Category: “Forum.Danzig.de”

POST 123 (GUEST POST): IN MEMORY OF THE JEWISH FAMILY LIEB-LIB FROM STUTTHOF [SZTUTOWO, POLAND]

 

EDITOR’S NOTE: For the first time on my Blog, I’m hosting a guest post by a gentleman named Mr. Uwe Sager, a longtime contributor to the German-language Forum.Danzig.de. Members in this Forum post articles about people, places, events, etc. associated with the former Free City of Danzig [German: Freie Stadt Danzig; Polish: Wolne Miasto Gdańsk] and investigate and try to answer queries posted by participants and fellow researchers. The Free City of Danzig was a city-state under the protection of the League of Nations between 1920 and 1939, consisting of the Baltic Sea port of Danzig [today: Gdańsk, Poland] and nearly 200 other small localities in the surrounding areas. Because my father, Dr. Otto Bruck, lived in Danzig and nearby Tiegenhof [today: Nowy Dwór Gdański, Poland] in the Free City of Danzig between roughly 1930 and 1937, several years ago I posted multiple queries on the Forum hoping members might help me determine the fate of several of my father’s friends from his time living there, to little avail. However, this is how Uwe and I became acquainted. At the time, Uwe was already researching the fate of the Jewish family “Lieb” or “Lib” from Stutthof [today: Sztutowo, Poland] that is the subject of this guest post, although he’d not yet worked out most of the details presented below. Uwe’s research into the Lieb’s was prompted by one of the Forum’s readers who’d formerly lived in Stutthof, a woman named Irmchen Krause, asking about them. What follows is what Uwe and a fellow Forum member, Rainer Mueller Glodde, have unearthed about the Lieb family’s fate. Since I’ve mentioned the notorious Stutthof Concentration Camp in previous posts, including my father’s encounter with Gerhard Epp who relied on Jewish inmates from there to produce munitions in his converted Stutthof machine factory, it seems appropriate to include a guest post discussing the fate of one Jewish family from Stutthof.

 

Stutthof-Sztutowo

In memory of the Jewish family Lieb/Lib in Stutthof

By Uwe Sager – Forum.Danzig.de

With Contributions by Rainer Mueller Glodde (Administrator of momente-im-werder.net)

April 2020

 

When I was informed at the end of 2016 by Irmchen, née Krause, former Stutthof resident, of a Jewish family that had once lived there, I wanted to learn more about their history and whereabouts. The family’s name was Lieb. I hope my findings may remind the town’s current inhabitants that Jews once lived there, even though the family itself may not have attached much importance to it. Yet, the family was part of the community at one time and represents a segment of the town’s dark past.

Irmchen recalls a Jewish family by the name of Lieb that lived in Stutthof in the 1930’s. They ran a clothing store located on the corner of Schulstraße and Poststraße. (Figure 1) The family had a young daughter named Antonia, affectionately called “Tania.” Only a few Stutthöfer dared to shop at Lieb’s. As Irmchen notes, “Whoever bought from the Lieb’s had fingers pointed at them.” Additionally, customers were threatened by telling them their names would be published on the “Stürmerkasten” (EDITOR’S NOTE: Stürmerkasten is a kind of wall newspaper, that was erected in every village during the Hitler era in Germany) (Figure 2), situated directly opposite the Lieb store.

 

Figure 1. The corner of Schulstraße and Poststraße in Stutthof where the Lieb family store was once located

 

Figure 2. Example of a “Stürmerkasten” or a wall newspaper where, among other things, the Nazis posted the names of people who continued to frequent Jewish businesses despite the ban against such interactions (Credit: Bundesarchiv_Bild_133-075, Worms,_Antisemitische_Presse,__Stürmerkasten_)

 

The boycott measures against Jewish businesses and businesspeople are well known. Despite these measures, ironically, some Stutthöfer secretly shopped with the Lieb’s in the evening. According to Irmchen, the talk at the time was that Mr. Lieb was taken away with his wife and child in what is referred to as a “Nacht und Nebel aktion” (EDITOR’S NOTE: German for the “night and fog action” of abductions and disappearances decreed by Nazi Germany). Irmchen is not aware of any community support on behalf of the Lieb’s. According to another witness, some members of the community were still in contact with Mrs. Lieb who was supposedly then living in Danzig [today: Gdansk, Poland]. Mrs. Lieb is said to have warned comers against contacting her, saying it was too dangerous. Not unexpectedly,it was reported that she wore a Jewish star.

Following the Lieb family’s abduction or departure, their business was taken over by the Antony family who ran a grocery and dairy store next door. The textile portion of the Lieb business was assumed by Heinrich Thiessen, who ran his own textile store on Poststraße.

My own research, as well as that of colleagues from Forum Gdansk, led to several documents from which the life of the Lieb/Lib family can partially be reconstructed.

Zalman Lib (Salomon Lieb) was born on the 21st of December 1891. The difficult-to-read place of birth, combined with the possibility that the place name was incorrectly spelled by the registrar, is by appearances Dziewienszki (Polish), Dieveniškės (Lithuanian) (Figure 3), Divenishok (Lithuanian), or Jevenishok (Yiddish) (see Wikipedia and Jewish Gen KehilaLinks (English), including pictures of the town). Family surname listings for Divenishok show no Lieb or Lib; the closest is the surname “Leyb.”

 

Figure 3. Location of Dieveniškės, Lithuania, presumed birthplace of Salomon Lieb

 

Around 1928 Salomon Lieb opened his clothing store at the corner of Schulstraße and Poststraße. However, the “Adreßbuch Danzig-Land von 1927/28” does not have him listed in either Stutthof nor elsewhere in the Free City of Danzig. Presumably he was living in the region but without his own household.

The existence of the Lieb clothing store is documented in two places:

Günter Rehaag, “Ostseebad Stutthof” Band 2, Einwohnerverzeichnis Stutthof (Volume 2, Register of Residents Stutthof).

Number 1445:

Name: Antony, Walter, born 1908

Place of Residence: Stutthof, Schulstraße 2

Occupation: Merchant, Milk Butter Groceries, Schulstraße/corner Poststraße

Other: Besitz Fr. Löwner, tenants Rathke and Antony (early merchant Liep)

Info: Hermann Rohde

 

Deutsches Reichs-Adressbuch für Industrie, Gewerbe und Handel, 1934, Stutthof, Manufakturwaren (German Reich Address Book for Industry, Trade and Commerce, 1934, Stutthof, Manufactured Goods)

Dau, G. – Gerber, Fritz – Glodde, Alfr. – Lieb, Sal., – Thiessen, Heinrich (Figure 4)

 

Figure 4. Listing in the “Deutsches Reichs-Adressbuch für Industrie, Gewerbe und Handel, 1934, Stutthof, Manufakturwaren” documenting Solomon Lieb’s manufactured goods store. Readers will also note below the listing of manufactured goods retailers, the machine factor of “Epp & Co. GmbH”

(EDITOR’S NOTE: Readers will notice that immediately below the list of manufactured goods merchants on Figure 4, there is a single “Maschinenfabrik,” Machine Factory, with the merchant “Epp & Co. GmbH” listed. This would refer to Gerhard Epp who was a middle brother of two of my father’s friends from Tiegenhof [today: Nowy Dwór Gdański, Poland]).

In 1929 Salomon Lieb got married in Danzig. (Figures 5a-c). 

 

Figure 5a. Cover page from ancestry.com of Sarra Woloweleski’s marriage to Salmon Lib on the 16th of July 1929 in Danzig, Free City of Danzig

 

Figure 5b. Page 1 of Sarra Wolowelski and Salmon Lib’s 16th of July 1929 marriage certificate
Figure 5c. Page 2 of Sarra Wolowelski and Salmon Lib’s 16th of July 1929 marriage certificate

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The marriage certificate records the following information:

Registry Office Danzig I, Certificate Number 528 dated 16th of July 1929

The merchant Salmon Lib, Jewish religion, born on the 21st of December 1891 in Dziewienszki, district Oszmiany, Lithuania, living in Stutthof, Danziger lowland.

The parents are the merchant David Lib and his already deceased wife Tony, née Katz, both residing in Dziewienszki.

Married to Sarra Wolowelski, accountant, Jewish religion, born on the 31st of August 1898/ 10th of September 1898 (Julian/Gregorian calendar) at Pinsk-Karolin, Belarus (Figure 6), living in Danzig.

The parents are the merchant Josef Wolowelski and his wife Lea, née Menzel, both living in Pinsk-Karolin, Belarus.

 

Figure 6. Location of Pinsk, Belarus, birthplace of Sarra Wolowelski

 

In 1932, presumably in Stutthof, Salomon and Sarra’s daughter Tania was born.

The exclusion, harassment, and persecution of the Jew Salomon Lieb in Stutthof, supporting what Irmchen previously noted, is confirmed in the following account:

“Kurt Gutowski, son of a local blacksmith and later poet, has given anecdotal evidence in his short memoirs of the growth of fascism and racist ideologies in his home village (Gutowski, Kurt: Aus meiner Stutthöfer Kinderzeit, p. 66). Gutowski attributes the everyday fascism to his school principal Reinhold Zube, who asked students to damage deliveries to the Jewish department store Lieb to make them unusable. Zube pulled out of the ordered district council elections in November 1934 as a firebrand in the Kreistag. . .” (Zimmermann, Rüdiger: Friedrich Rohde (1895-1970), Danziger Volkstagsabgeordneter, Fischer und Sozialist, Bonn 2020, S. 44)

In 1936, the Lieb family left Stutthof. Whether they were, as Irmchen postulated, picked up in a “Nacht und Nebel” action, or they left Stutthof quietly and secretly on their own remains unclear. The latter is supported by the above-mentioned meeting with Mrs. Lieb, who was apparently living in freedom in Danzig. (EDITOR’S NOTE: After all my father’s dental clients had abandoned him, he left nearby Tiegenhof in around fall 1937 in favor of Berlin where the anonymity of a larger city temporarily provided Jews like him more freedom of movement and economic opportunities. For the same reason, the Liebs may have felt that Danzig as a larger city might similarly and temporarily provide haven.)

The likelihood that the Liebs were living in Danzig is also supported by another written account: “. . . at the home of the Danzig merchant Salomon Lieb, officials of the Tax Investigation Office discovered 30,000 Danzig guilders in gold which they confiscated along with his savings account balance of 3,000 guilders, even though Lieb no longer ran a commercial business. Nonetheless, the Financial Authority claimed he had tax debts and seized the gold coins as an alleged tax liability and tax penalty.” (Sopade 1938, p. 770f.) (Banken, Ralf: “Hitlers Steuerstaat: Die Steuerpolitik im Dritten Reich”, 2018, S. 555, Fußnote 256)

These monetary assets suggest that Salomon Lieb had successfully sold his business and stock of goods in Stutthof to the merchants Walter Antony and Heinrich Thiessen.

Where the Lieb family then lived between 1936 and 1942 remains unclear, possibly Danzig? The Liebs are not listed in Danzig Address Books of 1937/38 and 1939, although this is not definitive proof that they did not stay in the city. Alternatively, they may have returned to Dziewienszki, Salomon’s place of birth. There is documentary evidence from a 1942 Ghetto List that Salomon Lieb and his daughter Tania, without the wife/mother Sarra, were in the Woronów Ghetto.

From a Ghetto-List – https://www.avivshoa.co.il/pdf/Ghetto-List-1.8.2014.pdf (Figure 7)

 

Figure 7. Link to source of 1942 Woronowo ghetto list

 

COLUMN 1: Nr. 5288

COLUMN 2: Woronowo (Voranava [Bel], (Voronovo [Rus], Woronów [Pol], Voronova [Yid], Voranova, Voronov, Voronove, Werenów, Woronowo)

COLUMN 3: until 1941: Poland, Gebiet Nowogrodek; until 1944/1945: Reichskommissariat Ostland (White Ruthenia); today: Belarus, Gebiet Grodno (Hrodna) region

COLUMN 4: Opening 1st June 1941

COLUMN 5: Liquidation 30th September 1943

COLUMN 6: Deportations Lida

COLUMN 7: Remarks: on the 11th of May 1942, 1,291 persons were shot

COLUMN 8: Handbook of Detention Centers Belarus (1941-1944), 2001; Encyclopedia of Jewish Life, 2001 [EDITOR’s NOTE: The specific ghetto list with Salomon and Tania’s name on it appears in one of these publications.]

COLUMN 9: Date of Addition: 1st of August 2014

The map shows that the distance from the Woronów Ghetto [today: Voronovo, Belarus] to Dziewienszki [today: Dieveniškės, Lithuania] is only about 15.4 miles or 25km. (Figure 8)

 

Figure 8. Map showing distance from Dieveniškės, Lithuania, where Salomon Lieb was born, to the Woronowo (Voronovo) ghetto in Belarus where he and his daughter Tania were murdered

 

Following a request to the “Arolsen Archives International Center on Nazi Persecution,” they sent a file about the Liebs. This file does not indicate when and from where the Lieb family was taken to the Woronów Ghetto. Salomon Lieb is arrested in the ghetto on the 19th of May 1942 and shot during an “action.” (Figures 9a-d) In the case of the 10-year-old daughter Tania the date of her arrest is given as the beginning of June 1942; she too is shot during an “action.” (Figures 10a-c)

 

Figure 9a. Page 1 of Salomon Lieb’s file from the Arolsen Archives

 

Figure 9b. Page 2 of Salomon Lieb’s file from the Arolsen Archives; circled question indicates he lived on Weidengasse in Danzig

 

Figure 9c. Page 3 of Salomon Lieb’s file from the Arolsen Archives

 

Figure 9d. Page 4 of Salomon Lieb’s file from the Arolsen Archives

 

Figure 10a. Page 1 of Tania Lieb’s file from the Arolsen Archives

 

Figure 10b. Page 2 of Tania Lieb’s file from the Arolsen Archives; circled question indicates she lived on Weidengasse in Danzig

 

Figure 10c. Page 3 of Tania Lieb’s file from the Arolsen Archives

 

[EDITOR’S NOTE: In Figure 9b of the questionnaire in Salomon Lieb’s Arolsen Archives file, under question 9, and on Figure 10b. of Tania Lieb’s file is written in German the following: “9. Letzte Anschrift vor der Inhaftierung: Stutthof bei Danzig bis etwa 1936, dann Danzig in der nähe der Weidengasse,” translated as “9. Last address before imprisonment: Stutthof near Danzig until about 1936, then Danzig near Weidengasse.” (Figure 11) This confirms that Salomon and Tania Lieb lived in Danzig after leaving Stutthof, although there is no indication for how long.]

 

Figure 11. Pre-WWII map of Danzig with arrows pointing to location of Weidengasse where the Liebs lived, and to Mäusegasse where the Jewish ghetto in Danzig was located

 

[UWE SAGER’S HISTORICAL NOTE: At today’s ulica Owsiana in Gdansk, Poland (formerly Mäusegasse pointed out on Figure 11) there was a granary (Figure 12) with the charming name “Red Mouse” at number 7. In 1939 it served as a Nazi gathering point for Jews imprisoned in Danzig and was thus a kind of Danzig ghetto. The Germans were able to gather in it about 600 people who, for one reason or another, had not left Danzig when the Jewish community emigrated before the outbreak of war. The ghetto existed until 1943, when the remaining Jews were taken to the Auschwitz and Theresienstadt concentration camps. The fact that Salomon and Tania Lieb were murdered in the Woronów Ghetto rather than in Auschwitz or Theresienstadt suggests that they returned to Dziewienszki, Salomon’s place of birth, before being deported and murdered.]

 

Figure 12. Photo of the “Rote Maus,” the “Red House,” a granary that served as a Nazi detention center for Jews in Danzig until 1943 when the remaining Jews were deported and murdered in either Auschwitz or Theresienstadt

 

Nothing is known about the whereabouts of the wife/mother Sarra, not even on the list of survivors of the Woronów Ghetto. It cannot be ruled out that Sarra died between 1936 and 1942.

In the unpublished English-language manuscript written by Moshe Berkowitz entitled “Woronow, Voronova (Voranava, Belarus) 54°09′ / 25°20′,” Chapter XIII describes how the Jewish inhabitants of Diveneshok and neighboring villages were taken to Voronovo. Before their deportation, a delegation from the villages tried to negotiate with the Germans: “The delegation was as follows: LIEB; Hirsh SCHMID; YUTAN; and KOTLIAR from Diveneshok. . .” (Figure 13) Unfortunately, the first name of LIEB is missing so it is not clear whether it refers to Salomon Lieb.

 

Figure 13. Chapter XIII of Moshe Berkowitz’s unpublished manuscript with the names of the Jewish residents from Divenoshok and surrounding towns who “negotiated” with the Nazis before being deported to the Voronovo ghetto, including a man with the surname of “LIEB”

Chapter XV of the manuscript describes the massacre in Woronow, which took place on the 11th of May 1942, shortly preceding Salomon Lieb’s own death.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank the subscribers from the Danzig Forum, as well as the Arolsen Archive for providing the file on the Lieb family. My goal was not to write a book but as mentioned at the outset, to give the Lieb family a place in our consciousness. Therefore, I ask for your understanding that I have kept my post short.

The following is the file from the Arolsen Archives.

Copy of 6.3.3.3/82889670 through 82889675

In conformity with IST Digital Archives

With kind permission of the publication by above mentioned archive.

REFERENCES

Banken, Ralf. Hitlers Steuerstaat: Die Steuerpolitik im Dritten Reich (Hitler’s Tax State: Tax Policy in the Third Reich). De Gruyter Oldenbourg, 2018.

Berkowitz, Moshe. Woronow, Voronova (Voranava, Belarus) 54°09′ / 25°20′. https://www.jewishgen.org/Yizkor/voronovo1/voronovo1.html

Gutowski, Kurt. Aus meiner Stutthöfer Kinderzeit (From my Stutthöfer childhood). J. Pinnow, 1999.

Rehaag, Günter. Ostseebad Stutthof: Band 2, Einwohnerverzeichnis Stutthof (Volume 2, Register of Residents Stutthof).

Zimmerman, Rüdiger. Friedrich Rohde (1895-1970). Danziger Volkstagsabgeordneter, Fischer und Sozialist (Friedrich Rohde (1895-1970) Danziger Volkstag, fisherman and socialist). Bonn, 2020.

POST 121, POSTSCRIPT: MY FATHER’S ENCOUNTERS WITH HITLER’S MENNONITE SUPPORTERS—FURTHER HISTORICAL OBSERVATIONS

 

Note: This postscript to Post 121 stems from several comments I obtained from readers I think are worth further discussion.

Related Posts:

POST 3: OTTO BRUCK & TIEGENHOF: THE “SCHLUMMERMUTTER”

POST 3, POSTSCRIPT: OTTO BRUCK & TIEGENHOF: THE “SCHLUMMERMUTTER”

POST 78: MY FATHER’S FRIEND, KURT LAU, JAILED FOR “INSULTING THE NAZI GOVERNMENT”

POST 121-MY FATHER’S ENCOUNTERS WITH HITLER’S MENNONITE SUPPORTERS

Several years ago, while doing research on Danzig [today: Gdansk, Poland] formerly located in the Free City of Danzig where my father Dr. Otto Bruck apprenticed as a dentist in the early 1930’s, I happened upon a discussion forum entitled “Forum.Danzig.de.” As I recall, at the time I was trying to learn about a close friend of my father from nearby Tiegenhof [today: Nowy Dwór Gdański, Poland], an enormous lady he had only ever referred to as the “Schlummermutter.” Through informants I would eventually learn her name was Margaretha “Grete” Gramatzki née Gleixner, and that she owned the building where my father lived and had his dental practice. I only fleetingly participated in the discussion forum because it is primarily oriented towards German speakers, a language I don’t speak. One forum member I briefly chatted with was Mr. Uwe Sager who put me in touch with my good German friend, the “Wizard of Wolfsburg,” Peter Hanke. Regular followers of my Blog may recall Peter has been enormously helpful tracking down and translating German ancestral documents for me, almost magically so, ergo his sobriquet.

In any case, following publication of Post 121, Uwe Sager recently sent me an email. He recognized Figure 8, the illustration I found in one of Ben Goossen’s articles showing Gerhard Epp and the leadership team of his business enterprise, the Firma Gerhard Epp Maschinenfabrik in Stutthof. (Figure 1) To remind readers Gerhard Epp was the middle sibling of two of my father’s closest friends from Tiegenhof, the Mennonite sisters Suse and Idschi Epp, who also lived in the same boarding house as my father. Among my father’s surviving pictures is one showing a social event my father attended in the early 1930’s at the home of their brother Gerhard Epp in Stutthof [today: Sztutowo, Poland]. Uwe graciously sent me a link to the complete German-language publication in which Figure 8 was originally printed, entitled “Ostseebad Stutthof,” translated as the “Baltic Seaside Resort of Stutthof,” by Günther Rehaag. Pages 114 and 115 of this publication, reprinted here, include additional images of the buildings and employees of the Firma Gerhard Epp. (Figures 2a-b)

 

Figure 1. Leadership of the Mennonite-owned Gerhard Epp firm in Stutthof (from Ben Goossen’s 2021 article)

 

Figure 2a. Page 114 from Günther Rehaag’s book “Ostseebad Stutthof” discussing and showing photos of the “Firma Gerhard Epp Maschinenfabrik in Stutthof”; this page includes Figure 1. with the names of employees captioned

 

Figure 2b. Page 115 from Günther Rehaag’s book “Ostseebad Stutthof” discussing and showing photos of the “Firma Gerhard Epp Maschinenfabrik in Stutthof”

 

The original picture of Gerhard Epp from Günther Rehaag’s publication identified the people in the photo, information not included in the picture reprinted in Ben Goossen’s article. To my surprise, seated to Gerhard’s left, to his right as the viewer is looking at the picture, was Gerhard’s daughter by his first marriage, Rita Schuetze née Epp (Figure 3), looking every bit as radiant as in the contemporaneous picture given to me in 2014 by her family (Figure 4); readers will recall I mentioned meeting Rita that year as an elderly woman who sadly was suffering from severe Alzheimer’s.

 

Figure 3. Closeup of photo from Günther Rehaag’s book showing Gerhard Epp seated next to his daughter, Rita Schuetze née Epp

 

 

Figure 4. Gerhard Epp’s daughter, Rita Schuetze née Epp, by his marriage to his first wife Margaretha Epp née Klaassen (photo provided to me by Rita Schuetze’s family)

 

Another reader who contacted me was intrigued by my father’s photos from 1933, 1934, and 1935, respectively, of Nazis parading on the street below his dental office and asked whether I have additional pictures of Żuławy Wiślane, the alluvial delta area of the river Vistula, in the northern part of Poland; I shared my father’s photos from the Żuławy region with this gentleman. This reader contacted me because of our overlapping connection to Tiegenhof in the Free City of Danzig where my father had his dental practice between April 1932 and April 1937. It turns out this reader’s mother was born there in 1924, and his grandfather was a civil servant in Tiegenhof for 20+ years.

I was able to confirm this person’s association with Tiegenhof through the database of displaced Germans refugees from the former province of Danzig-Westpreußen, Germany, now Gdańsk and Bydgoszcz provinces in Poland, referred to as “Heimatortskartei, (HOK).” This database includes images of a civil register (handwritten and printed works) of more than 20 million displaced Germans arranged by their town of origin.

This supportive reader brought up that Tiegenhof had been named in League of Nations reports from the 1930’s as a “hotbed” of rising Nazism. This follower shared an article published on the 11th of January 1932 in the “Danziger VolksStimme” with the translation (Figures 5a-c) describing an incident involving an attack by Nazi supporters on workmen, providing an insight into the gathering storm. This article was not much different than the Nazi attack reported on in a local newspaper in 1935 or 1936 directed at my father’s Protestant anti-Nazi friend, Kurt Lau, discussed in Post 78.

 

Figure 5a. Header of “Danziger VolksStimme” paper published on Monday, the 11th of January 1932, including an article describing a Nazi attack on workmen

 

Figure 5b. Article from the “Danziger VolksStimme” published on the 11th of January 1932 describing the Nazi attack on workmen

 

Figure 5c. Translation of the article from the “Danziger VolksStimme” from the 11th of January 1932

 

Aware of this reader’s interest in Żuławy Wiślane and some of the places discussed in Günther Rehaag’s book on Stutthof, I forwarded him the PDF. While acknowledging the remarkable achievement of tracking so many Mennonite families and pictures connected to Stutthof, he noted the glaring omission of discussing the nearby Stutthof concentration camp on the edge of the town where it is estimated that between 63,000 and 65,000 prisoners died because of murder, starvation, epidemics, extreme labor conditions, brutal and forced evacuations, and a lack of medical attention.

This is reminiscent of the postwar observations by the Mennonite Heinrich Hamm I discussed at length in Post 121 who, according to Ben Goossen, sought to focus exclusively and falsely on a narrative that portrayed Mennonites as victims of Nazi brutality. Quoting from Goossen: “Hamm later expressed regret for the death and dying that pervaded the Epp factory in Stutthof. Yet he explicitly named only German victims of Soviet air raids, not Jewish concentration camp prisoners. ‘[M]uch, much blood of innocent women and children flowed on Epp’s land,’ Hamm told his sons. ‘Uncountable, nameless dead. . .No one asked who they were, where they came from, nothing was recorded.’ One wonders about the goal of this private postwar accounting. Was Hamm helping himself forget about Jews worked to the bone in Epp’s factory by recalling refugees he and Epp tried to save? His use of the word ‘gassing’ suggests this possibility, since bodies of refugees could have been cremated, whereas exhausted Jews would have been gassed.

What is clear is that the Mennonite-owned factory in Stutthof was a place of terror. For hundreds of prisoners enslaved there, the factory’s Mennonite managers were responsible for much of that terror. It is also clear that after the war, Hamm tried to distance himself from this responsibility. He instead emphasized the suffering of his own family, which fled Stutthof in April 1945. As they crossed the Baltic under the cover of night, a Soviet submarine torpedoed their ship. Hamm praised God for allowing the damaged vessel to make it to Denmark. The family remained in Denmark for eighteen months. Hamm emphasized his gratitude for the comfort he found during these lean times through worshipping with fellow Mennonite refugees and other Christians.”

As a brief aside, Suse and Idschi Epp, my father’s Mennonite friends from Tiegenhof, were among those who fled to Denmark from Danzig-Westpreußen in 1945 as the Red Army was approaching; Suse died there before she could be repatriated to Germany. In researching the flight of Germans to Denmark, it highlights how as the fortunes of wars change victimizers often become victims.

In a largely forgotten chapter of history, some 250,000 Germans were interned in Denmark following WWII. Beginning in February 1945, Denmark, which was then occupied by the Nazis, was forced to take in refugees from the East as the Soviets advanced towards Berlin. Mostly spared the fighting, Denmark was Berlin’s favored destination for exiles.

At the time of Denmark’s liberation by the Allies on May 5th, more than 250,000 Germans were scattered around the country, accounting for roughly five percent of Denmark’s population. Fearing this German minority would eventually gain too much influence, they were rounded up and interned in large camps or re-purposed military camps; accommodations were primitive and unsanitary. Many of the refugees died shortly after arriving, already exhausted by the journey, and suffering from various illnesses. The Danish Medical Association explicitly refrained from treating refugees, arguing that helping them was indirectly assisting the German war machine. As a result, between 1945 and 1949, when the last refugees left the country, 17,000 of them died, 60 percent of whom were children under the age of five. Following the cessation of hostilities, the Danish authorities had always wanted to send the German refugees back to Germany as soon as possible but conditions there were so chaotic this was impossible. Complicating matters was that most of the refugees came from areas no longer part of Germany, now being in Russian or Polish controlled areas; for this reason, it took until 1949 before the last German refugees were repatriated.

This last paragraph quoted from Ben Goossen segues nicely into the last reader whom I want to reintroduce to readers, a Danish gentleman named Allan Grutt Hansen. (Figure 6) Allan has been featured in several earlier posts. Suffice it to say, that following publication of Post 121, he contacted me to remind me about the post-WWII history of the Slesvig part of the German state of Schleswig-Holstein; known to Danes as Southern Slesvig and formerly part of Denmark until the Second Schleswig War (1864), Allan has repeatedly spoken to me of this area, and I will briefly relate this area’s recent history.

 

Figure 6. Allan Grutt Hansen (b. 1962) from Denmark

 

After the end of WWI, the Treaty of Versailles provided for two plebiscites to determine the new border between Denmark and Germany. The two referendums were held in 1920, resulting in the partition of the region. Northern Schleswig voted by a majority of 75% to join Denmark, whereas Central Schleswig voted by a majority of 80% to remain part of Germany. The likelihood that what was then referred to as Southern Schleswig would vote to remain German meant that no referendum was held there. Today, Southern Schleswig is the name used for all German Schleswig.

An entry in Wikipedia succinctly describes the situation following the end of WWII:

“Following the Second World War, a substantial part of the German population in Southern Schleswig changed their nationality and declared themselves as Danish. This change was caused by several factors, most importantly the German defeat and an influx of many refugees from the former Prussian eastern provinces, whose culture and appearance differed from the local Germans, who were mostly descendants of Danish families who had changed their nationality in the 19th century.

The change in demographics created a temporary Danish majority in the region and a demand for a new referendum from the Danish population in South Schleswig and some Danish politicians, including prime minister Knud Kristensen. However, the majority in the Danish parliament refused to support a referendum in South Schleswig, fearing that the ‘new Danes’ were not genuine in their change of nationality. This proved to be the case and, from 1948 the Danish population began to shrink again.”

As Allan has remarked to me on several occasions, Denmark did not want to risk having Southern Schleswig incorporated into Denmark to avoid planting seeds for a possible future conflict with Germany over this region. Then-Czechoslovakia’s Sudeten crisis of 1938 provoked by the demands of Nazi Germany that the Sudetenland be annexed to Germany because of the large number of Sudeten Germans living there was not far from the minds of Danes when they decided to avoid a similar situation down the road that might result in a substantial number of Germans living within Denmark’s borders.

 

REFERENCES

Admin-Danish Immigration Museum. “German Refugees,” 15 October 2021, https://www.danishimmigrationmuseum.com/german-refugees/

“Denmark’s German refugees remember forgotten WWII chapter.” Digital Journal, https://www.digitaljournal.com/world/denmark-s-german-refugees-remember-forgotten-wwii-chapter/article/574780#:~:text=Denmark%E2%80%99s%20German%20refugees%20remember%20forgotten%20WWII%20chapter%20By,clearly%2075%20years%20on%20from%20World%20War%20II.

“Duchy of Schleswig.” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duchy_of_Schleswig.

Goossen, Ben. “Hitler’s Mennonite Voters.” Anabaptist Historians, 7 October 2021, https://anabaptisthistorians.org/2021/10/07/hitlers-mennonite-voters/

Rehaag, Günther. Ostseebad Stutthof: Grenzdorf B, Bodenwinkel, Ostseebad Steegen, Kreis Grosses Werder, Danzig-Westpreussen. Heimat-Dokumentation Stutthof, Danzig-Westpreussen, 1995.

“Southern Schleswig.” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Schleswig.

 

 

 

POST 78: MY FATHER’S FRIEND, KURT LAU, JAILED FOR “INSULTING THE NAZI GOVERNMENT”

Note: In this post, I discuss an article published in the Nazi Party’s newspaper in May 1935 describing a run-in my father’s friend from Tiegenhof, Kurt Lau, had with the Nazis that resulted in him being incarcerated for 30 days for “insulting the National Socialist government.”

 

Related Posts:

Post 8: Dr. Otto Bruck & Tiegenhof: National Socialist Parades

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

Post 76: My Father’s Friend, Dr. Franz Schimanski, President of Tiegenhof’s “Club Ruschau”

 

 

Figure 1. Kurt Lau, Managing Director of the “Tieghenhofer Oelmühle,” the rapeseed oil mill, in Tiegenhof in 1943

 

My father met Kurt Lau, the Managing Director of the “Tieghenhofer Oelmühle,” the rapeseed oil mill, in 1932 after he moved to Tiegenhof [today: Nowy Dwór Gdański, Poland] (Figure 1); unlike other people whom he befriended there they remained lifelong friends. (Figure 2) By the time my father left the area in 1937, Kurt and his wife Käthe were among the few people who still spoke to him, despite the pressure Germans were under to dissociate themselves from and isolate Jews. When I first started my forensic investigations into my family, reminded that Kurt and Käthe’s son and daughter-in-law are still alive, I reached out to Juergen “Peter” (b. 1923) and Hannelore “Lolo” Lau (b. 1925) (Figure 3) for help identifying some of the people in my father’s photos. They were helpful and gracious beyond all measure. Connecting with Kurt and Käthe’s descendants has allowed our families to continue a friendship that now spans four generations, really five, taking the youngest great-great-grandchildren into account.

 

Figure 2. Kurt and Käthe Lau on the far right in Deggendorf, Germany in June 1963, with, from left to right, my mother, Paulette Brook, Lolo Lau, Christian Lau, and Beatrice Lau
Figure 3. Kurt and Käthe Lau’s son and daughter-in-law, Peter and Lolo Lau, in Oberhausen, Germany in 2012

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Among the items Peter shared with me when we first connected in 2012 was a poor-quality xerox of a newspaper article he thought dated to 1935 or 1936 about his father running afoul of the National Socialist government (Figure 4); written in elaborate German Gothic font, the text was naturally indecipherable, but according to Peter the article describes judicial proceedings the Nazi authorities launched against his father for “defaming the government.” At the time, I was not so interested in the specifics of the case.

 

Figure 4. Article from the Nazi Party’s newspaper, “Der Danziger Vorposten” (The Outpost), from mid-to-late May 1935 describing legal encounter Kurt Lau had with the Nazi government

 

 

Fast forward. Readers will recall that Mr. Peter Hanke, affiliated with “forum.danzig.de,” recently found newspaper clippings in old Danzig [today: Gdansk, Poland] dailies of people I’ve lately written about. This includes my great-uncle Rudolf Löwenstein, subject of Post 71, and, Dr. Franz Schimanski, subject of Post 76. Thinking Peter Hanke might be interested and able to read the article Peter Lau had once given me, I sent it to him, asking if he could transcribe it. He not only did that, but he also translated it. The article gives a glimpse into the mindset of the Nazi overlords and describes Kurt Lau’s arrest and trial. Below is a transcription and translation of the article (a few words are illegible), followed by a discussion of the historical context of the events described.

 

TRANSCRIPTION: 

“Freistadtgebiet
Unerlaubte Kritik
Drei Monate Gefängnis wegen Beleidigung der Regierung


Der Direktor der Tiegenhöfer Ölmühle, Kaufmann Kurt L., hatte am Dienstag eine eilige Reise nach Danzig vor und wollte sich noch schnell rasieren lassen. Als er um 8 Uhr früh das Friseurgeschäft F. in Tiegenhof betrat, war nur der Lehrling da. Im angrenzenden Damensalon saß jedoch eine Kundin, Frau B. aus Tiegenhof, was jedoch Direktor L. nicht wusste. Als nach kurzer Zeit der Kaufmann Gustav Kr. den Herrenraum betrat, knüpfte er mit dem ihm bekannten Direktor L. ein Gespräch an, das fortgesetzt wurde, während der Gehilfe K. Direktor L. rasierte.

L. und Kr. kamen in ein Gespräch über die Guldenabwertung. Aus der Unterhaltung war zu entnehmen, dass L. wie Kr. durch den Guldensturz erhebliche Verluste beim Warenverkauf erlitten hatten, die durch den Zuschlag von 20 Prozent nach Ansicht der Geschäftsleute nicht ausgeglichen werden könnte. Hierauf wandte sich dei Unterhaltung zwei Strafprozessen gegen zwei Kaufleute in Tiegenhof und Neuteich zu. L. war der Meinung, dass der Jude ??? in Neuteich zu Unrecht verurteilt worden wäre und erging sich dabei in einer unpassenden Kritik über die Regierung. Er bemängelte zunächst, dass abgeblich keine Wirtschaftler gehört worden seien, es es könne auch mit Aufrufen allein nichts geschafft werden. Hierbei fielen von ihm die Worte ‘Das grenzt an Betrug.’! Als sich Direktor L. verabschiedete, machte er eine drastische Bemerkung, in der das bekannte Wort vom Grundeis vorkam.

Die Kundin im Damensalon war namentlich über die letzten Worte empört und erkundigte sich nach dem Namen des Sprechers; sie erstattete dann Strafanzeige gegen L. Dieser wurde noch am selben Tage in einem Danziger Café festgenommen und in Schutzhaft überführt. Er hatte sich am Mittwoch vor dem Tiegenhofer Amtsgericht wegen Verleumdung der Regierung zu verantworten. Insbesondere wurden ihm der Ausdruck “Das grenzt an Betrug!” und der letzte Satz seines Gesprächs zur Last gelegt.

Bei der Beweisaufnahme bestritt der Angeklagte, sich irgendwie schuldig gemacht zu haben. Er habe nicht das Gespräch angefangen, sondern der Kaufmann Kr. Ferner habe er es eilig gehabt und könne bei einer Rasur sich philosophische Reden gehalten haben.

Als Belastungszeugen waren Frau B., die Friseuse R. und der Gehilfe K. geladen worden. Ihre eidlichen Aussagen ergaben, dass die Unterhaltung in der eingangs beschriebenen Form statt gefunden haben musste und die inkriminierten Worte gefallen waren. Auch der Kaufmann Kr. musste die Möglichkeit der Ausdrücke zugeben.

Der Verteidiger, Rechtsanwalt M., glaubte zunächst an Hand von Presseberichten feststellen zu können, dass ‘überall geschimpft’ worden sei. Ferner war er der Ansicht, dass auch der Wert der Zeugenaussagen problematisch sei. Es könne in der heutigen Zeit von keinem Kaufmann Begeisterung über die schwierigen Wirtschaftslage verlangt werden.

Der Angeklagte habe ‘nicht die Absicht gehabt, zu provozieren,’ sondern sich nur im Rahmen der Allgemeinheit verhalten. Die Vorsätzlichkeit einer Beleidigung sei zu verneinen, der letzte Satz ist als zulässiger Herrenwitz zu werten.

Der Vertreter der Anklagebehörde sah dagegen einen Verstoß gegen die Strafparagraphen ??? und 105a als gegeben an. Eine Kritik über die Abwertung des Guldens dürfe nicht zur Beleidigung der Regierung ausarten. Der Beschuldigte als gebildeter Mensch und Parteigenosse hätte vielmehr die Pflicht gehabt, beruhigend zu wirken und als Wirtschaftler seine Bedenken an geeigneter Stelle vortragen können.

Desgleichen legte das Gericht dar, dass der Angeklagte als Wirtschaftsführer sich über die Folgen seiner Handlungen hätte bewusst sein müssen.

Die Provokation verlange schwere Sühne, strafmildernd sei nur, dass der Angeklagte sich bisher einwandfrei geführt hatte. Das Urteil lautete auf drei Monate Gefängnis.

Der Strafprozess,hatte in Tiegenhof verständlicherweise großes Aufsehen erregte, der überfüllte Zuhörerraum musste schon vor der Verhandlung ??????????”

 

TRANSLATION: 

“Free city area
Unauthorized criticism
Three months in prison for insulting the government

 

The director of the Tiegenhöfer Oelmühle, businessman Kurt L., was planning an urgent trip to Danzig on Tuesday and wanted to have a quick shave. When he entered the F. hairdresser’s shop in Tiegenhof at 8 a.m., only the apprentice was there. However, a customer, Mrs. B. from Tiegenhof, was sitting in the adjacent ladies’ salon, but Director L. did not know this. When the merchant Gustav Kr. entered the gentlemen’s room after a short time, he started a conversation with director L., whom he knew, which was continued while the assistant K. was shaving director L.

L. and Kr. got into a conversation about the devaluation of the Gulden. From the conversation, it could be gathered that L. and Kr. had suffered considerable losses in the sale of goods as a result of the fall of the Gulden, which in the opinion of the businessmen could not be compensated by the surcharge of 20 percent. The conversation then turned to two criminal proceedings against two merchants in Tiegenhof and Neuteich. L. believed the Jew ??? had been wrongly convicted in Neuteich, and in doing so he made an inappropriate criticism of the government. First, he criticized that no economists had been heard, and that nothing could be achieved even with appeals alone. Here he used the words ‘This borders on fraud!’ When director L. said goodbye, he made a drastic remark in which the well-known f***-word was mentioned.

The customer in the ladies’ salon was outraged by the last words and inquired about the name of the speaker; she then filed charges against L. He was arrested in a café in Danzig and transferred to protective custody the same day. On Wednesday he had to appear at the Tiegenhof District Court for defamation of the government. In particular, he was charged with the expression ‘That borders on fraud!’ and the last sentence of his conversation.

At the hearing of evidence, the accused denied having been guilty in any way. He had not started the conversation, but the businessman Kr. Furthermore, he had been in a hurry and couldn’t have made any philosophical speeches while being shaved.

Ms. B., the hairdresser R. and the assistant K. had been summoned as witnesses for the prosecution. Their sworn statements showed that the conversation must have taken place in the form described at the beginning and that the incriminating words had been spoken. The merchant Kr. also had to admit the possibility of the expressions.

The defense counsel, attorney M., initially believed that he could establish from press reports that ‘everyone bitches.’ Furthermore, he believed the value of the witness statements was also problematic. Nowadays, no businessman can be expected to be enthusiastic about the difficult economic situation.

The accused had ‘not intended to provoke’ but had only behaved in the context of the general public. The willfulness of an insult was to be denied, the last sentence was to be regarded as a permissible joke.

The representative of the prosecuting authority, however, considered it a violation of the penal clauses ??? and 105a as given. A criticism about the devaluation of the Gulden should not be allowed to degenerate into an insult to the government. The accused, as an educated person and party comrade, should rather have had the duty of have a calming effect and, as an economist, should have voiced his concerns in a suitable place.

Similarly, the court stated that as an economic leader, the accused should have been aware of the consequences of his actions.

The provocation demanded severe atonement, the only mitigating factor being that the defendant had previously conducted himself impeccably. The sentence was three months in prison.

The criminal trial understandably caused a great stir in Tiegenhof, and the crowded auditorium had to be ????? before the hearing.”

 

Peter Hanke thinks the article appeared in the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (NSDAP or “Nazi Party”) newspaper, “Der Danziger Vorposten” (The Outpost), towards the middle to the end of May 1935. The Nazis had halted publication of the “Danziger Allgemeine Zeitung” in 1934 and placed a five-month ban on the “Danziger Volsstimme” on April 10th, three days after the Volkstag parliamentary election on the 7th of April 1935, making “Der Danziger Vorposten” the likely source of the article.

 

One thing to note about the original article is that only the forename and first one or two letters of the surname appear; there can be no doubt locals would have known who was being discussed, although it’s unclear to me why the need to partially mask identities. Even so, with access to Tiegenhof Address Books and a list of local businesses of the time, I have been able to identify some of the parties. The defendant is obviously “Kurt Lau.” “Gustav Kr.,” I was able to determine referred to the businessman Gustav Kretschmann, Manufaktur und Kurzwaren, manufacturing and haberdashery. (Figure 5) Similarly, the friseur, hairdresser, initial “F.” refers to Sally Folchert (Figure 6), and the defense attorney, initial “M.,” can only be the Rechtsanwalt und Notar, lawyer and notary, “Markfeldt,” as he’s the only lawyer in Tiegenhof at the time whose surname begins with an “M.” (Figure 5)

 

Figure 5. Listings from the 1942 “Amtliches Fernsprechbuch für den Bezirk der Reichspostdirektion” (Official telephone directory for the district of the Reichpostdirektion Danzig 1942) with the names of the businessman Gustav Kretchmann (= “Gustav Kr.”) and the lawyer Markfeldt (= “M.”) circled
Figure 6. The hairdresser “F.,” Sally Folchert, one of the hairdressers in business in Tiegenhof (Source: “Tiegenhof und der Kreis Großes Werder in Bildern” by Gunter Jeglin, 1985: p. 174)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Before describing the historical context leading to Kurt Lau’s legal troubles, let me say a few words about the Free City of Danzig, in German, Freie Stadt Danzig. It was a semi-autonomous city-state created according to the terms of the Treaty of Versailles following WWI, that existed between 1920 and 1939. It consisted of the Baltic seaport of Danzig along with nearly 200 towns in the surrounding area, including Tiegenhof where my father briefly had his dental practice; Tiegenhof was about 25 miles SE of Danzig. The Free City was not an independent state, but rather was under the protection of the League of Nations. The Free City’s population was 98% German, and by 1936 a majority of the Senate, the Free City’s governing body, was composed of Nazis who agitated for reunification with Germany.

 

Figure 7. Office building at Markstrasse 8 in Tiegenhof in 1934 where my father had his dental practice and living quarters, festooned with Nazi flags

 

 

In Post 8, I described Nazi parades my father documented that took place, respectively, in 1933, 1934 and 1935, along the street that fronted the building where he lived and had his dental practice. (Figure 7) On the 5th of April 1935, Hermann Göring (Figure 8), a German political and military leader as well as one of the most powerful figures in the Nazi Party, participated in that parade in support of the slate of Nazi candidates running for parliament in the Free City. Göring’s appearance would have occurred just before these elections on the 7th of April 1935, cited above. These were assuredly very scary times for my father.

 

Figure 8. On April 5, 1935, Field Marshall Hermann Göring parading through Tiegenhof in front of the building where my father lived and had his dental practice

 

 

Figure 9. Headline from New York Times article dated the 3rd of May 1935 announcing the devaluation of the Danzig Gulden

Returning now to Kurt Lau’s run-in with the law. Based on events reported in the New York Times on the 3rd of May 1935 (Figure 9), on May 2nd the Free City’s Senate devalued the Danzig Gulden by 42.37 percent. However, according to Peter Hanke, the Nazi government judiciously avoided use of the term “devaluation,” and instead referred to it euphemistically as a “revaluation.” The local populace did not react as the Nazis had expected and wanted. Most people immediately withdrew their savings and purchased any available goods before prices were increased. Less than a week after the devaluation of the Gulden, prices for almost all goods were increased. This is the context in which Kurt Lau and Gustav Kretschmann complained about the considerable losses they’d suffered and caused Kurt Lau to “insult the Nazi government.” Rich indeed. As to the victims of Nazi “insults,” they never received retributive justice.

POST 77: MY FATHER’S FRIEND, DR. HERBERT HOLST, VICE-PRESIDENT OF TIEGENHOF’S “CLUB RUSCHAU”

Note: In this post, I discuss a man with whom my father was once friends, Dr. Herbert Holst, a teacher by profession, and Vice-President of Tiegenhof’s Club Ruschau.

Related Posts:

Post 2: Dr. Otto Bruck & Tiegenhof: Juergen “Peter” Lau

Post 76: My Father’s Friend, Dr. Franz Schimanski, President of Tiegenhof’s “Club Ruschau”

 

 

Figure 1. Dr. Herbert Holst, Vice-President President of the Club Ruschau, Spring of 1933

 

 

In the previous post, I discussed what I learned about my father’s erstwhile friend Dr. Franz Schimanski. He was a lawyer and notary by profession, and the President of the Club Ruschau, the sports organization my father was a member of in Tiegenhof [today: Nowy Dwór Gdański, Poland]. This is the town in Freistaat Danzig (Free State of Danzig) where my father had his dental practice between 1932 and 1937. In this post, I turn my attention to Dr. Schimanski’s deputy in the Club Ruschau, Dr. Herbert Holst (Figure 1), another former friend, to relate the little I know about him. As with the previous post, I owe a debt of gratitude to Mr. Peter Hanke from “danzig.forum.de,” who uncovered much of the information I relate below.

Around 2012, I began my forensic investigations into my father and his family prompted by seven albums of photos my dad bequeathed me covering from the late 1910’s until his departure for America in 1948. Two of these albums include photos exclusively from the five years my father spent in Tiegenhof and the Free State of Danzig. While many of the images are labelled, often they include only the people’s forenames or nicknames, making it difficult to figure out who they were, how they were connected to my father, and what might have happened to them.

 

Figure 2. Lolo and Peter Lau, on the terrace of the Hotel Jagdschloss in Vienna, Austria in June 1963

 

Figure 3. Lolo and Peter Lau in Oberhausen, Germany in May 2012 when my wife and I visited them there

 

 

Around the time I was trying to make sense of my father’s collection of portraits, my mother reminded me about two aged friends of his both born in Danzig [today: Gdańsk, Poland], Peter (b. 1923) and Lolo Lau (b. 1925). I wrote about this couple in Post 2, and my visit to see them in Germany in 2012. (Figures 2-3) Peter Lau lived in Tiegenhof from around age 5 to 15, when his father, Kurt Lau (Figure 4), was the Managing Director of the “Tieghenhofer Oelmühle,” the rapeseed oil mill there. For this reason, he recognized many of the people in my father’s pictures and told me the fates of some of them. Interestingly, though Lolo Lau never lived in Tiegenhof, one person she recognized among my father’s photos was Dr. H. Holst, the Vice President of Tiegenhof’s Club Ruschau; she recognized him because he’d seemingly moved to Danzig and been a teacher at the Gymnasium, high school, she attended there. Lolo could not remember what subject he taught, nor, for that matter, his first name, which Peter Hanke recently discovered.

 

Figure 4. Kurt Lau, Peter Lau’s father, second from the left, in Tiegenhof in 1943, surrounded by business associates

 

I was able to confirm Dr. Herbert Holst indeed relocated from Tiegenhof based on listings for him in Danzig Address Books for 1940-41 (Figure 5) and 1942 (Figure 6), indicating he’d lived at Adolf Hitlerstraße 97. In these directories, his profession is listed as “Studienrat,” which is an obsolete term for high school professor or teacher.

 

Figure 5. Page from the 1940-41 Danzig Address Book with Dr. Herbert Holst listed as a “Studienrat,” high school teacher, living at Adolf Hitlerstraße 97
Figure 6. Page from the 1942 Danzig Address Book with Dr. Herbert Holst listed as a “Studienrat,” high school teacher, living at Adolf Hitlerstraße 97

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 7. Cover of Hubert Hundrieser’s 1989 book “Es begann in Masuren: Meinen Kindern erzählt (It Began in Masuria: I Told My Children),” which includes a section about his math teacher from Tiegenhof, Dr. Herbert Holst
Figure 8. Map of Masuria (German: Masuren; Polish: Mazury), once located in East Prussia (Source: Own work, na podstawie: Marian Biskup “Szkice z dziejów Pomorza,” t. 1, Warszawa 1958 oraz M. Biskup, G. Labuda “Dzieje Zakonu Krzyżackiego w Prusach,” Gdańsk 1986 (mapa na str. 439))

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Astonishingly, Peter Hanke found a book written by a gentleman named Hubert Hundrieser, entitled “Es begann in Masuren: Meinen Kindern erzählt (It Began in Masuria: I Told My Children)” (Figures 7-8), who was a student of Dr. Herbert Holst in the early 1930’s for about 18 months in Tiegenhof and wrote kind words about him (1989: p. 98-99). Peter graciously translated these lines for me (I’ve added footnotes to clarify a few things): 

“My mathematics teacher was a bachelor, Dr. Holst, who always gave himself up to being distinguished. I was truly sorry that I had to disappoint him in his subject. It seemed almost embarrassing to him to have to return my mathematics work to me with the grade ‘unsatisfactory’ (a) that I was used to and undoubtedly deserved.

After a teachers’ conference he took me aside, as he had done several times before. He couldn’t make any sense of the fact that I, who would have achieved the grades ‘good’ in the main subjects German, Latin and English, failed so completely in his subject. He offered private tutoring (b). There he wanted to find out, outside the scholarly setting, when and where my mathematical knowledge stopped or began

After the most recent comprehensive examination he could not help but let his arms sink helplessly. . .because with the latest ‘Tertian’ (c) material my mathematical knowledge was lost in impenetrable fog wafts. But Dr. Holst did not dismiss me with a devastating verdict or with the prophecy that I would amount to nothing. Instead, he had his landlady bring us coffee. With the remark that as a future Obersekundaner (d), this once he offered me a cigar (e), and we talked for an hour about things that had nothing to do with school.

Before I said goodbye, he encouraged me. If I could only keep my good grades in languages, I could also have a grade with bad results in his subject, and certainly there would be an angle in my later life where mathematical ignorance would not be decisive.”

 

(a) At the time grades ranged from 1 (best) to 6 (worst). The “unsatisfactory (ungenügend)” corresponded to “6.”

(b) These lessons were not held in the school building but in the teacher’s apartment. Essentially, Dr. Holst was offering a “school psychological evaluation” to understand the reasons for Hubert Hundrieser’s failure in the mathematical field.

(c) “Tertia” corresponded with mathematical knowledge of grades 8-9 which was inadequate for the 10th or 11th grades, “Sekunda.”

(d) The next-to-last year of high school before the “Oberprima.”

(e) This was a one-time thing, because at that time it was strictly forbidden for “Tertia” students to smoke, ergo the reference to the student’s soon-to-be status as a “Sekunda” student, when smoking would be permitted.

 

From these few lines, we learn that Dr. Holst was a mathematics teacher.

Peter Hanke uncovered what’s called a “Beamten-Jahrbuch 1939,” that’s to say, a “Civil Servant Yearbook” (Figure 9) for all the civil servants working in Danzig in 1939, including Dr. Holst. Figure 10a includes a partial list of teachers who taught there at the time, the schools where they taught, their birthdays, and their Service Date.

 

Figure 9. Cover of Danzig’s “Beamten-Jahrbuch 1939,” Civil Servant Yearbook
Figure 10a. Page from Danzig’s 1939 Civil Servant Yearbook with the list of teachers including the name of Dr. Herbert Holst

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 10b. Line from Danzig’s 1939 Civil Servant Yearbook with Dr. Herbert Holst’s information

 

Below is a table transcribing and translating the column headers, and detailing the information specifically for Dr. Holst (Figure 10b):

 

Column 1 (German), Translation & Information for Dr. Holst Column 2 (German), Translation & Information for Dr. Holst Column 3 (German), Translation & Information for Dr. Holst Column 4 (German), Translation & Information for Dr. Holst Column 5 (German), Translation & Information for Dr. Holst Column 6 (German), Translation & Information for Dr. Holst
           
Amtsbezeichnung Name Dienstort, Behörde (Amt, Schule) Wohnort, Wohnung Geburtstag Dienstalter
Official title Name Place of employment, authority (office, school) Place of residence, apartment Birthday Seniority (i.e., Service Date)
StudRat (Studienrat)=teacher, professor Dr. Herbert Holst Lfr GudrS  (Langfuhr Gudrun-Schule) Ad. Hitlerstr. 97 (Adolf-Hitlerstraße 97) 25th August 1894 1st May 1928

 

From the above we learn that Dr. Holst was born on the 25th of August 1894, that he began teaching on the 1st of May 1928, and that he taught at the Gudrun-Schule (i.e., Helene Lange School) (Figures 11a-c) located in the Danzig borough of Langfuhr. Peter found one additional item, a roster of teachers from the Gudrun-Schule listing Dr. Holst as one of its professors. (Figure 12)

Figure 11a. Classroom level at the Helene Lange School between 1929-1938
Figure 11b. Courtyard at the Helene Lange School between 1929-1938

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 11c. East side of the Helene Lange School between 1929-1938
Figure 12. Roster of teachers at the “Gudrun-Schule” including Dr. Herbert Holst

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As I discussed in the previous post, on account of the removal of all Germans following WWII from much of what is today again Poland, it’s been impossible to learn what may have happened to Dr. Holst. Possibly, someone with knowledge of his fate will stumble upon this post and contact me with information.

POST 76: MY FATHER’S FRIEND, DR. FRANZ SCHIMANSKI, PRESIDENT OF TIEGENHOF’S “CLUB RUSCHAU”

Note: I continue my forensic investigations into people my father, Dr. Otto Bruck, knew during the five years he lived in Tiegenhof, in the Free State of Danzig. In this post, I discuss a man who befriended him named Dr. Franz Schimanski, a lawyer and notary by profession, and President of the Club Ruschau.  The fate of such people, though not family, has always intrigued me, and I’m continuously trying to locate some of their descendants.

Related Posts:

Post 6: Dr. Otto Bruck & Tiegenhof: 1932 Pocket Calendar

Post 7: Dr. Otto Bruck & Tiegenhof: The Club Ruschau

 

Figure 1. Dr. Franz Schimanski, President of the Club Ruschau, Spring of 1933

 

 

I return in this post and the ensuing one to Tiegenhof [today: Nowy Dwór Gdański, Poland], the town in the Free State of Danzig where my father briefly had his dental practice between April 1932 and April 1937. I’ll talk about two men who were, respectively, the President and Vice-President of the “Club Ruschau,” the local sports club my dad joined with whose members he regularly socialized. The President was Dr. Franz Schimanski (Figure 1), and his deputy was Dr. Herbert Holst, both of whom I discussed in Post 7. My father would no doubt once have characterized these people as good friends given the numerous pictures of them which survive among his photos.

Finding out what happened or may have happened to people from Tiegenhof and Danzig who were once within my father’s orbit of friends, acquaintances and professional colleagues has always piqued my interest. Because of the turbulence, movements and vast relocations in this part of Europe during WWII, and the eventual ouster of Germans from the area after the war, it is particularly challenging to track down what happened to some of the people my father knew. As regular readers know, I’ve already related the fates of some of them. I tell these stories dispassionately since I have no idea how my dad’s relationship with these people ended in the era of National Socialism. The only thing my father ever said about this is that by the time he left Tiegenhof in 1937, he no longer had any dental clients and knew few people who still acknowledged his existence. I can only imagine how heartrending and dangerous this must have been.

Thanks to the intervention of Mr. Peter Hanke, my acquaintance from “forum.danzig.de,” recently I’ve learned a little more about Dr. Schimanski. There are major gaps in my understanding of his life, and unlike other people my father knew from Tiegenhof, I’ve yet to track down any of his descendants. Let me briefly review what I know for sure, what I surmise, and what Peter has recently uncovered about Dr. Schimanski.

 

Figure 2. Page from the 1925 Address Book for “Kreis Großes Werder” identifying Dr. Franz Schimanski as a “Rechtsanwalt und Notar,” lawyer and notary
Figure 3. Page from the 1930 Address Book for “Kreis Großes Werder” identifying Dr. Franz Schimanski as a “Rechtsanwalt,” lawyer

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From Address Books for the District in which Dr. Franz Schimanski resided, Kreis Großes Werder im Freistaat Danzig, listings in 1925 (Figure 2) and 1930 (Figure 3) directories show him to have been a “Rechtsanwalt und Notar,” a lawyer and notary. Two newspaper articles Peter found in Die Presse. Ostmärkische Tageszeitung. Anzeiger für Stadt und Land. (The Press. Ostmärkische Daily Newspaper. Gazette for City and Country.) (Figure 4) from 1912 first announce Dr. Schimanski’s appointment as notary (Figure 5), then several days later provide background (Figure 6):

 

Figure 4. Cover page of the 18th of August 1912 “Die Presse. Ostmärkische Tageszeitung. Anzeiger für Stadt und Land. (The Press. Ostmärkische Daily Newspaper. Gazette for City and Country.),” mentioning Dr. Schimanski

 

Figure 5. Brief article from “Die Presse,” dated the 17th of August 1912, reporting on Dr. Schimanski’s appointment as Tiegenhof’s notary

 

Thorn [today: Torun, Poland], the 17th of August 1912, page 2:

Transcription:

“(Personalien bei der Justizt.) Der Rechtsanwalt Dr. Schimanski in Tiegenhof ist zum Notar dortselbst ernannt. . .”

Translation:

“(Personal details of the Judiciary.) The lawyer Dr. Schimanski in Tiegenhof is appointed the notary there. . .”

 

Figure 6. Article from “Die Presse,” dated the 20th of August 1912, providing the background that led to Dr. Schimanski’s appointment as Tiegenhof’s notary

 

Thorn [today: Torun, Poland], the 20th of August 1912, page 6:

Transcription:

“Tiegenhof, 20. August. (Drei Rechtsanwälte)
hat sich unser Städtchen in den letzten Wochen ge-
leistet. Die Überfüllung der Juristenlaufbahn be-
dingt, daß viele Assessoren nicht in den Staatsdienst
aufgenommen werden. Der Überschuß ist auf die
Rechtsanwaltschaft angewiesen. Wird nun in einem
Ort durch Fortzug oder Tod eine Anwaltsstelle frei,
so sind gleich viele Bewerber auf dem Posten. So
war es auch hier. Herr Justizrat Künstler siedelte
als lebenslänglicher Notar nach Berlin über.
Darauf ließen sich die Herren Gerichtsassessor Dr.
Schimanski aus Stuhm und Rechtsanwalt Selleneit
in die Liste der Rechtsanwälte beim hiesigen Gericht
eintragen. Beide konnten sich jedoch hier nicht be-
haupten, da hier noch ein dritter tätig ist. Es han-
delte sich also bei den beiden neuen Herren darum,
wer das Notariat bekommen würde, denn von den
Einnahmen eines Rechtsanwalts allein kann in
dem kleinen Bezirk der dritte Herr nicht bestehen,
und mehr als zwei Notarstellen sind hier nicht vor-
gesehen. Es schweben zwar schon lange Gerüchte
darüber, daß unser Amtsgerichtsbezirk durch den
rechts der Weichsel belegenen Teil des Kreises Dan-
ziger Niederung vergrößert werden soll, doch liegt
die Verwirklichung dieses Wunsches noch in weitem
Felde. Infolgedessen wird der nicht zum Notar er-
nannte Rechtsanwalt unsere Stadt wieder verlassen.”

Translation (using DeepL Translator):

“Tiegenhof, 20 August. Our town has afforded itself three lawyers in the last few weeks. The overcrowding of the legal career means that many assessors are not accepted into the civil service. The surplus is dependent on the legal profession. If a lawyer’s position becomes vacant in a town as a result of a move away or death, the same number of applicants are on the job. So it was also here. Mr. Justizrat Künstler moved to Berlin as a lifelong notary. Then the court assessor Dr. Schimanski from Stuhm and lawyer Selleneit joined the list of lawyers at the local court. Both could not assert themselves here, however, since here still a third one is active. So the two new gentlemen were concerned with who would receive the notary’s office, because the third gentleman cannot exist in the small district from the income of a lawyer alone, and more than two notary offices are not provided for here. Although there have been rumors for a long time that our court district is to be enlarged by the part of the district of Gdansk’s lowlands to the right of the Vistula, the realization of this wish is still a long way off. As a result, the lawyer, who was not appointed a notary, will leave our city again.”

 

Figure 7. Copy of an original document with Dr. Franz Schimanski’s seal and signature dated the 15th of July 1913 that Mr. Peter Hanke found for sale on eBay

 

One of the most remarkable things Peter found related to Dr. Schimanski, he located, of all places, on eBay! He discovered an original document with Dr. Schimanski’s signature and seal, dated the 15th of July 1913 (Figure 7), from shortly after he was appointed notary in Tiegenhof. From this document, we can determine that one of the earliest projects he worked on was a contract for construction of a narrow-gauge railroad.

 

Figure 8. Page from my father’s 1932 Pocket Calendar reporting on the exact date he arrived in Tiegenhof, the 9th of April 1932

 

Figure 9. My father’s membership papers to the “V.f.B., Tiegenhof, Baltischer Sportverband,” dated the 12th of November 1932

 

My father arrived in Tiegenhof according to his Pocket Calendar (see Post 6) precisely on the 9th of April 1932 (Figure 8), exactly one week before his 25th birthday. Throughout his life, my dad was an active sportsman, and he wasted no time applying for membership to the local sports club, the “V. f. B. Tiegenhof, Baltischer Sportverband (Baltic Sports Federation),” to which he was accepted on the 12th of November 1932. (Figure 9) While this was ostensibly a sports club (Figure 10), in order to be accepted by the businessmen and social elite, one clearly had to be a member of civic organizations in town, particularly if one expected to have a successful dental practice. Many of the club’s social events appear to have taken place at the Club Ruschau, located in Petershagen [today: Zelichowo, Poland], just outside Tiegenhof. Mr. Marek Opitz, the current director of the Zulawskie Museum in Nowy Dwór Gdański, was unaware of the club’s existence until I asked him about it and sent him photos. I discussed in Post 7 how Mr. Opitz was able to locate one of the Club’s surviving buildings, to which he took me and my wife on one of our visits to Nowy Dwór Gdański. (Figure 11)

 

Figure 10. My father recreating at the Club Ruschau
Figure 11. Me in 2012 at the entrance to the only surviving building of what was once the Club Ruschau with my hand on the original doorknob

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 12. The regular members of the Club Ruschau, including Dr. Franz Schimanski with his cane in hand, in June 1932, several months before my father’s formal admittance to the “V.f.B., Tiegenhof, Baltischer Sportverband”

 

 

Numerous of the photos of Dr. Schimanski and other members were taken at the Club Ruschau. (Figure 12) In multiple photos, he is shown holding a cane. I surmise Dr. Schimanski was a veteran of WWI and was wounded in theater. Ancestry.com has numerous WWI German Casualty Lists, identifying those killed and wounded in action.  I attach a single example with a “Franz Schimanski” listed; in this case, the number “15.6” (i.e., 15th of June) follows the name. (Figure 13) This may correspond to the month and day of birth, or, just as likely, to the day the person was killed or wounded. Regardless, I have no knowledge this Franz Schimanski was my father’s friend. I only know from other pictures in my father’s photo albums that Dr. Schimanski was born in June, year unspecified, based on a birthday party held in his honor that month in 1933. I’m not a very good judge of age, but I would gauge Dr. Schimanski was born around 1880, give or take a few years. If he went to war in 1914, he would have been around 34, seemingly old to be a foot soldier, although Peter Hanke found a secondary source which indicates about 30% of German soldiers were that age or older during WWI. To date, I’ve been unable to locate any primary birth, marriage or death records definitively related to Dr. Schimanski. This was a very common surname in Kreis Großes Werder, and in fact in the 1935 Danzig address book alone, there are 98 listings for Schimanski!

Figure 13. German WWI Casualty List dated the 17th of July 1918 with the name of a Franz Schimanski circled, not necessarily my father’s friend

 

Several pictures among my father’s collection show Dr. Schimanski with who I think is his wife and three adult daughters. (Figure 14) Unlike most of his other pictures, he doesn’t identify the ladies by name but merely refers to them as Lieblinge, “darlings.” My dad clearly had a sweet spot for Dr. Schimanski’s family. Regardless, his pictures give no further clues I can pursue to determine the fate of Dr. Schimanski’s family.

 

Figure 14. Dr. Franz Schimanski standing next to his wife and three seated daughters, bookended by Kastret Romanowski on the left, another friend, and my father on the right

 

 

Figure 15. The “Totenkarte,” death card, from the “Heimatortkartei Danzig-Westpreußen” for Dr. Schimanski, showing he died in 1940 and that the information was reported by the “Rechtsanwalt” Dr. Kurt Heidebrecht

 

Figure 16. Listing from the 1942 “Amtliches Fernsprechbuch für den Bezirk der Reichspostdirektion” for Dr. Kurt Heidebrecht, a presumed colleague of Dr. Schimanski who reported only that Franz died sometime in 1940

 

 

 

The Totenkarte, death card, from the Heimatortkartei Danzig-Westpreußen database for Dr. Schimanski (Figure 15) indicates only he died in 1940. The information was reported by a Dr. Kurt Heidebrecht, who is listed in the Amtliches Fernsprechbuch für den Bezirk der Reichspostdirektion Danzig 1942 (Official telephone directory for the district of the Reichspostdirektion Danzig 1942) as a Rechtsanwalt u. Notar, lawyer and notary (Figure 16), just as Dr. Schimanski was. I assume Drs. Heidebrecht and Schimanski were once colleagues. Peter Hanke was able to find a Heidebrecht living in Hamburg, Germany who may be a descendant of Kurt Heidebrecht. I’ve written a letter to this person hoping he is related and may be able to tell me what happened to Dr. Schimanski and his family. Watch this space for further developments.

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

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

Related Posts:

Post 16: Tracking My Great-Aunt Hedwig Löwenstein, Née Bruck, & Her Family Through Five Countries

 

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

 

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

 

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

1903—Director of the tobacco factory RUMI—Weidengaße 48

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

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

1909-1919—Hansaplatz 3

1920—Sandgrube 27b

1921-1929— Rennerstiftsgaße 11 (Figure 5)

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

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

Figure 4. Page from 1905 Danzig Address Book showing Rudolf Löwenstein was a general representative of the advertising expedition Rudolf Mosse and Paul Stabernick, Heilige Gastgaße—Weidengaße 48
Figure 5. Page from 1927 Danzig Address Book listing Rudolf Löwenstein as a “kaufman” (merchant) for “Annoncen Expedition und Reklamebüro” (Advertising Expedition and Advertising Office) Rennerstiftsgaße 11

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 5. Page from 1927 Danzig Address Book listing Rudolf Löwenstein as a “kaufman” (merchant) for “Annoncen Expedition und Reklamebüro” (Advertising Expedition and Advertising Office) Rennerstiftsgaße 11
Figure 6b. Separate page from 1933 Danzig Address Book, following Rudolf Löwenstein’s death in 1930, shows his son Heinz Löwenstein following in his father’s footsteps

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

TRANSCRIPTION

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

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

Passagierflugzeug abgestürzt
10 Tote

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


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

TRANSLATION

“Passenger plane crashed
10 deaths

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


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

 

TRANSCRIPTION

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

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

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

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

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

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

TRANSLATION

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

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

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

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

 

TRANSCRIPTION

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

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

Die Flugzeugkatastrophe bei Iglau

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

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

Ein Danziger bei der Iglauer Flugzeugkatastrophe tödlich verunglückt

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

TRANSLATION

“The air disaster at Iglau

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

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

A man from Danzig was killed in the Iglau air disaster

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

 

TRANSCRIPTION

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

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

Danziger Kaufmann tödlich verunglückt

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

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

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

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

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

TRANSLATION

“Danzig merchant killed in accident

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

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

 

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

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

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

 

RUDOLF LÖWENSTEIN & HIS IMMEDIATE FAMILY

 

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

 

 

POST 57, POSTSCRIPT: DISAPPEARED WITHOUT A TRACE, MARIA POHLMANN NÉE PAULY—MYSTERY SOLVED!!

Note: In this post I describe how with the assistance of one of my Blog’s readers, I was able to determine when and where my first cousin twice-removed Maria Pohlmann née Pauly died. The place and time of her death was not as I imagined, and I offer a possible explanation as to how I miscalculated Maria’s fate.

Related Posts:
Post 56: Reflections of the Paterfamilias Dr. Josef Pauly
Post 57: Disappeared Without A Trace, Maria Pohlmann née Pauly

 

Figure 1. Maria Ulrike Pauly, born the 21st of July 1877 in Posen, Germany [today: Poznan, Poland], as a young lady

Regular readers know I’m a retired archaeologist. I’ve previously told followers the enormous pleasure I derive from doing forensic genealogy as it draws upon the same skills I learned and applied in doing field archaeology. In a sense, I’m now digging through archives, documents and on-line databases whereas before I was digging through layers of dirt. It’s humbling when my scientific approach to doing ancestral research fails to yield a satisfactory result. Thus, it was a welcome relief when a German reader of my Blog offered his assistance in helping me determine what fate may have befallen my first cousin twice-removed, Maria Pohlmann née Pauly. (Figure 1) I viewed this offer for help not as a failure on my part, but rather as an opportunity to have a fresh set of eyes re-examine the same evidence I’d looked at.

Figure 2. Closeup of Axel Pohlmann on his wedding day, the 1st of October 1901
Figure 3. Closeup of Maria Pohlmann née Pauly on her wedding day, the 1st of October 1901

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 4. Alexander “Axel” Pohlmann and Maria Pauly on their wedding day, the 1st of October 1901 in Posen, Germany, with their guests

 

Figure 5. My third cousin, Andi Pauly, Maria Pohlmann née Pauly’s grandnephew, in Munich, 2016

Let me briefly review what I discussed in Post 57. Maria Pauly (Figure 2), born on the 21st of July in 1877, and her husband Alexander “Axel” Pohlmann (Figure 3) got married in Posen, Germany [today: Poznan, Poland] on the 1st of October 1901. (Figure 4) Maria’s grandnephew and my third cousin, Andi Pauly (Figure 5), who was the source of her and Axel’s wedding picture and has been the source of most images I have of his Pauly ancestors, was unable to tell me what might have happened to her; she was one of only two of Josef and Rosalie Pauly’s nine children whose fate he did not know. Doing a little research on German Wikipedia, I discovered Maria’s husband had been a very prominent figure, having been the Oberbürgermeister, the Lord Mayor of Kattowitz, Prussia [today: Katowice, Poland] between 1903 and 1920. Following his tenure as Lord Mayor of Kattowitz, until his retirement in 1930, Pohlmann was the Regierungspräsident des Regierungsbezirks Magdeburg, the President of the Government of Magdeburg in the German state of Saxony. Pohlmann passed away in 1952 in Freiburg im Breisgau (German state of Baden-Württemberg).

Given Alexander Pohlmann’s public standing, I was surprised I could learn nothing of his wife’s fate. Aware that Maria was deemed Jewish in the eyes of the Nazis and knowing some of her siblings, their husbands, and their children had been murdered in the Holocaust, naturally, I checked the Yad Vashem Victim’s Database, to no avail to my relief. Following publication of Post 57, I continued my investigations hoping to learn more about Alexander and Maria Pohlmann.

I decided to write to places in Poland, formerly Prussia, and Germany with which Alexander Pohlmann had been associated. First, I contacted the Muzeum Historii Katowic (Museum of History of Katowice, Poland), and received a very gracious reply informing me they had no information on what might have happened to Maria Pohlmann. Next I contacted the Generalagentur für Genealogie (General Agency for Genealogy) in Magdeburg, Germany, and again was told they had no information on Maria. Finally, my Polish friend Paul Newerla, the Silesian historian, suggested I contact the Archiwum Państwowe w Katowicach (State Archives in Katowice, Poland); it took more than a month to hear back from them, but their reply was also in the negative.

Before I could contemplate my next step, Peter Hanke, a German gentleman affiliated with the “forum.danzig.de,” contacted me offering his assistance in helping me find out what might have happened to Maria Pohlmann after reading Post 57. This Forum is a discussion group I stumbled upon in the course of researching Tiegenhof, the town in the Free State of Danzig where my father was a dentist for five years between 1932 and 1937; as discussed in earlier Blog posts related to Tiegenhof, Peter has been inordinately helpful in helping me track down information related to some of my father’s friends and acquaintances from his halcyon days there, and directing me to various on-line databases with information on the town’s former residents.

Given my lack of success finding out about Maria, I was more than happy to accept Peter’s offer of help, knowing that while I might eventually get to the same place without his assistance, his involvement would speed up the process. And, speed it up, it most certainly did. Peter contacted me on the August 26th of this year, and by September 7th he’d received a packet of information from the Kulturamt Stadtarchiv (Cultural Office City Archive), to whom he’d written, in Freiburg im Breisgau, the town in Baden-Württemberg, Germany where Alexander Pohlmann died in 1952.

In the packet of documents, the City Archive included Alexander Pohlmann’s death certificate (Figure 6a-b), confirming he’d died on the 5th of October 1952, as German Wikipedia had indicated. But, of more immediate interest was the inclusion of Maria Pohmann’s death certificate (Figures 7a-b) indicating she too had died in Freiburg, on the 18th of July 1946, pre-deceasing her husband by more than six years; Maria died of diabetes and heart failure. According to the Freiburg City Archive, Alexander and Maria had lived in Freiburg since at least the 1st of October 1936, and they had no offspring. After having hit several dead ends looking for Maria Pohlmann, it was very satisfying to finally determine when and where she died, and particularly gratifying to have one reader of my Blog help me work this out.

Figure 6a. Alexander Pohlmann’s death certificate showing he died on the 5th of October 1952 in Freiburg im Breisgau (page 1)
Figure 6b. Alexander Pohlmann’s death certificate showing he died on the 5th of October 1952 in Freiburg im Breisgau (page 2)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 7a. Maria Pohlmann née Pauly’s death certificate showing she died on the 18th of July 1946 in Freiburg im Breisgau (page 1)
Figure 7b. Maria Pohlmann née Pauly’s death certificate showing she died on the 18th of July 1946 in Freiburg im Breisgau (page 2)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

While I would eventually have written to Freiburg asking whether Maria Pohlmann had died there, to be honest, I’d convinced myself her anonymity was a function of dying young, like some of her older sisters had. In retrospect, the fact that she was Jewish may also have played a role in keeping a low profile, although we know from her father Josef Pauly’s memoirs, discussed in Post 56, that several of his daughters had to forego their personal ambitions for the sake of Josef’s only son. For this reason, it’s possible Maria sadly never had the opportunity to become more than a traditional housewife and was “unknown” outside her circle of family and friends.

The past few months have been extraordinarily productive ones in terms of either solving or beginning to unravel the fate of several of my distant relatives. Partially, this is attributable to my own dogged efforts but equally this is the result of contributions by what I’ve referred to as “my boots on the ground.” This may be analogous to good detective work which typically involves a team of people working together to solve knotty, intractable cases. In upcoming posts, I will detail some of these other successes.

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

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

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

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

Figure 1. My father and “Die Schlummermutter” (Grete Gramatzki) in Tiegenhof in Spring 1933, with sisters Suse Epp (left) and Idschi Epp
Figure 2. Die Schlummermutter, or as she was locally known “dicke Grete” (fat Grete)
My father spoke of Grete Gramatzki with great affection, and the surviving pictures of the two of them together attest to this friendship. (Figure 1) She was an enormous woman, weighing more than 400 pounds, and someone I picture to be of outsize personality. (Figure 2)  Given the close bond between “dicke Grete” (“fat Grete”), as she was known to locals, and my father, it comes as no surprise that upon my father’s departure from Tiegenhof, some months after Grete’s birthday in June 1937 (Figure 3), she gave him a parting gift.  That souvenir was a signet ring (Figure 4) that had belonged to her husband, who I came to learn was Hans Erich Gramatzki.  He was born on August 10, 1879 and died at an unknown date.  My father arrived in Tiegenhof on April 9, 1932, and while multiple photos post-dating his arrival show Grete Gramatzki, none of her husband exist; I surmise he was no longer alive by the time my father moved to town.

 

Figure 3. Grete Gramatzki on what would have been her 52nd birthday on June 13, 1937, with an unknown friend on her left and my father’s then-girlfriend Erika on her right. My father left Tiegenhof shortly after this photo was taken
Figure 4. Signet ring given to my father by Grete Gramatzki, once belonging to her husband

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

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

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

Figure 5. The “Oksza” Polish Coat of Arms of the Gramacki family
Figure 6. The very similar “Topór” Polish Coat of Arms of the Gramatzki family

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

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

Mr. Grzegorz Gola noted one other thing: 

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

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

POST 4, POSTSCRIPT: OTTO BRUCK & TIEGENHOF: HANS “MOCHUM” WAGNER

Note:  This article provides a brief update to another Blog post of August 2017 about Hans “Mochum” Wagner, a once-close friend from my father’s years living in Tiegenhof.

Figure 1-Hans “Mochum” Wagner, left, my father’s one-time friend preparing to go motorcycle riding with my dad

Unlike “Die Schlummermutter,” “Grete Gramatzki,” towards whom my father had almost maternal feelings and spoke of fondly and often, my father never once mentioned Hans “Mochum” Wagner’s name when I was growing up.  As a matter of fact, nowhere in my father’s photo albums is his name even written.  This seemed odd given the many pictures there are of him.  Once again, it was my father’s 94-year-old friend, Peter Lau, who recognized Mochum Wagner (Figure 1) and told me what he could remember of him.  Given the National Socialist era through which my father lived, perhaps I should not be surprised that Mochum Wagner was a wraith.  Like many Germans at the time, Mochum likely calibrated that remaining friends with a Jew was not only impossible but dangerous.  I can hardly imagine the pain and disappointment my father felt at losing a close friend, probably one of many.  Still, perhaps this provided the necessary impetus for my dad to leave Tiegenhof while he still could and enabled him to survive WWII.

Among the things Peter Lau told me about Mochum Wagner was that his father was a “Schornsteinfegermeister,” a chimney sweep, and that Mochum was killed early during WWII.  I was able to confirm the former from Günter Jeglin’s book “TIEGENHOF und der Kreis Großes Werder in Bildern”; towards the back of this book there are listings of former businesses in Tiegenhof and their operators, and under the profession of “Schornsteinfegermeister,” appears the name “WAGNER, J.”  As to when or where, or even whether, Mochum Wagner had died, I had not previously been able to confirm this.

In the previous two posts, I’ve discussed the assistance that a member of “Forum.Danzig.de,” Peter Hanke, has graciously provided in resolving several troublesome issues related to former residents of Tiegenhof whom my father was acquainted with.  In Post 29, I mentioned that Peter directed me to a database on FamilySearch entitled “Heimatortskartei Danzig-Westpreußen, 1939-1963.”  This is a civil register of refugees from the former province of Danzig-Westpreußen, Germany, now Gdańsk and Bydgoszcz provinces in Poland.  Consisting of handwritten and typed index-sized cards, it was developed by the German Red Cross after WWII to help people find their families who’d been expelled from this region.  All the available cards have been photographed and uploaded to FamilySearch.

Figure 2a-“Heimatortskartei,” card for Hans “Mochum” Wagner’s father, Johannes Wagner (front)

 

Figure 2b-“Heimatortskartei,” card for Hans “Mochum” Wagner’s father, Johannes Wagner (back)

 

Peter sent me a download of a “Heimatortskartei,” for a JOHANNES WAGNER (Figures 2a & 2b), the father of Mochum Wagner.  Of the roughly 4,000 cards I’ve studied from this database, it is among the most informative.  It provides the names and dates of birth of Johannes Wagner’s seven children by his wife, HEDWIG née AUSTEN; it gives their dates of birth and the date Johannes’s wife died. 

Figure 3-Hans “Mochum” Wagner in 1938 as “sportlehrer,” or physical education teacher, with his elementary school class

According to the Heimatortskartei, Hans Wagner, my father’s one-time friend, was born on June 12, 1909 in Tiegenhof.   His profession was “Sportlehrer,” or physical education teacher. (Figure 3)  He died during WWII, as Peter Lau had asserted.  He was killed or went missing on February 11, 1942, in Volkhov, Russia [German: Wolchow], located 76 miles east of St. Petersberg, formerly Leningrad.  Mochum may have died during the Russian offensive launched in January of 1942 against the Germans around the Wolchow River.  Peter Hanke checked the German website, “Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge e.V.,” with data on German war casualties, and confirmed birth and death information. (Figure 4)

Figure 4-Page from “Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge e.V.,” with birth & death data on Hans “Mochum” Wagner, born Johannes Wagner

 

 

Figure 5-Page from 1927-28 Tiegenhof Address Book listing Hans “Mochum” Wagner’s father and three of his sisters

The Wagner family Heimatortskartei provided other information, including the names and birth dates of Mochum Wagner’s six siblings; three of these siblings are listed in the 1927-28 Tiegenhof Address Book. (Figure 5)  In Post 6, I discussed names found in my father’s 1932 Pocket Calendar.  Under December 5th, my father recorded “Truden,” one of his girlfriends (Figures 6 & 7); this is clearly Mochum Wagner’s sister, Gertrud “Truden” Wagner, whose date of birth was December 4, 1912 (the difference of one day is not considered significant since such information was sometimes approximated by family).

Figure 6-“Truden,” one of Hans “Mochum” Wagner’s sisters listed in my father’s 1932 Pocket Calendar under the date December 5th

Figure 7-My father with his girlfriend “Trudchen” Wagner in Steegen in the Summer of 1935

 

 

Figure 8-An indecipherable name in my father’s 1932 Pocket Calendar under the date June 12th, corresponding to Hans “Mochum” Wagner’s date of birth

In his 1932 Day Planner, my father also records an indecipherable name by the date June 12th, the day Mochum Wagner was born (Figure 8); this may be a notation of his former friend.

One Wagner whose identity cannot be confirmed from the Wagner family Heimatortskartei is that of “Hanni Wagner.”  In two photos taken in Steegen [today: Stegna, Poland] showing Mochum Wagner is his German Army Lieutenant’s uniform, she is alongside him. (Figures 9 & 10)  Since Mochum is not known to have been married, I’ve always assumed this was one of his sisters, although “Hanni” is not a typical diminutive for any of their names, so her identity remains in doubt.  Since Mochum Wagner, or “Johannes Wagner,” as he was officially named, died in February 1942, the two pictures with Hanni Wagner and Alfred Schlenger taken in 1942 were likely recorded only weeks before Mochum died.

Figure 9-Hans “Mochum” Wagner is his German Army uniform in Steegen in 1942, seated alongside Hanni Wagner & Alfred Schlenger (Photo courtesy of Beate Lohff née Schlenger)

 

Figure 10-Hans “Mochum” Wagner is his German Army uniform in Steegen in 1942, walking alongside Hanni Wagner & Alfred Schlenger (Photo courtesy of Beate Lohff née Schlenger)

 

POST 29: TIEGENHOF: UNRAVELLING THE “MYSTERY” OF HEINRICH “HEINZ” REGEHR

“The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.”—Oscar Wilde

Note:  This story has me going back to the town in the Free State of Danzig, Tiegenhof, where my father was a dentist between April 1932 and April 1937, to talk about a man whose destiny has remained opaque, a man named Heinrich “Heinz” Regehr.  Though I relate this tale in a linear fashion, the way I learned things did not follow a straight line.

Figure 1-Heinrich “Heinz” Regehr in Königsberg, East Prussia in April 1936, between Hans “Mochum” Wagner on the left and an unknown man on the right

For readers who have regularly followed my Blog, you may recall from Post 2 that my father’s now 94-year-old friend, Juergen “Peter” Lau, whom he first met in Tiegenhof as a young boy, recognized numerous people in my father’s photographs.  This story begins with one such identification, an individual named Heinrich “Heinz” Regehr.  The sole photograph of Heinz Regehr shows him walking across the street in the former East Prussian city of Königsberg (today: Kaliningrad, Russia) in April 1936, in the company of two other friends, one of whom is known to me, Hans “Mochum” Wagner discussed in Post 4. (Figure 1)  When Peter first identified Heinz Regehr, he told me his name, nothing more.

Figure 2-Page in my father’s 1932 Pocket Calendar with “Linchen Regehr’s” name by the date January 13th

In yet another post, Post 6, discussing the names in my father’s 1932 Pocket Calendar, under the date January 13th I mentioned finding a “Linchen Regehr,” who I would later learn was the wife of this Heinz Regehr. (Figure 2) Seemingly, the Regehrs, husband and wife, were friends or acquaintances of my father’s, so I became intrigued about what had happened to them.

Thus, upon my return to the United States in 2013, I turned to the membership index in the back of the “Tiegenhofer Nachrichten,” the now-defunct annual journal for former German residents of Tiegenhof and their descendants.  On multiple occasions over the years, the index of members has been immeasurably useful, in part because the maiden names of women are provided.  I used the index to identify all the people with the surname “Regehr,” and went on a letter-writing campaign in the hopes I could learn Heinz Regehr’s fate. 

One German lady to whom I wrote was a Ms. Anneliese Franzen née Regehr.  Some weeks passed, and eventually I was contacted on her behalf by her daughter living in Atlanta, Georgia, Ms. Meike Guenzerodt.  She explained to me that Heinz Regehr was her mother’s father, that’s to say, her grandfather, who had disappeared in fighting at the end of WWII and was presumed dead.

Ms. Guenzerodt provided a little history about the family’s escape from Tiegenhof towards the end of WWII.  Meike explained that Anneliese’s mother had been involuntarily institutionalized in a psychiatric facility outside Tiegenhof, and this delayed the family’s departure as the Russians were approaching.  Eventually, however, families of institutionalized patients were assured by German authorities their loved ones would be evacuated to Bremen, in the western part of Germany, before the Russians arrived.  With these assurances in hand, Anneliese’s grandfather took Anneliese and her two sisters and fled westward; at the time, Anneliese, the youngest, was six years old (born 1938); the middle sister, Evamarie, was 16 (born 1928); and the oldest, Lore, was 21 (born 1923).  Their father, Heinrich Regehr, was in the German Army at the time and they would eventually learn had gone missing in action in 1945 near Küstrin, 60 miles outside Berlin in the German state of Brandenburg, on the Oder River along the border with Poland.

The promised evacuations of the patients in the psychiatric facility never materialized, and the doctors and nurses decamped, leaving the inmates to fend for themselves.  With no staff to prevent them from wandering off, Anneliese’s mother made her way back to Tiegenhof.  There, a nurse found her wandering the streets and took her in, where she survived a mere three weeks before succumbing to disease in 1945.  After the war, the family was visited by this former nurse and learned of the mother’s fate.

Meike explained that because of the family’s hasty retreat from Tiegenhof, no family photos of Heinz Regehr had survived.  She asked whether I could send her a copy of my father’s picture of him for her mother, an entreaty I was most happy to oblige.

Believing I had resolved the question of Heinz Regehr’s fate, I set the issue aside.  In 2014, when I again visited Peter Lau in Germany, our conversation veered to Heinz, and I mentioned I’d learned he’d gone missing in action during the war and presumably died.  I can practically visualize Peter’s look of disbelief when I told him this.  He recounted that Heinz Regehr had in fact survived WWII, and eventually immigrated to Alberta, Canada.  He’d previously married Lina Regehr, following the death of her first husband, Franz Schlenger, a son of Otto Schlenger, owner of Tiegenhof’s Dampfmahlmuehle (steam-operated flour mill).  I would later learn from a descendant of Hedwig “Hedsch” Schlenger, to which Post 10 was devoted, that Lina and Heinz had had two boys, Henry Regehr, born in 1932, and Martin Regehr, born in 1940.

At this point, I started to wonder whether I’d uncovered the proverbial “skeleton in the family closet.”  I began to question if Heinz Regehr had not had two families, that’s to say, that he had somehow survived WWII.  With one wife, I knew he’d had three daughters born, respectively, in 1923, 1928 and 1938, and with Linchen Regehr, he’d apparently had two sons, born, respectively, in 1932 and 1940; the fact that he’d had his third daughter by his first wife between the time he had his two sons with his second wife troubled me greatly.  As implausible as this may seem, readers must remember that Anneliese had “affirmatively” identified her father, and Peter Lau had confirmed my father’s picture depicted Heinz Regehr.  Nonetheless, I never felt entirely comfortable with my conclusion, so I set the issue aside for future consideration as I continued researching other facets of my family’s history.

Figure 3-Heinrich & Lina Regehr’s older son, Henry Regehr, as a young boy in Tiegenhof in Hans “Mochum” Wagner’s class (Source: Günter Jeglin book “TIEGENHOF und der Kreis Großes Werder in Bildern”)

It wasn’t until I began writing stories for this Blog that I came back to the question of Heinz Regehr.  I turned to ancestry.com, and did a query on him, and, lo and behold, was directed to “Find-A-Grave,” which confirmed that Heinrich Regehr (1898-1965) and his wife, Lina Regehr (1901-1968), were buried in Mountain View Memorial Gardens in Alberta, Canada.  I also uncovered an obituary for the older of Heinrich and Lina Regehr’s sons, Henry Regehr (1932-2012). (Figure 3)  The obituary confirmed that Henry Regehr was born in Tiegenhof on June 11, 1932, and provided names of surviving family members, including a son named Robert Regehr.  Armed with this information, I turned to Alberta’s White Pages, and phoned several Regehrs who seemed promising.  A few days later, Henry’s son, Robert Regehr, returned my call and confirmed he was Heinrich Regehr’s grandson.  We exchanged information, he shared a little of his family’s story, and eventually he would confirm that my father’s picture was indeed his grandfather.  So, it now seemed I had the “proof” that Heinz had survived the war and immigrated to Canada, seemingly abandoning his first family.

Figure 4-Documentation from “Volksbund Deutsche” Kriegsgräberfürsorge e.V.” with information on Heinrich Regehr who went missing on March 1, 1945

Not wanting to leave any stone unturned, I tried to learn more about Anneliese Franzen’s father who’d gone missing in action during WWII, thinking there might be updated information or something to suggest it was a different Heinrich Regehr.  I discovered a German website (https://www.volksbund.de/en/volksbund.html) with data on German war casualties.  This organization describes itself as follows: “Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge e.V. is a humanitarian organization charged by the government of the Federal Republic of Germany with recording, maintaining and caring for the graves of German war casualties abroad.”  This website included the name of the Heinrich Regehr I presumed was Anneliese’s father, so I requested a copy of the documentation.  What I received confirmed what Anneliese’s daughter had told me, namely, that her grandfather had gone missing on March 1, 1945. (Figure 4)  An additional piece of information that Volksbund Deutsche provided was the date of birth of Heinrich Regehr, specifically, March 27, 1897.  While not necessarily significant, it differed by a year from what I’d discovered on “Find-A-Grave” for the Heinrich Regehr in Alberta.  Hoping to resolve this discrepancy, I contacted Alberta’s Provincial Government trying to obtain his death certificate but was told, not unexpectedly, only family members could obtain this document.

Figure 5-Page from 1927-28 Tiegenhof Address Book for the “Kreis Großes Werder,” including two listings for Heinrich Regehr

Within the past month, I again queried “Heinrich Regehr” on ancestry.com.  Because “Regehr” is a common Mennonite name, often tens of thousands or even millions of “hits” will appear.  Perhaps, because I’d never previously scrolled through enough of the names, on this particular occasion I was directed to an 1927-28 Address Book for the “Kreis Großes Werder,” the “kreis” or “state” (i.e, the equivalent of a county) in which Tiegenhof was located; I’d never previously come across this directory for Tiegenhof, a comprehensive one 23 pages long.  What I discovered gave me further pause.  It included two listings for Heinrich Regehr, one on Lindenstraße, the second on Schloßgrund. (Figure 5) However, knowing that Heinrich had been a “Bankbeamter,” or “bank official,” at the “Kreissparkaße,” or district savings bank, and knowing this bank had been located on “Schloßgrund,” I considered that the second listing might be his private residence.  By itself, this was still not enough to conclude there were two Heinrich Regehrs. 

A brief digression is necessary.  Occasionally readers will send me photographs or documents related to my Blog posts or provide other useful information.  One such reader recently suggested I register for a forum, entitled “Forum.Danzig.de,” which devotes an entire section to Tiegenhof.  Because this forum is in German and requires painstaking use of Google Translate, which in the case of German yields completely tortured transliterations, it took me time to sign up.  With an English-speaking member’s assistance, I eventually negotiated the process, and uploaded my first question.  While this forum has turned into an absolute boon, results of which will be presented in upcoming posts, in this post I want to focus on Heinrich Regehr.

The gentleman from “Forum. Danzig.de” who assisted me, Mr. Peter Hanke, has been gracious and helpful beyond measure.  In the span of less than two weeks, Peter has helped me solve no fewer than three thorny issues that have confounded me for several years, including the question of Heinrich Regehr.  Uncertain whether the Danzig Forum knew of the 1927-28 Address Book for the Kreis Großes Werder I’d discovered on ancestry.com, I offered to make the Tiegenhof portion of it available to members.  Peter confirmed the Forum’s awareness of this directory, then gave me a link to additional directories for Tiegenhof, which he offered to send.  After looking through the list, I asked him for two address books for landowners in Kreis Großes Werder, one for 1925, the other for 1930.

Figure 6-Page from 1925 Tiegenhof Address Book listing Heinrich Regehr on Lindenstraße

After receiving these address books, I searched for Heinrich Regehr, hoping, once and for all to resolve the question of whether I was dealing with one person or two.  Unlike the 1927-28 address book, the 1925 address book included only the one Heinrich Regehr listed at Lindenstraße, seemingly related to a Hermann Regehr, a “hofbesitzer,” or farm owner, and “getreidehandlung,” someone involved in crop treatment. (Figure 6)  The 1930 address book again included this Hermann Regehr, but also “Lina Regehr” at Vorhofstraße. (Figure 7) While unlikely, I briefly considered Heinrich had first been a farmer, then later gone into banking.  While I had no definitive answer, because Lina Regehr’s address was different, I became more certain there were two different Heinrichs.

Figure 7-Page from 1930 Tiegenhof Address Book listing Heinrich Regehr on Lindenstraße & Lina Regehr on Vorhofstraße

I mentioned in passing my quandary to Peter Hanke, and, unexpectedly, within a day he confirmed two Heinrich Regehrs had lived in Tiegenhof and provided the following information on each:

Heinrich REGEHR I (Figures 8a & 8b)

Business: Merchant

Rank: Unteroffizier (non-commissioned officer)

Date of birth: May 27, 1897

Place of birth: Neukirch [today: Nowa Cerkiew, Poland]

Address in Tiegenhof: Marienburgerstr. 14

Home State: Kreis Großes Werder

During WWII: Ground personnel in Elbing [today: Elbląg, Poland]

Missing in action since May 1, 1945 (somewhere near Küstrin/Reppen/West-Sternberg/Zorndorf)

Relatives: Father Hermann Regehr, born January 29, 1867

Figure 8a-“Heimatortskartei” for Heinrich Regehr I (front)

Figure 8b-“Heimatortskartei” for Heinrich Regehr I (back), listing Anneliese Franzen’s name

 

 

Heinrich REGEHR II (Figures 9a & 9b)

Date of birth: December 18, 1898

Place of birth: Rückenau [today: Rychnowo Żuławskie, Poland]

Address in Tiegenhof: Neue-Reihe 1-3

Business: Director of the Kreissparkaße

Immigrated to Canada after WWII: Calgary, Alberta

Wife: Lina, née ZULAUF widowed SCHLENGER

Children: Heini (Heinrich) (born June 11, 1932); Martin (born June 5, 1940)

Lina’s children by her first marriage: Brigitte SCHLENGER (born August 25, 1922 in Danzig-Langfuhr); Rudolf SCHLENGER (born October 11, 1923 in Neuteich)

Figure 9a-“Heimatortskartei” for Heinrich Regehr II (front)

Figure 9b-“Heimatortskartei” for Heinrich Regehr II (back) with Lina Regehr’s name and date of birth, along with those of her children by her two marriages

 

 

Surprised as to the speed with which Peter had confirmed the existence of two Heinrich Regehrs, born in consecutive years, living in Tiegenhof at the same time, I naturally asked where the data came from.  It was clear it didn’t originate from any Address Books.  Peter gave me a link to a free online catalog on FamilySearch entitled “Heimatortskartei Danzig-Westpreußen, 1939-1963,” a database whose existence was previously unknown to me.  This is a civil register of refugees from the former province of Danzig-Westpreußen, Germany, now Gdańsk and Bydgoszcz provinces in Poland.  Consisting of handwritten and typed index-sized cards, it was developed by the German Red Cross after WWII to help people find their families who’d been expelled from this region.  All the available cards have been photographed and uploaded to FamilySearch.

Figure 10a-“Heimatortskartei” for Hermann Regehr, Anneliese Franzen’s grandfather (front)

Figure 10b-“Heimatortskartei” for Hermann Regehr, Anneliese Franzen’s grandfather, listing the names & dates of birth of Anneliese and her siblings (back)

 

Figure 11-Obituary for Lore Schoel née Regehr, Anneliese Regehr’s oldest sister

I reviewed the index cards on roughly 4,000 former residents of Tiegenhof.  Not only did I relocate the Heimatortskartei for Heinrich Regehr I and II, but I also found a card for a Hermann Regehr (Figures 10 a & 10b); the names and dates of birth of Anneliese and her two siblings are included on the flip side of the card confirming this was the grandfather who fled Tiegenhof with his three grand-daughters. (Figure 11) This Hermann Regehr is found in the 1925, 1927-28 and 1930 Tiegenhof Address Books.  In ancestry.com, I was also able to locate his birth register. (Figure 12)  Additionally, Peter Hanke accessed the Church books of the Mennonites, a paid service, and discovered the family overview for Hermann Regehr’s father, Johann Regehr. (Figure 13)  While not detailed here, the Mennonite books also contain information on Johann Regehr’s parents going back yet another generation

Figure 12-Birth register listing for Hermann Regehr, Heinrich Regehr I’s grandfather, born January 29, 1867

Figure 13-Page from the Church book of the Mennonites for Johann Regehr, Heinrich Regehr I’s grandfather

 

Figure 14-Page from the Church book of the Mennonites for Heinrich Regehr, Heinrich Regehr II’s grandfather

Similarly, for the family of the Heinrich Regehr II who wound up in Alberta, Canada, Peter accessed the Mennonite Church books for his father and grandfather, both also named Heinrich Regehr. (Figure 14)

The Heimatortskartei catalog often provides invaluable clues as to family connections, spouses, vital events, and more.  Beyond the Regehrs, in at least three other instances, I connected names and/or dates on the cards to the corresponding information in my father’s 1932 Pocket Calendar or to pictures in my father’s collection.  These will be the subject of future Blog posts.

I can hear readers saying, “It’s obvious there were two different Heinrich Regehrs!”  And, while I would be inclined to agree, I try to avoid making facts fit a false narrative.  The “fact” is that both Anneliese Franzen and Peter Lau recognized the same Heinrich Regehr.  What I initially failed to consider is that because her father disappeared from her life when she was very young, no older than six years old, Anneliese may have had only vague recollections of what her father looked like and may have jumped to the conclusion, based on the name I provided, that the picture I sent was of her father.  Regardless, taking the time to patiently research Heinrich Regehr has led to a finding that supports what Anneliese and her family have always known and dispels any notion their father “abandoned” them.

 

REFERENCE

Jeglin, Günter

1985  TIEGENHOF und der Kreis Großes Werder in Bildern.