My father would refer to his aunt living in East Berlin, in the former Deutsche Demokratische Republik (DDR) (German Democratic Republic), as “la Communiste,” the Communist, only ever using this sobriquet. She was an apparatchik, a member of the Communist Party apparat in the DDR. It was long after my father passed away in 1994 that I would learn that my great-aunt’s name was Elsbeth Bruck (1874-1970). (Figure 1)
While I obviously never met her, she led a comfortable life as a high-ranking Communist government official living in a sprawling apartment she boasted she would never be able to afford in then-West Berlin. As a child my second cousin, however, Margarita Vilgertshofer née Bruck, once visited Elsbeth in East Berlin circa 1968 in the company of her father, one of my father’s first cousins. I have no clear sense of Elsbeth’s life in her years living in East Berlin, though letters exist written to her by her niece, Jeanne “Hansi” Goff née Löwenstein, from Nice, France. Like many people living in post-WWII Germany, both East and West, the shortage of food and other everyday necessities was a commonly discussed topic; from time-to-time Hansi would send her aunt care packages. For this reason, I find it mildly amusing that when Margarita visited Elsbeth and she was busy touting the benefits of living in East Germany and how egalitarian society was, Margarita cheekily responded, “well, then, how come there are no bananas?!”
In any case, as mentioned in Post 126, a German lady posted separate entries on two of my renowned great-aunts, including Elsbeth Bruck, on German Wikipedia. While some of the information was drawn from what I wrote, other details were new to me so as in the case of my great-aunt Franziska Bruck, I provide in amended form here some of the discoveries about Elsbeth.
Elsbeth’s parents, my great-grandparents, were Fedor Bruck (1834-1892) (Figure 2) and Friederike Bruck née Mockrauer (1836-1924) (Figure 3); they were the original owners of the family hotel in Ratibor, Germany [today: Racibórz, Poland], the Bruck’s “Prinz von Preußen” Hotel. Elsbeth was born in 1874 and was the youngest of my great-grandparents’ eight children. As in the case of her sister Franziska, I know nothing about Elsbeth’s early life in Ratibor. Her father passed away in 1892 when Elsbeth was 18 years old, so it’s likely she helped run the family hotel for a period until she left in around 1902 with her sister Franziska and her mother Friederike for Berlin.
Elsbeth’s life took a decidedly different path than her sister Franziska’s. She was a pacifist and peace activist for much of her life. A 1907 photo I found on the Internet suggests that her involvement in the peace movement began almost immediately after moving to Berlin. The photo shows 31 members of the German Peace Society (Deutsche Friedensgesellschaft (DFG)) including an unidentified Elsbeth; the German Peace Society was founded in 1892 in Berlin but moved its headquarters to Stuttgart in 1900, and still exists today. In 1907, Elsbeth would have been only 33 years old; only six women appear in the group photo, so judging the age and appearance of these women I reckon the woman standing in the second row circled is likely Elsbeth. (Figure 4)
Elsbeth later became a member of the Bund Neues Vaterland (New Fatherland League) and succeeded the German feminist and pacifist Lilli Jannasch as its managing director; this was the most important pacifist association during WWI from which the German League of Human Rights (German League for Human Rights – Wikipedia) (Deutsche Liga für Menschenrechte) later emerged, an organization that included among its members Albert Einstein. Founded in 1914, the League moved more and more towards the left politically, exposing its members to persecution. As a result, both Elsbeth and Lilli Jannasch were taken into “protective custody,” and in February 1916 the League was banned by an organ of the police investigating political crimes. Despite her detention, Elsbeth remained politically active. Pacifists, however, continued to remain on the Berlin State Police’s radar, and a list of 30 well-known pacifists drawn up in January 1918 included Elsbeth’s name.
By 1920, Elsbeth had joined a short-lived German left-wing organization founded in 1919 for the promotion of proletarian culture, the Bund für proletarische Kultur, the League for Proletarian Culture. According to Wikipedia, this organization “. . .sought to wipe out the last traces of bourgeois culture from working class consciousness, seeing the disappearance of this pseudo-culture as no loss. They envisaged a new proletarian culture dormant within the working class which could be woken up and play a role in the revolutionary transformation of society.” Her association with this group makes it evident why Elsbeth became a DDR firebrand following WWII.
During the Nazi era, Elsbeth’s friends in the pacifist community helped her escape first to Prague, in then-Czechoslovakia, then to the United Kingdom. According to the 1939 census, she lived in the parish of Amersham (Buckinghamshire) northwest of London and earned a living as a teacher of voice training. (Figures 5-b) Following the war, she returned to Berlin, continued her campaign for freedom and human rights, and eventually became a high ranking, well-respected member of the East German government.
In letters written to Elsbeth by her niece Hansi Goff, cited above, she often mentions the autobiography Elsbeth was working on. While this was never published, Elsbeth’s friend and roommate Cläre Jung (1892-1981) wrote the epilogue for this memoir entitled, Ein Leben für den Frieden (A Life for Peace); this manuscript is on file at the German Exile Archive in Frankfurt, Germany.
Elsbeth died on the 20th of February 1970 at the age of 95. She is buried at the “Pergolenweg” grave complex (Figure 6) of the Gedenkstätte der Sozialisten (Socialist Memorial) (Figure 7) at the Zentralfriedhof Friedrichsfelde (Friedrichsfelde Central Cemetery) (Figure 8) in the borough of Lichtenberg in Berlin. Founded in 1881, it is the cemetery where many of Berlin’s Socialists, Communists, and anti-fascist fighters are interred.
Note: In this post I relate the story of how in the process of helping a reader whose grandmother died in 1940 in Ratibor, the birthplace of my father, I improbably discovered information on some of my own ancestors.
Ratibor [today: Racibórz, Poland] (Figure 1), the town in the Prussian province of Upper Silesia where my father, Dr. Otto Bruck, was born in 1907 was one of the largest municipalities in the region. Periodically, readers who are descended from former inhabitants of Ratibor will contact me through my Blog asking for information I have or may have come across related to their ancestors. Often, their relatives are entirely unknown to me but seeing what, if anything, I can uncover about them becomes an extension of my own forensic genealogical endeavors. And, the pleasure I derive in helping others is sometimes magnified when I learn something about my own ancestors in the process. The inspiration for the current post stems from precisely such a situation.
One reader, Dan Ward, recently contacted me after perusing Post 13 and Post 13, Postscript, and learning the “Muzeum w Raciborzu” in Racibórz had given me an Excel spreadsheet with the names of the Jews that had once been interred in the former Jewish Cemetery in Ratibor, requesting a copy of this database. This cemetery was demolished in the 1960’s during Poland’s Communist era to further expunge evidence of German residency in the area. Fortunately, before the stout headstones were torn down and sold off locally, a Polish gentleman whom I wrote about in Post 13, Postscript, Mr. Kazimierz Świetliński (Figure 2), had the foresight to photograph all the gravestones; these images served as the basis for the creation of the Excel database, with the Racibórz Museum staff gleaning as much vital information as possible from the high-quality snapshots. Despite the sharp and fine details on the photos, not all the data is discernible. More on this below.
Dan Ward contacted me seeking information on the tombstone and burial location of his grandmother, Rosa Wartenberger née Perl, who according to records he found was buried on the 29th of March 1940 in the Jüdischer Friedhof Ratibor, Jewish Cemetery in Ratibor, in Plot 153; she died or committed suicide before she was scheduled to be deported to a concentration camp. As a quick aside, the “Ward” surname is clearly the Anglicized version of the “Wartenberger” family name. Dan sent me screen shots with the source of this information, Jewish Gen. As readers can see, Rosa Wartenberger’s name was misspelled as “Risa Wortenberger,” although the transcriber obviously had trouble deciphering the script. (Figure 3)
Armed with the information Dan sent me, I immediately began my own research. The first thing I checked was the Excel spreadsheet with the names of Jews formerly buried in the Jewish Cemetery in Ratibor, and Rosa Wartenberg is not listed. Dan would later tell me his grandmother’s maiden name was “Perl,” and I found four individuals with this surname once interred in the Jewish graveyard, but being unfamiliar with Dan’s family tree, I am not sure how they might have been related to her.
Next, I checked address books and phone directories for Ratibor. I have previously told readers about a database on ancestry.com, entitled “Germany and Surrounding Areas, Address Books, 1815-1974 (Adressbücher aus Deutschland und Umgebung, 1815-1974),” with address books for Germany, Poland, and other neighboring countries. In the only address book in this database for Ratibor for the year 1938, I found a single “Wartenberger.” It was for a man named “Kurt Wartenberger,” identified as a “gastwirt,” innkeeper, shown living at “Breite Straße 54.” (Figure 4)
I asked my friend Mr. Paul Newerla from Racibórz, a retired lawyer whom regular readers have often heard me mention, who now researches and writes about the history of Silesia, whether the surname “Wartenberger” is familiar to him. It is not, but in a 1926 Ratibor Address Book not included among the “Germany and Surrounding Areas” directories, he too found “Kurt Wartenberger” listed, identified then as a “destillateur,” distiller, living at “Brunken 54.” (Figure 5) Other than finding Kurt Wartenberger’s name in the 1926 Ratibor directory, Paul could add nothing more.
I found it odd the address number “54” was identical in 1926 and 1938 but that the street names were different. Paul Newerla explained that “Brunken” was a connecting street to what is referred to as the Altendorf district, that’s to say, a little “outside” of Ratibor along the main road towards Oppeln [today: Opole, Poland] and Leobschutz [today: Głubczyce, Poland]. I located this street, respectively, on plan maps of Ratibor from 1927-28 (Figure 6) and 1933 (Figure 7), although a plan map from 1914 names it “Große-Vorstadt.” (Figure 8) In tiny print on all three plan maps, readers can see the number “54,” confirming it was the same corner lot with different street names over time.
I passed along what Paul and I had found to Dan Ward. He confirmed that Kurt had owned a tavern and that family papers in his possession place Kurt’s business at “Große-Vorstadt 54,” papers which must clearly pre-date 1927-28, by which time the street was known as “Brunken.” By 1938, the street had been renamed yet again because it was then called “Breite Straße.” According to Dan, Kurt Wartenberger was murdered in the Shoah in Buchenwald, and, indeed, Yad Vashem lists him as a victim of the Holocaust. (Figure 9)
Next, I retraced Dan Ward’s steps to track down the source of the information on his grandmother, misspelled as mentioned above as “Risa Wortenberger.” The data, as I previously also said, originates from JewishGen, and relocating it was straight-forward. Here, however, is where things took an interesting turn. The source documentation for the data in JewishGen comes from elsewhere, namely, from the Church of Latter-Day Saints’ (LDS) “Family History Library International Film 1184447, Item 2” (Figure 10), which is one of three microfilm rolls with data on the former Jewish inhabitants of Ratibor. While I had last examined this microfilm many years ago, when it was still necessary to order films from the LDS Church in Salt Lake City and have hard copies sent to a local Family History Library for viewing, I clearly remembered this roll as having limited or, at least, confusing information. Now that the Ratibor records are accessible online through familysearch.org, I decided to reexamine film 1184447.
For anyone interested in seeking similar information from familysearch.org for towns they are researching, they can replicate these steps:
1) Go to familysearch.org (you can create a free account);
2) Under the “Search” button, scroll down to “Catalog,” click enter, and go to the following page;
3) Next, type in “Raciborz” under “Place,” or whatever town you are seeking records for (i.e., different spellings yield different results, so for towns that are now located in different countries than they once were, you may need to try alternate spellings);
4) Scroll down to “Poland, Opole, Racibórz (Racibórz),” then hit “Search”;
5) Select “Poland, Opole, Racibórz (Racibórz) – Jewish records (1),” hit enter;
6) Next select “Matrikel, 1814-1940”;
7) On the next screen select “1184447, Item 2” (select the camera icon all the way to the right; if there is a key above a camera icon, the microfilm is unavailable online).
There are 342 pages on Microfilm 1184447 but only pages 220 through 338, referred to as “Item 2,” specifically deal with Ratibor. The film contains “Friedhofsurkunden 1888-1940” for Ratibor, which Peter Hanke, my German friend who helps me with translations and making sense of German records, tells me is more aptly referred to as “Friedhofsdokumente,” or cemetery documents. The cemetery administration would use these files to see which tombs were unused; which ones could be reused after 25 or 30 years if descendants stopped paying to keep their ancestors interred; which tombs were reserved in perpetuity for so-called “family graves”; or simply to help visitors locate specific graves. These files often contain useful information for genealogists, as I illustrate below.
Let me digress for a moment. Given the disparate sources of ancestral information I have accessed over the years, including in this current post, I am often reminded of the American television game show “Concentration” that aired from 1958 until 1991. Basically, the game was based on the children’s memory game of the same name. Players had to match cards which represented prizes they could win. As matching pairs of cards were gradually removed from the board, it would slowly reveal a rebus puzzle that contestants had to solve to win a match. The similarity I see with genealogical research is not so much solving the rebus, but matching pairs of cards. Often years pass before a “genealogical card” I newly discover can be “matched” to one or more I found earlier in my investigations. The challenge, particularly as I get older, is retrieving the earlier “card” from my memory. Such is the case with connections to Microfilm 1184447, Item 2.
I downloaded, saved, and studied all 119 pages from this film, and made several interesting discoveries and connections. Of immediate interest, I found Rosa Wartenberger’s name in an index (Figure 11); as readers can discern from what I have circled in Figure 11, the number “46” appears to the right of Rosa’s name; this refers to the page number in the “Friedhofsdokumente,” on which Rosa’s name and interment date appear. Initially, I found only one page 46, not realizing there was a left page-right page pair.
Let me briefly explain. When the LDS Church originally photographed vital records for Ratibor and other places, they typically started by photographing the left-side pages from the front to the back of the register, then in reverse order from the back to the front photographed the right-side pages; thus, the left page-right page pairs, either identically numbered or consecutively numbered, from any register will not be found on consecutive microfilm images. Thus, while Rosa’s name does not appear on the left-hand page 46, it is found on the right-hand page 46; for reader’s ease, I have “grafted” the two pages in one (Figure 12), and translated, using a different grafted left-right pair of pages, the headers for each column. (Figure 13)
As readers can see, by “Grabnummer,” grave number, 153, the date of Rosa’s interment is shown, the 29th of March 1940, which matches the information in JewishGen. The column titled “Belegt” translates to “occupied,” and signifies when a person was interred, rather than when they died.
Once a researcher understands the organizational “structure” of microfilms with cemetery documents, they are easy though tedious to use. On one left-right pair of pages, I was able to find both sets of great-grandparents on my father’s side. (Figure 14) Oddly, the names of Fedor Bruck (Figure 15) and his wife, Friederike Bruck née Mockrauer (Figure 16), are not found in the Excel spreadsheet at the Muzeum w Raciborzu, meaning no photo of their headstone was taken. However, Hermann Berliner (Figure 17) and Olga Berliner née Braun’s names do appear in the Excel spreadsheet indicating a picture of their gravestone exists. (Figure 18)
I know from a family tree in the Pinkus Family Collection at the Leo Baeck Institute that my great-grandmother Friederike Bruck née Mockrauer died in Berlin on the 29th of February 1924 (Figure 19), though she was not buried there. From Microfilm 1184447, I learned she was instead interred on the 11th of May 1924 in Ratibor, almost 10 weeks later, presumably alongside her husband. Jews are typically interred within two to three days after they die, so a 10-week delay is very unusual. (Figure 20)
On Microfilm 1184447, I also found a single page mentioning one of my father’s older brothers who died in infancy, Walter Bruck. (Figure 21) His name is found on a page entitled “Kleiner Kinderfriedhof,” small children’s cemetery. This is further proof of his existence. A brief explanation. After I began immersing myself in family history and creating a family tree years ago, I started to wonder why there was a nine-year age difference between my father’s oldest brother, Fedor Bruck, born in 1895, and my father’s older sister, Susanne Bruck, born in 1904, in an era where families were large. I eventually learned in 2014 when I visited the “Archiwum Państwowe w Katowicach Oddział w Raciborzu” (“State Archives in Katowice Branch in Raciborz”) that another sibling had been born in 1900 (Figure 22) who died in infancy the next year (Figure 23), named Walter Bruck. I was able to retrieve both his birth and death certificates among the civil records archived at the Archiwum Państwowe. Thus, the discovery of Walter Bruck’s name on Microfilm 1184447 was confirmation he was once buried in the Jüdischer Friedhof Ratibor.
Among the photos that Mr. Kazimierz Świetliński took at the former Jewish Cemetery in Ratibor before it was demolished is one showing the “Kindergräber,” children’s graves. (Figure 24) As readers can see, the children’s names on some of the headstones can be made out, though most are indecipherable. Interestingly, there is a separate index on Microfilm 1184447, entitled “Großer kinderfriedhof,” big children’s cemetery (Figure 25), with the names of older children buried in the Jewish Cemetery. Infants may have been interred in graves identified only by number, as I discovered in the Weißensee Jewish Cemetery in Berlin.
As a tedious exercise for another day, which I started while researching and writing this post, is cross-checking the names on Microfilm 1184447 with those on the Excel spreadsheet. Some names on Microfilm 1184447 are not in the Excel database, while others are found in both. Preliminarily, I was able to amend death dates or years in the Excel directory, which, as previously mentioned, was compiled from photos, some of which are indistinct.
In closing, I would say one final thing. Based on the Excel index I obtained years ago, I mistakenly concluded then that none of my Bruck relatives had ever been interred in the Jewish Cemetery in Ratibor, even though I knew some died there when the cemetery was still in use. However, with the benefit of the information I recently acquired from the Jewish records on Microfilm 1184447, I am certain that at least three relatives with the Bruck surname were once buried there. And, this discovery was spurred by helping a reader learn about one of his relatives, a case of helping yourself by aiding others, a most satisfying outcome!
Note: In this post, I recall through a series of sometimes poignant and touching images some of my ancestors, several of whom were murdered in the Shoah. The photos embedded in this post originate with my 92-year old third cousin who knew and was intimately acquainted with these individuals as a young child growing up in Germany before and during the Nazi Era.
I first introduced readers to my third cousin Agnes Stieda née Vogel in Blog Post 46. (Figure 1) Our respective great-grandmothers were sisters, Rosalie Pauly née Mockrauer (1844-1927) (Figure 2), and Friederike Bruck née Mockrauer (1836-1924). (Figure 3) I first learned about Agnes from another third cousin who, tired of incessant questions on family matters he couldn’t answer, referred me to her. We became acquainted in February of this year, and ever since we’ve engaged in a very active and lively email correspondence. I wrote about Agnes in Post 46. What’s made our exchanges so fascinating is that Agnes lived through historic events and was close to a few of the people I’ve researched and written about, including some who perished in the Holocaust. This post provides an opportunity to remember through photographs a few of these people seen in the throes of life before they knew what tragedy awaited them, and their lives were abruptly ended.
Agnes, I learned, lives in a retirement community in Victoria on Vancouver Island, about an hour-and-a-half west of Vancouver by ferry. Prior to meeting Agnes, my wife and I had already planned a cruise to Alaska departing from Vancouver to see the glaciers before climate-change deniers ensure their disappearance. After months of communication, it was only natural that Agnes and I should get together. (Figure 4) We arranged to meet in person at her eldest daughter Nicki Stieda’s home in Vancouver. (Figure 5) Nicki is the curator of her mother’s personal papers and photos, so upon learning of my upcoming visit, she organized all the items for my convenience. (Figure 6) Given that I neither speak nor read German, I focused on taking pictures of Agnes’s photos. Additionally, thanks to her perfect recall of the people in the images, we spent several enthralling hours talking about Agnes’s memories of them.
Let me provide a little more context. Agnes is the granddaughter of Dr. Ernst Neisser and Margareth “Gretl” Neisser née Pauly, both victims of the Holocaust who committed suicide in Berlin, respectively, in 1941 and 1942; this was the subject of Post 48. Gretl Neisser was one of nine children of Dr. Josef and Rosalie Pauly, all of whom have been discussed in earlier posts and all whose fates I’ve now worked out. Ernst and Gretl Neisser had two children, Agnes’s mother Susanne Dorothea Vogel née Niesser (1899-1984) and Agnes’s uncle Peter Heinrich Neisser (1906-1929).
Dr. Ernst Neisser was a medical doctor in Stettin, Germany [today: Szczecin, Poland], who delivered Agnes. (Figure 7) Another Pauly daughter, Edith “Dietchen” Riezler née Pauly (Figure 8) also lived in Stettin with her husband, Dr. Walter Riezler (Figure 9), who was the Director of the Muzeum Narodowe w Szczecinie, the National Museum, Szczecin; Walter and Edith Riezler were the subjects of Post 53. In writing that post, I communicated with curators at the museum to try and procure photos of Dr. Riezler; I eventually obtained some from my third cousin Andi Pauly that I shared with the museum since they had none at the time. Among Agnes’s photos were yet more of Dr. Reizler that I’ve also sent them.
Because of Agnes’s family ties to Stettin following her birth in 1927, many of her photos date from this period. They illustrate in intimate fashion the close bond Agnes grandparents had with one another (Figure 10) and with their granddaughter (Figures 11-13). Several also show the deep affection between Agnes and her great-aunt Dietchen Riezler (Figures 14-15); Agnes has particularly fond memories of all three. There are multiple images of Agnes as a child at the beach along the Baltic Ocean, which is about 100km or 60 miles north of Szczecin. This series naturally includes photos of her parents Hans and Suse Vogel. (Figure 16)
Dr. Hans Vogel (Figure 17) will be the feature of an upcoming post. Suffice it for now to note that Dr. Vogel was, among other things, an art historian, and, like Dr. Walter Riezler, also the Director of a museum, the Hessisches Landesmuseum in Kassel, Germany. (Figure 18) In anticipation of writing a future post about Dr. Vogel, I’ve also communicated and shared images of him with them.
One photo hanging in Nicki Stieda’s home is of her grandparents’ wedding in 1926 in Berlin. (Figure 19) Having learned from a tribute Suse Vogel née Neisser, Agnes’s mother, had written in honor of her father (Dr. Ernst Neisser) that she and Hans had gotten married in the Charlottenburg Borough of Berlin, I was able to track down and order from the Landesarchiv Berlin the original certificate. (Figures 20a-b) Finding a photo linked to a marriage certificate I’d obtained from a completely foreign source is one thing that makes doing forensic genealogy so entertaining.
Particularly poignant images included among Agnes’s papers are some of her uncle Peter Neisser, who died prematurely of septicemia at 23 years of age in 1929 in Heidelberg, Germany as he was training to become a doctor. Photos of Peter span from when he was a toddler (Figures 21-22) to an adult (Figures 23-24), probably shortly before he died; one shows him with his grandmother, Julie Neisser née Sabersky (1841-1927). (Figure 25) I don’t expect readers to remember but I included one picture in Post 45 of a Pauly family get-together, reproduced here (Figure 26), estimated to have taken place around 1895, that included Julie Neisser. In examining Neisser family trees on ancestry.com, I came upon one that used as a profile image a painting of Julie Neisser, the original of which interestingly is in the possession of Agnes’s daughter Nicki Stieda. (Figure 27) This is yet another serendipitous connection.
Another of Josef and Rosalie Pauly’s daughters with a connection to Stettin was Elizabeth “Ellchen” Herrnstadt née Pauly who was married to Arthur Herrnstadt (1865-1912); they had two daughters, Aenne Herrnstadt (1896-1942) and Ilse Herrnstadt (1897-1943). While Arthur died in Stettin well before the Nazis ascended to power, his wife and two daughters were all murdered in the Holocaust, at Theresienstadt. (Figure 28) Aenne Herrnstadt, it turns out, was Agnes’s godmother, and several photos survive (Figures 29-30), including the two of them together when Agnes was a toddler. Interestingly, while Aenne and Ilse were only a year apart, Agnes has no recollection of Ilse, and thinks she may have been institutionalized for unknown reasons.
There exists a picture among Agnes photos reproduced here, showing Ellchen Herrnstadt, her daughter Aenne, and Agnes’s mother, Suse Vogel, taken between 1916 and 1918. (Figure 31)
Helene Guttentag née Pauly was yet another of Josef and Rosalie Pauly’s daughters who, along with her husband Dr. Adolf Guttentag, committed suicide in Berlin in 1942 after being told to report for deportation. I told their story in Post 50. They had one son, Otto Guttentag, who escaped to America, served in the U.S. Army during the war, was stationed in Europe for a time after the war, and eventually became a doctor in California. While stationed in Europe, Agnes and Otto Guttentag met (Figure 32); they were first cousins once removed. (Figure 33)
In closing, I concede this post (Figures 34-35) will be of limited interest to many, though I would only add that what may resonate with readers is the process by which they may pursue their own genealogical investigations to track down images and stories of their own ancestors. Admittedly, this can be a challenging though not insurmountable problem.
Note: In this Blog post, I discuss how I inadvertently uncovered vital records information for several people in my family tree and talk about leaving open the possibility of discovering evidence of ancestors whose traces appear negligible.
In the prologue to my family history blog, which I initiated in April 2017, I conceded there are some ancestral searches which are bound to end up unresolved during my lifetime. While I never actually close the book on these forensic investigations, I place them on a back-burner in the unlikely event I discover something new or make a new connection. This Blog post delves into one recent find that opened the door to learning more about several close ancestors whom I’d essentially given up hope of unearthing anything new.
Given my single-minded focus over the last two years on writing stories for my family history blog, I’ve woefully neglected updating my family tree which resides on ancestry.com. An opportunity recently presented itself to piggy-back on a friend’s membership to ancestry and review the hundreds of “leaves” associated with the roughly 500+ people in my tree. Typically, at the top of the list of ancestry clues are links to other family trees that may include the same people as found in one’s own tree. While I systematically review these member trees, I only “import” new ancestral information if source documents are attached to the member trees and I can confirm the reliability of the details; I may occasionally make exceptions if trees or tree managers have been trusted sources of information in the past, and/or I otherwise can confirm the origins of the data. Over the years I’ve seen multiple trees replicate the same erroneous information, and this is a path I choose to avoid.
The family ancestral information I happened upon came from a family tree I discussed in Blog Post 39, entitled “Schlesische Jüdische Familien,” “Silesian Jewish Families.” Regular readers may recall this tree has an astronomical 52,000+ names in it, so it should come as no surprise that it is often the source of overlapping or new information for individuals found in my own modest-sized tree. That said, I still apply the same rigorous principles in assessing the information found in this larger tree. I rarely take anything at face-value when it comes to vital records (e.g., births, baptisms, marriages, deaths) given the multiple reasons, often inadvertent or negligent, why data may be incorrect or divergent (e.g., illegible or unintelligible writing on source documents; transcription errors). With these caveats in mind, however, I came across some vital record information on the Silesian Families tree that seemed credible given the specificity of birth and death dates for a few individuals in my tree. The information related to my great-great-uncle Josef Mockrauer’s first wife, Esther Ernestine Lißner, and their son, Gerhard Mockrauer; while I’d previously found Gerhard’s birth certificate mentioning his parents, I had never found precise birth and death dates for Ernestine or Gerhard, so this was particularly intriguing.
Having previously established contact with the manager of the “Schlesische Jüdische Familien” family tree, a very helpful German lady by the name of Ms. Elke Kehrmann, I again reached out to her. I acknowledged that remembering the source of data for 52,000+ people is unrealistic but thought I should still ask. Initially, Ms. Kehrmann could only recall the information came from a manuscript prepared by an American Holocaust survivor who’d wanted to memorialize his lineage; with numerous computer upgrades over the years, Elke expressed the likelihood the document was digitally irretrievable. Disappointed, but not surprised, I was prepared to accept the vital records information at face-value.
Then, much to my delight, a day later Elke told me she’d located the source document from a larger collection entitled the “Pinkus Family Collection 1500s-1994, (bulk 1725-1994).” (Figure 1) It was too large to email, but she opined I might be able to locate it on the Internet, and, sure enough, I immediately learned the collection is archived at The Leo Baeck Institute—New York/Berlin (LBI) and can be downloaded for free. For readers unfamiliar with this institute, according to their website, “LBI is devoted to the history of German-speaking Jews. Its 80,000-volume library and extensive archival and art collections represent the most significant repository of primary source material and scholarship on the Jewish communities of Central Europe over the past five centuries.”
The Pinkus Family Collection is enormous. From the “Biographical Note” to the collection, I learned the Pinkus family were textile manufacturers. Their factory, located in Neustadt, Upper Silesia [today: Prudnik, Poland], was one of the largest producers of fine linens in the world. Joseph Pinkus became a partner in the firm S. Fränkel when he married Auguste Fränkel, the daughter of the owner. Their son Max Pinkus (1857-1934) was director until 1926. Subsequently, Max Pinkus’s son Hans Pinkus (1891-1977) managed the family company from 1926-1938 until he was forced out after the company’s total aryanization in the wake of Kristallnacht. Both Max and Hans Pinkus were very active in civic and cultural affairs and interested in local history; they amassed a large library of books by Silesian authors. In their spare time, they devoted themselves to genealogical research, the basis of the family collection archived at LBI. Hans Pinkus left Germany at the end of 1938, emigrated to the United Kingdom with his family in 1939, and died in Britain in 1977.
In reviewing the index to the collection, I had no idea where to begin. Fortunately, Elke came to my rescue and pointed me to “Series VII” (Figure 1), described as encompassing not just close Pinkus family relations but the broader array of families in Upper Silesia. Within this series I located pages related to my family, although, unlike other portions of the collection, ancestral information is recorded in longhand, in Sütterlin, no less. Even so, I was able to decipher most of the numerical data, and enlisted one of my German cousins to translate the longhand.
Here is where I discovered the source of the birth and death dates for my great-great-uncle Josef Mockrauer’s first wife, Esther Ernestine Lißner, and their son, Gerhard Mockrauer. A summary of vital information for Josef Mockrauer, his two wives, and their children follows:
I made other surprising discoveries in the Pinkus Collection. Briefly, some context. The second-generation owners of the Bruck’s “Prinz von Preussen” Hotel in Ratibor were my great-grandparents, Fedor Bruck (Figure 10) and Friederike Bruck née Mockrauer. (Figure 11) As the table below shows, Fedor and Friederike Bruck had eight children, only six of whom I’d previously been able to track from birth to death; Elise and Robert remained wraiths whose existence I knew about but assumed had died at birth, a not uncommon fate in the 19th century. This was not, in fact, what happened. Elise lived to almost age 4, and Robert to age 16. While Elise expectedly died in Ratibor, mystifyingly, Robert died on December 30, 1887 in Braunschweig, Germany, more than 450 miles from Ratibor. Why here is unclear. Their causes of death are a mystery, though childhood diseases a real possibility.
With respect to the tables above, I don’t expect readers to do anything more than glance at them; for me, they’re a quick reference as to what I know and where it came from, a form of metadata, if you will. The italicized information in the tables was new to me and originated from the Pinkus Collection.
As a related aside, Friederike Mockrauer and Josef Mockrauer were siblings. Interestingly, Josef Mockrauer would go on to eventually marry one of his sister’s daughters, his niece, my great-aunt Charlotte Bruck. Incestuous, I would agree.
Remarkably, on the very same page where I discovered Elise and Robert’s dates and places of death, I found my father and his three siblings listed! (Figure 17) Inasmuch as I can tell, the detailed family information was recorded by either Max (Max died in 1934) or Hans Pinkus around the early- to mid-1930’s, at which time my father, Dr. Otto Bruck, would have been a dentist in Tiegenhof in the Free State of Danzig, and this is precisely what is noted: “Zahnarzt im Tiegenhof (Freistaat Danzig)”; “Freistaat Danzig” was the official name of this former part of the Deutsches Reich after World War I.
Tracking down the Pinkus Collection with its relevant family history is admittedly noteworthy, but the real service was rendered by Max and Hans Pinkus. Their detailed compilation of ancestral data from related Silesian families was gathered while running a full-time business and in the days before genealogical information was digitized, when most of the painstaking work had to be undertaken manually through time-consuming letter-writing, and perhaps occasional phone calls and family gatherings. So, while I take obvious pleasure in having discovered the Pinkus Collection, I acknowledge the true forensic genealogists for amassing this valuable trove of family history.
Let me conclude by emphasizing that well-done family trees to which ancestry.com leads genealogists can often be the source of valuable forensic clues but should be closely scrutinized and delved into to before accepting the data prima facie. And, finally, I have no idea how many “cold cases” I can eventually solve but the challenge is what motivates me.
Note: This post is about Elisabeth “Lisa” Pauly née Krüger, one of my Uncle Dr. Fedor Bruck’s “silent heroes,” who hid him in Berlin during WWII for periods of his 30-month survival “underground.” Having learned she was married to my uncle’s cousin, I discuss how I worked out their exact relationship in what was on my part a clear case of over-thinking their consanguinity.
Among my uncle’s surviving papers are two declarations, pledged under oath, identifying people who provided life-saving support to my Uncle Dr. Fedor Bruck (Figure 1) during the 30 months he lived “underground” in Berlin during WWII. My uncle’s trying ordeal began in October 1942 when friends warned him the Gestapo was preparing to pick him up for “questioning,” detainment which would have led to his deportation to a concentration camp and certain death; straightaway, he went into hiding to avoid arrest. The declarations written, respectively, on January 19, 1947 and February 3, 1947, were basically intended as letters of reference for the Americans. They attested to my uncle’s “good character” and provided a brief chronology of how and with whose help he’d survived underground. A little context is necessary.
As discussed in previous Blog posts, almost immediately after the war ended, my Uncle Fedor applied to what he described as the “pertinent authorities,” presumably the Russians in this case, for permission to take over the office and apartment of Hitler’s former dentist, Dr. Hugo Blaschke, which had survived the war unscathed. (Figure 2) Permission was granted in early May 1945. While my uncle’s situation may have seemed comparatively secure at the time, he’d apparently been warned by the Americans that he was at risk of being kidnapped by the Russians on account of his knowledge of Hitler’s fate, which Stalin sought to conceal. My uncle no doubt realized his danger since both Blaschke’s dental assistant, Käthe Heusermann, and Blaschke’s dental technician, Fritz Echmann, both of whom he knew, had been taken away by the Russians in 1945, not to reappear again in the West for many years. While my uncle maintained his dental practice in Blaschke’s former office until around July 1947, the declarations written in January and February 1947 strongly suggest my uncle was, so to speak, working on an exit strategy earlier.
One of the two affidavits provided to the American authorities on behalf of my Uncle Fedor was written by Elisabeth “Lisa” Pauly née Krüger. (Figures 3a-b) She mentioned how she hid him in her home for brief periods during the war and described her kinship as the wife of my uncle’s cousin; Lisa did not provide her husband’s name but only wrote he died in 1941, cause unknown. I first came across Lisa Pauly’s name in 2014 when I visited the Stadtmuseum in Spandau, outside Berlin, to examine the archived papers of two of my renowned great-aunts, Elsbeth Bruck and Franziska Bruck. There, I discovered a letter written by my grandmother, Else Bruck née Berliner, on February 2, 1947, mailed from Fayence, France to my great-aunt Elsbeth in Berlin care-of Lisa Pauly living at Maßmannstraße 11 in the Steglitz borough of Berlin. (Figure 4) Ultimately, this address proved to be useful for learning how long Lisa Pauly may have lived; more on this later.
Let me digress for a moment. In Post 33, I discussed the extraordinary lengths to which I went to finding two of my second cousins, born in Barcelona, but living outside Munich, Germany. Once I had established contact with one of these second cousins, Antonio Bruck, he connected me to a third cousin, Anna Rothholz, who in turn put me in touch with yet other third cousins, brothers Peter and Andreas “Andi” Pauly. This was a fortuitous development. Peter and Andi gave me a detailed hand-drawn Pauly family “Stammbaum,” family tree, developed by their father years before these could be created on-line. While I was still a long way from figuring out the hereditary connection between Lisa Pauly’s husband and my Uncle Fedor, this Stammbaum eventually paved the way for working this out, although not without some missteps.
As readers can see in Figure 5, a “Lisa” is highlighted, shown married to a “Franz” who died in 1941. Based on the affidavit Lisa Pauly had written in 1947, logically, I knew this was she and her husband. My confusion stemmed from the fact that Lisa’s husband was the son of Dr. Oscar Pincus and Paulina Charlotte Pauly, presumably named Franz Pincus. I continued my search, convinced there had to be a different Lisa who’d married a Pauly. After many fruitless months, I eventually began looking for her in Family Trees in ancestry.com. I finally found her on a tree listed as “Lisa Krüger,” born in the year 1890. (Figure 6) As discussed in Post 39, the tree is entitled “Schlesische Jüdische Familien,” Silesian Jewish Families. There is a notation in German on this tree that Lisa Krüger was married to a Franz Pincus, born in Posen [today: Poznan, Poland] on October 23, 1898, and that he went by the surname “Pauly.” I then realized my Uncle Fedor and Franz Pauly were second cousins, grandsons of sisters (Figures 7 & 8), and understood how badly I’d misconstrued their kinship. This was clearly a case of my over-thinking things and ignoring what the Pauly Stammbaum had clearly indicated.
Why Franz Pincus decided to change surnames and take his mother’s maiden name is unknown. Since both names are clearly Jewish and neither would have afforded an advantage in the Nazi era, I assumed Franz’s decision was made before the Nazis ever came to power. And, I was able to prove this using Berlin Phone Directories available on ancestry.com. Franz Pincus apparently changed his surname to “Pauly” between 1928 and 1930. A 1928 Berlin Phone Directory (Figure 9) lists a “Franz Pincus” living at Deidesheimer Str. 25 in Friedenau in the southwestern suburbs of Berlin, but by 1930 “Franz Pauly” is living at this address. (Figure 10)
As mentioned earlier, I knew from the affidavit Lisa had written and the letter my grandmother had written to my great-aunt in 1947, addressed to Lisa, that she resided at Maßmannstraße 11 in the Steglitz borough of Berlin. I searched both Lisa and Franz’s names in ancestry.com and found him listed at this address in Berlin Phone Directories between 1936 and 1940 (Figure 11), the year before he died. Beginning in 1966 and continuing through 1977 (Figure 12), Lisa’s name appears at the same address, suggesting the apartment building survived the war and that Lisa had lived there continuously, possibly from 1936 onwards. The disappearance of Lisa Pauly’s name from Berlin Phone Directories after 1977 may coincide with her approximate year of death. As we speak, I’m working to obtain Lisa’s death certificate from the Bürgeramt Steglitz to confirm when she died.
I’ve been able to learn almost nothing more about Lisa and Franz Pauly. While Peter and Andi Pauly have numerous Pauly family photos, they have none of either of them. It’s an enduring mystery to me how Lisa Pauly avoided deportation to a concentration camp given that at least three of her husband’s Pauly aunts were murdered in the camps along with their husbands and some of their children.
In the subsequent post, I will tell readers about other silent heroes who enabled my uncle to survive his 30 months underground in Berlin during WWII, inasmuch as I’ve been able to work this out.
