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POST 165: MORE ABOUT ERNST MOMBERT, DEPORTED FROM FRANCE TO AUSCHWITZ WITH MY AUNT SUZANNE MÜLLER, NÉE BRUCK

Note: In this post, I examine newly acquired documents obtained from France’s Ministère des Armées related to a man named Ernst Mombert arrested and deported from France to Auschwitz with my aunt Suzanne Müller, née Bruck in August-September 1942.

POST 23: MY AUNT SUSANNE’S FINAL JOURNEY

POST 119: THE FRENCH CONNECTION, ERNST & FRANZ MOMBERT

As I write this post, I’m reminded of what the mother of one of my former girlfriends told her when she was working on her doctorate, “you’re learning more and more about less and less.” Such is the case of a man related by marriage to my family who I introduced in earlier posts, Ernst Mombert (“Ernest” in France); he was arrested in Fayence, France in August 1942, along with my father’s beloved sister, Suzanne Müller, née Bruck. (Figure 1) Their fates were already known to me.

Figure 1. My aunt Suzanne Müller, née Bruck (1904-1942), murdered in Auschwitz

However, recently I’ve learned more about Ernst thanks to a French student from Toulon, France, Julia Saintgermain. (Figure 2) In commemoration of the 80^th anniversary in 2022 of the mass deportations of Jews from the Var department of France, where both Toulon and Fayence are situated, as a school project Julia and her schoolmates researched some Jewish victims of this extradition. Julia selected Ernst and Suzanne and came across my blog in the process. Julia contacted me and eventually supplemented what I’d uncovered. I will discuss these recent discoveries. What I learned about Ernst in small part informs me about my aunt’s final weeks, so it is materially relevant.

Figure 2. Julia Saintgermain, the French student who researched some of the Jews deported in August-September 1942 from the Var region of France, including Ernst Mombert and my aunt Suzanne

A little context. My aunt Suzanne (1904-1942) was married to an older gentleman, my uncle Dr. Franz Muller (1871-1945) (Figure 3), who was 33 years her senior; he had two children from a previous marriage, Peter Muller-Munk and Karin Margit Muller-Munk. Because of Franz’s and Suzanne’s age difference, her “stepchildren” were roughly the same age as her. Franz’s daughter Margit was married to Franz Mombert (“Francois” in French), Ernst’s brother, and the two co-owned a fruit farm in Fayence, France. After my aunt and uncle were forced to leave Fiesole, Italy, outside Florence, in September 1938, after earlier fleeing Berlin, Germany in late 1935 or early 1936, they took refuge at Ernst and Franz’s farm in Fayence, France.

Figure 3. My aunt Suzanne with her husband Dr. Franz Müller in Fiesole, Italy in 1938

While researching Ernst Mombert, Julia stumbled on Posts 22 & 23 where I introduced him to readers. She initially asked whether I knew how he’d wound up in the various detention camps in France he is documented to have been incarcerated in during the war (more on this below). As I discussed in Post 119, I’d only been aware he’d been briefly detained in a place called “Le Camp de La Rode” near Toulon, so was unable to answer her question though I was equally intrigued.

Julia obtained a file on Ernest Mombert from France’s “Ministère des Armées” in November 2022, which she graciously shared. (Figure 4) In this post I’ll discuss several new things I learned from this dossier. I would reiterate two points I’ve made in previous posts. First, the assistance of readers and people whom I refer to as “my boots on the ground,” particularly native German and French speakers, has often given me access to documentary evidence I would likely never have found on my own. Second, I find it illuminating that extensive files often exist on Jews murdered during the Holocaust, as though documenting their deaths was more important than celebrating their lives and accomplishments. I acknowledge there may have been pragmatic reasons for post-mortem documentation, such as resolving estate issues.

Figure 4. Cover of “Ernest Mombert” dossier from the “Ministère Des Anciens Combattants Et Victimes De Guerre,” Ministry of Veterans and Victims of War

The Ministère’s file includes documents from their archives of the so-called “Ministère Des Anciens Combattants Et Victimes De Guerre,” Ministry of Veterans and Victims of War. I’ll discuss some of these records beginning with the most recent and working my way backwards.

In Post 23, I talked about my aunt and Ernst’s arrest in Fayence in August 1942 by the Vichy (Figure 5), and the overarching geopolitical environment surrounding the timing. In that earlier post, I also highlighted the last three “postcards” (Figures 6a-c) my aunt ever sent following her arrest; the postmarks and dates on the cards provide clues as to the exact date of her and Ernst’s seizure and the route by which they were ultimately deported to and murdered in Auschwitz. Because her first card was dated the 26^th of August 1942 from a place near Fayence called Draguignan, 19 miles to the southwest, I assumed she’d been taken prisoner several days prior. It turns out that according to the dossier, this is the precise date Ernst and Suzanne were detained and began their final journey. My aunt clearly wasted no time communicating with her husband following her arrest.

Figure 5. Letter dated the 23rd of December 1945 from Ernst Mombert’s brother, Francois, to the French authorities providing details on his brother and my aunt’s arrest and requesting information on their whereabouts

Figure 6a. My aunt Suzanne’s first card sent from Draguignan on the 26th of August 1939 following her arrest the same day

Figure 6b. My aunt Suzanne’s second card sent from “Les Milles,” postmarked the 29th of September 1939 following her arrest on the 26th of September

Figure 6c. The last communication from my aunt Suzanne following her arrest by the Vichy French postmarked from Avignon the 2nd of September 1939

On one page in the report dated the 13^th of August 1946 (Figure 7), the following telling sentences are written: “Arreté 26/8/42 par la gendarmerie de Fayence comme Israelite. Étranger, deporté de Drancy le 7/9/1942, depuis sans nouvelles.” Translated: “Arrested the 26^th of August 1942 by the Fayence constables as a Jew. Foreigner, deported to Drancy on the 7^th of September 1942, no news since.” This page along with one or two others in the dossier from the Ministère des Armées confirm the date that Ernst Mombert and my aunt Suzanne were arrested in Fayence. This passage begs dissection.

Figure 7. Page in Ernst Mombert’s file from the French “Ministère des Armées” dated the 13th of August 1946 with the passage that has been parsed

First some historical background. Nazi Germany captured France during WWII following the abbreviated Battle of France that lasted from only May 10, 1940, until June 25, 1940. The occupation of France by Nazi Germany at first affected only the northern and western portions of the country. The remainder of Metropolitan France was the rump state of Vichy France headed by Marshal Philippe Petain. Fayence was in this so-called unoccupied “free zone” (zone libre). Vichy France adopted a policy of collaboration with Nazi Germany which entailed helping the German authorities deport Jews to killing centers, explaining why Franz and my aunt were arrested by the Fayence constables rather than their Nazi overlords. In November 1942 Germany and their Italian allies finally occupied Vichy France, the zone libre.

A 2017 article I came across by Paul Webster, entitled “The Vichy Policy on Jewish Deportation,” speaks to this tragic French collaboration:

“Even some pro-German states took a stand. Fascist Hungary resisted Nazi demands to hand over Jews until the country was invaded in 1944. Italy had anti-Semitic laws, but nevertheless defended French Jews in south-eastern France, which was occupied by the Italian army, and thus saved thousands of lives.

The last example is the most relevant to the tragic French experience, whose consequences are yet to be resolved. More than 60 years after a collaborationist French government helped deport 75,721 Jewish refugees and French citizens to Nazi death camps, the national conscience has still not come to terms with the betrayal of a community persecuted by French anti-Semitic laws.”

As a half-French, half-German Jew, this last paragraph explains my highly ambivalent attitude towards the French, namely, their unwillingness to acknowledge and apologize for their complicity in the persecution and murder of Jews during and immediately following WWII.

In the file, Ernst is characterized as “étranger,” foreigner. (see Figure 7) While clearly a Jewish refugee from Germany, by the time of his deportation, he had owned land and been a farmer in Fayence since 1933. (Figure 8) Like my father, Ernst was characterized as “apatride,” stateless (see Figure 7), so thereby not afforded the protection that long-term residency should have bestowed.

Figure 8. Archival record from the “Archives Départementales du Var” in Draguignan, France placing Ernst Mombert’s acquisition of his fruit farm in Fayence on the 1st of December 1933

Another page in the dossier from the Ministère des Armées dated the 20^th of July 1946 uses the words “NON RENTRE” (Figure 9) as regards Ernst Mombert’s whereabouts at the time. Translated as “not returned,” this is a highly charged expression, as I learned. It was a transparent effort by French authorities to avoid culpability for the fate of deportees, most of whom had been transported by the French using their railway system to the German collection center of Drancy outside Paris, a known transit point to the concentration camp of Auschwitz. There can be no doubt the French knew most deportees had been murdered and would never return.

Figure 9. Page in Ernest Mombert’s file from the French “Ministère des Armées” dated the 20th of July 1946 using the words “NON RENTRE,” not returned

This leads me to a brief discussion in a historical fiction book by Anne Berest my wife Ann is currently reading, entitled “The Postcard,” that coincidentally speaks to this very point regarding the French government. Quoting:

“‘After the war, Myriam wanted to file an official record for each member of her family.’

‘What kind of record?’

‘Death certificates.’

‘Oh. Yes. . .of course.’

‘It was extremely complicated. It took almost two years of dealing with endless bureaucratic red tape for Myriam to file a record. And bear in mind: at the time, the French government still wouldn’t officially use the terms “killed in concentration camp” or “deported.” The term they used was “not returned.” Do you understand what that meant? The symbolism?’

‘Yes. The French government was saying to the Jews, your families weren’t murdered because of our actions. They just. . .haven’t come back.’” (2021:255)

As Anne Berest implies, the hypocrisy is breathtaking.

The fact Ernst Mombert never came back is reflected on several pages in the dossier, including a document dated the 30^th of October 1946, titled “Acte De Disparition,” Deed of Disappearance, or the date he went missing. (Figure 10)

Figure 10. Page in Ernst Mombert’s file from the French “Ministère des Armées” with his “Acte De Disparition,” Deed of Disappearance, dated the 30th of October 1946 declaring he was deported on the 7th of September 1942

In the case of four of Anne Berest’s “not returned” relatives, it took until October 26, 1948, for them to be officially declared “missing.” The next phase of her ordeal then began with her fight for official death certificates, which only a judgment by a civil court could render in the absence of bodies. When the judgment was eventually handed down on July 15, 1949, seven years after her relatives died, stunningly, the official place of death of her relatives was Drancy, as it would also have been for Ernst and Suzanne. In other words, the French government didn’t recognize that they died at Auschwitz. Thus, the deported went from “not returned,” to “missing,” to “deceased on French soil.” (2021: 255-56) The official death dates were the date the deportation convoys left Drancy. In the case of Ernst and Suzanne, who were aboard the same convoy, their death dates would have been recorded as the 7^th of September 1942 when the transport left Drancy.

In Anne’s case, the Ministère Des Anciens Combattants Et Victimes De Guerre even requested the trial court prosecutor to specify the place of death as Auschwitz, but they rejected this request. Additionally, the court prosecutor refused to say at the time that the Jews had been deported because of race, but rather said it was for political reasons. It took Anne until 1996, after vigorous lobbying, that official recognition of “death by deportation” was granted and the death certificates were amended. (2021: 256)

In the case of Ernst’s certificate of death, his death judgment was rendered by the Draguignan civil court on the 17^th of July 1947, but there is no mention of “death by deportation” since the judgment was made well before 1996. (Figure 11) My aunt’s death certificate was similarly issued by the Draguignan civil court more than two years later, on the 21^st of September 1949. (Figure 12) The certificate states she was deported to Poland, but again no mention of “death by deportation.”

Figure 11. Handwritten page in Ernst Mombert’s French “Ministère des Armées” file from the civil court in Draguignan declaring Ernst died

Figure 12. My aunt Suzanne was officially declared dead by the civil court in Draguignan on the 21st of September 1949

TRANSCRIPTION OF ERNST MOMBERT’S DECLARATION OF DEATH (see Figure 11)

en marge à gauche est écrit :

“transcription du jugement, déclaration du décès de Mombert Ernest”

sur la page est écrit :

“Mairie de Fayence, arrondissement de Draguignan”

“Le 7 décembre 1947, 10 heures, nous, maire de la commune de Fayence avons procédé à la transcription du jugement déclaratif du décès ci-après.

d’un jugement rendu par le tribunal de première instance de Draguignan établi le 17 juillet 1947.

Il a été extrait ce qui suit :

Par ces motifs, le tribunal sévit de première instance de Draguignan, après en avoir délibéré en jugement conformément à la loi

Déclare le décès de Mombert Ernest apatride d’origine allemande né à Frisbourg en Brisgau (Allemagne) le 9 juillet 1911 du mariage de Paul Mombert et de Gieser Cornelie, domicilié en dernier lieu à Fayence (Var)

déporté le 7 septembre 1942

ordonne la transcription du présent jugement sur les registres courants de l’état civil de la commune de Fayence (Var) et du lieu de naissance de Mombert Ernest

Dit que mention en sera faite pour être en besoin sera ainsi jugée et prononcé à Draguignan en audience publique tenue au Palais de Justice de ladite ville le 17 juillet 1947

par messieurs Basque président, Beleret juge doyen, madame Parivet Thierrot juge en présence

de monsieur Clagnier juge suppléant occupant le siège du ministère public

assistés de monsieur Mailhare greffier

Enregistré à Draguignan le 22 juillet 1947

folio 29, case 290 pratis

le receveur Jeanne Cairrail et de cette transcription nous vous dressons la présente note que nous avons signée à la requête de monsieur le procureur de la République suivant note du 4 courant

approuvons la rature de 55 mots rayés nuls”

TRANSLATION

In the margin on the left is written:

“Transcription of the judgment, declaration of the death of Mombert Ernest”

On the page is written:

“Fayence City Town Hall, Draguignan district”

“On December 7, 1947, 10 a.m., we, the mayor of the municipality of Fayence, proceeded to the transcription of the declaratory judgment of death below.

Of a judgment rendered by the Draguignan Court of First Instance established on July 17, 1947.

The following has been extracted:

For these reasons, the court is in the first instance of Draguignan, after having deliberated in judgment in accordance with the law.

Declares the death of stateless Mombert Ernest of German origin born in Frieburg in Brisgau (Germany) on July 9, 1911 from the marriage of Paul Mombert and Gieser Cornelie, last domiciled in Fayence (Var).

Deported on September 7, 1942.

Orders the transcription of this judgment on the current registers of the civil status of the municipality of Fayence (Var) and the place of birth of Mombert Ernest.

Said that mention will be made to be in need will thus be tried and pronounced in Draguignan in a public hearing held at the Palace of Justice of said city on July 17, 1947.

By gentlemen Basque president, Beleret judge dean, Mrs. Parivet Thierrot judge in presence.

Of Mr. Clagnier substitute judge occupying the seat of the public prosecutor’s office.

Assisted by Mr. Mailhare clerk.

Registered in Draguignan on July 22, 1947.

Folio 29, case 290 practices.”

The receiver Jeanne Cairrail and from this transcript we give you this note that we signed at the request of the Public Prosecutor following note of 4 current.

Let’s approve the erasure of 55 null crossed out words.

Let me turn to another topic referred to in the Ministère’s document file, namely, the places and dates in France where Ernst Mombert was interned (Figure 13):

Figure 13. Page in Ernst Mombert’s file from the French “Ministère des Armées” listing the places and dates Ernst Mombert was interned between 1939 and 1942

LES MILLES (4 September 1939-25 October 1940)

GURS (26 October 1940-15 May 1941)

FAYENCE (26 August 1942-7 September 1942)

DRANCY (7 September 1942 deported to Poland)

These are the internments Julia Saintgermain first asked me whether I knew anything about. As I mentioned above, prior to obtaining the dossier documenting the above internments, the only place where I’d found a fleeting reference that Ernst had been held was “Le Camp de la Rode” near Toulon. I found this in a publication by André Fontaine entitled “Quelques Camps du Sud-Est 1939-1940.” Because I can find no mention of this as an internment camp, I think it may simply have been a collection or transit point.

I suspect Ernst was detained here very, very briefly, possibly only from the 4^th of September 1939 until around the 16^th of September 1939. Let me explain my reasoning by providing some context.

Let me review what I discussed in Post 119. WWII began with the German invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939. The next day, France decreed a national mobilization. Internment sites for nationals of the German Reich (i.e., German, Austrian, and Czech emigrants) were planned and requisitioned in every French departement. By the 3^rd of September, the French Minister of the Interior sent a telegram to each prefecture concerning the “concentration of foreigners from the German empire.” Immediately notifications about the planned roundups were circulated and posters put up in the town halls. All male nationals of the German Reich between 17 and 50 were required to report for incarceration. Male nationals from the department of Var were initially detained in La Rode near Toulon. This city is on the French Riviera located 74 miles southwest of Fayence.

Now according to the Ministère’s dossier Ernst was detained in Les Milles as of the 4^th of September 1939. André Fontaine very specifically places Ernst in Toulon at La Rode, so sometime around the 4^th of September Ernst turned himself into the French authorities there. Why then is Ernst shown as incarcerated in Les Milles on that precise date? If, as I theorize, La Rode was never more than a collection or transit point, technically a “subcamp” of Les Milles, the place of Ernst’s initial incarceration may simply have been recorded as Les Milles.

André Fontaine remarks the following on the transfer of the German Reich nationals to Les Milles from Toulon: “On September 16, 1939, the departure from Toulon was announced: a truck took the luggage at 6pm and the train left at 9pm. The arrival was only the next morning in Aix-en-Provence [Editor’s Note: location of Les Milles], after 15 hours of train to cover 90 km [Editor’s Note: 55 miles].” On these grounds, I surmise Ernst was among the detainees transferred from Toulon to Aix-en-Provence on the 16^th of September 1939.

Based on when nationals of the German Reich were required to report for internment, sometime around the 4^th of September 1939, and when detainees were transported from La Rode to Les Milles, the 16^th of September 1939, circumscribes Ernst’s detention dates in La Rode, so I think.

From the dossier, we learn that Ernst was incarcerated for over a year in Les Milles (Figures 14-15) until the 25^th of October 1940. According to the timeline provided, Ernst’s next internment was in Gurs, a large concentration camp in southwestern France, located 385 miles west of Aix-en-Provence. Ernst’s internment there started the day after it ended in Les Milles, the 26^th of October 1940. It seems highly unlikely the distance between the two places could have been covered in one day. The reason for Ernst’s transfer from one camp to the other is unknown, though it took place many months after the Vichy government signed an armistice with the Nazis on the 22^nd of June 1940. Had the Nazis intended to deport the Jews to Drancy from Gurs, as they later did, they could just as easily have done so from Les Milles, as they also later did.

Figure 14. Camp Les Milles where Ernst Mombert and my aunt Suzanne were interned on their way to Drancy and Auschwitz

Figure 15. Camp Les Milles where Ernst Mombert and my aunt Suzanne were interned on their way to Drancy and Auschwitz

According to the dossier, Ernst’s internment at Gurs ended on the 15^th of May 1941. Whether Ernst was released or escaped from there is unknown though clearly he returned to his farm in Fayence, where the file claims he was last interned from the 26^th of August 1942 until the 7^th of September 1942. These latter dates are in error. The last three “postcards” written by my aunt following her and Ernst’s arrest on the 26^th of August 1942 confirm this. Her cards were dated and/or postmarked, respectively, from Draguignan on the 26^th of August, from Les Milles in Aix-en-Provence on the 29^th of August, and from Avignon on the 2^nd of September. For whatever bureaucratic reason, Ernst’s stops on his way to Drancy, outside Paris, were all recorded as part of his incarceration in Fayence.

Ernst Mombert was incarcerated twice in Les Milles in Aix-en-Provence, the first time supposedly beginning on the 4^th of September 1939 until the 25^th of October 1940, then briefly a second time simultaneously with my aunt around the 29^th of August 1942. I can only imagine how Kafkaesque it must have seemed to Ernst to be returned to a concentration camp he thought he’d escaped from.

Except for the period between the 15^th of May 1941 and the 26^th of August 1942, Ernst was almost continuously incarcerated in France from September 1939 until he was deported to Auschwitz in September 1942. First, following Germany’s invasion of Poland on the 1^st of September 1939, as a German Jew refugee living in France, he was incredulously perceived and incarcerated as a possible quisling. Then, after Germany conquered France, he was interned as a Jew which led to his untimely death in September 1942. (Figure 16) Though my aunt’s route to Auschwitz followed a different pathway, her fate was identical. (Figures 17)

Figure 16. Commemorative plaque at Camp Les Milles bearing the names of deportees killed, including “Ernst Mombert”

Figure 17. Commemorative plaque at Camp Les Milles bearing the names of deportees killed, including my aunt “Suzanne Muller née Bruch,” with the surname misspelled

REFERENCES

Berest, A. (2021). The Postcard. Europa Editions.

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

(https://criminocorpus.org/en/tools/bibliography/bibliography-copy/ouvrages/97683/)

Webster, Paul. “The Vichy Policy on Jewish Deportation,” BBC, February 12, 2011.

BBC – History – World Wars: The Vichy Policy on Jewish Deportation

POST 130: NAZI-CONFISCATED BOOKS STORED IN RATIBOR (RACIBÓRZ, POLAND), MY FATHER’S BIRTH PLACE

Note: This post tiers off an earlier one where I discussed my failed attempt to obtain compensation for my family from the French Ministry of Culture for artworks confiscated from my father’s first cousin by Nazi authorities at the port of Bordeaux in December 1940. As I explained in Post 105, I’m my father’s cousin’s closest surviving blood relative. The Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg (ERR), the Nazi’s primary agency of plunder, spearheaded the seizure of artworks in Bordeaux but was also heavily involved in the plunder of libraries and archives throughout the areas the Nazis occupied. Surprisingly, many of the books wound up in Ratibor [today: Racibórz, Poland], the town in Silesia where my father was born.

POST 126: MY GREAT-AUNT FRANZISKA BRUCK, FLORIST TO THE LAST GERMAN KAISER

POST 127: MY GREAT-AUNT ELSBETH BRUCK, “LA COMMUNISTE,” A DDR APPARATCHIK

This story begins in 2014 when I spent 13 weeks in Europe traveling from Poland to Spain exploring places associated with my Jewish family’s diaspora. This included visiting the Stadtmuseum in Spandau, Berlin’s westernmost borough, where the surviving papers of two of my renowned great-aunts, Franziska Bruck (1866-1942) and Elsbeth Bruck (1874-1970), are archived; both have been the subject of recent posts. I photographed all the documents, pictures, and personal effects in the files for later study.

Upon my return to the states, I tried to make sense of what I’d obtained. Obviously, the letters were most useful though some were handwritten in Sütterlinschrift or Kurrentschrift, historical forms of German handwriting that are indecipherable to me as well as most contemporary Germans; fortunately, I know a few older German friends and relatives who learned Sütterlin in school who were able to translate these letters for me.

The most informative letter, however, was a typed one, composed by one of my father’s first cousins, Jeanne “Hansi” Goff née Löwenstein, to her aunt, my great-aunt, Elsbeth Bruck in East Berlin. In this letter written in 1946, Hansi explained that a painting by her recently deceased brother Fédor Löwenstein had posthumously sold for 90,000 French Francs. (Figure 1) Realizing this represented a significant amount of money at the time, I began to suspect Fédor was an accomplished artist. I already knew of his existence from photographs and other letters found among my great-aunt’s papers. (Figure 2) Additionally, knowing Fédor had died in 1946 in Nice, France, I’d previously obtained his certificat de décès, death certificate, when I visited L’Hôtel de Ville in Nice, Nice’s City Hall.

Figure 1. The section of Jeanne Löwenstein’s 1946 letter to her aunt Elsbeth Bruck telling her of the posthumous sale of one of her brother Fédor Löwenstein’s paintings for 90,000 French Francs

Figure 2. Fédor Löwenstein (middle) and his brother Heinz with their mother Hedwig Löwenstein née Bruck in Nice, France

I began my investigation in Nice by contacting the lady I know at L’Hôtel de Ville asking if she could find and send me Fédor’s obituary. This acquaintance did one better and sent me several web links with information about Fédor Löwenstein. Unbeknownst to me during my 13 weeks in Europe the Musée des Beaux-arts in Bordeaux, France had featured three of Fédor’s oil paintings on display between May 15^th and August 24th. Naturally, had I known about this special exhibit, I would have detoured there to see the artworks.

The exhibit catalog (livret_lowenstein.pdf (musba-bordeaux.fr) included a lot of detail on Fédor and his paintings, and their history. (Figure 3) The exhibit and the new information confirmed what I already suspected, namely, that Löwenstein had not been an ordinary painter. He was born on the 13^th of April 1901 in Munich. He studied at the School of Decorative Arts in Berlin, then at the Academy of Fine Arts in Dresden. In 1923, he moved to Paris, France, attracted by the artistic influence of the capital. Between the two world wars, an artistic movement dominated there referred to as École de Paris, the School of Paris, which was not an actual school. It was in this rich artistic context that Löwenstein painted and drew. His early works reflected the influence of cubism, and his subsequent creations evolved towards abstraction, although his personal style was on the border between the two. In 1936, Fédor joined the Salon des Surindépendants, an association of artists who no longer wanted an admission jury and questioned the restrictions imposed by the new regulations of the Salon des Indépendants of 1924.

Figure 3. The cover of the catalog from the 2014 exhibit at the Musée des Beaux-arts that displayed Fédor Löwenstein’s three “martyred” paintings

Fédor Löwenstein is often referred to as a Czechoslovakian painter because his father’s family was from there. The Munich Agreement concluded on the 30^th of September 1938, provided for the German annexation of land on the border between Czechoslovakia and Germany called the Sudetenland, where more than three million, mainly ethnic Germans, lived. Undoubtedly the signing of this agreement in the city where Fédor was born and involving the country where his father’s family originated inspired him to paint one of his iconic works, “La Chute,” “The Fall.” As the Bordeaux exhibit catalog notes, “The composition and iconographic vocabulary of the work are reminiscent of the convulsed and screaming silhouettes of Picasso’s Guernica. . .”

When France entered the war on the 3^rd of September 1939, Löwenstein, like many artists, left Paris. As a foreigner, he had to hide to escape the exclusion laws. Briefly, some background on this. During the interwar period, France was one of the more liberal countries in welcoming Jews, many of them from eastern Europe. However, in the wake of a significant influx of refugees fleeing Nazi Germany and the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s, the French government began to reassess their “open-door” policy. By 1939 the authorities had imposed strict limitations on immigration and set up several internment and detention camps for refugees, such as Gurs and Rivesaltes, in southern France. Various of my German ancestors got caught up in these detentions.

In the case of Fédor, however, he went to Mirmande in the Drôme Valley, more than 400 miles south of Paris, on the advice of a fellow artist, a place he’d previously stayed in 1935 and 1938. At the time, Miramande was a village in ruins that became a refuge for many Parisian artists of foreign origin. All seemed to lead a peaceful existence there except for the difficulties obtaining art supplies. In any case, sometime in May 1940, Fédor left Miramande for Paris to select works of art to be shipped to a gallery in New York City via the port of Bordeaux. These works would eventually be seized there in December 1940 by the Nazi authorities.

Bordeaux is located in Aquitaine, a historical region in southwestern France. Quoting from the exhibit catalog: “Considered a sensitive and strategic coastal area, the Atlantic coastline was governed in a special way by the army, and access to it was forbidden. Very quickly, the military authorities blocked the shipment of all goods then leaving the port of Bordeaux. December 5 [1940] seems to have been the date of an important seizure operation by the ERR (Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg), two sets of goods on their way out were confiscated.” This included Fédor Löwenstein’s consignment of works destined for America.

A little more history. German forces invaded France on May 10, 1940, and by June 22, 1940, France signed an armistice with Germany that went into effect on June 25, 1940. Under the terms of the armistice, Germany annexed the provinces of Alsace and Lorraine, and occupied the remainder of northern and western France. However, southern and eastern France remained unoccupied until November 1942. There a French collaborationist government, referred to as the Vichy Regime, governed. However, the suppression of the demarcation line in November 1942 caused the artist colony gathered in Miramande to break up. From then on, it was the French Resistance network that protected the refugees of Miramande, allowing many Jewish painters to escape.

By the fall of 1943, Fédor was already ill and traveled to Paris under a false identity to consult a specialist at the Curie Institute, though his disease was not diagnosed. His mastery of the French language, his support network, and his discretion about his religion were undoubtedly responsible for his survival during the Nazi occupation. Shortly after the war on the 4^th of August 1946 he was hospitalized and died a few days later of Hodgkin Lymphoma in Nice.

The 2014 exhibit at the Musée des Beaux-arts de Bordeaux (livret_lowenstein.pdf (musba-bordeaux.fr) was prompted by the rediscovery of three looted works of art, entitled “Landscape (Composition (Paysage)) (Figure 4),” “The Poplars (Les Peupliers),” and “The Trees (Arbres)” painted by Fédor Löwenstein that had been confiscated by the Nazis. As previously mentioned, the three works displayed were part of a consignment that F. Loevenstein, as Fédor signed his works, tried to send to an American gallery in New York. Seized at the port of Bordeaux in December 1940, they were sent to the Jeu de Paume in Paris, to be stored in the so-called “Salle des Martyrs,” “Martyrs Room” (Figure 5), a chamber to which works in a style repudiated by the aesthetics of the Third Reich, were relegated. It was only at the end of 2010 that the connection between these works that were held at the Musée National d’Art Moderne housed at the Centre Pompidou and the Löwenstein seizure at Hanger H in the port of Bordeaux was made.

Figure 4. Fédor Löwenstein’s painting entitled “Landscape (Composition)”

Figure 5. The so-called “Salle des Martyrs,” “Martyrs Room,” at the Jeu de Paume in Paris; Löwenstein’s painting “Landscape” is circled (Anonymous 1940. Archive from the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs)

Researchers Alain Prévet, Thierry Bajou, Edouard Vasseur, along with the curator of the Bordeaux exhibit Mme. Florence Saragoza, about whom more will be said below, identified the paintings. They accomplished this using two negatives preserved in the Archives of the National Museums that showed views of the Salle des Martyrs of the Jeu de Paume. The researchers undertook detailed digitization of these negatives, painting by painting, and reconciled this with data that had been recorded by Rose Valland, then curatorial attaché at the Jeu de Paume. (Figure 6) In the list that Rose Valland had drawn up in March 1942, she listed eleven works—six watercolors being grouped together in one lot—that had been stolen from Fédor Löwenstein. At least two of the artist’s paintings are visible in one of the photographs taken of the Salle des Martyrs.

Figure 6. Rose Valland, curatorial attaché at the Jeu de Paume, in the Martyrs Room

The Salle des Martyrs of the Jeu de Paume became the central repository of the works of art confiscated in France by the Nazi services, the contents of which were made available to the ERR, the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg (the Reichsleiter Rosenberg Taskforce). The ERR was one of the primary Nazi Party organizations dedicated to appropriating cultural property during WWII. It was led by the ideological henchman of the Nazi Party Alfred Rosenberg, from within the NSDAP Office of Foreign Affairs. Between 1940 and 1945, the ERR operated in France, Netherlands, Belgium, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Greece, Italy, and on the territory of the Soviet Union.

The Löwenstein works mentioned by Rose Valland and rediscovered in 2010 had also been catalogued by the ERR agents. They were listed under ERR file numbers Löwenstein 4 (Landscape), Löwenstein 15 (The Poplars), and Löwenstein 19 (The Trees). Following the war, the works were kept at the Musée National d’Art Moderne. The researcher Alain Prévet previously mentioned involved in the identification of the Löwenstein works has shown that the works were inventoried in 1973 as coming from an anonymous donation. The Bordeaux catalog notes the following:

“According to the minutes of the session of the Commission des Musées Nationaux of December 6, 1973, this ‘donation’ was in fact a regularization of artistic goods that had been ‘lying around’ in the Louvre; works that had ‘remained unclaimed, some of them for forty years,’ in a storeroom of the national museum. Because of the lack of knowledge of the real provenance of these works, it was decided to register them as ‘anonymous gifts’. . . works that had been deposited in the Louvre during the Occupation, following the Nazi spoliations, were . . . part of this collection. . .”

As the Bordeaux exhibit catalog notes, Löwenstein’s works, which are conserved to this day at the Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Pompidou “. . .bear the stigma of their aesthetic condemnation: a large red cross indicating that they were among others destined to be discarded. The files drawn up by the ERR bear the mention vernichtet, ‘destroyed’. . .The curator at the Jeu de Paume, Rose Valland, confirms this fatal destiny on July 20, 1943: ‘Scholz and his team continue to choose from among the paintings in the Louvre’s escrow and stab the paintings they do not want to keep. This is how they destroyed almost all of Masson’s works, all of Dali’s. The paintings in the Löwenstein, Esmont (sic), M[ichel]-G[eorges] Michel collections are almost all shredded (…)’’. . . On July 23, she added: ‘The paintings massacred in the Louvre’s sequestration were brought back to the Jeu de Paume. Five or six hundred were burned under German surveillance in the museum garden from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.. . .’” That Löwenstein’s three paintings escaped destruction is astonishing and is probably due to the fact they were classified as “paintings of lesser importance.”

Contained within the materials on the Löwenstein exhibit was the name of the curator who organized the show, Mme. Florence Saragoza, previously mentioned as one of the people involved in identifying Fédor’s works from the negatives of the Salle des Martyrs.

Intriguingly, also included within the Bordeaux museum’s promotional materials was the following statement in French:

“Si près de soixante-dix ans après la fin du conflit, de nombreux cas de restitution d’objets d’art restent en attente, trois d’entre eux sont désormais sortis de l’ombre et attendant maintenant l’identification des ayants droit de Wilhelm Fédor Löwenstein (1901-1946) pour être remis à leurs propriétaires légitimes.”

Translated :

“While nearly seventy years after the end of the conflict, many cases of art object restitution remain pending, three have now emerged from the shadows and are now awaiting the identification of the rightful owners of Wilhelm Fédor Löwenstein (1901-1946) to be returned to their rightful owners.”

This is a significant “concession.” Oftentimes, heirs of Jews whose works were either confiscated by the Nazis or whose sale was forced at a deeply discounted price and/or that eventually and illicitly wound up in museums spend years litigating their cases against these museums or private owners. The fact that the France Government’s Premier Ministre’s Commission for the Compensation of Victims of Spoliation or “CIVS” acknowledged that it was looking for the rightful heirs of goods taken illegally by the Nazis suggested the process of receiving compensation or acquiring possession could theoretically be short-circuited.

As I explained in detail in Post 105, I was able to establish contact with Mme. Florence Saragoza (Figure 7) who was literally brought to tears to learn that someone from Fédor Löwenstein’s family still exists. Florence, who I hold in the very, very highest esteem helped me file a claim in 2014 with the CIVS for compensation on behalf of my family; this involved requesting compensation for 25 pieces of art seized and/or destroyed.

For orientation, my father and Fédor were first cousins (Figure 8), so I would be Fédor’s first cousin once removed. Being intimately acquainted with my family tree and knowing that neither Fédor nor his two siblings ever had any children, I quickly realized I’m his closest surviving blood relative. Notwithstanding this fact, as I deeply lamented in Post 105, when the CIVS finally rendered their decision in June 2021, they refused to acknowledge I had any rights to compensation for the destruction and confiscation of Fédor’s artworks. Suffice it to say, because France is ruled by the principles of civil law rather than common law, my rights have been supplanted by Fédor’s siblings, who are obviously no longer alive, or by the heirs named in his sibling’s wills. The living heirs are referred to as “universal legatees,” and their rights according to French law supersede my own. That said, there is still some gray area based on which a French lawyer I’ve hired is contesting the decision. Stay tuned for further updates.

Figure 8. Heinz Löwenstein (middle) with my parents in Israel in 1973

Following their determination in 2021, the CIVS notified me that one of Fédor Löwenstein’s painting entitled “Composition” had been shipped to the Jewish Museum of New York for an exhibit entitled “Afterlives: Recovering the Lost Stories of Looted Art,” scheduled to run between August 20, 2021, and January 9, 2022. This was one of the paintings I had filed a claim for with the CIVS. Even though I’d been denied restitution by the French Minister of Culture, I took an avid interest in how the CIVS would handle the process going forward. For this reason, I ordered the exhibition catalog which, during Covid, took many months to arrive.

Tucked into the book was a surprising picture labeled as having been taken in Ratibor [today: Racibórz, Poland]. This is the town where my father and many of his immediate family were born and where the family business, the Bruck’s “Prinz von Preußen” Hotel, operated through three generations. The photo shows crates containing thousands of books. According to the caption, in 1943 the Nazis established a research and sorting operation for plundered libraries in Ratibor. Eventually more than two million books were transported there. The photograph was included in the photo records of the Offenbach Archival Depot. (Figure 9) The Depot was a central collecting point in the American Sector of Germany for books, manuscripts and archival materials looted, confiscated, or taken by the German army or Nazi government from the occupied countries during World War II.

Figure 9. Post-WWII photo showing crates of books looted by the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg and shipped to Ratibor for sorting (photo from the National Archives Catalog “Photographs of the Operations of the Offenbach Archival Depot”)

The relocation of the ERR’s Book Control Center (Buchleitstelle) from Berlin to Ratibor in mid-1943 was prompted by the increased Allied bombing of Berlin, and a desire by the Nazis to save the books, at least until they’d had time to sort and save those they could use for propaganda. More on this below.

While I’d previously been unaware how my father’s hometown had been used during the war, Patricia Kennedy Grimstead, an academic from the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute, has written extensively on the subject. In a seminal paper entitled “Roads to Ratibor: Library and Archival Plunder by the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg” she goes into great detail on her findings. According to Grimstead, the ERR Silesian research center in Ratibor “. . .was the recipient of archives and books the Nazis plundered as part of a vast ideological, political, and cultural policy. Unlike art, archival and library seizures were not for display, prestige, or profit. If they bolstered Hitler’s imperial pretensions or exposed the evils of ‘Bolshevism,’ then by all means they should be sought. . .Specialists catalogued, analyzed, and preserved the materials, treating them not only as the heritage of ‘enemies of the Reich’ but as raw material for propaganda for ‘operational’ use’” Books that did not meet these criteria were burned in spectacular bonfires or sent to pulping factories. (p. 391)

According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s website, in a section on “Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg: A Policy of Plunder,” in January 1940 Hitler informed all offices of the Nazi Part that Alfred Rosenberg, head of the ERR, “. . .should be assisted in assembling a library for the planned new educational and research institute of the Party, the Hohe School, to be located at the Chiemsee in Bavaria. The library would contain 500,000 volumes. . .Preparations for the Hohe School also included other branches within the Reich, such as a ‘Center for Research on the Jewish Question’ in Frankfurt.”

The Jewish Museum exhibit catalog emphasizes this same point: “The segregation of Jews was enforced in a variety of ways. One distinctive strategy was to treat Jewish culture as the subject of historical inquiry, much as one might study a rare but obsolete specimen. Hitler called this an ‘anti-Semitism of reason,’ or ‘scientific anti-Semitism,’ which explicitly identified Jews in racial terms, rather than by religious affiliation. By the late 1930s research centers, institutes, and university departments had been founded throughout Germany and Austria to accommodate this burgeoning field and to inspire looting of works that were to be ‘saved’ expressly for the purpose of spurious academic research. Prominent among these was Alfred Rosenberg’s Institute for the Study of the Jewish Question (IEJ). It housed an estimated five hundred thousand books and manuscripts stolen from synagogues, Masonic temples, and private collections. Key to his mission was to set up a great Nazi university on the Chiemsee, in Bavaria, from the spoils of his plunder, including masterworks of both art and literature that would be instrumental in forming the curriculum.” (p. 54)

In this lengthy post, I reviewed and augmented what I had previously discussed in Post 105 regarding my failed attempt to obtain restitution on behalf of my family for paintings seized by the Nazi’s Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg (ERR) from my father’s first cousin. In the process, I learned more about this agency’s role in plundering books that wound up in Ratibor where my father was born. Following the capitulation of Ratibor at the end of WWII, many of the books confiscated by the Nazis in Western Europe were later moved by the Soviets to Minsk, capital of Soviet Belorussia. To this day, an estimated half a million of these books have not been returned to their countries of origin and are referred to as “twice plundered” books.

REFERENCES

Afterlives: Recovering the Lost Stories of Looted Art. 20 Aug. 2021-9 Jan. 2022, Jewish Museum, New York.

Alexander, Darsie & Sam Sackeroff. Afterlives: Recovering the Lost Stories of Looted Art. Yale University Press, 2021.

“Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg: A Policy of Plunder.” United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, https://www.ushmm.org/information/exhibitions/online-exhibitions/special-focus/offenbach-archival-depot/einsatzstab-reichsleiter-rosenberg-a-policy-of-plunder

Fédor Löwenstein (1901-1946), trois œuvres martyres. 15 May-24 Aug. 2014, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Bordeaux, Bordeaux.

“France.” United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/france

Grimstead, Patricia Kennedy. “Roads to Ratibor: Library and Archival Plunder by the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg.” Holocaust and Genocide Studies, vol. 19, no. 3, Winter 2005, pp. 390-458.

Musée des Beaux-arts de Bordeaux. Fédor Löwenstein, destin tragique d’un élève d’André Lhote.

Photographs of the Operations of the Offenbach Archival Depot. United States National Archive, 541611, https://catalog.archives.gov/search-within/541611?availableOnline=true&typeOfMaterials=Photographs%20and%20other%20Graphic%20Materials

“Reichsleiter Rosenberg Taskforce.” Wikipedia, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichsleiter_Rosenberg_Taskforce

POST 128: A TALE OF TWO DOTS: THE BRÜCK FAMILY FROM NEAR FRANKFURT

Note: This represents another reader-inspired post. While responding to a query from an American reader named Michael Bruck, whose surname is now spelled the way my family’s surname was once spelled, I learned his family’s surname was originally Brück, with two dots over the “u.” I helped this reader confirm family rumors and identify and track down pictures of some of his family members who were victims of the Holocaust.

I was recently contacted by an American gentleman from Virginia named Michael Bruck asking whether I have any Brucks in my family tree from a spa town named Bad Kreuznach in the west German state of Rhineland-Palatinate, located about 50 miles west-southwest of Frankfurt, Germany. (Figure 1) I explained to Michael that most of my family originated from Silesia, the historical region of Central Europe that now lies mostly in Poland, with small parts in the Czech Republic and Germany. I further added that while I have sometimes come across Brucks in my ancestral research who lived in the western part of Germany, I have never found any direct connection between them and my family.

Figure 1. Location of Frankfurt in relationship to Bad Kreuznach, where Michael Bruck’s German family originates, showing they are about 50 miles apart

I expected my response to be the end of our exchange. However, Michael provided additional information in his initial email that caused me to do some further investigation. He mentioned that his grandfather Arthur Bruck had been born in Bad Kreuznach in the late 19^th century and had immigrated to the United States in the early 20^th century. Most intriguingly, Michael mentioned that his grandfather Arthur had an unnamed brother who was a judge who disappeared in the 1930’s during the Nazi era; Arthur Bruck apparently never spoke of this brother to his family, ergo his name and fate were unknown to them.

With this scant information, I set out to see what, if anything, I could learn about Michael’s German ancestors. In the process, I made a few discoveries specific to Michael’s ancestors, but more interestingly on a historical level I made a surprising discovery that I will tell readers about in this post.

Certain of Michael’s family’s connection to Bad Kreuznach, I began by searching in ancestry.com for his grandfather Arthur Bruck. I immediately discovered Arthur’s “Declaration of Intention” to become a citizen of the United States and renounce his allegiance and fidelity to The German Empire. (Figure 2) This document is dated the 25^th of May 1925 and confirms he was born in Kreuznach, Germany on the 11^th of March 1885; his surname is incorrectly spelled “Bruch.” His 1928 “Petition for Naturalization” shows his surname correctly spelled. (Figure 3)

Figure 2. Arthur Bruck’s 1925 “Declaration of Intention” to become a citizen of the United States; note surname is incorrectly spelled “Bruch”

Figure 3. Arthur Bruck’s 1928 “Petition for Naturalization”

His wife’s name is given as “Ella” on the 1925 Declaration of Intention form. A New York State Marriage Extract confirms that Arthur and Ella Gerber got married on the 12^th of January 1919 in Manhattan. (Figure 4) The 1920 (Figure 5) and 1940 (Figure 6) U.S. Federal Censuses show them living together in New York (Bronx and Manhattan) with their son, Charles Bruck, Michael’s father. The recently released 1950 U.S. Federal Census (Figure 7) expectedly shows that Charles is no longer living with his parents, but that Ella’s sister, Bertha G. Schack, is now living with Arthur and Ella in Los Angeles.

Figure 4. Arthur Bruck and Ella Gerber’s New York State marriage extract showing they got married on the 12th of January 1919 in Manhattan

Figure 5. The 1920 U.S. Federal Census showing Arthur Bruck lived with his wife Ella and son Charles in Manhattan at the time

Figure 6. The 1940 U.S. Federal Census showing Arthur Bruck then lived in the Bronx with his wife and son

Figure 7. The 1950 U.S. Federal Census showing Arthur Bruck was by then living in Los Angeles with his wife and his sister-in-law, Bertha G. Schack

A 1913 Hamburg Passenger List confirms that Arthur Brück departed Hamburg, Germany on the 7^th of August 1913, and was ledig, single, at the time. (Figures 8a-b) Of all the documents I found on ancestry, this is the first one showing Arthur’s surname with an umlaut over the “u,” obviously the way the surname was spelled before his arrival in America.

Figure 8a. Cover page for a Hamburg Passenger List bearing Arthur Brück’s name showing he departed Hamburg on the 7th of August 1913

Figure 8b. Hamburg Passenger List bearing Arthur Brück’s name showing he departed Hamburg on the 7th of August 1913 and was single at the time

For information, an umlaut is often thought of as the two dots over letters, usually vowels, in the German language. Referred to as a diacritic, a sign written above or below a letter, when discussing German umlauts, there are three in use within the alphabet including Ä, Ö, and Ü. Rather than implying an accent or emphasis, German umlauts are independent characters with variations that represent both long and short sounds. In the case of “Brück” the word would be spelled out as “Brueck.”

The spelling of Michael’s current surname is like the way my father formerly spelled his name in Germany. However, just like my family’s surname changed upon their arrival in America from “Bruck” to “Brook,” so too did Michael’s family’s transform, from “Brück” with an umlaut to “Bruck” without an umlaut. In both instances of our respective German surnames spelled with and without an umlaut, the word translates to “bridge.”

Neither Michael nor I know how long his Brück family was associated with Bad Kreuznach but a quick Wikipedia search reveals the spa town is most well-known for its medieval bridge dating from around 1300, the Alte Nahebrücke, which is one of the few remaining bridges in the world with standing structures on it. This is wild speculation on my part, but possibly his family adopted their surname because they owned a business along the bridge. In the case of my own family, which originally came from Hungary and was named “Perlhefter,” they became toll collectors in an Austrian town named Bruck an der Leitha, “Bridge on the Leitha,” on the Austro-Hungarian border. Upon their relocation to Vienna, Austria, the “Bruck” surname was adopted.

The California U.S. Index tells us that Michael’s grandfather died in Los Angeles on the 5^th of November 1972. (Figure 9) The Find A Grave Index further informs us that Arthur Bruck is buried in Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California, and even shows his headstone. (Figures 10a-b)

Figure 9. The California U.S. Grave Index showing that Arthur Bruck died on the 5th of November 1972 in Los Angeles

Figure 10a. The Find A Grave Index confirming Arthur Bruck died on the 5th of November 1972 and is interred in Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California

A particularly useful document found on ancestry for Arthur Brück was the so-called “Geneanet Community Tree Index.” (Figures 11a-b) It confirms the original spelling of Arthur’s surname and provides the names and vital data of his parents, siblings, and half-siblings. This was the first evidence I found that confirmed Arthur had a brother named Max Brück, Michael Bruck’s previously unnamed great-uncle, who was born in 1884 and died in 1942. A similar “Geneanet Community Tree Index” for Max Brück established he indeed was a victim of the Holocaust. (Figure 12)

Figure 11a. The cover page for Arthur Brück’s “Geneanet Community Tree Index”

Figure 11b. Arthur Brück’s “Geneanet Community Tree Index”

Figure 12. Max Brück’s “Geneanet Community Tree Index”

As in the case of his younger brother, I uncovered numerous documents for Max Brück. Like my own uncle Dr. Fedor Bruck who was a German WWI veteran but was nevertheless hunted down by the Nazis, Max was also a veteran of The Great War. Multiple personnel registers from WWI record his name. (Figure 13)

Figure 13. One of a dozen WWI personnel rosters bearing Max Brück’s name

Max’s “Geneanet Community Tree Index” (see Figure 12) indicates he was murdered in Auschwitz on the 16^th of August 1942 at the age of 58. It also shows he was married to an Elsa Neumayer, born in 1890 in Munich, with whom he had three children; unlike her husband, Elsa survived the Holocaust and died at 103 years of age in Georgia. The oldest of Max and Elsa’s children, Eugen Kurt Brück (1920-1942), I found was also murdered in Auschwitz.

Knowing Max Brück and his oldest son Eugen were Holocaust victims, I turned to the Yad Vashem Victims’ Database and predictably found both listed. Periodically, a surviving family member will complete what is termed “A Page of Testimony” remembering their loved ones. In the case of Eugen Brück, two such testimonies were submitted to Yad Vashem, one by Eugen’s mother Elsa Brück (Figures 14a-b) and another by Eugen’s younger sister Hilda Ruth Nathan née Brück (1925-2018). (Figures 15a-b) Both testimonies include pictures of Eugen, which, in my limited experience, is unusual.

Figure 14a. “A Page of Testimony” for Eugen Brück submitted by his mother Elsa Brück to Yad Vashem in 1971 along with his picture

Figure 14b. An enlarged photo of Eugen Brück attached to his 1971 “A Page of Testimony”

Figure 15a. “A Page of Testimony” for Eugen Brück submitted by his sister Hilda Ruth Nathan née Brück to Yad Vashem in 1996 along with his picture

Figure 15b. An enlarged photo of Eugen Brück attached to his 1996 “A Page of Testimony”

According to the Page of Testimony completed by Eugen’s mother, his places of residence during the war, euphemistically speaking, were Mondorf-les-Bains in Luxembourg; Gurs internment camp in southwestern France; and Les Milles, a transit and internment camp for Jews in Aix-en-Provence. As I discussed in Post 23, my beloved Aunt Susanne, also murdered in Auschwitz in September 1942, was likewise briefly detained in Camp des Milles on her final journey to Auschwitz. At the time Eugen’s mother submitted her testimony in 1971 she lived in Huntsville, Alabama.

After sharing my findings with Michael, he and his family sent me unidentified pictures found among their grandfather Arthur Bruck’s surviving papers. One of them is a picture-postcard mailed in around 1934 from Munich showing his brother Max’s three children, Eugen along with his two younger siblings, Werner Alexander Brück (1922-1936) and Hilda Ruth Brück (1925-2018). (Figures 16a-b) The elaborate postmark “Besucht die deutsche Siedlungsausstellung München 1934 (Juni bis Oktober),” “Visit the German settlement exhibition Munich 1934 (June to October),” suggests it was mailed in 1934, and the 6 Pfennig stamp of Paul von Hindenburg issued between 1933 and 1936 would seem to confirm this.

Figure 16a. A picture-postcard from around 1934 showing from left to right Eugen Brück, Hilda Ruth Brück, and Werner Alexander Brück, Max and Elsa Brück’s three children

Figure 16b. The text side of the picture-postcard signed by Else Brück and her three children sent to her sister- and brother-in-law in Saarbrücken

As a brief aside, according to German Wikipedia, the “German Settlement Exhibition” of 1934, presented shortly after the Nazi regime took power was “. . .part of an exemplary embodiment of the National Socialist idea of settlement. Within a very short time, 192 single-family houses with 34 different building types were built under the direction of housing consultant and architect Guido Harbers. The ensemble is self-contained and has numerous green areas in accordance with the garden city idea.”

I asked my German friend Peter Hanke, “The Wizard of Wolfsburg,” to translate the postcard. Though the handwriting was difficult for Peter to decipher, enough could be discerned to know the card was written by Max’s wife Elsa Brück to her sister- and brother-in-law, Selma Daniel née Brück and Albert Daniel, thanking them for sending candy to her children; all three of the children signed the postcard. The card was mailed to the corset factory in Saarbrücken owned by Albert Daniel.

Aware of the fact that Max’s daughter had submitted “A Page of Testimony” for her brother Eugen, I assumed she might also have completed one for her father. Further digging proved this was in fact the case, and likewise yielded a picture of Max Brück. (Figures 17a-b)

Figure 17a. “A Page of Testimony” for Max Brück submitted by his daughter Hilda Ruth Nathan née Brück to Yad Vashem in 1996 along with his picture

Figure 17b. An enlarged photo of Max Brück attached to his 1996 “A Page of Testimony”

In Yad Vashem, I also discovered three personal documents attached to Max’s entry, including a Bestätigung, a confirmation, issued by the “Administration du Culte Israelite Luxembourg” dated the 15^th of November 1948 acknowledging that Max Brück and Eugen Brück had both been deported to Auschwitz. (Figure 18) Both were on the same transport departing Drancy, France on the 14^th of August 1942. The cause of Max Brück’s death is not given, but I assume he was gassed immediately upon his arrival in Auschwitz, which the “Geneanet Community Tree Index” stating he died on the 16^th of August 1942 corroborates.

Figure 18. A 1948 confirmation issued by the “Administration du Culte Israelite Luxembourg” affirming Max and Eugen Brück’s fates

The cause of Eugen Brück’s death, which took place on the 23^rd of September 1942, is stated as “Darmkatarrh bei Phlegmone.” According to Peter Hanke, “Darmkatarrh” is an obscure expression, that today might more appropriately be described as an “inflammatory bowel disease” or “purulent bowel disease.” According to Wikipedia, “A phlegmon is a localized area of acute inflammation of the soft tissues. It is a descriptive term which may be used for inflammation related to a bacterial infection or non-infectious causes (e.g. pancreatitis). Most commonly, it is used in contradistinction to a ‘walled-off’ pus-filled collection (abscess), although a phlegmon may progress to an abscess if untreated. A phlegmon can localize anywhere in the body. The Latin term phlegmōn is from the Ancient Greek (phlégō, ‘burn’).”

After learning of Eugen’s existence from the Geneanet Community Tree Index and his fate, I rechecked ancestry.com for additional documents. Astonishingly, I found his death certificate!! (Figures 19a-b)

Figure 19a. Cover page from ancestry.com with Eugen Brück’s Death Certificate

Figure 19b. Eugen Brück’s Death Certificate showing he died in Auschwitz on the 23rd of September 1942 of an inflammatory bowel disease

Having never previously found such a document for a Jewish inmate murdered in Auschwitz, I asked Peter Hanke about this. Apparently, this is not unprecedented according to the information Peter sent me from the Arolsen Archives in a section entitled “Death register entry for deceased concentration camp prisoners,” which reads as follows:

“This document is officially known as a death register entry or death book entry. It is a form that was officially filled out not only for concentration camp prisoners but others as well. As a formal act that still applies today, deceased persons must be registered at a German registry office. Deceased concentration camp prisoners were therefore also supposed to be listed in a death register – though there were major differences here depending on the prisoners’ nationality and whether they were considered Jews. The form was basically identical in all camp and civil registry offices. This is why the entries for Spanish, German and Polish deceased prisoners from different concentration camps are similar. They differ only in their typeface and the handwriting of the respective registrars.”

The only death certificate I’ve previously found for an ancestor murdered in a concentration camp was from the Theresienstadt Ghetto. (Figure 20)

Figure 20. The death certificate for one of my distant cousins Ilse Herrnstadt who died in the Thereseinstadt Ghetto on the 21st of July 1943

In closing I would make a few observations. Though Michael Bruck’s German relatives’ surname was originally spelled Brück with two dots over the “u” and are unrelated to my own family insofar as I know, helping Michael learn about his forefathers confirmed rumors he heard about growing up. The Geneanet Community Tree indices I found for Arthur and Max Brück allowed us to connect names with photographs. Personally speaking, finding pictures of one’s ancestors, particularly those who were victims of the Holocaust, makes a statement that these people once walked among us and are not forgotten. Without fail, whenever I help others learn about their ancestors, I too learn and come away with something and nothing is more important to me.

REFERENCE

“Mustersiedlung Ramersdorf.” German Wikipedia, https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mustersiedlung_Ramersdorf

“Phlegmon.” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phlegmon

Post 98, Part 1 (Stories): The Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik (Sugar Factory) Outside Ratibor (Part V-Chilean Descendants)

Note: In this post I relate the story about a German gentleman born in Santiago, Chile in 1944 and now living in Bonn, Germany, Mr. Roberto Hirsch, who is the great grandnephew of Sigmund Hirsch, the co-owner of the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik outside Ratibor, Germany [today: Racibórz, Poland]. Roberto contacted me through my Blog and filled in gaps in my understanding of the fate of some of his ancestors, adding nuance, color, and some fascinating context to a horrific period in history. I will not pretend to readers I can do justice to Roberto’s family story, nor tell a comprehensive story. Rather, I will highlight aspects that augment the story of some people I have previously written about or examine lesser-known facts of my extended family’s survival during WWII.

Post 36: The Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik (Sugar Factory) Outside Ratibor (Part I-Background)

Post 36, Postscript: The Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik (Sugar Factory) Outside Ratibor (Part I-Maps)

Post 55: The Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik (Sugar Factory) Outside Ratibor (Part II-Restitution for Forced Sale by The Nazis)

Post 59: The Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik (Sugar Factory) Outside Ratibor (Part III—Heirs)

Post 61: The Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik (Sugar Factory) Outside Ratibor (Part IV-Grundbuch (Land Register))

Figure 1a. A postcard of the Woinowitz sugar factory as it looked in the early 1900’s

Figure 1b. The still-standing Woinowitz sugar factory in 2014

In multiple earlier posts, I have spoken at length about the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik (sugar factory) (Figures 1a-b), located outside Ratibor, Germany [today: Racibórz, Poland], the town where my father was born in 1907. Prior to the forced sale of the plant during the Nazi era, the business was co-owned by Adolph Schück (1840-1916) (Figure 2) and his brother-in-law Sigmund Hirsch (1848-1920). (Figure 3) Adolph and Sigmund were married to sisters, and they and their wives died in Ratibor and were interred there in the former Jewish Cemetery.

Figure 2. Adolph Schück (1840-1916), co-owner with Sigmund Hirsch of the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik

Given the general inaccessibility of records from Jewish ancestors who wound up in South America, it is always gratifying when surviving descendants with connections there send me messages. Such was the case when I was contacted by Roberto Hirsch, born in Santiago, Chile in 1944 but living in Bonn, Germany for the past 50 years. For context, he explained that his great-grandfather, Jakob Hirsch (1842-1905) (Figure 4), was one of Sigmund’s older brothers, and that he was married to Auguste Hirsch née Hirsch (1849-1935). (Figure 5)

Figure 4. Sigmund Hirsch’s older brother, Jakob Hirsch (1842-1905) (photo courtesy of Roberto Hirsch)

Figure 5. Jakob Hirsch’s wife, Auguste Hirsch née Hirsch (1849-1935) (photo courtesy of Roberto Hirsch)

Roberto told me ample stories and gave me enough enticing clues about some of his ancestors that it sent me down one of the deepest rabbit holes I have ever climbed into seeking primary source documents, my gold standard for accuracy. As readers will learn in the second part of this two-part Blog post, I accessed historic records on Roberto’s ancestors that were practically indecipherable. Fortunately, my German friend, Peter Hanke, the “Wizard of Wolfsburg,” confirmed they were pertinent and translated them. Including Roberto’s generation, I have incredibly now found seven generations of his family, going all the way back to 1739!! For Jewish families, this covers a long span.

Figure 6. Sigmund & Selma Hirsch in Ratibor with their three children from left to right: Henrietta (Frieda), Robert, and Helene (Lene)

Sigmund Hirsch was married to Selma Braun (1856-1916), one of 14 children the Ratibor brewery owner Markus Braun (1817-1870) had with two wives. Sigmund and Selma had three children, Helene “Lene” Goldenring née Hirsch (1880-1968), Robert Hirsch (1881-1943), and Henrietta “Frieda” Mamlok née Hirsch (1883-1955). (Figure 6) Prior to being contacted by Roberto Hirsch, I had already learned the fate of all three children. From Lene Goldenring’s (Figure 7) post-WWII German compensation file, I knew she had died in 1968 in Newark, New Jersey, that her brother Robert perished in Valparaiso, Chile in 1943, and that her sister Frieda had passed away in Montevideo, Uruguay in 1955. (Figure 8)

Figure 7. Sigmund Hirsch’s daughter, Helene “Lene” Goldenring, in New York at Christmas 1950

Figure 8. Sigmund Hirsch’s daughter, Henrietta “Frieda” Mamlok née Hirsch, with her husband Dr. Alfred Mamlok on their wedding day in the early 1900’s

Among the relatives Roberto first told me about was his namesake, Robert Hirsch, Sigmund’s middle child. Robert had studied electrical engineering in Berlin but had unspecified problems there, so his parents arranged to send him to Spain to work for AEG, “Allgemeine Elektricitäts-Gesellschaft.” The company was founded in 1883 in Berlin by Emil Rathenau, and according to Roberto, the Rathenau had ties to the Hirsch family from Ratibor. Possibly a business relationship existed between the families connected to the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik and maybe this facilitated Robert Hirsch obtaining a position as general manager for AEG in Bilbao, Spain? So far, I have been unable to find the thread.

Robert Hirsch was not the only member of the Hirsch family to find refuge in Spain before or during WWII. In Post 27, I talked at length about Robert’s niece, Eva Zernik née Goldenring (1906-1969) (Figure 9), who made her way to Madrid after walking away or escaping from the French detention center in Gurs, France. As I pointed out in Post 27, security at Gurs was lax, and because Eva spoke impeccable French, she likely managed to cross the nearby Spanish border illegally using money she had squirreled away to bribe human smugglers. She remained in Madrid until 1947 when she emigrated to America.

Figure 9. Sigmund Hirsch’s granddaughter, Eva Zernik née Goldenring (1906-1969), in Florence, Italy in June 1938 standing alongside my father, Dr. Otto Bruck, with whom she partnered in tennis

Roberto Hirsch’s parents, Fritz Hirsch (1908-2006) and Margarete Hirsch née Janzen (1914-1992), also made their way to Spain. Prior to the ascendancy of the Nazis, it had been envisioned that Fritz would take over the family fashion business in Bonn, established by his father Hermann Hirsch (1876-1943) (Figures 10-11) at the turn of the 20^th Century; named “Wittgensteiner,” this store was famous throughout Germany for its fine apparel from England, France, and elsewhere. (Figures 12a-d) After it quickly became apparent the store would be expropriated by the Nazis, Fritz escaped to France to join his older brother Kurt Hirsch (1905-1993) (Figures 13-14) who had tried to establish a new life in Paris after his PhD. was revoked by the Nazis in 1933. Like my own father, Kurt joined the French Foreign Legion, but unlike my father who was shipped to Algeria, Kurt remained hidden in the south of France until 1945, eluding the German occupiers for five years and experiencing innumerable adventures.

Figure 10. Roberto’s father and grandfather, Fritz Hirsch (1908-2006) and Hermann Hirsch (1876-1943), in 1928 (photo courtesy of Roberto Hirsch)

Figure 11. Roberto’s grandfather, Hermann Hirsch (1876-1943) with his two sons, Kurt Hirsch (1905-1993) and Fritz Hirsch (1908-2006), in 1932 in Colmar, now a part of Alsace, France but formerly belonging to Germany (photo courtesy of Roberto Hirsch)

Figure 12a. Hermann Hirsch’s fashion store in Bonn, “Wittgensteiner” (photo courtesy of Roberto Hirsch)

Figure 12b. Hermann Hirsch’s fashion store in Bonn, “Wittgensteiner” (photo courtesy of Roberto Hirsch)

Figure 12c. Hermann Hirsch’s fashion store in Bonn, “Wittgensteiner” (photo courtesy of Roberto Hirsch)

Figure 12d. Hermann Hirsch’s fashion store in Bonn, “Wittgensteiner” (photo courtesy of Roberto Hirsch)

Figure 13. Roberto Hirsch’s uncle Kurt Hirsch (center) (1905-1993) at his bar mitzvah in 1918, amidst his family, many of whom were murdered in the Holocaust including veterans of WWI (photo courtesy of Roberto Hirsch)

Figure 14. Roberto’s uncle Kurt Hirsch (1905-1993) in Paris in 1984 (photo courtesy of Roberto Hirsch)

Because Fritz’s residence permit in France only allowed for a three-month stay, he tried to get to Spain. There he knew some people with whom he had studied in Bonn that had good connections to Spanish Government officials. Through this channel, Fritz obtained an unlimited residence permit for Spain. Several months later Roberto’s mother, only 21 at the time, left Germany by train and joined her future husband there. Roberto’s mother, incidentally, was Protestant, and, on account of her relationship with Fritz Hirsch, was considered by the National Socialists as a “Judenliebchen,” a Jew’s lover, strictly forbidden under Nazi law.

Roberto tells a few fascinating stories about his parents’ time in Spain.

Roberto’s parents lived mostly in small towns in the northern part of the country. In the mid-1930’s, Spain was a cultural and social backwater with limited outside contacts. Arriving speaking not a word of Spanish and having no money Fritz still managed to land himself a job as a traveling salesman selling office supplies. Armed with only a small dictionary, he traveled around his sales district, speaking his broken Spanish to comical delight and endless derision. Nonetheless, the Spaniards, a joyful people by nature, were so amused by the situation, they bought more supplies than they needed. Thus, Fritz was able to provide for himself and his wife.

Roberto’s parents were in touch with Robert Hirsch during their four-year stay in Spain between 1935 and 1939. By virtue of Robert’s position as general manager for AEG, he had more freedom of movement, which allowed all to meet periodically. Based on Roberto’s aunt’s surviving address book, Fritz Hirsch lived for a time in Bilbao. (Figure 15) Given that Robert, Fritz, and Margarete’s stays in Spain overlapped with almost the entirety of the Spanish Civil War, which began on the 17^th of July 1936 and ended on the 1^st of April 1939, I was particularly curious how the conflict might have affected their lives.

Figure 15. Page from Margarete “Gretel” Hirsch’s address book showing her brother Frederico (Fritz), Roberto’s father, lived in Bilbao (photo courtesy of Roberto Hirsch)

Roberto relates one amusing story about an unnerving encounter his mother had towards the beginning of the Spanish Civil War. At the time, at least in northern Spain, the conflict was a low-key affair. Young men from opposing sides would gather in an open field and start shooting at one another with their ancient and off target rifles; neither side could afford more accurate arms, so damage and injury was limited. One day Roberto’s mother was returning from shopping and came upon this scene. Suddenly, a voice shouted, “stop shooting, the lady wants to pass.” And the boys did precisely this, allowing her to walk through with trembling knees, whereafter the same voice shouted, “now we can continue!”

According to Roberto’s parents, the conflict became more gruesome when the Germans, Italians, and Soviets began to send troops and more sophisticated arms. At the time, Fritz and Margarete lived in a small town not far from Guernica. Students of history know this town was the scene of an infamous April 26, 1937 bombing, the first aerial bombing by the German Luftwaffe carried out at the behest of Francisco Franco’s Nationalist faction; the number of casualties ranged from about 150 to more than 1600, depending on which faction was reporting. This incident was the inspiration for Pablo Picasso’s famous painting “Guernica.”

At some point, Roberto’s father had to renew his German passport and was forced to visit the German consulate in Bilbao, which was evidently staffed by Nazis. While Fritz’s passport was eventually renewed, it did not happen before anti-Semitic epithets were hurled at him and he was told that Berlin would be informed of his whereabouts. I have on occasion uncovered vital documents for some Jewish ancestors with their location outside of Germany noted. Roberto’s story is independent confirmation that this in fact took place, ostensibly because the Nazis expected one day to invade these yet unoccupied countries and round up Jews living there. No doubt, Fritz and other Jews living in Spain were worried about this eventuality.

As the Spanish Civil War intensified and Franco’s forces captured larger cities, Roberto’s parents moved further west towards Portugal. Approaching the end of their stay in Spain in 1939, Roberto’s parents lived in La Coruna, the capital of Galicia in the northwest of Spain by the sea, in a zone already captured by Franco. (Figure 16) Each morning, they could hear shooting on the nearby beach as Franco’s forces executed Republican prisoners.

Figure 16. Page from Margarete Hirsch’s address book showing her brother Frederico (Fritz) later lived in La Coruna (photo courtesy of Roberto Hirsch)

It was at this moment that Roberto’s parents decided to flee Spain. One day they told their neighbors they were traveling to Portugal for the weekend and took with them only two suitcases. Using $3,000 they had saved over the years, they left for Lisbon. Upon their arrival, they started visiting the various consulates trying like thousands of other Jewish refugees there to obtain an exit visa. Everywhere, they were turned down until they visited the Chilean Embassy. Upon their arrival, the Ambassador was out, so a young staffer received them and started flirting with Roberto’s attractive mother; she reciprocated, and this miraculously resulted in Roberto’s parents being granted a visa for Chili. Within a week, by April 1939, they had boarded a ship bound for Buenos Aires, Argentina, a transit point. (Figures 17a-f)

Figure 17a. The cover of Fritz Hirsch’s 1936 German passport (photo courtesy of Roberto Hirsch)

Figure 17b. The inside page of Fritz Hirsch’s German passport with a big red “J” and “Israel” added to his name, both indicating he was Jewish (photo courtesy of Roberto Hirsch)

Figure 17c. Page from Fritz Hirsch’s German passport with visas dated the 3rd of October 1936 and the 7th of October 1936 from La Coruna, Spain authorizing his stay there until the situation normalizes in Bilbao (photo courtesy of Roberto Hirsch)

Figure 17d. Pages from Fritz Hirsch’s passport with March 1939 passport stamps for entrance into Portugal and Lisbon (photo courtesy of Roberto Hirsch)

Figure 17e. On the left page is the entrance visa for Chile, and on the right side the transit visa for Argentina (photo courtesy of Roberto Hirsch)

Figure 17f. On these pages are various passport stamps showing Fritz Hirsch left Portugal on the 14th of April 1939 aboard the ship “Asturias” headed for Buenos Aires, Argentina; left Buenos Aires the 26th of May 1939; and arrived in Chile on the 1st of June 1939 (photo courtesy of Roberto Hirsch)

Upon Fritz and Margaret Hirsch’s arrival in Santiago, Chile in June 1939, they were met by Robert Hirsch. (Figure 18) Roberto knows nothing about Robert’s departure from Spain and eventual emigration to Chile. Robert was apparently living with a Spanish woman named Carmen to whom he left a large sum of money upon his departure. Robert’s sister, Helene Goldenring née Hirsch, would eventually also go to Chile via an unknown route from Germany. While I already knew that Robert had died in Valparaiso, Chile on the 7^th of October 1943, Roberto explained that his namesake had committed suicide because of a severe persecution complex. This resolved yet another unanswered question I had.

Figure 18. Roberto’s mother Margarete Hirsch née Janzen (1914-1992) and Robert Hirsch (1881-1943) in Chile in 1942 with Roberto’s sister in the pram (photo courtesy of Roberto Hirsch)

Helene Goldenring lived not with her brother Robert in Valparaiso but with Roberto’s parents (Figures 19-20) in Santiago until she left for America on the 3^rd of July 1947 (Figure 21), never having learned to speak any Spanish. Oddly, after her departure, Roberto’s parents never again heard from her.

Figure 19. Roberto’s parents, Fritz Hirsch (1908-2006) and Margarete Hirsch née Janzen (1914-1992) in Santiago, Chile in 1975 (photo courtesy of Roberto Hirsch)

Figure 20. Roberto Hirsch with his father in Santiago, Chile in 1998 (photo courtesy of Roberto Hirsch)

Figure 21. Passenger list showing Helene Goldenring née Hirsch’s departure from Valparaiso, Chile on the 3rd of July 1947 headed to New York

As to some of Roberto’s relatives who did not escape from Europe, I will briefly relate the heartbreaking story of Roberto’s grandparents, Hermann Hirsch (1876-1943) and Ida Hirsch née Sollinger (1874-1944). (Figures 22-23) Erroneously concluding the Nazis would have no interest in them because of their age, like many other elderly Jews, they consciously decided to stay in Germany. However, by 1939, Hermann and Ida were forced to move to a special house for Jews in Bonn where they paid high prices for water, electricity, and gas. Most of their money had been confiscated, and only a small sum remained from which paltry monthly withdrawals could be made. Around this time their son Fritz began corresponding with his parents from Santiago, Chile, retaining carbon copies of his letters. By 1941, Roberto’s grandparents were again forced to move, this time to a convent in Bonn where the nuns had been evicted. The posts came to a stop in June 1942, when his grandparents were deported to Theresienstadt.

Figure 22. Roberto’s grandfather Hermann Hirsch (1876-1943) ca. 1902 (photo courtesy of Roberto Hirsch)

Figure 23. Roberto’s grandparents, Hermann Hirsch (1876-1943) and Ida Hirsch née Sollinger (1874-1944) in 1935 in Bonn, Germany; both later died in Theresienstadt (photo courtesy of Roberto Hirsch)

Roberto graciously shared with me the last correspondence the family ever received from his grandmother. (Figure 24 a-c) It is an exceptional document, a typed postcard written on the 20^th of December 1943 from Theresienstadt to Roberto’s family in Geneva. Dictated by Ida Hirsch who was already nearly blind, she wrote that her husband had died of cardiac arrest; the family would later learn from survivors his real cause of death had been suicide, which it was forbidden to write. Preposterously, Ida’s postcard was first sent by the Nazis to Berlin to the “Oberkommando der Wehrmacht” to be censored before being forwarded to Geneva, as though an elderly blind woman could divulge military secrets. It is astonishing the Nazis would allow Jewish internees of the concentration camps any communication with the outside world.

Figure 24a. Front of 1943 typed postcard written by Roberto’s grandmother, Ida Hirsch née Sollinger (1874-1944) from Theresienstadt (photo courtesy of Roberto Hirsch)

Figure 24b. Text of last postcard ever written by Roberto’s grandmother, Ida Hirsch née Sollinger (1874-1944), from Theresienstadt (photo courtesy of Roberto Hirsch)

Figure 24c. Translation of text of December 1943 postcard from Ida Hirsch née Sollinger

I am profoundly grateful to Roberto for sharing some of his family’s stories, pictures, and documents. I like to think this has been a mutually beneficial exchange since I have uncovered additional ancestors of which he was unaware including their fates. Roberto’s grandfather had three siblings, only two of which he knew about; the three he knew about were all murdered in the Holocaust, and the fate of the fourth has yet to be worked out.

In the second installment of Post 98, I will describe and illustrate some of the historic documents I recovered from various sources related to Roberto Hirsch’s family that have allowed me to track a few of his relatives to the 18^th Century.

_________________________________________

VITAL STATISTICS OF SIEGMUND HIRSCH AND HIS RELATIVES

NAME	EVENT	DATE	PLACE	SOURCE

Sigmund Hirsch (self)	Birth	18 November 1848	Karlsruhe, Baden-Württemberg, Germany	Family History Library Karlsruhe Microfilm Roll 1256447 (p. 441 of 748)
	Death	14 October 1920	Ratibor, Germany [today: Racibórz, Poland]	Headstone from former Jewish Cemetery in Ratibor, Germany [today: Racibórz, Poland]; Family History Library Ratibor Microfilm Roll 1184448
Selma Hirsch née Braun (wife)	Birth	11 July 1856	Ratibor, Germany [today: Racibórz, Poland]	Headstone from former Jewish Cemetery in Ratibor, Germany [today: Racibórz, Poland]; Family History Library Ratibor Microfilm Roll 1184449
	Death	11 July 1916	Ratibor, Germany [today: Racibórz, Poland]	Headstone from former Jewish Cemetery in Ratibor, Germany [today: Racibórz, Poland]
Helene Goldenring née Hirsch (daughter)	Birth	25 March 1880	Ratibor, Germany [today: Racibórz, Poland]	Helene Goldenring’s Hesse, Germany Post-War Compensation File
	Death	12 January 1968	Newark, New Jersey	Helene Goldenring’s Hesse, Germany Post-War Compensation File
Robert Hirsch (son)	Birth	31 October 1881	Ratibor, Germany [today: Racibórz, Poland]	Ratibor birth certificate: Mittweida, Germany 1904 Residence Register
	Death (suicide)	7 October 1943	Valparaiso, Chile	Roberto Hirsch (personal communication)
Henrietta “Frieda” Mamlok née Hirsch (daughter)	Birth	8 February 1883	Ratibor, Germany [today: Racibórz, Poland]
	Death	29 July 1955	Montevideo, Uruguay	Roberto Hirsch Family Papers
Emanuel Hirsch (father)	Birth	About 1805	Karlsruhe, Baden-Württemberg, Germany	Karlsruhe, Germany death certificate
	Marriage	27 May 1834	Karlsruhe, Baden-Württemberg, Germany	Family History Library Karlsruhe Microfilm Roll 1256447 (p. 251 of 748)
	Death	25 March 1880	Karlsruhe, Baden-Württemberg, Germany	Karlsruhe, Germany death certificate
Henriette “Jette” Hirsch née Ettlinger (mother)	Birth	1808	Karlsruhe, Baden-Württemberg, Germany	Karlsruhe, Germany death certificate; Germany Find a Grave Index
	Marriage	27 May 1834	Karlsruhe, Baden-Württemberg, Germany	Family History Library Karlsruhe Microfilm Roll 1256447 (p. 251 of 748)
	Death	2 August 1882	Karlsruhe, Baden-Württemberg, Germany	Karlsruhe, Germany death certificate
Bernhard Hirsch (aka Leonhard Hirsch) (brother)	Birth	26 August 1836	Karlsruhe, Baden-Württemberg, Germany	Family History Library Karlsruhe Microfilm Roll 1256447 (p. 272 of 748); Karlsruhe, Germany death certificate
	Marriage (to Sofie Reutlinger)	17 August 1871	Karlsruhe, Baden-Württemberg, Germany	Karlsruhe, Germany marriage certificate
	Death	7 December 1888	Karlsruhe, Baden-Württemberg, Germany	Karlsruhe, Germany death certificate
Jakob Hirsch (brother)	Birth	8 November 1842	Karlsruhe, Baden-Württemberg, Germany	Family History Library Karlsruhe Microfilm Roll 1256447 (p. 357 of 748)
	Marriage	30 July 1874	Karlsruhe, Baden-Württemberg, Germany	Karlsruhe, Germany marriage certificate
	Death	1905	Neuwied, Germany (buried in Bonn, Germany Jewish Cemetery)	Roberto Hirsch (personal communication)
Auguste Hirsch née Hirsch (sister-in-law)	Birth	14 January 1849	Ilvesheim, Baden-Württemberg, Germany	Family History Library Ilvesheim Microfilm Roll 1271220 (p. 260 of 403); Karlsruhe, Germany marriage certificate
	Marriage	30 July 1874	Karlsruhe, Baden-Württemberg, Germany	Karlsruhe, Germany marriage certificate
	Death	1935	Bonn, Germany	Roberto Hirsch (personal communication)
Hermann Hirsch (nephew)	Birth	19 August 1876	Karlsruhe, Baden-Württemberg, Germany	Karlsruhe, Germany birth certificate
	Deportation (to Theresienstadt)	27 July 1942	Trier-Köln, Germany	Jewish Victims of Nazi Persecution, 1933-1945
	Death (suicide)	16 February 1943	Theresienstadt, Czechoslovakia	Roberto Hirsch (personal communication); Ida Hirsch’s 1943 postcard sent from Theresienstadt
Ida Hirsch née Sollinger (wife of nephew)	Birth	1874	Einbeck, Germany	Roberto Hirsch (personal communication)
	Death	1944	Theresienstadt, Czechoslovakia	Yad Vashem Shoah Victims
Sophie Hirsch (niece)	Birth	3 April 1875	Karlsruhe, Baden-Württemberg, Germany	Yad Vashem Page of Testimony
	Death	UNKNOWN	UNKNOWN	Yad Vashem Shoah Victims
Bernhard Hirsch (nephew)	Birth	7 December 1877	Karlsruhe, Baden-Württemberg, Germany	Karlsruhe, Germany birth certificate
	Death	UNKNOWN	UNKNOWN
Karl Hirsch (nephew)	Birth	15 February 1879	Karlsruhe, Baden-Württemberg, Germany	Karlsruhe, Germany birth certificate
	Deportation (to Auschwitz-Birkenau)	10 September 1944	Auschwitz-Birkenau	Yad Vashem Shoah Victims
Fritz Hirsch (great-nephew)	Birth	20 January 1908	Bonn, North Rhine-Wesphalia, Germany	Hirsch Janzen family tree; Roberto Hirsch (personal communication)
	Death	11 January 2006	Santiago, Chile	Hirsch Janzen family tree; Roberto Hirsch (personal communication)
Margaret Hirsch née Janzen (wife of great-nephew)	Birth	12 January 1914	Elbing, Germany [today: Elbląg, Poland]	Hirsch Janzen family tree
	Death	29 February 1992	Santiago, Chile	Hirsch Janzen family tree
Roberto Hirsch (great-great-nephew)	Birth	3 September 1944	Santiago, Chile	Roberto Hirsch (personal communication)

POST 27: JEWISH DEPORTATIONS FROM GURS, FRANCE IN 1942

Note: This story consists of extracts from a first-hand account describing deportation of Jews from the notorious WWII French detention center of Gurs beginning in August 1942. It was written in French by one of my father’s first cousins, Eva Zernik, née Goldenring, sister of Fritz Goldenring, who perished in the Shanghai Ghetto in 1943, as detailed in Post 25.

Figure 1-My father, Dr. Otto Bruck, with his first cousin, Eva Goldenring, in Fiesole, Italy in June, 1938

When we last encountered Eva Goldenring, she was a guest at the “Villa Primavera,” in Fiesole, Italy, outside Firenze (Florence), between May and June of 1938, overlapping my father’s stay there. (Figure 1) After leaving the Villa Primavera, Eva may have joined her mother in Rome, where Helene Goldenring was known to have gone after leaving the Villa Primavera in 1937 (Figure 2), or she may have quit Italy. As readers will recall from Post 21, between September 2, 1938 and November 17, 1938, Italy enacted a series of racial laws, including one forbidding foreign Jews from settling in Italy. It seems certain that by September 1938, Eva Goldenring had left for France, and her brother, Fritz Goldenring, for Shanghai. Their mother, Helene Goldenring, may have returned to Berlin for a while because, surprisingly, her name continues to appear in Berlin Address Books in both 1939 and 1940. (Figure 3) Regardless, the path and timing of Helene’s escape from Europe is unknown.

Figure 2-Helene Goldenring’s “Soggiorno degli Stranieri in Italia” from Fiesole, Italy indicating she left for Rome on June 29, 1937

Figure 3-Berlin Address Book from 1940 with Helene Goldenring’s name suggesting she returned to Berlin after her stay in Fiesole, Italy in 1937

The reason we know Eva Goldenring went to France is that she wrote a lengthy account of the deportation of Jews beginning in August 1942 from the French detention center of Gurs, where she was interned. Eighteen pages of a much longer chronicle, written in French, along with a series of anti-Nazi poems, written in German from Madrid following Eva’s release from Gurs, survive. They were donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum by Eva’s stepson, Alfred Zernik, following Eva’s death.

The circumstances and details of Eva’s immigration to France are lost to us, but, like my Aunt Susanne and Uncle Franz Müller, she may have been able to live there openly as a Jewish refugee for several years. What is known is that Eva spoke and wrote impeccable French, judging from her account of Gurs, and this no doubt was helpful.

The Gurs camp was located at the base of the Pyrenees in southwestern France and was originally established by the French government in April 1939 to intern political refugees and members of the International Brigade fleeing Spain after the Spanish Civil War. It was one of the first and largest detention camps before WWII in France. Early in 1940, the French government interned about 4,000 German Jewish refugees in Gurs as “enemy aliens,” along with French leftist leaders who opposed the war with Germany. There seems little doubt this mass arrest of Jews swept up Eva Goldenring, wherever she was holed up.

The French armistice with Germany, which was signed in June 1940, placed Gurs under the administrative authority of the treasonous French government, the Vichy regime, the supposed “free zone.” Conditions at the camp were appalling, overcrowded with a perpetual shortage of water, food, and clothing. Internees were crammed into dark filthy barracks with sealed windows, rats, lice, and fleas. During rainstorms, the roofs leaked, and the swampy land turned to mud so thick that, incredibly, prisoners couldn’t walk to the latrines for fear they might drown. Eight-hundred internees are known to have perished in Gurs between 1940-41 from contagious diseases, including typhoid fever and dysentery, although more than 1,100 prisoners in all are known to have died in the camp.

Compounding the crowded conditions, in October 1940, Germans deported roughly 6,500 Jews from southwestern Germany (Baden-Pfalz-Saar) into the unoccupied part of France, most of whom wound up in Gurs. This deportation, named for the two Nazi administrators who engineered it, was referred to as the “Wagner-Bürckel-Aktion.” The day after the deportations, Wagner proudly proclaimed his area of Germany to be the first to be “Judenrein,” free of Jews, in accordance with Hitler’s desire.

Between August 6, 1942 and March 3, 1943, Vichy officials handed over 3,907 Jewish prisoners from Gurs to the Germans, the majority of whom were sent to the Drancy transit camp outside Paris. From Drancy, they were deported in six convoys to concentration camps in German-occupied Poland, primarily Auschwitz. Drancy is the same assembly point my Aunt Susanne was deported from on September 7, 1942, also destined for Auschwitz, although she had transited through Camp des Milles.

Much of Eva Goldenring’s account of Gurs details events surrounding the selection process related to three convoys that departed Gurs after August 1942. Because of her language skills, this may have provided Eva a measure of personal protection. Werner L. Frank, author of a book entitled “The Curse of Gurs: Way Station to Auschwitz,” touches on the benefit of speaking French: “Barrack and îlot chiefs were appointed to represent the interests of their constituency to the camp’s management as well as to maintain order with their jurisdictions. Individuals having French language facility were especially valuable in assuming leadership roles.” (p. 246)

Select passages of Eva’s account of the Jewish deportations from Gurs are presented below under general categories; the complete translation of Eva’s 18-page account is attached for interested readers.

Roundups

At the beginning of the summer of 1942, the camp saw an influx of foreign Jews—mostly Polish and Czech—coming from the occupied zone, especially Paris. The newcomers told us in detail about the hunts for Jews, people being arrested in the streets, arrested while they slept in their beds at night.

This time, they [German authorities] helped themselves to men, women, youths, and even children. Families were separated. . .People told stories of a train waiting in a station outside Paris, full of little children crying, calling their mothers who were gone. A line of guards surrounded them, prohibiting anyone from approaching them or bringing them something to eat or drink.

Destroying Children’s Cultural Identity

Traces that would have allowed the children to one day be identified—even reunited with their parents, if their parents were still alive—had been destroyed. The system had been applied even to babies in the cradle.

“Illusions”

Among ourselves, we were still clinging to the illusion of the “border” that was the demarcation line [between the occupied part of France and the free zone]. The noontime new reports were always optimistic. The war could not last much longer now—we would spend the last winter at Gurs—afterwards would come the end, liberation, peace.

French Collaboration

At the end of June 1942, the camp received an almost unnoticed visit from a small commission of three or four tall, blond young men. They glanced inside a block, inspected the infirmary, the central hospital, the C.C.A.’s [Comité Central d’Assistance] office. They asked this or that prisoner their place of birth. If the response was “Germany”—they simply said “Ah—hm.” Later we learned that it was a commission of the Gestapo.

Establishing Deportation Lists

One fine evening, one of the first days of July one of the block leaders informed his colleagues on behalf of the Director that the next day the blocks would be “consigned”, which meant total prohibition from entering or leaving. This would be in order to establish lists.

Unfortunately, there was not a single directive—neither for the inmates nor for those who were making the list. No one realized how mortally important it was.

But as it was, little by little the ones making the list got tired, and we had to finish the whole thing that afternoon—it was a hot sunny day—so decisions about the lives and welfare of thousands and thousands were made without knowing why, with a levity free of qualms.

“Quotas”

From that day on, a certain jitteriness developed in the camp. . . But, … the night of July 30-31, the English radio reported that Hitler had asked Mr. Laval to hand over to him the foreign Jews in the free zone. This piece of news was naturally not divulged in the noontime news report.

On July 31, the Camp received a visit from Mr. Lowry, President of the Nimes Coordination Committee which brought together the Red Cross, the Quakers, the YMCA, the American Joint [Distribution Committee], the Children’s Aid Society (the OSE, “Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants”) and others. As usual, the representatives of social institutions in the Camp had a meeting, at the end of which the author [I] asked Mr. Lowry if the bit of news from the English radio was in line with the truth. “Since you already know it,” he replied, “I must tell you that it is true—unfortunately.”

In exchange for the release of the French prisoners, Mr. Laval had offered Mr. Hitler the foreign Jews in the free zone. The figure was fixed at 10,000 individuals. Later, under the pretext that the 10,000 had not been delivered by the agreed-upon deadline, the Germans demanded 15,000, then 20,000; finally, it became a general measure. The Quakers offered to take the 10,000 into their care—Mr. Laval refused.

Faustian Bargain

In the camp, fears took shape more and more. . .

. . .rumors and news continued to circulate. People talked about a long train of livestock cars at the station in Oloron, about the arrival of a whole posse of trucks and buses; people reported that at Gurs a hundred or more of the new State Police had arrived.

That afternoon, sure enough, two young officers in black uniforms —modeled after the German S.S. uniforms—walked in. At the same time, the Director went from block to block, calling many people over to ask them whether they would want to stay if their parents, children, spouses left the camp or whether they would rather go with them. They were given one minute to make their decision and sign the paper saying that they would be leaving of their own will.

Kafkaesque Nightmare

The Director worked all night. . .making the lists.

The next morning, the blocks were consigned. The camp was surrounded by rows of “black-coats.” Even the block leaders were not allowed to go out. Through an almost unbearable silence, we heard the lists from the Directory come in. They came in around 9:30am. The barrack leaders were assembled in the block secretary’s office—the crowds waited outside. The block leader read off the names. They fell from his mouth one by one, like death sentences.

The first thing we noticed was that the list contained, in alphabetical order, almost all the people of German or Austrian nationality.

. . . Since the whole thing had been a complete secret up to the very last minute, we were so distraught, so in the dark as to the criteria for the deportation, that when this first convoy was taken away, there were practically no attempts to intervene to help this or that person affected; no one tried to hide or risk trying to escape.

We had one last meal, then the call to go to the blocks, luggage in hand—in the men’s blocks almost everyone was ready—the names were called one after another—people said goodbye to each other—the person who was called went out into the road—little by little the groups assembled. As the last one was put in order, the caravan slowly started out towards the entrance of the Camp, towards the two large train sheds—those who were left stood along the wire fences waving goodbye with their hands or handkerchiefs—many of the ones leaving tried to keep a good face on—even to smile.

It could be said that the police presence was unnecessary. Sometimes it even seemed that they disappeared, in the face of the peaceful and disciplined attitude of the prisoners. Especially during the night hours when the departures happened, when they put their helmets on, rifles in hand—really, we were surprised if we paid any attention to it at all. It was as if people’s glances landed beside them, or over their heads.

This air of silent dignity was, it is true, partly a result of the fact that some of these poor people were too weary to really realize what was happening. They had seen their fate approaching, they had trembled, fought against it—now it was decided—there was nothing more to do.

“God Did Not Hear Them”

The next day rumors circulated that the train had not left; then, that it was traveling with the doors open at a very reduced speed. Later, that the Germans had not accepted them, that they had been expecting laborers, and would send them back. In those days, such floods of prayers went up to heaven, prayers from the heart, —but God did not want to hear them.

Deportation Criteria

We knew that a second convoy was supposed to follow it two days behind. On Thursday, the block leaders and the charities’ efforts to learn the criteria governing the deportation measures were met with success. We learned that, essentially, the measures concerned all Jews of German, Austrian, Polish, and Czech origin who had entered France after 1936. It was expected that there would be exceptions for: persons over 60 years of age (later 65); members of the clergy; children under 16 without family; husbands of pregnant women; parents of French children; those who were “Aryan” (in the camp this was interpreted to mean individuals who had a non-Jewish parent or spouse); parents of children less than two years old; and individuals who had rendered some kind of service to the France nation: those who had belonged to a combat unit for at least three months, or were particularly valuable to the French government or economy.

“Matter of the Interventions”

For those who were conscientious of what was going on realized the real issue in the matter of the interventions [relative to names on the official list of deportees]: They had to hand over a fixed number. To save one meant condemning someone else in their place—and did they have that right?

The outcome of all the brouhaha with the lists was that in the end, there were so many exceptions that it was necessary to find “new material.” The wretches in the blocks kept waking up to the sound of cars flying down the road. How many of those poor souls who thought that they had been forgotten, exempt, rescued, suddenly saw a guard next their bed: “Quick, quick, get up, get your luggage”—hearing those heavy footsteps approach already made everyone in the barracks tremble—is he going to pass by—is he going to come in here? Many stopped sleeping in their barracks.

“Errors”

In the first convoy, there being no directives—at least not that the charities or internees were aware of—a great number of people were deported who should not have been. This time the interventions tried to fix some of the errors. Not all.

A man named Max Sternmeiler left despite his Romanian papers which he had in his possession and had shown to the Director. Later, when his wife, who had been brought to the Rivesaltes camp, telegrammed to ask for a paper from the Gurs camp confirming her husband’s Romanian nationality, and thus hers as well, the husband had already left with his papers in his pocket. The woman was condemned, too.

“The best ones”

In general, we noticed that it was the best ones who had left. Among those from the old crowd who had stayed, besides the true exceptions, there were many clever types, with a lot of information and sometimes a lot of money, in a word people with connections and street girls.

“Nothing was sacred”

Nor could anyone forget the case of the Gutmann children, not that it was an isolated case. The father, being “untransportable”, had stayed in the village. The poor mother had come with her three children between 3 and 6 years old. These people could not have been rich—their clothes made that plain enough. But each one of the children was properly dressed, clean, hair neatly brushed; each one wore their little piece of ribbon in their hair. They slept all three together on a cushion on the ground, with their arms around each other’s necks—that night the mother did not leave them out of her sight for one second. What was going through her mind? Later, we saw the children again—without their mother. Nothing was sacred for them anymore, not even a mother. —-

Eva was eventually released or escaped from Gurs. Quoting again from Werner L. Frank on the issue of camp security: “Gurs security was somewhat loose, allowing for visits by the prisoners to nearby areas in order to conduct trade and even for off-site work. Outsiders were permitted access to the campgrounds, including children who had been separated from their interned parents and were now living at remote safe houses. Such laxity would suggest that an escape could be managed quite easily. However, there were deterrents to unauthorized departures including lack of official identity documents, apprehension about leaving loved ones behind, lack of French language skills and general fear of the unknown. Nevertheless, there were escapes. . .” (p. 276)

Certainly, Eva’s language skills would have allowed her to blend in with the local populace had she escaped. However, it is more likely her fluency in French made her useful to one of the aid groups operating in the internment camp, and they may have helped her procure safe conduct documents or false papers. In any case, Eva eventually made her way to way to Madrid, Spain, where she lived until 1947 when she immigrated to America (Figure 4) and rejoined her mother, who’d emigrated from Valparaiso, Chile that same year. (Figures 5 & 6) Eva got married in 1952 to Curt Zernik. (Figure 7). She passed away in 1969 (Figure 8), a year after her mother. (Figure 9)

Figure 4-Eva Goldenring’s “Passenger Arrival” form indicating she arrived in New York City on May 14, 1947 from Madrid, Spain

Figure 5-“Manifest of Alien Passengers” showing Eva’s mother sailed from Valparaiso, Chile on July 3, 1947 for the United States

Figure 6-Mother and daughter, Helene & Eva Goldenring, Easter 1960, after they reunited in America

Figure 7-Eva Goldenring with her husband, Curt Zernik, in Wilmington, Delaware in 1958

Figure 8-Curt Zernik & Eva Zernik, nee Goldenring’s headstone

REFERENCE

Frank, Werner L.