level of research Brian has undertaken exemplifies the standard to which I try and hold myself accountable when researching and writing my posts.
As I will explain in more detail below, there are two threads Brian found in Post 16 that convinced him “his” Heinz Lowenstein was the same person as “my” Heinz Löwenstein. First, his Heinz Lowenstein used the alias “Henry Goff,” Goff being his married sister’s surname. Second, he learned that my Heinz Löwenstein had the same date of birth, the 8th of March 1905, as the prisoner of war records indicate for the Heinz Lowenstein he is researching.
I immediately asked Brian why he was interested in Heinz Lowenstein. Though very familiar with this branch of my extended family, I assumed there was an ancestral connection of which I was unaware. Astonishingly, it turns out Brian’s uncle, Harold William Jackson from the 2nd Battalion Northamptonshire Regiment, captured in 1940 in France, was interned in one of the same Stalags as Heinz had been held, namely, Stalag VIIIB/Stalag 344 in Lamsdorf, Silesia [today: Łambinowice, Poland]. (Figure 27) Much more on this below but suffice it to say that unlike Heinz who was at multiple Stalags and work labor camps throughout his captivity, Brian’s uncle seemingly was only a “resident” at Stalag VIIIB until January 1945 when the Nazis began marching the still able-bodied prisoners of war west as the Red Army was approaching. To date, Brian has only been able to trace his uncle’s movements to this point and is hopeful of finding the diary of a fellow inmate who might have recorded what happened to his uncle on the march westward.
As mentioned above, attached to Brian’s first correspondence was a detailed timeline of Heinz’s movements following his capture during the 1941 Battle of Greece. I’ve summarized much of this in the table found at the tail end of this post and intend the discussion that follows to primarily focus on the events that led to Heinz’s involvement in this conflict and his journeys and escapes following his capture and what they tell us. However, before launching into this, let me very briefly review the little I knew of Heinz’s life prior to being contacted by Brian.
Heinz Kurt Löwenstein was born in the Baltic port city of Danzig, Germany [today: Gdańsk, Poland] on the 8th of March 1905. I don’t know anything about his childhood. I’m next able to track him through his marriage certificate to a divorcee, Rose Nothmann née Bloch, which took place in Danzig on the 22nd of October 1931; Rose was eleven years Heinz’s senior. There is an illegible notation in the upper righthand corner of the marriage certificate indicating Heinz and Rose got divorced, which initially led me to believe they were divorced in Danzig. The only other pre-World War II entry I can find linking Heinz to Danzig are two listings in a 1933 Address Book. One identifies him as the inhaber, owner, of a so-called Reklame-Büro, an advertising office, named after his deceased father, Rudolf Loewenstein (Figure 6); as I discussed in Post 71, Heinz’s father died in a plane crash on the 22nd of August 1930 while on a business trip to then-Czechoslovakia. The second listing identifies Heinz Loewenstein, yet a third different spelling of his surname, as a Propagandist, promoter, for this Reklame-Büro. (Figure 7)
Based on this scant evidence, I theorize that Heinz, his sister Hansi, and their mother Hedwig departed Danzig sometime after 1933. I know that Heinz’s mother and sister wound up in Nice, France, but am unable to document that Heinz accompanied them. Having met Heinz in Nice sometime during the 1950s, obviously I knew he’d survived World War II. At the time he lived in Haifa, Israel but, as I would discover on my own much later, he had changed his name to “Hanoch Avneri.” Thanks to the intervention of a fourth cousin who lives in Haifa, with great difficulty I obtained a copy of Heinz’s burial certificate from Haifa Hevra Kadisha, a burial society in the State of Israel, showing he died on the 10th of August 1979. (Figure 8)
Until Brian Cooper provided documentary evidence, I had no idea how Heinz had survived WWII. The primary source of information on Heinz Lowenstein’s whereabouts and movements during the war can be found in the UK National Archives. Specifically, records created or inherited by the War Office’s Armed Forces Services containing “German Record cards of British and Commonwealth Prisoners of War and some Civilian Internees, Second World War,” are pertinent. Three entries related to Heinz Lowenstein, or his alias “Henry Goff,” can be found in catalogue WO 416. The National Archive website provides a summary of these German Record cards, but Brian obtained complete copies of the originals, which form the basis for the detailed synopsis he compiled of Heinz’s wartime activities.
The most informative German Record card in terms of tracking Heinz Loewenstein’s locations during the war is record number WO 416/412/223 (Figures 9a-d), alternately referred to as his Personalkarte, his personnel card. The information contained therein is summarized at the table at the end of this post, but in the following discussion I will highlight the most important details and place them in a broader, historic context.
Heinz’s Personalkarte, intriguingly including his picture, along with his father’s first name, his mother’s maiden name, his religion, and his date and place of birth, all previously known to me, confirm this was my father’s first cousin. Unknown to me was his service number (i.e., 8576), his service (i.e., Palestinian Army), the regiment or squadron he was a member of (i.e., Corps of Signals), his profession (i.e., electrician), the place he was captured (i.e., Greece), the date of his capture (29th April 1941), his POW number (i.e., 8576), and the camp name and number where he was initially interned (i.e., Stalag XVIIIA which was located in Wolfsberg, Austria).
The name and address of Heinz’s next of kin, Rose Löwenstein, is also given, confirming that Heinz and Rose were likely still married when they emigrated to Palestine and probably got divorced there following Heinz’s return from the war. As an interesting aside, the notation on Heinz and Rose’s marriage certificate that they got divorced, likely in Palestine, somehow made its way back to Danzig to be recorded on their 1931 certificate. In my limited experience, this is not unprecedented. About ten years ago, I was able to track down a second cousin presently living in Germany but born in Spain, by dint of a notation made on his 1946 Barcelona birth certificate stating he had gotten married in Haag, Oberbayern, Germany in 1982.
Based on the new information, I surmise Heinz either moved temporarily from Danzig to Nice, France with his sister and mother or moved directly to Palestine from Danzig. After emigrating to Palestine, he likely soon became a British citizen as others moving there during the 1930s did. Readers will notice the year “1935” lightly penciled in to the right of his nationality, perhaps corresponding to his arrival in Palestine.
Following his move to Palestine, he likely volunteered for the British Army. Two POW lists published, respectively, in September 1944 (Figure 10) and April 1945 (Figure 11) indicate the regiment/unit/squadron Heinz was a member of, “3 L. of C. Sigs.” This refers to the “3 Line of Communication Signals [Royal Corps of Signals, often simply known as Royal Signals].” For readers, like me, unfamiliar with the work of this squadron, this unit is responsible for providing full telecommunications infrastructure for the Army wherever they operate. Signal units are among the first deployed, providing battlefield communications and information systems essential to all operations.
Heinz’s Personalkarte shows he was captured on the 29th of April 1941. Before discussing where he is likely to have been captured, let me provide readers with a general overview of the Battle of Greece. (Figure 12) The Battle of Greece, also known as the “German invasion of Greece” or “Operation Marita” was the attack of Greece by Italy and Germany during World War II. It began on the 28th of October 1940 with the Italian invasion of Greece via Albania, then a vassal of Italy. Greece, with the help of British air and material support, repelled the initial Italian attack and counterattack in March 1941.
Realizing that the bulk of Greek troops were massed along the Greek border with Albania and that Italy was in trouble, German troops invaded from Bulgaria on the 6th of April 1941, opening a second front. The Greek Army was quickly outnumbered even with the reinforcement of small numbers of British, Australian, and New Zealand forces. The Greek forces were outflanked by the Germans at the Albanian border, forcing their surrender. British, Australian, and New Zealand forces were overwhelmed and forced to retreat southwards down the Greek peninsula, with the goal of evacuation. For several days, Allied troops were able to delay the German advance, allowing ships to be positioned to evacuate the units defending Greece. Still, by the 27th of April the German Army captured Athens, and reached Greece’s southern shores by the 30th of April. The conquest of Greece was completed a month later with the capture of the island of Crete. An intriguing footnote is that Hitler later blamed the unsuccessful German invasion of the Soviet Union on Mussolini’s failed conquest of Greece.
Knowing that Heinz was taken prisoner on the 29th of April, Brian reasons that he was seized in or near Kalamata on the Peloponnesian peninsula. (see Figure 12) Based on testimony from others, we know that POWs were quickly moved to a prison compound at Corinth (Figure 13) where, if what has been published is correct, some 4,000 prisoners were held in extremely poor conditions. Brian sent me a chapter of a book entitled “Friends Ambulance Unit, 1939-1943: Experiences in Finland, Norway, Sweden, Egypt, Greece and Germany,” by H. Martin Lidbetter. Let me quote a few passages from this book describing the deplorable state of things in the detention camps.
Regarding prison life in the hospital in Kalamata: “The place was a stinking mess, and we cleaned it up. Nobody was getting anything to eat, and two hours after we started, we served biscuit porridge and tea for breakfast, and gave the patients regular meals afterwards. . .The men were in a shocking state, and we cleaned them, dressed their wounds, nursed them.”
“On the 13th May we and the patients were moved by train to Corinth, where in almost tropical heat we were marched to an enormous Dulag (Transit Camp) which was to be our home for many weeks. Here the food was terrible, but it was possible to buy extras from the Greeks. For water we had to queue for hours at a well just outside the camp.”
“The experiences of the next few months in transit camps brought the biggest tests of endurance in maintaining human relationships that anyone in the Unit had undergone. To retain, when terribly hungry, the customary human decency was difficult indeed. To keep clean and presentable when water was scarce, even for drinking; to carry on with one’s duties calmly and normally, even when faint and weak through lack of food; to divide rations impartially; to resist the temptation to pick scraps of food from the rubbish bins—all these things called for a continual and maintained efforts.”
Regarding the transfer from Corinth to Salonika (Figure 14), tracking the same path Heinz likely followed: “On Saturday, 7th June 1941, after nearly a month in the Corinth camp, we moved to Salonika. We marched from camp soon after 2am bringing up the rear of the last of four contingents each consisting of about 800 men, so that we could help any whose physical health bordered on collapse. We marched 7 ½ miles to the nearest railhead north of the Corinth Canal which was one of the few parts of the railway not wrecked by recent military action and took to cattle trucks. Our particular trucks were designed to transport 34 men each, when not carrying cattle. During one part of our journey there were 52 of us and our kit crammed into one such wagon.”
The prisoners stopped briefly in Athens before continuing northwards. However, when they reached the tunnel below the Brallos Pass (see Figure 12), north of the town of Gravia, the prisoners had to dismount because the tunnel had been rendered unusable by explosives during the recent retreat by Allied soldiers. Thus began what is referred to as “The March,” the destination of which was the town of Lamia 40 miles north. This involved a long slog uphill, followed by a precipitous downhill walk in unpleasantly hot weather.
When the prisoners eventually arrived at the Dulag in Salonika, they saw what their treatment would involve: “There was a large transit camp holding about 4,000 prisoners. The first days we paraded with thousands of men in the burning sun for hours; many fainted and had to be carried off. Food was no more than a piece of bread or a biscuit, with thin soup and German ersatz tea.”
There was not enough food of any kind, both in the hospital and the barracks in which we lived. The supply of water was irregular and unfit for use without boiling. All we had was some very thin soup with modules of very tough meat—probably horse meat—and hard bread which was almost inedible. . .None of the beds had any mattresses, only the steel under mattresses, so we lay on our clothes to soften them and spent the night swatting the fleas and lice, and bedbugs which crawled up the legs of the beds to bite us or dropped from the ceiling.
In the hospital there were typhoid, malaria, tuberculosis, dysentery, and diphtheria cases, and later the dreaded beriberi, which claimed several victims—this was caused by lack of vitamins in the diet which is contained in Marmite.
It was very hot, and I did not sleep a single night except for a few nights in early October before we left for Germany.”
A Facebook account about the “Battle of Kalamata 1941” estimates that by September 1941, 12,000 POWs had passed through the “Salonika Transit Camp Frontstalag 183,” on their way to the central Europe Stalags They included many nationalities—Scots, English, Australians, New Zealanders, Serbs, Indians, Palestinian Jews, Cypriots, Arabs, and Greeks. Many of the POWs died, and a few daring ones escaped. By 1942, following the transfer of the POWs to the Stalags, the Salonika transit camp had been converted to detaining Greek Jews before they were transported to the Nazi death camps.
From Heinz’s Personalkarte we know he was initially imprisoned in Stalag XVIII in Wolfsberg, Austria after being transported by cattle truck from the Salonika Transit Camp. (Figure 15) In a book written by John Borrie, entitled “Despite Captivity: A Doctor’s Life as Prisoner of War,” a map shows the route by which the author arrived in Stalag VIIIB in Lamsdorf in October 1941 (Figure 16), where Heinz ultimately also wound up. John Borrie appears to have arrived in Lamsdorf via a slightly different route than Heinz, who we know first spent time in Wolfsberg in southern Austria. A different German Record card for Heinz Lowenstein, WO 416/228/460, records his transfer from Stalag XVIIIA in Wolfsberg, Austria to Stalag VIIIB in Lamsdorf on the 8th of July 1941. (Figure 17-18) This corresponds to the earliest date on Heinz’s Personalkarte, German Record card WO 416/412/223, and corresponds to the date he was inoculated against typhoid, perhaps upon his arrival at Stalag VIIIB.
In the case of three of these transfers to work labor camps, the fixed places to which Heinz was assigned are specified, namely, working at an airfield, working at a paper factory, and working on road construction. His work assignments were interrupted on three occasions by stays at the hospital at Stalag VIIIB. Given the arduous nature of the work, the unsanitary conditions at the Stalags, the lack of food, and the sometimes-brutal treatment at the hand of guards, it’s not surprising POWs were in poor health.
The most interesting thing recorded on Heinz’s Personalkarte is the solitary confinements he was made to endure for neglecting or disturbing work operations and for two escapes. Remarkably, Heinz’s escape from work labor camp designated as “E479” in Tarnowitz is recorded in a book by Cyril Rofe entitled “Against the Wind.” Cyril himself escaped from a work camp that was subordinate to Stalag VIIIB on his third attempt, eventually making his way to Moscow before being repatriated via Murmansk. I quote at length from Cyril Rofe’s description of Heinz’s escape:
“The first pair to escape were Joe Powell and Henry Löwenstein. Tall and ginger haired, Löwenstein had been brought up in Danzig and spoke perfect German. They had already been on one working party, which had been no use from their point of view. They had managed to get themselves sent back to the Stalag and then volunteered to come to Tarnowitz. As soon as they arrived, they wanted to be away. They were not fussy about their clothes, and it was easy enough to collect together all they needed. By the end of February they were ready to go. [EDITOR’S NOTE: BASED ON HEINZ’S PERSONALKARTE, WE KNOW HEINZ AND JOE WERE READY TO MAKE THEIR ESCAPE ATTEMPT AT THE END OF JANUARY 1943 RATHER THAN THE END OF FEBRUARY 1943]
On the morning of their escape they wore their civilian clothes under their battledress and overcoats. When groups left camp the men were always counted by the duty clerk, who handed them over to the guards, who also counted them. The guards were then responsible for the men until they handed them back to the duty clerk in the evening. The group to which Powell and Löwenstein belonged were working on the line just outside Beuthen station, about 10 miles from the camp, and travelled there and back by train each day. At the end of the day the Unteroffizier in charge always counted them before they got on the train for the return journey.
Joe Powell and Löwenstein had no difficulty in getting away at Beuthen. [Figure 19] Finding a quiet corner they slipped out of their Army clothes and walked away as civilians. They boarded a tram outside the station and travelled to Gleiwitz, where they caught a train to Danzig. None of the guards noticed their absence during the day. When the train arrived in the evening the men fell in quickly, the Palestinian corporal counted them rapidly and gave the full number as present. Before the guards had a chance to check the count the men broke off and clambered on to the train.
The Unteroffizier said nothing. Judging by his subsequent behaviour he had his suspicions but was not anxious to confirm them. He was a wily old fellow. When they reached camp he counted the men quickly, gave the same number as he had taken over in the morning and dismissed the men before the duty clerk had completed his check. The men broke off and entered the camp, while the clerk accepted the Unteroffizier’s figure as correct. The Unteroffizier had covered himself against blame.
Every night there was Appell (roll-call) in each of the barracks, the men falling into five ranks to be counted. That night Kaplan came around as usual with the Feldwebel and a guard, whose duty it was to count the men by walking along in front of them, checking that there were five in each file. Kaplan had it all carefully arranged. When he and the two Germans entered the barrack in which Joe and Löwenstein had slept, the men in the front rank were standing close together to prevent the guard from noticing the two empty places at the end of the rear rank. Kaplan talked to the Feldwebel, blocking his view while the guard started his count. As soon as he had passed the first few files, two men in the rear rank ducked low, ran quietly long the back, fell in again at the other end, and were counted a second time. The guard reported the correct number present and the Feldwebel was satisfied.
This was on Monday night. The next morning Kaplan, who arranged all the work lists for each day, marked the two escapees down on the light-duty list, so that they did not have to report for work at Beuthen. Kaplan kept them covered up until the following Friday, on which day I myself was working at Beuthen. During the lunch-hour the Unteroffizier came into the hut and asked for Löwenstein and Joe, the second by the name he had adopted. On being told they were sick he grinned all over his face and went out again. Apparently the Feldwebel had telephoned to ask if they were there.
When we arrived back at camp we heard that during the morning a telephone call had come through to the Feldwebel enquiring whether he had had anybody escape from the camp. On his answering in the negative, he learned that the police in Danzig had picked up two men using those names who claimed to have escaped from Tarnowitz. When the Feldwebel checked up he found the two men were missing and nobody had the slightest idea when they had left or how.
An officer came to investigate. The Feldwebel accused Kaplan of being responsible for this outrage, affirming that it was Kaplan’s duty to work with him, not against him and threatened to get even with him. This was right up Kaplan’s street. Not only did he inform the Feldwebel that he actually had helped the men to escape, but he added that he considered it his duty as a British solider to help anybody else who wished to escape and that he would do so whenever he could. Furthermore, he said, it was the Feldwebel’s job to guard us, not his, and the Feldwebel need expect no more cooperation from him until he apologized! Fortunately the officer agreed that Kaplan had only done his duty and managed to preserve the peace.
Kaplan had told them that Joe and Löwenstein had escaped on Monday, although he did not tell them how, and that he had covered them up ever since. They flatly refused to believe such a thing was possible until Kaplan showed them how he had done it.
There were no repercussions in the camp, except that thereafter the Feldwebel counted us himself at night, and for some days he and Kaplan were not on speaking terms. Kaplan refused to have anything more to do with the worklists. The result was chaotic, and within a week the Feldwebel was back begging to be ‘friends as before.’ This sounds fantastic, but it happened. Only a Kaplan could have brought it off, but knowing Kaplan one did not expect less. He was tall and bulky, and when one saw him ordering the Germans around he looked a veritable Gulliver among pygmies.”
A few observations about Cyril Rofe’s description of Joe Powell and Henry Löwenstein’s escape from Tarnowitz. As Rofe states, the repercussions for Joe and Heinz’s escape from the work labor camp were minimal. Heinz’s Personalkarte shows he spent only seven days in solitary confinement after he was returned to Stalag VIIIB in Lamsdorf. The repercussions could have been much worse if the two prisoners had fallen into the hands of the Gestapo when they were recaptured, particularly in the case of Heinz who was Jewish. The Wehrmacht, the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany, rather than the Gestapo ran the POW system, so in a sense POWs were safer inside the Stalags, particularly in the case of Jewish prisoners.
The Wehrmacht resisted all efforts by the Gestapo to gain access to and control over the POW system until mid-1944 when Hitler appointed Gottlob Berger to head up the POW system, when it fell under Heinrich Himmler’s control. However, in practice nothing changed. The military camp commandants and staff remained in place and continued to manage the camps as originally instructed by the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW). Berger appears to have had too much on his plate to deal with his new responsibilities in a manner that would have pleased Hitler and Himmler. This said, some POWs did disappear from the Stalags during the war.
One final confirming observation. Rofe, while wrong about the month Joe and Heinz were ready to make their escape, correctly notes that they escaped on a Monday and were recaptured on a Friday. The dates on which Monday and Friday in February 1943 fell match the dates on Heinz’s Personalkarte showing when he was on the lam, February 1st through February 5th.
Following the end of the war, Joe Powell, or “Jack” as he was familiarly known, completed a liberation questionnaire, “General Questionnaire for British/America Ex-Prisoners of War.” Brian was able to obtain a copy of this document, which he shared with me. One question deals with the main camps or hospitals in which he was detained, but the question that most interested me is one in which Jack briefly detailed his escape attempt with Heinz. I quote: “From Beuthen working party in civilian clothing together with a fellow prisoner, a German Jew, Heinz Löwenstein. Captured Danzig by railway police.” (Figure 20a-b) He claims to have been free for three days during this escape, which differs slightly from Rofe’s account.
An administrative entry appearing on Heinz’s Personalkarte dated the 6th of December 1943, states Heinz was transferred from Stalag VIIIB in Lamsdorf to Stalag 344 in Lamsdorf. (see Figure 9b) For some reason, the Nazis redesignated Stalag VIIIB as Stalag 344 but they are the SAME Stalags. I suspect an identical notation was made on the personnel cards of all POWs.
An entry was made on the 13th of August 1943 and then again on the 21st of August, following Heinz’s third escape and recapture, specifically from work labor camp E494 in Oppeln, Germany [today: Opole, Poland], when he was sentenced to six days in the brig. (see Figures 9b-c)
There are two other curious notations, respectively, dated the 15th of September 1943 and the 10th of June 1944 that appear related to another escape attempt. I will discuss these further below. Another administrative entry from April 1944 prohibits POWs from having sexual relationships with German women. (see Figure 9d)
Following Heinz’s release from the brig in August 1943 after his third escape, possibly in September 1943 or slightly later, it is almost certain that Heinz made a successful fourth escape from Stalag VIIIB/Stalag 344 or one of its subordinate work labor camps. The evidence for this comes from War Office record WO 224/95 (Figure 21a-d) which places him at Camp Siklós in Hungary in November 1943. What to make of the two notations mentioned above on Heinz’s Personalkarte from Stalag VIIIB dated the 15th of September 1943 and the 10th of June 1944, when we know positively he was already in Hungary, is a complete mystery.
ASKED FOR A POSSIBLE EXPLANATION, BRIAN COOPER SUGGESTS THE FOLLOWING WITHOUT ANY CONCRETE EVIDENCE THIS IS WHAT TOOK PLACE. ON PAGE 3 OF HEINZ’S “PERSONALKARTE,” FIGURE 9C, UNDER THE CATEGORY “KOMMANDOS,” IF THE GERMANS WERE AWARE THAT HE HAD ESCAPED YET AGAIN, THEY WOULD HAVE ADDED A NOTATION TO THIS EFFECT. BECAUSE THEY DID NOT DO SO BRIAN THINKS THE GERMANS MANAGING STALAG 344 CONTINUED TO BELIEVE THAT HE WAS A POW THERE UNTIL 1945. ACCORDING TO BRIAN, A NOT SO INFREQUENT OCCURRENCE WAS THAT A POW WOULD EXCHANGE IDENTITIES WITH ANOTHER POW TO INCREASE THEIR OPPORTUNITIES FOR ESCAPING UNDETECTED. THE SEPTEMBER 1943 AND JUNE 1944 ENTRIES MAY HAVE BEEN ATTEMPTS BY THE SUBSTITUTE POW TO OBTAIN REPLACEMENT DOG TAGS TO “TEST” WHETHER THE GERMANS HAD BEEN FOOLED BY THE SUBSTITUTION.
Record WO 224/95 is a Visit Report by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) written on the 16th of November detailing prison conditions at the Camp Siklós Hungarian detention center inspected on the 8th of November 1943. While referred to as Camp Siklós the holding facility had in fact been moved from Siklós to Szigetvár on the 12th of August 1943 due to the poor conditions prevailing at Siklós. Attached to this report is a list of 16 British internees, presumably, all POW escapees, including “Henry Lowenstein.” It’s unclear at what point Heinz was arrested in Hungary but no later than the 8th of November he was in Hungarian hands. Szigetvár, incidentally, was the castle estate of Count Mihaly Andrassy, and incarceration conditions there were excellent.
The ICRC visit to Camp Siklós (Szigetvár) was conducted in its capacity as a Protecting Power which was formalized in the Geneva Convention of 1929. Protecting powers were allowed to inspect prisoners of war camps, interview prisoners in private, communicate freely with prisoners, and supply books for the prison library. The term “Protecting Power” is simply defined. It is a state which has accepted the responsibility of protecting the interests of another state in the territory of a third, with which, for some reason, such as war, the second state does not maintain diplomatic relations. I won’t discuss them but Stalag VIIIB at Lamsdorf was visited on numerous occasions by a Protecting Power.
Now, I will again digress to provide some historical context of Hungary’s situation vis a vis Nazi occupation at the time that Heinz was detained there.
In March 1944, Hungary was invaded and occupied by Nazi Germany. Before the Nazi invasion, there was no state of war between Hungary and the United Kingdom, so any British POW escapees, if caught by the Hungarian authorities, would expect no more than internment by Hungary as a neutral power. There was no concern that British POWs would be returned to German control. Based on the existing War Office records, Heinz escaped from Stalag VIIIB in Lamsdorf and somehow made his way to Hungary before the Nazi occupation, though a few entries previously mentioned on Heinz’s Personalkarte are confusing in terms of the timeline when this occurred.
Now we get to the murkiest part of Heinz’s story. From one moment to the next, he goes from being “Heinz Lowenstein” to being “Henry Goff.” (To remind readers, the surname “Goff” was Heinz’s sister’s married name.) As a Hungarian internee, Heinz is known as “Henry Lowenstein,” but when he falls into German hands a second time following Germany’s occupation of Hungary, he uses the alias “Henry Goff.” Since the Hungarians clearly knew Heinz’s real identity, they may have chosen not to share it with the Germans. Regardless, from this point forward, as far as the Germans are concerned, Heinz is known as “Henry Goff.” This is confirmed by War Office record WO 416/141/191. (Figure 22) This record matches his actual date of birth, but now shows him born in Manchester, England. The Germans, knowing no better, allocate him a new POW number, No. 156116. From Heinz’s standpoint, the change of surname and birth place was presumably an insurance policy because of his faith. Together with his new POW number, he presumably thought that his chances of survival improved.
Regardless of how Heinz again fell into German hands in Hungary, WO 416/141/191 tells us that he was returned to the Stalags in Austria. Precisely when this occurred is unknown, but by the 28th of July 1944, Henry Goff is transferred from Stalag XVIIA in Kaisersteinbruch, Austria to Stalag XVIIB in Gneixendorf, Austria. (Figure 23)
The British camp leadership at Stalag XVIIA and/or Stalag XVIIB was aware that Heinz Lowenstein was there but was known as Henry Goff. We know this to be the case from the POW list published by the British War Office in April 1945, record WO 392/20. (see Figure 11) This information was likely transmitted in a coded message to the War Office. According to Brian, some men were trained in anticipation they might be captured and then used to write coded messages that could be embedded in normal correspondence.
Alternatively, Brian thinks the news of Heinz’s name change may have arrived in London via the International Committee of the Red Cross. Possibly this information, along with how Heinz fell into the hands of the Germans a second time, may be found in the archives of the ICRC. Additionally, the archives may also hold information on how British POWs were transported from the “Salonika Transit Camp Frontstalag 183” to the Stalags in Germany in 1941. Search applications to the ICRC are only open a few times a year with the next opportunity to submit a request being on September 22nd. During the next open period, I will apply to obtain any ICRC records related to Heinz Löwenstein and Henry Goff.
On the 8th of April 1945, 4,000 of the POWs at Stalag XVIIB were forced by the Nazis to begin an 18-day 235-mile march to Braunau in Bavaria, Germany. (Figure 24) The remaining 900 men were too ill to make the march so were left behind in the hospital and were liberated by the Red Army on the 9th of May. It’s unknown whether Heinz was well enough to travel, but if he marched to Braunau he would have been liberated by the Americans. If so, he could have been repatriated to Palestine via United Kingdom or via Italy. On the other hand, if he was left behind at Stalag XVIIB he might subsequently have been released to the British 8th Army in Austria, then possibly moved south into Italy for direct repatriation to Palestine.
Brian has unsuccessfully tried tracking down Heinz’s military personnel file to obtain answers to open questions. He submitted a Freedom of Information request to the United Kingdom’s Ministry of Defence (MOD) to see if they know where service records for WWII Palestinian recruits are held, whether the records were left in Jerusalem when the British mandate over Palestine ended in 1948 or repatriated to the UK. The MOD claims the only way to determine this would be to examine every service record to establish where each service personnel was recruited. Not a very satisfactory response.
At Brian’s suggestion, I contacted the Israel Defense Force and Defense Establishment Archive (IDF Archive) inquiring about Heinz’s military personnel file, and about my father’s service records from his time in the Pioneer Corps (i.e., my father Otto Bruck was also a member of the English Army though at the opposite end of the Mediterranean theater in Algeria.) The IDF Archives referred me to the Pioneer Veterans Association, who responded in Heinz’s case that his military records “are somewhere in Jerusalem.” The search continues.
I will now bring this lengthy blog post to a close with a short commentary. First, I’m deeply indebted to Brian Cooper for all the new information and primary source documents he brought to my attention regarding my father’s first cousin’s whereabouts during WWII. Frankly, I’m astonished at all the materials related to Heinz he was able to track down. It never occurred to me to check the records of UK’s Ministry of Defence since I had no suspicion that he’d ever been in the English Army. After learning Heinz was once a member of the Royal Corps of Signals, I was rechecking the handful of photos I have and found one of him with his mother and brother taken in Nice, France after the war on the balcony of the apartment where his mother lived. Heinz is wearing a battle dress tunic jacket in which one can barely detect the Royal Signals insignia. (Figures 25a-b)
Regretfully, I never asked my father questions about his ancestors, which he might have been disinclined to answer given how painful many aspects of his past were. Thus, it comes as a pleasant surprise I’ve been able to fill in some holes in what I know about Heinz Löwenstein. It confirms in a general way my childhood belief that he was an escape artist. Though the consequences as a Jew of escaping so many times could have been dire, in all instances his punishment was light. Knowing this perhaps Heinz viewed it as a game to try and outwit the enemy? While I will never obtain the answer to this and other questions, what I have learned enhances my respect for this courageous man.
HEINZ LÖWENSTEIN TIMELINE (1905-1979)
DATE
EVENT
PLACE
SOURCES & REMARKS
8th March 1905
Birth
Danzig, Germany [today: Gdańsk, Poland]
1905 birth certificate
22nd October 1931
Marriage to Rose Bloch
Danzig, Germany [today: Gdańsk, Poland]
1931 marriage certificate
ca. 1935
Moved to Palestine, likely became a British citizen, & volunteered for the British Army (Pioneer Corps)
Palestine
29th April 1941
Taken prisoner at the end of the Battle of Greece likely near Kalamata on the Peloponnesian Peninsula
Greece
First held as a prisoner in Corinth, then moved to Salonika before eventually being sent to Austria for incarceration (WO 416/412/223)
8th July 1941
Given inoculation against typhoid fever at Stalag XVIIIA (Wolfsberg, Austria)
Wolfsberg, Austria
WO 416/412/223
28th July 1941
Transferred from Stalag XVIIIA (Wolfsberg) to Stalag VIIIB (Lamsdorf)
Wolfsberg, Austria;
and
Lamsdorf, Germany [today: Łambinowice, Poland]
WO 416/228/460
5th September 1941
Assigned to work labor camp E230 in Görlitz at the Fliegerhorst (airfield)
Görlitz, Germany [today: Zgorzelec, Poland]
WO 416/412/223
23rd September 1941
Krankenhaus im Lager (in hospital)
Lamsdorf, Germany [today: Łambinowice, Poland]
WO 416/412/223
29th October 1941
Assigned to work labor camp E29) in Wawrowitz, Kreis Troppau at the Zuckerfabrik (sugar factory)
Wawrowitz, district Troppau [today: Vávrovice, Opava District, Czech Republic]
WO 416/412/223
16th December 1941
Assigned to work labor camp E358 in Oppahof-Stettin, Kreis Troppau
Oppahof-Stettin, Kreis Troppau [today: Štítina, Opava District, Czech Republic]
WO 416/412/223
18th June 1942
Assigned to work labor camp E453 in Stramberg, Kreis Neutitschein (Neu Titschein)
Stramberg, Kreis Neutitschein (Neu Titschein) [today: Štramberk, Nový Jičín District, Czech Republic]
WO 416/412/223
2nd October 1942
Placed in solitary confinement for 5 days for neglecting work and disturbing work operations
Lamsdorf, Germany [today: Łambinowice, Poland]
WO 416/412/223;
During this punishment Heinz got sick and was hospitalized
6th October 1942
Krankenhaus im Lager (in hospital)
Lamsdorf, Germany [today: Łambinowice, Poland]
WO 416/412/223
19th November 1942
Assigned to work labor camp E412 in Krappitz, Germany at the Papierfabrikenwerke (paper mill)
Krappitz, Germany [today: Krapkowice, Poland]
WO 416/412/223
15th January 1943
Assigned to work labor camp E479 in Tarnowitz, Germany
Escapes from work labor camp E479 in Tarnowitz, Germany, catches a train in nearby Beuthen, Germany, which he takes to Danzig, Germany
Tarnowitz, Germany [today: Tarnowskie Góry, Poland]; and Beuthen, Germany [today: Bytom, Poland]; and Danzig, Germany [today: Gdańsk, Poland]
Heinz walks away from the work labor camp in Tarnowitz, walks to nearby Beuthen to catch a train to Danzig, where he is eventually recaptured by Rairway Police and returned to Stalag VIIIB in Lamsdorf (book by Cyril Rofe entitled “Against the Wind”)
8th February 1943
Placed in solitary confinement for 7 days for his escape from work labor camp E479 in Tarnowitz
Lamsdorf, Germany [today: Łambinowice, Poland]
WO 416/412/223
2nd March 1943
Assigned to work labor camp E456 in Oppeln, Kalkau-Wiessen, Germany at the Landesstrassenbauamt (State Highway Department)
Oppeln, Germany [today: Opole, Poland]
WO 416/412/223
6th May 1943
Krankenhaus im Lager (in hospital)
Lamsdorf, Germany [today: Łambinowice, Poland]
WO 416/412/223
9th June 1943
Assigned to work labor camp E494 in Gleiwitz, Germany at the Firma Braukmann
Gleiwitz, Germany [Gliwice, Poland]
WO 416/412/223
13th July 1943 to 21st July 1943
Escapes from work labor camp E494 in Gleiwitz, Germany
Gleiwitz, Germany [Gliwice, Poland]
WO 416/412/223
21st July 1943
Recaptured after 8 days on the lam; serves six days of solitary confinement
Location unknown
WO 416/412/223
13th August 1943
Returned to Stalag VIIIB
Lamsdorf, Germany [today: Łambinowice, Poland]
WO 416/412/223
15th September 1943
Entry whose meaning is unclear; Heinz may have escaped yet again and been recaptured or escaped for good
WO 416/412/223
16th November 1943
Henry Lowenstein’s name appears on a “List of British Prisoners of War on the Estate of Count Mihaly Andrassy, Szigetvár, Hungary”
Szigetvár, Hungary
WO 224/95 & WO 392/10
6th December 1943
“Transferred” from Stalag VIIIB to Stalag 344 in Lamsdorf, Germany (In late 1943, Stalag VIIIB was redesignated as Stalag 344)
Lamsdorf, Germany [today: Łambinowice, Poland]
WO 416/412/223
I surmise this entry is an administrative one made on the Personalkarte of all POWs
28th July 1944
Using an alias “Henry Goff” born on the 8th of March 1905 in Manchester, England, he is transferred from Stalag XVIIA in Kaisersteinbruch, Austria to Stalag XVIIB in Gneixendorf, Austria
Kaisersteinbruch, Austria; Gneixendorf, Austria
WO 416/141/191 & WO 392/20
Post-WWII
Changes his name from Heinz Löwenstein to “Hanoch Avneri”
Israel
Personal correspondence
10th August 1979
Death
Haifa, Israel
Burial Certificate from Haveri Kadisha
20th August 1979
Burial
Haifa, Israel
Burial Certificate from Haveri Kadisha
REFERENCES
Borrie, John. Despite Captivity: A Doctor’s Life as Prisoner of War. Whitcoulls, 1975.
Lidbetter, H. Martin. Friends Ambulance Unit, 1939-1943: Experiences in Finland, Norway, Sweden, Egypt, Greece and Germany. 1st ed., Hyperion Books, 1993.
Rofe, Cyril. Against the Wind. 1st ed., Hodder & Stoughton, 1956.
Venetsanakos, Georgia (2015, July 15). Battle of Kalamata 1941. Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/battleofkalamata/posts/seventy-years-ago-the-surviving-pows-are-making-their-way-through-transit-camps-/1600718310191993/
Note: This post tiers off an earlier one where I discussed my failed attempt to obtain compensation for my family from the French Ministry of Culture for artworks confiscated from my father’s first cousin by Nazi authorities at the port of Bordeaux in December 1940. As I explained in Post 105, I’m my father’s cousin’s closest surviving blood relative. The Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg (ERR), the Nazi’s primary agency of plunder, spearheaded the seizure of artworks in Bordeaux but was also heavily involved in the plunder of libraries and archives throughout the areas the Nazis occupied. Surprisingly, many of the books wound up in Ratibor [today: Racibórz, Poland], the town in Silesia where my father was born.
This story begins in 2014 when I spent 13 weeks in Europe traveling from Poland to Spain exploring places associated with my Jewish family’s diaspora. This included visiting the Stadtmuseum in Spandau, Berlin’s westernmost borough, where the surviving papers of two of my renowned great-aunts, Franziska Bruck (1866-1942) and Elsbeth Bruck (1874-1970), are archived; both have been the subject of recent posts. I photographed all the documents, pictures, and personal effects in the files for later study.
Upon my return to the states, I tried to make sense of what I’d obtained. Obviously, the letters were most useful though some were handwritten in Sütterlinschrift or Kurrentschrift, historical forms of German handwriting that are indecipherable to me as well as most contemporary Germans; fortunately, I know a few older German friends and relatives who learned Sütterlin in school who were able to translate these letters for me.
The most informative letter, however, was a typed one, composed by one of my father’s first cousins, Jeanne “Hansi” Goff née Löwenstein, to her aunt, my great-aunt, Elsbeth Bruck in East Berlin. In this letter written in 1946, Hansi explained that a painting by her recently deceased brother Fédor Löwenstein had posthumously sold for 90,000 French Francs. (Figure 1) Realizing this represented a significant amount of money at the time, I began to suspect Fédor was an accomplished artist. I already knew of his existence from photographs and other letters found among my great-aunt’s papers. (Figure 2) Additionally, knowing Fédor had died in 1946 in Nice, France, I’d previously obtained his certificat de décès, death certificate, when I visited L’Hôtel de Ville in Nice, Nice’s City Hall.
I began my investigation in Nice by contacting the lady I know at L’Hôtel de Ville asking if she could find and send me Fédor’s obituary. This acquaintance did one better and sent me several web links with information about Fédor Löwenstein. Unbeknownst to me during my 13 weeks in Europe the Musée des Beaux-arts in Bordeaux, France had featured three of Fédor’s oil paintings on display between May 15th and August 24th. Naturally, had I known about this special exhibit, I would have detoured there to see the artworks.
The exhibit catalog (livret_lowenstein.pdf (musba-bordeaux.fr) included a lot of detail on Fédor and his paintings, and their history. (Figure 3) The exhibit and the new information confirmed what I already suspected, namely, that Löwenstein had not been an ordinary painter. He was born on the 13th of April 1901 in Munich. He studied at the School of Decorative Arts in Berlin, then at the Academy of Fine Arts in Dresden. In 1923, he moved to Paris, France, attracted by the artistic influence of the capital. Between the two world wars, an artistic movement dominated there referred to as École de Paris, the School of Paris, which was not an actual school. It was in this rich artistic context that Löwenstein painted and drew. His early works reflected the influence of cubism, and his subsequent creations evolved towards abstraction, although his personal style was on the border between the two. In 1936, Fédor joined the Salon des Surindépendants, an association of artists who no longer wanted an admission jury and questioned the restrictions imposed by the new regulations of the Salon des Indépendants of 1924.
Fédor Löwenstein is often referred to as a Czechoslovakian painter because his father’s family was from there. The Munich Agreement concluded on the 30th of September 1938, provided for the German annexation of land on the border between Czechoslovakia and Germany called the Sudetenland, where more than three million, mainly ethnic Germans, lived. Undoubtedly the signing of this agreement in the city where Fédor was born and involving the country where his father’s family originated inspired him to paint one of his iconic works, “La Chute,” “The Fall.” As the Bordeaux exhibit catalog notes, “The composition and iconographic vocabulary of the work are reminiscent of the convulsed and screaming silhouettes of Picasso’s Guernica. . .”
When France entered the war on the 3rd of September 1939, Löwenstein, like many artists, left Paris. As a foreigner, he had to hide to escape the exclusion laws. Briefly, some background on this. During the interwar period, France was one of the more liberal countries in welcoming Jews, many of them from eastern Europe. However, in the wake of a significant influx of refugees fleeing Nazi Germany and the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s, the French government began to reassess their “open-door” policy. By 1939 the authorities had imposed strict limitations on immigration and set up several internment and detention camps for refugees, such as Gurs and Rivesaltes, in southern France. Various of my German ancestors got caught up in these detentions.
In the case of Fédor, however, he went to Mirmande in the Drôme Valley, more than 400 miles south of Paris, on the advice of a fellow artist, a place he’d previously stayed in 1935 and 1938. At the time, Miramande was a village in ruins that became a refuge for many Parisian artists of foreign origin. All seemed to lead a peaceful existence there except for the difficulties obtaining art supplies. In any case, sometime in May 1940, Fédor left Miramande for Paris to select works of art to be shipped to a gallery in New York City via the port of Bordeaux. These works would eventually be seized there in December 1940 by the Nazi authorities.
Bordeaux is located in Aquitaine, a historical region in southwestern France. Quoting from the exhibit catalog: “Considered a sensitive and strategic coastal area, the Atlantic coastline was governed in a special way by the army, and access to it was forbidden. Very quickly, the military authorities blocked the shipment of all goods then leaving the port of Bordeaux. December 5 [1940] seems to have been the date of an important seizure operation by the ERR (Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg), two sets of goods on their way out were confiscated.” This included Fédor Löwenstein’s consignment of works destined for America.
A little more history. German forces invaded France on May 10, 1940, and by June 22, 1940, France signed an armistice with Germany that went into effect on June 25, 1940. Under the terms of the armistice, Germany annexed the provinces of Alsace and Lorraine, and occupied the remainder of northern and western France. However, southern and eastern France remained unoccupied until November 1942. There a French collaborationist government, referred to as the Vichy Regime, governed. However, the suppression of the demarcation line in November 1942 caused the artist colony gathered in Miramande to break up. From then on, it was the French Resistance network that protected the refugees of Miramande, allowing many Jewish painters to escape.
By the fall of 1943, Fédor was already ill and traveled to Paris under a false identity to consult a specialist at the Curie Institute, though his disease was not diagnosed. His mastery of the French language, his support network, and his discretion about his religion were undoubtedly responsible for his survival during the Nazi occupation. Shortly after the war on the 4th of August 1946 he was hospitalized and died a few days later of Hodgkin Lymphoma in Nice.
The 2014 exhibit at the Musée des Beaux-arts de Bordeaux (livret_lowenstein.pdf (musba-bordeaux.fr) was prompted by the rediscovery of three looted works of art, entitled “Landscape (Composition (Paysage)) (Figure 4),” “The Poplars (Les Peupliers),” and “The Trees (Arbres)” painted by Fédor Löwenstein that had been confiscated by the Nazis. As previously mentioned, the three works displayed were part of a consignment that F. Loevenstein, as Fédor signed his works, tried to send to an American gallery in New York. Seized at the port of Bordeaux in December 1940, they were sent to the Jeu de Paume in Paris, to be stored in the so-called “Salle des Martyrs,” “Martyrs Room” (Figure 5), a chamber to which works in a style repudiated by the aesthetics of the Third Reich, were relegated. It was only at the end of 2010 that the connection between these works that were held at the Musée National d’Art Moderne housed at the Centre Pompidou and the Löwenstein seizure at Hanger H in the port of Bordeaux was made.
Researchers Alain Prévet, Thierry Bajou, Edouard Vasseur, along with the curator of the Bordeaux exhibit Mme. Florence Saragoza, about whom more will be said below, identified the paintings. They accomplished this using two negatives preserved in the Archives of the National Museums that showed views of the Salle des Martyrs of the Jeu de Paume. The researchers undertook detailed digitization of these negatives, painting by painting, and reconciled this with data that had been recorded by Rose Valland, then curatorial attaché at the Jeu de Paume. (Figure 6) In the list that Rose Valland had drawn up in March 1942, she listed eleven works—six watercolors being grouped together in one lot—that had been stolen from Fédor Löwenstein. At least two of the artist’s paintings are visible in one of the photographs taken of the Salle des Martyrs.
The Salle des Martyrs of the Jeu de Paume became the central repository of the works of art confiscated in France by the Nazi services, the contents of which were made available to the ERR, the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg (the Reichsleiter Rosenberg Taskforce). The ERR was one of the primary Nazi Party organizations dedicated to appropriating cultural property during WWII. It was led by the ideological henchman of the Nazi Party Alfred Rosenberg, from within the NSDAP Office of Foreign Affairs. Between 1940 and 1945, the ERR operated in France, Netherlands, Belgium, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Greece, Italy, and on the territory of the Soviet Union.
The Löwenstein works mentioned by Rose Valland and rediscovered in 2010 had also been catalogued by the ERR agents. They were listed under ERR file numbers Löwenstein 4 (Landscape), Löwenstein 15 (The Poplars), and Löwenstein 19 (The Trees). Following the war, the works were kept at the Musée National d’Art Moderne. The researcher Alain Prévet previously mentioned involved in the identification of the Löwenstein works has shown that the works were inventoried in 1973 as coming from an anonymous donation. The Bordeaux catalog notes the following:
“According to the minutes of the session of the Commission des Musées Nationaux of December 6, 1973, this ‘donation’ was in fact a regularization of artistic goods that had been ‘lying around’ in the Louvre; works that had ‘remained unclaimed, some of them for forty years,’ in a storeroom of the national museum. Because of the lack of knowledge of the real provenance of these works, it was decided to register them as ‘anonymous gifts’. . . works that had been deposited in the Louvre during the Occupation, following the Nazi spoliations, were . . . part of this collection. . .”
As the Bordeaux exhibit catalog notes, Löwenstein’s works, which are conserved to this day at the Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Pompidou “. . .bear the stigma of their aesthetic condemnation: a large red cross indicating that they were among others destined to be discarded. The files drawn up by the ERR bear the mention vernichtet, ‘destroyed’. . .The curator at the Jeu de Paume, Rose Valland, confirms this fatal destiny on July 20, 1943: ‘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 Dali’s. The paintings in the Löwenstein, Esmont (sic), M[ichel]-G[eorges] Michel collections are almost all shredded (…)’’. . . On July 23, 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.. . .’” That Löwenstein’s three paintings escaped destruction is astonishing and is probably due to the fact they were classified as “paintings of lesser importance.”
Contained within the materials on the Löwenstein exhibit was the name of the curator who organized the show, Mme. Florence Saragoza, previously mentioned as one of the people involved in identifying Fédor’s works from the negatives of the Salle des Martyrs.
Intriguingly, also included within the Bordeaux museum’s promotional materials was the following statement in French:
“Si près de soixante-dix ans après la fin du conflit, de nombreux cas de restitution d’objets d’art restent en attente, trois d’entre eux sont désormais sortis de l’ombre et attendant maintenant l’identification des ayants droit de Wilhelm Fédor Löwenstein (1901-1946) pour être remis à leurs propriétaires légitimes.”
Translated :
“While nearly seventy years after the end of the conflict, many cases of art object restitution remain pending, three have now emerged from the shadows and are now awaiting the identification of the rightful owners of Wilhelm Fédor Löwenstein (1901-1946) to be returned to their rightful owners.”
This is a significant “concession.” Oftentimes, heirs of Jews whose works were either confiscated by the Nazis or whose sale was forced at a deeply discounted price and/or that eventually and illicitly wound up in museums spend years litigating their cases against these museums or private owners. The fact that the France Government’s Premier Ministre’s Commission for the Compensation of Victims of Spoliation or “CIVS” acknowledged that it was looking for the rightful heirs of goods taken illegally by the Nazis suggested the process of receiving compensation or acquiring possession could theoretically be short-circuited.
As I explained in detail in Post 105, I was able to establish contact with Mme. Florence Saragoza (Figure 7) who was literally brought to tears to learn that someone from Fédor Löwenstein’s family still exists. Florence, who I hold in the very, very highest esteem helped me file a claim in 2014 with the CIVS for compensation on behalf of my family; this involved requesting compensation for 25 pieces of art seized and/or destroyed.
For orientation, my father and Fédor were first cousins (Figure 8), so I would be Fédor’s first cousin once removed. Being intimately acquainted with my family tree and knowing that neither Fédor nor his two siblings ever had any children, I quickly realized I’m his closest surviving blood relative. Notwithstanding this fact, as I deeply lamented in Post 105, when the CIVS finally rendered their decision in June 2021, they refused to acknowledge I had any rights to compensation for the destruction and confiscation of Fédor’s artworks. Suffice it to say, because France is ruled by the principles of civil law rather than common law, my rights have been supplanted by Fédor’s siblings, who are obviously no longer alive, or by the heirs named in his sibling’s wills. The living heirs are referred to as “universal legatees,” and their rights according to French law supersede my own. That said, there is still some gray area based on which a French lawyer I’ve hired is contesting the decision. Stay tuned for further updates.
Following their determination in 2021, the CIVS notified me that one of Fédor Löwenstein’s painting entitled “Composition” had been shipped to the Jewish Museum of New York for an exhibit entitled “Afterlives: Recovering the Lost Stories of Looted Art,” scheduled to run between August 20, 2021, and January 9, 2022. This was one of the paintings I had filed a claim for with the CIVS. Even though I’d been denied restitution by the French Minister of Culture, I took an avid interest in how the CIVS would handle the process going forward. For this reason, I ordered the exhibition catalog which, during Covid, took many months to arrive.
Tucked into the book was a surprising picture labeled as having been taken in Ratibor [today: Racibórz, Poland]. This is the town where my father and many of his immediate family were born and where the family business, the Bruck’s “Prinz von Preußen” Hotel, operated through three generations. The photo shows crates containing thousands of books. According to the caption, in 1943 the Nazis established a research and sorting operation for plundered libraries in Ratibor. Eventually more than two million books were transported there. The photograph was included in the photo records of the Offenbach Archival Depot. (Figure 9) The Depot was a central collecting point in the American Sector of Germany for books, manuscripts and archival materials looted, confiscated, or taken by the German army or Nazi government from the occupied countries during World War II.
The relocation of the ERR’s Book Control Center (Buchleitstelle) from Berlin to Ratibor in mid-1943 was prompted by the increased Allied bombing of Berlin, and a desire by the Nazis to save the books, at least until they’d had time to sort and save those they could use for propaganda. More on this below.
While I’d previously been unaware how my father’s hometown had been used during the war, Patricia Kennedy Grimstead, an academic from the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute, has written extensively on the subject. In a seminal paper entitled “Roads to Ratibor: Library and Archival Plunder by the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg” she goes into great detail on her findings. According to Grimstead, the ERR Silesian research center in Ratibor “. . .was the recipient of archives and books the Nazis plundered as part of a vast ideological, political, and cultural policy. Unlike art, archival and library seizures were not for display, prestige, or profit. If they bolstered Hitler’s imperial pretensions or exposed the evils of ‘Bolshevism,’ then by all means they should be sought. . .Specialists catalogued, analyzed, and preserved the materials, treating them not only as the heritage of ‘enemies of the Reich’ but as raw material for propaganda for ‘operational’ use’” Books that did not meet these criteria were burned in spectacular bonfires or sent to pulping factories. (p. 391)
According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s website, in a section on “Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg: A Policy of Plunder,” in January 1940 Hitler informed all offices of the Nazi Part that Alfred Rosenberg, head of the ERR, “. . .should be assisted in assembling a library for the planned new educational and research institute of the Party, the Hohe School, to be located at the Chiemsee in Bavaria. The library would contain 500,000 volumes. . .Preparations for the Hohe School also included other branches within the Reich, such as a ‘Center for Research on the Jewish Question’ in Frankfurt.”
The Jewish Museum exhibit catalog emphasizes this same point: “The segregation of Jews was enforced in a variety of ways. One distinctive strategy was to treat Jewish culture as the subject of historical inquiry, much as one might study a rare but obsolete specimen. Hitler called this an ‘anti-Semitism of reason,’ or ‘scientific anti-Semitism,’ which explicitly identified Jews in racial terms, rather than by religious affiliation. By the late 1930s research centers, institutes, and university departments had been founded throughout Germany and Austria to accommodate this burgeoning field and to inspire looting of works that were to be ‘saved’ expressly for the purpose of spurious academic research. Prominent among these was Alfred Rosenberg’s Institute for the Study of the Jewish Question (IEJ). It housed an estimated five hundred thousand books and manuscripts stolen from synagogues, Masonic temples, and private collections. Key to his mission was to set up a great Nazi university on the Chiemsee, in Bavaria, from the spoils of his plunder, including masterworks of both art and literature that would be instrumental in forming the curriculum.” (p. 54)
In this lengthy post, I reviewed and augmented what I had previously discussed in Post 105 regarding my failed attempt to obtain restitution on behalf of my family for paintings seized by the Nazi’s Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg (ERR) from my father’s first cousin. In the process, I learned more about this agency’s role in plundering books that wound up in Ratibor where my father was born. Following the capitulation of Ratibor at the end of WWII, many of the books confiscated by the Nazis in Western Europe were later moved by the Soviets to Minsk, capital of Soviet Belorussia. To this day, an estimated half a million of these books have not been returned to their countries of origin and are referred to as “twice plundered” books.
REFERENCES
Afterlives: Recovering the Lost Stories of Looted Art. 20 Aug. 2021-9 Jan. 2022, Jewish Museum, New York.
Alexander, Darsie & Sam Sackeroff. Afterlives: Recovering the Lost Stories of Looted Art. Yale University Press, 2021.
“Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg: A Policy of Plunder.” United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, https://www.ushmm.org/information/exhibitions/online-exhibitions/special-focus/offenbach-archival-depot/einsatzstab-reichsleiter-rosenberg-a-policy-of-plunder
Fédor Löwenstein (1901-1946), trois œuvres martyres. 15 May-24 Aug. 2014, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Bordeaux, Bordeaux.
“France.” United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/france
Grimstead, Patricia Kennedy. “Roads to Ratibor: Library and Archival Plunder by the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg.” Holocaust and Genocide Studies, vol. 19, no. 3, Winter 2005, pp. 390-458.
Musée des Beaux-arts de Bordeaux. Fédor Löwenstein, destin tragique d’un élève d’André Lhote.
Photographs of the Operations of the Offenbach Archival Depot. United States National Archive, 541611, https://catalog.archives.gov/search-within/541611?availableOnline=true&typeOfMaterials=Photographs%20and%20other%20Graphic%20Materials
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.
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.
The letters and photographs turned out to be most informative. The letters were written in four forms, Old German Script (known as die Kurrentschrift or Kurrent for short in German); an updated version of Kurrent called Sütterlin developed in the early 20th Century; normal German script (deutsche Normalschrift); and typed normal German. Suffice it to say, that the three forms of German script are completely indecipherable to me, so I depended on German-speaking friends and relatives to translate these letters. However, in the case of letters typed in German, using a good on-line translator, called DeepL, I was able to make sense of the content of some of these missives.
One letter I translated provides the basis of much of this Blog post. (Figures 4a-c) It contains astonishing information that led to the seven-year odyssey I embarked upon to obtain redress from the French government for an injustice perpetrated upon my father’s first cousin, Fedor Löwenstein, by the Nazis. The letter was written by Fedor’s younger sister, Jeanne “Hansi” Goff née Löwenstein, to her aunt, my great-aunt, Elsbeth Bruck. It is dated the 30th of October 1946, and was sent from Nice, France to Berlin, Germany. What makes the letter so astounding is not that it mentions both my paternal grandmother ELSE Bruck and my father OTTO Bruck, since both had connections to Nice and France in 1946, but rather to Hansi’s declaration that one of her brother Fedya’s (named Fedor but also called “Fidel”) paintings had sold posthumously in 1946 for 90,000 French Francs. Using a Historic Currency Converter, I determined this would be worth more than $16,000 as of 2015, obviously even more today. Given the enormous amount that one of Fedor Lowenstein’s paintings had fetched in 1946 convinced me that he was no run-of-the-mill painter and that I needed to learn more about him.
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.”
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.
Jeanne Goff née Löwenstein’s translated 1946 letter convinced me her brother was no ordinary painter. Knowing this, I became curious whether I could obtain an obituary from a contemporary newspaper that might lead me to living descendants. Hoping Mme. Saramito might be able to track it down for me, or at least point me in the right direction, I contacted her. What she provided surpassed my expectations.
In what can only be characterized as a fortunate occurrence of serendipity, Mme. Saramito sent me links to several articles about an exposition featuring three of Fedor Löwenstein’s paintings seized by the Nazis that had been displayed at the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Bordeaux. Unbeknownst to my wife and me, this exhibit had taken place there between the 16th of May and the 24th of August 2014, overlapping our extended stay in Europe that year; needless to say, had we known about this exposition, we would have detoured there.
Among the links Mme. Saramito sent me was an article naming the art curator for the exhibition held at the Musée des Beaux-Arts, a lady named Florence Saragoza; the article also mentioned the French government was looking for legitimate family members to whom Fedor Loewenstein’s artworks could be returned.
While I had several photographs of Fedor Löwenstein with his family in Nice (Figurse 13-14) found at the Stadtmuseum in Spandau, and a copy of his acte de décès, death certificate, obtained from la Mairie de Nice, there was much I did not know about my father’s first cousin. Hoping to learn more, I tried to contact Mme. Saragoza, and quickly discovered she was affiliated with the Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication as a conservatrice du patrimoine, curator of heritage. My initial email to her at the Ministère de la Culture “bounced.” I eventually learned that she was also the then-Director of the Musée Crozatier in le Puy-en-Velay, France (Figure 15), where my subsequent email reached her. I will always remember her response dated the 16th of September 2014, “What a surprise to read your e-mail! (To be honest I cried) . . .I’m so glad to read about someone from Lowenstein’s family!” Logically, Mme. Saragoza had assumed that Fedor’s family had been murdered in the Holocaust, emigrated, or would be unlikely to learn about the exhibition in Bordeaux and the resurfaced paintings. More on this later.
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.
Wilhelm Fédor Löwenstein was born in Munich, Germany on the 13th of April 1901, and is often characterized as a Czech painter because this was his family’s country of origin. He first studied at the School of Decorative Arts in Berlin and then at the Academy of Fine Arts in Dresden. In 1923, Fédor Löwenstein settled in Paris (Figures 17a-b), attracted by the artistic influence of the capital. An artistic movement dominated there, designated in 1925 as the École de Paris, the School of Paris; in reality, this name does not refer to any school that really existed, but rather to the École de Paris, which brought together artists who contributed to making Paris the focus of artistic creation between the two world wars. It was in this rich artistic context that Löwenstein painted and drew.
In Paris he mixed with and became a student of the painter André Lhote from Bordeaux and joined the “Groupe des Surindépendants” in 1936. Löwenstein’s early works were marked by the influence of cubism, whose main representatives worked in Paris, although his subsequent productions evolved towards abstraction, probably under the influence of André Lhote. In 1938, he painted “La Chute” (The Fall), inspired by the signing of the Munich Agreement that dismantled the Czechoslovakia that had been created in 1918. As is noted in the 2014 Bordeaux retrospective exhibition catalog, “The composition and iconographic vocabulary of the work are reminiscent of the convulsed and screaming silhouettes of Picasso’s Guernica, exhibited a year earlier in the Spanish Pavilion at the Paris World’s Fair.” The comparison to Picasso’s famed work speaks volumes about Löwenstein’s remarkable talent.
When France entered the war in September 1939, Löwenstein, like many artists, had to leave the capital. As a foreigner, he had to hide to escape France’s exclusion laws. He went to Mirmande (Drôme) on the advice of Marcelle Rivier, a friend and another of André Lhote’s students. The two artists probably met in Paris shortly before France entered the war. At that time, Mirmande, a village in ruins, welcomed a few painters who lived there. But most of them came there to work alongside André Lhote during his summer academy. The village became a place of refuge for many Parisian artists of foreign origin, all of whom led a relatively peaceful life, free from military operations and repression, contending mostly with the difficulty of obtaining art supplies.
This ended abruptly when the Germans occupied the whole of Metropolitan France in November 1942. Until then, the French Demarcation line marked the boundary between the occupied part of France administered by the German Army in the northern and western part of France and the Zone libre in the south. The suppression of the Demarcation line marked by the invasion of the southern zone by the Germans put an end to the peaceful life the artists in Miramande had enjoyed. This caused the group gathered there to break up.
From then on, it was the French Resistance network that worked to protect the refugees of Mirmande, thus allowing many Jewish painters to flee. Marcelle Rivier, Fedor Löwenstein’s friend who had enticed him to move there, somewhat amusingly described her involvement in his evacuation in 1943 from Miramande: “That night I put on Lowenstein one of these vast peasant skirts that we wore then and by a night of full moon in this month of February 1943, we left for Cliousclat. . .With his skirt, Lowenstein had the air of a horse disguised and the ground left no other means than to take the traced road. There I entrusted him to Ména Loopuyt, a Dutch painter living in Cliousclat. Charles Caillet had gone by bicycle to the abbey of Aiguebelle to get along with the abbot and gave us an appointment at his house. The next day at midnight, Doctor Debanne disguised the Jews as wounded, and they were taken to Aiguebelle.”
As the exposition catalog goes on to describe, “They [the Jews] were in possession of false identity cards made by Maurice Caillet, the curator of the Valence Museum. In agreement with the bishopric and the superior of the community, the monks of the abbey of Aiguebelle in the Drôme welcomed refugees at the end of 1942 and sheltered Jews whom they employed in the various works of the abbey. Löwenstein decorated tiles without enthusiasm.”
In the fall of 1943, ill, Fedor went to Paris, under the pseudonym of Lauriston, to consult at the Curie Institute and at the Broussais Hospital in the south of Paris, where Dr. Paul Chevallier, a French pioneer in hematology, was practicing. However, his disease was not diagnosed, and he continued to deteriorate. Löwenstein would eventually return to his family in Nice, where he was hospitalized and would die on the 4th of August 1946. It was determined he died of Hodgkins Lymphoma.
Fedor’s association with the “Groupe des Surindépendants” from 1936 onward resulted in him exhibiting regularly with them until the outbreak of WWII. The group even organized a personal exhibition for him in 1939. At some point in 1940 during his stay in Miramande, Fedor returned to Paris where he selected small format works as well as six watercolors that he brought to be shipped to New York City. There is little information about the circumstances surrounding this project, but the paintings were sent to a harbor warehouse in Bordeaux for shipment to an American gallery. Unfortunately, the crates never left Bordeaux but were instead “requisitioned” by German military authorities on the 5th of December 1940, the date of a major seizure operation.
A special commando unit affiliated with the “Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg (ERR)” (Reichsleiter Rosenberg Taskforce) raided the warehouse where Fedor’s crates were stored, seized them, and had them shipped to Paris where they were stored at the “Jeu de Paume.” The ERR was a Nazi Party organization dedicated to appropriating cultural property during WWII and was led by the chief ideologue of the Nazi Party, Alfred Rosenberg, ergo its name. The Jeu de Paume was the seat of ERR’s processing of looted art objects confiscated from Jewish-owned collections.
Owing to the abstract cubist nature of Löwenstein’s works, the ERR staff at the Jeu de Paume deemed them as “degenerate” and consigned them to the store room for condemned art, the “Salles des Martyrs,” Martyrs’ Hall. They were marked for destruction, in German “vernichet.” In total, 25 paintings by Fedor were seized and brought to the Jeu de Paume to be disposed of for ideological reasons.
Almost seventy years after the Liberation of Paris in August 1944 three of the purportedly destroyed Löwenstein paintings resurfaced in French museum collections. French Ministry of Culture officials were able to match the resurrected paintings with information contained in the ERR database for three works labeled by the Germans as Löwenstein 4 (“Paysage” or Landscape), Löwenstein 15 (“Peupliers” or Poplars), and Löwenstein 19 (“Les Arbes” or The Trees). In the official catalogue of unclaimed works and objects of art known as “Musée Nationaux Récupération (MNR),” the works are assigned MNR numbers R26, R27, and R28. These three paintings correspond to Löwenstein’s works of art that were displayed at the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Bordeaux in 2014 for which I would later file a claim for restitution. As an aside, all three paintings were signed “Fedor Loevenstein.” I would later learn from a French reader of my Blog, who purchased several of his works at auction, that Löwenstein also signed some with his initials in reverse, “LF.”
In connection with researching and writing the catalog for the 2014 exhibit of Fedor Löwenstein’s three resurrected paintings, Florence Saragoza and her colleagues uncovered the notes of the curator at the Jeu de Paume, Rose Valland. Her notes from July 20, 1943, confirm the fate of artworks destined for destruction: “Scholz and his team continue to choose from among the paintings in the Louvre’s escrow and stab the paintings they do not want to keep. This is how they destroyed almost all of Masson’s works, all of Dalí’s. The paintings in the Loewenstein, Esmont (sic), M[ichel]-G[eorges] Michel collections are almost all shredded. . .” On July 23rd, she added “The paintings massacred in the Louvre’s sequestration were brought back to the Jeu de Paume. Five or six hundred were burned under German surveillance in the museum garden from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. . . . The paintings that remained in the Louvre were classified by category. . .”. It appears that Löwenstein’s three works that escaped destruction had been classified by the Louvre as “paintings of lesser importance,” while the remaining works were likely stabbed, shredded and/or incinerated.
As a side note, since virtually all the images of Fedor Löwenstein’s paintings as well as the historic images of the Martyrs’ Hall at the Jeu de Paume are copyrighted, I refer readers to the hyperlinks to view photos.
As a mildly interesting aside, Florence Saragoza and her colleagues, using the notes left behind by Rose Valland, then curatorial attaché at the Jeu de Paume, were able to attribute most of the paintings exhibited there. They did this using a detailed digitization of the negatives, work by work, accompanied by anamorphosis. This was a new term to me and is defined as: “. . .a distorted projection requiring the viewer to occupy a specific vantage point, use special devices, or both to view a recognizable image. It is used in painting, photography, sculpture and installation, toys, and film special effects. The word is derived from the Greek prefix ana-, meaning ‘back’ or ‘again’, and the word morphe, meaning ‘shape’ or ‘form.’ Extreme anamorphosis has been used by artists to disguise caricatures, erotic and scatological scenes, and other furtive images from a casual spectator, while revealing an undistorted image to the knowledgeable viewer.” In the case of the historic photos on display in the Martyrs’ Hall, I take this to mean that since the paintings in the photos look somewhat distorted, some digital manipulation was required to identify and attribute the works of art.
As previously mentioned, Fedor Löwenstein’s 25 paintings were seized from État-major administratif du port, hangar H, Bordeaux, the “Port Administration Headquarters, Hanger H, Bordeaux.” They were seized at the same time as a set of Dali’s works were taken from another collector, which were described under the acronym “unbekannt,” “unknown.” This was intended to indicate that the history of the works had been lost during the various transfers from their seizure in Bordeaux to their shipment to Paris, the inventories being drawn up only belatedly by the historians of the ERR. Again quoting from the exhibition catalog, “But the fact that these collections were made anonymous was also part of the ideological policy of the Third Reich, which aimed at cultural appropriation, an affirmation of superiority inscribed in a historical connection and a rewriting of art history.” As in the case of Dali’s works, the provenance of the three orphan paintings by Löwenstein was lost and they were described as having been donated anonymously in 1973. Only in 2011 were they were reclassified as stolen works. This brings me to where things stood when I learned all the above.
Soon after connecting with Florence Saragoza, she asked me whether I wanted to file a claim with the Commission pour l’indemnisation des victimes de spoliations (CIVS) for the return of Fedor Löwenstein’s three orphan paintings, as well as payment of damages. CIVS is the commission established in 1999 under the French Prime Minister to implement the policy of the State regarding the reparation of the damages suffered by the Jews of France whose property was looted during the Occupation, because of the anti-Semitic measures taken by the German occupier or by the Vichy regime. This seemed like a logical next step. Given my intimate familiarity with my father and his first cousins’ family tree, I immediately realized that I am Fedor’s closest living relative. (Figure 18) That’s to say, because neither Fedor nor either of his two siblings had any children or surviving spouses, as a first cousin once removed, I am their closest surviving blood relative.
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.
Between February 2017 and June 2021, when CIVS rendered their written decision, I was never contacted by the Premier Ministre’s office. The decision letter from the Premier Ministre along with the attached report by Le Rapporteur Generale arrived on the 17th of June 2021. It included much of the same information discussed above. The final decision is that my claim was rejected.
Beyond the disappointment and anger I feel about this determination, I was curious about the merits and legal basis of this ruling. Inasmuch as I can ascertain, it appears that because France is governed by principles of civil law rather than common law, my rights have been supplanted. Civil law has its features compiled and codified into a collection for ready reference. It is inspired by the Roman law. Common law, on the other hand, has its rules and regulations administered by judges and vary on a case-to-case basis. Civil law was framed in France. Common law was started in England. Common law varies from case to case depending upon the customs of the society whereas civil law has a predefined written set of statutes and codes for reference. Judgment in common law varies whereas in civil law, the judges must strictly follow the codification written in the book.
In the case of my claim for restitution, CIVS concluded there are what are called “universal legatees,” an element of civil law, whose claim to Löwenstein’s property and damages supersede my own. France considers property left in a will a “universal legacy,” so the person who inherits the rights, obligations, possession, and debts of an ancestor’s title in property through a testamentary disposition is called a “universal legatee.”
These universal legatees in the case of Fedor Löwenstein’s estate are descendants of individuals, merely friends, who inherited from his brother and sister. They and their descendants were not and are not related by blood to Fedor Löwenstein, as I am. Were it not for my efforts to uncover information about Fedor’s orphaned works and file a claim for repatriation and damages, these individuals would have no knowledge of their existence. Furthermore, had it not been for my own extensive genealogical research into Fedor Löwenstein’s spoliated works and ancestry, the CIVS genealogist contracted to undertake the forensic investigation into my claim likely would not have uncovered all the information I provided in 2017. Notwithstanding the stated wishes of CIVS and the Musée National d’Art Moderne housed in the Centre Pompidou in Paris to restore Fedor Löwenstein’s to his family, this is emphatically not happening.
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
