Note: In this post, I discuss the Fraktur typeface, a blackletter script known among other names as Gothic script. It originated in the early 16th century during the Holy Roman Empire and was widely used in Europe until the early 1940s. An 1820 publication typeset in Fraktur bears the names of two of my Bruck ancestors who attended the inaugural gymnasium class in Ratibor in 1819. In working out the name of one of these ancestors, I came to learn that two upper-case Fraktur letters of the early 19th century are indistinguishable.
First, let me briefly describe Fraktur’s characteristics and provide some brief background on its origin and history. Fraktur is defined “as a calligraphic hand of the Latin alphabet and any of several blackletter typefaces derived from this hand.” Letters are designed so that the individual strokes are broken apart, in contrast with typefaces where the letters are connected and flow together in an unbroken fashion, setting them apart from the flowing curves of more common Antiqua typefaces. The word “Fraktur” derives from the Latin word frāctūra (“a break”), which is also the root of the English word “fracture.” The nomenclature is appropriate given that Fraktur letters are spaced apart, not continuous. Fraktur is a notable type of so-called blackletter script, known among other names as Gothic script, with sometimes the entire group of blackletter faces being referred to as Fraktur.
Essentially, Fraktur is characterized by the 26 letters of the basic Latin alphabet, along with additional characters: the Eszett ⟨ß⟩ in the ⟨ſʒ⟩ form; vowels with umlauts, ä, ö, and ü; a long S (ſ), a unique character found in Fraktur; and a variant form of the letter r known as the r rotunda featured in some Fraktur typefaces. It is worth noting that not all blackface typefaces exhibit these specific Fraktur characteristics.
The first Fraktur typeface originated in the early 16th century, when Maximilian I, the Holy Roman Emperor from 1508 until his death in 1519, commissioned the design of the “Triumphal Arch” wood cut by Albrecht Durer and had a new typeface created specifically for this purpose. The Triumphal Arch was a composite image printed on 36 large sheets of paper from 195 separate wood blocks; as one of the largest prints ever produced it was intended to be pasted to walls in city halls or the palaces of princes, basically as propaganda.
From the late 18th century to the late 19th century, in most countries that had previously used Fraktur it was gradually replaced by Antiqua (Figure 2), as a symbol of the admiration for and emulation of the classical artistic and literary heritage of Greece and Rome. This transition was vigorously debated in Germany, where it was referred to as the “Antiqua-Fraktur dispute.” The shift affected mostly scientific writing, whereas most literature and newspapers continued to be printed in Fraktur.
Until the early 20th century, typesetting in Fraktur was still quite common in all German-speaking countries and regions, as well as in Norway, Estonia, and Latvia, and to a lesser extent in Sweden, Finland, and Denmark.
Fraktur remained popular in Germany and much of Eastern Europe far longer than elsewhere in Europe so is often referred to as “the German typeface.” Prior to 1941 Hiter viewed Fraktur as a German script that was widely used in Third Reich propaganda publications. While official Nazi documents and letterheads employed the font, in fact the most popular fonts in Nazi Germany were more modernized versions of blackletter typefaces that had been designed in the early 20th century, mainly in the 1930s.
The shift to using these more modernized fonts was controversial, with the press at times admonished for using “Roman characters” under “Jewish influence.” On the 3rd of January 1941, the Nazi Party ended the controversy by switching to international scripts such as Antiqua. With this declaration, the Nazis prohibited the use of Fraktur and the Sütterlin-based handwriting, declaring them to be Judenlettern, Jewish letters. The irony cannot be lost on readers that the Nazis did a complete turnabout from decreeing Fraktur, in which many earlier Nazi propaganda publications had been written, to be Jewish letters, after previously having characterized the fonts to which they shifted to also be under “Jewish influence.”
A few European newspapers, such as the German Frankfurter Allgemeine (Figure 3) as well as the Norwegian Aftenpoſten, still print their name in Fraktur on the masthead, which today is used mostly for decorative typesetting.
So much for the background. The genesis of this post begins in 2019 when Paul Newerla, my recently deceased friend from Racibórz, Poland, the town formerly in Germany to which my family had a three-generation connection, was writing about the 200th anniversary of Ratibor’s gymnasium, high school. While researching the topic, Paul happened upon a publication dated the 2nd of June 1820 entitled “Denkschrift über die feierliche Eröffnung des Königl. Evangel. Gymnasium zu Ratibor am 2. Juni 1819. . .,” “Memorandum on the solemn opening of the Royal Evangelical High School in Ratibor on June 2, 1819. . .” (Figures 4a-b) archived at the British Museum. It is noteworthy that this document was typeset in Fraktur. More on this below.
Knowing that several of my relatives had attended Ratibor’s high school, Paul sent me a copy of the report. Along with illustrations and maps Paul sent me, this formed the backbone for Post 60. The 1820 publication was written by Dr. Carl Linge, who I would later learn was the school’s first director from the 11th of May 1819 until Easter 1828. Along with an introduction, the publication contained five pages of names of male students, the only enrollees at the time, who attended the inaugural class, including two Bruck siblings. (Figure 4c) Their surnames were listed along with their first initials, what I thought were “J” and “S.”
For reasons that in retrospect seem completely illogical, I assumed that “J” stood for Jonas Bruck and that “S” referred to Samuel Bruck. These siblings, sons of Jacob Nathan Bruck (1770-1836) and Marianne Bruck, née Aufrecht, have been mentioned in multiple earlier posts, most recently in Post 153. Their birth and death years are well known to me. Jonas lived from 1813 to 1883, and Samuel from 1808 until 1863. Knowing Jonas was born in 1813, his attendance in the gymnasium’s inaugural class in 1819 at six years of age should immediately have raised a red flag; instead, I blissfully assumed he was very precocious.
As Paul was continuing his research related to the 200th anniversary of Ratibor’s gymnasium, he managed to track down the original handwritten roster of students who’d attended the school from the 11th of May 1819 until the 13th of April 1849. Astonishingly, he found this roster among the old files of the gymnasium, which today is a technical trade school. The fact that these originals survive given the turmoil during World War II is miraculous.
Among the roster of students who attended the school between 1819 and 1849, I discovered the following Bruck ancestors:
SUMMARY OF FAMILY NAMES FROM RATIBOR GYMNASIUM ALBUM, 1819-1849
Year/
Date of Admission
Line Number/Name
Where From
Father’s Profession
(German & English)
Age or Date of Birth of Student
1819
74. Isaac Bruck
74. Samuel Bruck
Ratibor
“Arrendator”
Leaseholder
13
10
4 April 1823
402. Heimann Bruck
Ratibor
“Destillateur”
Distiller
11
21 April 1824
440. Jonas Bruck
Ratibor
“Destillateur”
Distiller
10 ½
19 May 1829
1829. Marcus Braun
Ratibor
“Wirth”
Innkeeper
12 ½
22 May 1845
1752. Oscar Bruck
Ratibor
“Kaufmann”
Merchant
8 October 1832
3 January 1846
1772. Heimann Bruck
Ratibor
“Sattlermeister”
Saddler
26 December 1833
27 April 1848
1961. Fedor Bruck
Ratibor
“Kaufmann”
Merchant
30 September 1834
While it seems obvious in retrospect, I did not immediately make the connection between the names in the handwritten roster and Carl Linge’s published list of students who attended the gymnasium in its inaugural year in 1819. Regrettably, Paul sent me the page with Isaac and Samuel Bruck’s names separately, cutting off the year they attended the school, initially confounding me. (Figure 5)
Recall that in the published list, only the first letter of the students’ forenames is listed. Wanting to confirm whether the Fraktur letter in Carl Linge’s book was an “I” or a “J,” in other words whether the student was Isaac Bruck or Jonas Bruck, I turned to my friend Peter Hanke. As a trivial matter to most readers, but as a curious fact to me, Peter explained that in Fraktur typefaces of the early 19th century, the “I” and “J” fonts are indistinguishable. I found a few examples of early 19th century Fraktur typefaces that confirm this. (Figures 6a-b)
Additionally, the Wikipedia discussion of Fraktur speaks to this exact point. I quote: “Most older Fraktur typefaces make no distinction between the majuscules ⟨I⟩ and ⟨J⟩ (where the common shape is more suggestive of a ⟨J⟩), even though the minuscules ⟨i⟩ and ⟨j⟩ are differentiated.” Linge’s roster list uses majuscules, or upper-case letters, for the forenames of students meaning that absent the handwritten list found by Paul Newerla, I might never have been certain which Bruck sibling attended the gymnasium in 1819 with Samuel Bruck.
At the time I wrote my earlier posts about Ratibor’s student rosters, I had not yet ascertained when Isaac was born. I’m still not certain though it’s likely in 1805 or 1806. In the 1819 handwritten roster, it’s written that Isaac was 13 years old, a much less precocious age to be attending the gymnasium than at six years which would have been his younger brother Jonas’s age at the time.
REFERENCE
Linge, Carl (1820). “Denkschrift über die feierliche Eröffnung des Königl. Evangel. Gymnasium zu Ratibor am 2. Juni 1819. . .”
Note: In this post, I present and synthesize some primary source documents I’ve collected proving the existence of my third great-grandparents’ children. A family memoir states they had twelve unnamed children though I can definitively account for only nine of them. I am not surprised given that large families often had children who died at birth or in childhood. I strongly suspect a tenth offspring, the oldest girl, who shows up on several ancestral trees, may have lived to adulthood though I cannot independently prove this. The point of this post is to illustrate the standard to which I hold myself accountable in verifying ancestral data, not simply tell another family story to which readers may not relate.
A distant Bruck relative, Bertha Jacobson, née Bruck (1873-1957) wrote a memoir for her granddaughter, Maria Jacobson (1933-2022). In this memoir, which Maria donated to the Leo Baeck Institute in New York before her death, Bertha notes that my third great-grandparents Jacob Nathan Bruck (1770-1836) and Marianne Bruck, née Aufrecht (b. 1776) had twelve children, though she doesn’t name them. As a challenge to myself, I set out to determine how many of these purported children’s existence I could find proof of in the form of primary source documents, my gold standard. I’ve summarized this data including the source in a table readers will find at the end of this post.
I’ve often admonished followers about cloning ancestral data that one finds on other people’s ancestral trees, especially if source documents are not identified. That said, ancestral trees are sometimes specific enough to direct researchers to other sources that can be independently checked to confirm the veracity of the information in a tree. Below I will give readers an example of how I was able to confirm the burial place of one of Jacob and Marianne’s children in Berlin through data found on an ancestral tree in MyHeritage.
Before delving into the evidence I’ve tracked down for Jacob and Marianne’s children, let me review the vital data I’ve found out about them. In Post 150 I told readers how I discovered my third great-grandfather Jacob Nathan Bruck’s death register listing for Ratibor among the primary source documents digitized by the Upper Silesian Genealogical Society’s “Silius Radicum” project. (Figure 1) The index proved Jacob died in Ratibor [today: Racibórz, Poland] on the 29th of June 1836 at the age of 66, meaning he was born in 1770. While I’ve been unable to uncover the exact date he was born, the Geneanet Community Tree Index claims Jacob was born on the 18th of February 1770. (Figure 2) Notwithstanding that the source of this data is Michael Bruck, my fourth cousin once removed, I’ve yet to see the source document from which Michael drew this information.
A related aside. Another one of my distant Bruck relatives, Marianne Polborn, née Bruck (1888-1975) developed a family tree which includes some vital information for Jacob and Marianne Bruck. (Figure 3) Jacob’s date of birth matches that found on the Geneanet Community Tree Index. While I’m inclined to believe the 18th of February 1770 was indeed Jacob’s birth, the skeptic in me asks whether Michael Bruck had access to Marianne Polborn’s ancestral tree, so that everyone is copying the same unverified information from a record that is not a primary source document? This is likely a rhetorical question.
I draw readers’ attention to another date on Marianne Polborn’s ancestral tree, namely Jacob and Marianne’s marriage date, specifically, the 16th of May 1793. Given the confirmed dates of birth for some of Jacob and Marianne’s children towards the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century, this seems like a plausible marriage year. While this tree is the sole unconfirmed source of their wedding, even if Marianne was already pregnant when she and Jacob married, a not uncommon occurrence I’ve learned, their oldest child would likely not have been born much before 1794. The earliest confirmed birth year for any of their children, as I will discuss, is 1796.
Another date I draw readers’ attention to is the purported date of birth of Marianne Aufrecht, the 21st of August 1776.
Marianne Polborn does not specify when Marianne Bruck died, although the Geneanet Community Tree Index claims she died on the 3rd of August 1835. (Figure 4) I believe this is a case of “false precision.” Let me explain. By chance, when scrolling through the Church of Latter-Day Saints (LDS) Family History Library Microfilm Roll Number 7990058 with the names of Jews who died between 1832 and 1838 in Neisse [today: Nysa, Poland], located 54 miles northwest of Racibórz, I stumbled on the death register listing of the “witwe Marianne Bruck” who died at 70 years of age on the 3rd of August 1835; “witwe” means widow. (Figure 5) As discussed above, I know for sure Jacob Bruck died in 1836 so obviously in 1835 Marianne would not yet have been a widow. Also, if Marianne’s birth year was 1776, which I’m inclined to believe, had she died in 1835 she would only have been several weeks short of her 59th birthday. Finally, unless Marianne was visiting Neisse, her death there rather than in Ratibor seems odd.
Often the oldest of Jacob and Marianne’s offspring listed on ancestral trees is Helene Bruck shown married to an Itzig Mendel Guttmann Aufrecht. As I discussed in Post 150, I located Marianne’s death register listing in the Upper Silesian Genealogical Society’s database proving she died on the 20th of May 1838 at the age of 68 (Figure 6), identical to the year Jacob Bruck was born, 1770. Thus, the Helene Bruck married to Itzig Aufrecht was not one of Jacob and Marianne’s children, but more likely Jacob’s cousin. It’s conceivable Jacob and Marianne named their first-born daughter Helene, but I cannot independently verify this nor prove she existed.
Wilhelmine Bruck’s existence is incontrovertible. Proof of her marriage to Wilhelm Friedenstein is found on LDS Microfilm 1184449 showing they got married on the 7th of November 1814 in Ratibor, identifying her father as Jakob Nathan Bruck. (Figure 7) Find-A-Grave shows she was born in 1796 and died in 1864, and is interred in the Stary Cmentarz Żydowski we Wrocławiu, the Old Jewish Cemetery, in Wrocław, Poland. (Figure 8) My friend, Dr. Renata Wilkoszewska-Krakowska, is the Branch Manager of this cemetery and sent me a picture of her headstone giving her precise birth and death dates. (Figure 9) Her husband is not buried alongside her.
Although no birth or death information has so far been uncovered for another of Jacob and Marianne’s daughters, her existence again is irrefutable. According to LDS Microfilm 1184449, Dorothea married Salomon Freund on the 25th of February 1817 in Ratbor, and her father is listed as Jakob Nathan Bruck. (see Figure 7)
Moritz Bruck (1800-1863)
A German book published in 1845 entitled “Gelehrtes Berlin in Jahre 1845,” roughly translated as “Scholarly Berlin in 1845,” includes a biography of Moritz Bruck stating he was born on the 24th of December 1800 in Ratibor and that his father was Jacob Bruck. (Figure 10) He was a respected doctor and was actively involved in researching and writing about cholera. Unlike his older brothers, Moritz attended the gymnasium, high school, in Brieg, [today: Brzeg, Poland], 80 miles northwest of Racibórz. His 1824 dissertation written in Latin was entitled “De myrmeciasi,” and was about ants popularly known as bulldog ants, bull ants, or jack jumper ants due to their ferocity; his dissertation includes a dedication page for his father. (Figures 11a-b)
On MyHeritage, I discovered the “Tuchler Family Tree,” which correctly indicates Moritz died on the 25th of October 1863 in Berlin and is buried in the Jüdische Friedhof in der Schönhauser Allee, a fact I confirmed by having one of my German cousins call the cemetery. At a future date, I will include a photo of his headstone. This is one of the few occasions I found vital information on a family tree that I was independently able to verify.
Fanny Bruck (1804-1879)
LDS Microfilm 1184449 indicates that like her sisters Wilhelmine and Dorothea, Fanny got married in Ratibor on the 26th of November 1822 to Isaac Seliger. (Figure 12) Kurt Polborn, my fourth cousin from Germany, shows she died on the 29th of August 1879 in Breslau [today: Wrocław, Poland]. Given the exactitude of her death, I asked Kurt about it, and he sent me a copy of a letter Fanny wrote on the 19th of February 1873 informing authorities in Breslau her husband Isaac had passed away on the 13th of February 1873. (Figure 13) The Julian and Hebrew calendar dates of death for both Isaac and Fanny are written at the bottom of this correspondence; the source of this letter is the online archives of the Centralna Biblioteka Judaistyczna, Central Jewish Library. I was able to locate Isaac Seliger’s death register listing on LDS Microfilm 7990011 confirming he died on the 13th of February 1873. (Figure 14)
Because the LDS Church does not have the Breslau death register covering the years between 1874 and 1910, I asked my friend Renata from the Old Jewish Cemetery in Wrocław if she could help track down Fanny Seliger’s death register information. Coincidentally, Fanny is buried in the Old Jewish Cemetery. Renata confirmed she was born on the 8th of November 1804 and died on the 29th of August 1879. A photo of her matzevah, headstone, will soon follow. (Figure 15-COMING SOON)
Isaac Bruck (~1805-?)
Isaac Bruck is estimated to have been born in 1805 or 1806. Along with his Samuel Bruck, both of their names show up on the roster of students who attended the inaugural class when Ratibor’s gymnasium, high school, opened in June 1819. (Figure 16) The roster indicates Isaac was 13 years old at the time, while his brother Samuel was 10 years of age. Isaac and Samuel’s unnamed father is listed as an “arendator,” beer tenant or distiller, which Jacob Bruck was known to have been. I discussed this topic in Post 152.
A particularly intriguing document I located mentioning Isaac Bruck was in a gazette entitled “Amtsblatt für den Regierungsbezirk Marienwerder,” dated the 26th of May 1828. The Marienwerder gazette printed a notice to be on the lookout for the deserter Isaac Bruck from Ratibor, who in 1828 was said to be 22 years old. (Figure 17)
The Marienwerder Region (German: Regierungsbezirk Marienwerder) was a government region (Regierungsbezirk) of Prussia from 1815 until 1920 and again 1939-1945. It was a part of the Province of West Prussia from 1815 to 1829, and again 1878–1920, belonging to the Province of Prussia in the intervening years, and to the Reichsgau Danzig-West Prussia in the years 1939-1945. The regional capital was Marienwerder in West Prussia [today: Kwidzyn, Poland].
According to LDS Microfilms 1194054 and 1194055 for Gleiwitz [today: Gliwice, Poland], Isaac and his wife Caroline Bruck, née Stolz, are known to have separated on the 19th of July 1835. (Figure 18)
Isaac Bruck is my cousin Michael Bruck’s 4th great-grandfather who he estimates died in 1856 or 1857.
Samuel Bruck (1808-1863)
Samuel was my third-great-grandfather, and the original owner of the Bruck’s “Prinz von Preussen” Hotel in Ratibor. His existence is beyond doubt. I discussed Samuel in Post 144, so direct readers to that installment.
Heimann Bruck (~1812)
Heimann Bruck first attended Ratibor’s gymnasium, high school, in April 1823 when he was 11 years old. (Figure 19) Heimann’s unnamed father is said to be a “Destillateur,” distiller, which Jacob Bruck is known to have been.
Heimann married Rosalie “Rosa” Bruck on the 21st of August 1832 in Neisse, Prussia [today: Nysa, Poland]. Heimann’s father is identified as “Jacob B.” and Rosa’s father as “David B.” (Figure 20) Jacob and David were likely cousins.
In an 1826 Ratibor publication entitled “Einladungsschrift der Offentlichen Prufung der Schuler des Konigs. Gymnasium in Ratibor am 5, 6, und 7 April,” “Invitation to the Public Examination of the Pupils of the Royal Grammar School in Ratibor on April 5, 6 and 7, 1826,” Heimann Bruck’s name appears as having graduated from fourth class Latin. This may correspond with Heimann’s graduation from the gymnasium. (Figure 21)
Various ancestral trees indicate Heimann died in 1875 but this information is unconfirmed.
Jonas Bruck (1813-1883)
Jonas Bruck’s history is well-known. Primary source documents related to my 2nd great granduncle were discussed in Post 145. Jonas first attended Ratibor’s gymnasium in 1824 at 10 ½ years of age (Figure 22) and is shown in an annual Ratibor yearbook to have graduated in 1828.
Jacob and Marianne last known child is Rebecka Bruck and is their only child whose birth was recorded on LDS Microfilm 1184449 for Ratibor. (Figure 23) Her fate was unknown until I found her death register listing in the Upper Silesian Genealogical Society’s Signature Book 1699 indicating she died in Ratibor on the 16th of September 1819 at 4 years 8 months of age. (Figure 24)
In closing, let me make a few remarks. As readers can tell, I hold myself to a very high standard when documenting vital statistics for individuals I’m researching. On rare occasions, ancestral trees with vital data will direct me to information I can verify. Thanks to German and Polish friends and family, while compiling source documents for this post, I was able to uncover vital information for three additional children of Jacob and Marianne, namely, Wilhelmine Bruck, Moritz Bruck, and Fanny Bruck. While there are likely limits to what more can be uncovered, particularly for their children who died at birth or in infancy, I remain convinced additional primary source documents exist and that I may eventually find them. As things now stand, I’m confident I’ve proven the existence of nine of Jacob and Marianne’s children and confirmed the birth and death dates of six of them.
REFERENCES
Amtsblatt für den Regierungsbezirk Marienwerder. (1828)
VITAL DATA & SOURCE OF INFORMATION ON JACOB NATHAN BRUCK & MARIANNE BRUCK, NÉE AUFRECHT’S CHILDREN
NOTE: My frustration with ancestral data in other people’s family trees is that they are often unsourced. In the table below, I’ve noted whether the data is “confirmed” or “unconfirmed.” I do not generally consider hand drawn family trees to be irrefutable proof of accuracy, nor do I consider the Geneanet Community Tree Index a primary source document. Even among contemporary records, I’ve occasionally found errors though generally consider the information in these registers and certificates to be the best available. I welcome corrections and additions from readers that have a personal interest in the information provided below.
NAME
(relationship)
EVENT
DATE
PLACE
SOURCE
Jacob Nathan Bruck (self)
Birth
18 February 1770 (unconfirmed)
Pschow, Prussia [today: Pszów, Poland]
Marianne Polborn, née Bruck family tree; Geneanet Community Tree Index
Marriage
16 May 1793 (unconfirmed)
Marianne Polborn, née Bruck family tree
Death
29 June 1836 (confirmed)
Ratibor, Prussia [today: Racibórz, Poland]
Upper Silesia Genealogical Society, Ratibor Signature Book 1698_0078; Geneanet Community Tree Index
Marianne Aufrecht (wife)
Birth
21 August 1776 (unconfirmed)
Teschen, Prussia [today: Cieszyn, Poland]
Marianne Polborn, née Bruck family tree; Geneanet Community Tree Index
Marriage
16 May 1793
(unconfirmed)
Marianne Polborn, née Bruck family tree
Death
1835 (unconfirmed)
Geneanet Community Tree Index
Wilhelmine Bruck (daughter)
Birth
24 April 1796 (confirmed)
Headstone at the Stary Cmentarz Żydowski we Wrocławiu (Museum of Cemetery Art, Old Jewish Cemetery), Wroclaw, Poland
Marriage (to Wilhelm Friedenstein)
7 November 1814 (confirmed)
Ratibor, Prussia [today: Racibórz, Poland]
LDS Family History Center Microfilm 1184449; Upper Silesia Genealogical Society, Ratibor Signature Book 1699_0053
Death
21 December 1864 (confirmed)
Headstone at the Stary Cmentarz Żydowski we Wrocławiu (Museum of Cemetery Art, Old Jewish Cemetery), Wroclaw, Poland
Dorothea Babbett Bruck (daughter)
Birth
Marriage (to Salomon Freund)
25 February 1817 (confirmed)
Ratibor, Prussia [today: Racibórz, Poland]
LDS Family History Center Microfilm 1184449
Death
Marcus Moritz Bruck (son)
Birth
24 December 1800 (confirmed)
Ratibor, Prussia [today: Racibórz, Poland]
1845 biography entitled “Gelehrtes Berlin in Jahre 1845”
Marriage (to Nannette v. Aldersthal)
16 October 1836 (confirmed)
Berlin, Germany
Berlin Marriage Certificate
Death
25 October 1863 (confirmed)
Berlin, Germany
Tuchler Family Tree on MyHeritage; buried in the Jüdische Friedhof in der Schönhauser Allee in Gräberfeld J, Erbbegräbnis 170 (Grave Field J, Hereditary Burial 170)
Fanny Bruck (daughter)
Birth
8 November 1804 (confirmed)
Headstone at the Stary Cmentarz Żydowski we Wrocławiu (Museum of Cemetery Art, Old Jewish Cemetery), Wroclaw, Poland
Marriage (to Isaac Seliger)
26 November 1822 (confirmed)
Ratibor, Prussia [today: Racibórz, Poland]
LDS Family History Center Microfilm 1184449; Upper Silesia Genealogical Society, Ratibor Signature Book 1699_0055
Death
29 August 1879 (confirmed)
Breslau, Prussia [today: Wrocław, Poland]
Headstone at the Stary Cmentarz Żydowski we Wrocławiu (Museum of Cemetery Art, Old Jewish Cemetery), Wroclaw, Poland; Letter written & signed by Fanny Seliger dated 19 February 1873 in the online archives of the Central Jewish Library (https://cbj.jhi.pl/documents/375623/8/)
Isaac Bruck (son)
Birth
~1805 (unconfirmed)
Ratibor, Prussia [today: Racibórz, Poland]
Königl. Evangel. Gymnasium zu Ratibor am 2. Juni 1819, roster of students (Isaac said to be 13 years old in June 1819); Amtsblatt für den Regierungsbezirk Marienwerder, Vol. 18, 26 May 1828, p. 213 (Isaac said to be 22 years old in May 1828)
Marriage (to Caroline Stolz)
Separated
14 July 1835 (confirmed)
Gleiwitz, Prussia [Gliwice, Poland]
LDS Family History Center Microfilms 1195054 & 1194055 for Gleiwitz [Gliwice, Poland]
Death
Samuel Bruck (son)
Birth
11 March 1808 (confirmed)
Pschow, Prussia [today: Pszów, Poland]
Caption on family photo; Pinkus Family Collection, Leo Baeck Institute
Marriage (to Charlotte Marle)
18 January 1831 (unconfirmed)
Ratibor, Prussia [today: Racibórz, Poland]
Marianne Polborn, née Bruck family tree
Death
3 July 1863 (confirmed)
Ratibor, Prussia [today: Racibórz, Poland]
Caption on family photo
Heimann Heinrich Bruck (son)
Birth
~1812 (unconfirmed)
Königl. Evangel. Gymnasium zu Ratibor, 1819-1849 roster of students (Heimann said to be 11 years old in April 1823); MyHeritage family tree
Marriage (to Rosalie “Rosa” Bruck)
21 August 1832 (confirmed)
Neisse, Prussia [today: Nysa, Poland]
LDS Family History Center Microfilm 00799058, page 17 of 596 & 68 of 596;
Death
1875 (unconfirmed)
Breslau, Prussia [today: Wrocław, Poland]
MyHeritage family tree
Jonas Bruck (son)
Birth
5 March 1813 (confirmed)
Ratibor, Prussia [today: Racibórz, Poland]
Headstone at the Stary Cmentarz Żydowski we Wrocławiu (Museum of Cemetery Art, Old Jewish Cemetery), Wroclaw, Poland; Königl. Evangel. Gymnasium zu Ratibor am 2. Juni 1819, roster of students (Jonas said to be 10.5 years old on April 1824)
Marriage (to Rosalie Marle)
Death
5 April 1883 (unconfirmed)
Breslau, Prussia [today: Wrocław, Poland]
Headstone at the Stary Cmentarz Żydowski we Wrocławiu (Museum of Cemetery Art, Old Jewish Cemetery), Wroclaw, Poland
Rebecka Bruck (daughter)
Birth
10 January 1815 (confirmed)
Ratibor, Prussia [today: Racibórz, Poland]
LDS Family History Center Microfilm 1184449
Death
16 September 1819 (confirmed)
Ratibor, Prussia [today: Racibórz, Poland]
Upper Silesia Genealogical Society, Ratibor Signature Book 1699_0067
Note: Tiering off a few elusive clues I found about my third great-grandfather Jacob Nathan Bruck (1770-1836) from Ratibor [today:Racibórz, Poland], I examine the historic and geographic context in which the events he was involved in played out.
In Post 150 I told readers how I discovered my great-great-great-grandfather Jacob Nathan Bruck’s death register listing among the primary source documents digitized by the Upper Silesian Genealogical Society’s “Silius Radicum” project. The index proves Jacob died in Ratibor [today: Racibórz, Poland] on the 29th of June 1836 at the age of 66. (Figure 1) As the oldest known Bruck from the Ratibor line, I refer to him as the paterfamilias.
Finding definitive proof of my long-ago ancestor’s death is particularly satisfying as ancestral trees on ancestry.com and MyHeritage, often cloning erroneous information from one another, indeterminately placed his death as 1832. Having never been able to independently verify Jacob’s vital data, it was always an open question of when exactly he died.
In the last several months, I’ve uncovered a smattering of clues from a range of sources that give me a limited sense of Jacob’s life. Before delving into these, I want to touch on a few intriguing finds I’ve made in the process.
First, a little background. According to a memoir written by Bertha Bruck (Figure 2), the grandmother of one of my recently deceased cousins, Jacob Nathan Bruck and his wife Marianne Bruck, née Aufrecht had 12 children. Most of my cousins, whom I consider highly accomplished genealogists, can account for seven or eight of them. I think I can provide corroboration of nine of Jacob and Marianne’s purported 12 children. Presenting the underlying proof relying on evidence-based primary source documents will be the subject of an upcoming post.
While researching one of Jacob and Marianne’s offspring, Marcus Moritz Bruck, I stumbled upon a Bruck Family Tree on Geneanet Community Tree Index. Geneanet is a collaborative website with ancestral data added by participants and intended for all genealogists.
I sound my usual admonishment about the accuracy of any ancestral tree particularly if source documents are not attached and/or identified. Nonetheless, Geneanet corroborates Jacob Nathan Bruck’s date of death as the 29th of June 1836, as I’ve independently discovered; having learned that Jacob was 66 upon his death obviously means that he was born in 1770. Geneanet not only confirms that Jacob was born in 1770, but also provides his exact date and place of birth, the 18th of February 1770 in Pschow [Pszów, Poland]. (Figure 3) Notwithstanding my usual doubts about the accuracy of ancestral trees, the specificity of Jacob’s place and date of death suggests it could be accurately drawn from an entry in some unknown birth register. For the moment, I reserve judgement.
Another intriguing find I made on the Bruck Family Tree in Geneanet is the name and dates of birth and death of Jacob’s father, Nathan Bruck, purportedly born in Upper Silesia in Poland in 1735 who died there in 1825 at age 90. (Figure 4) Again, absent more background information, I remain skeptical as to the veracity of this data.
Some brief historical geography. The historical region of Silesia is now in southwestern Poland. Silesia was originally a Polish province, which became a possession of the Bohemian crown in 1335, passed with that crown to the Austrian Hapsburgs in 1526, and was taken by Prussia in 1742. In 1945, at the end of World War II, Silesia was one of the regions of German territory that was granted to Poland by the Soviet Union in compensation for land in eastern Poland that was incorporated into the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, land that is today part of the Ukraine.
For the purposes of this discussion, in 1735 when Nathan Bruck was born Upper Silesia would have been part of the Hapsburg empire. (Figure 5) Where ancestral records from this period are archived and even whether they still exist are unknown. If Nathan did indeed survive until 1825, his death would likely have been recorded in the death register in the Prussian town where he died; it’s possible the register noting his age when he died survives while the Austrian Hapsburg empire birth register no longer exists. At present Nathan’s place of death is unconfirmed.
I would like to briefly touch on a fascinating possibility stemming from the discovery that Nathan Bruck lived until age 90. Because of her ancestral connection to Jacob Nathan Bruck and Nathan Bruck, in passing I told Helen Winter, nee Renshaw, my fourth cousin from Wolverhampton, England, about my discovery, namely, about Jacob’s date of birth and the possibility that his father lived into his 10th decade. In response, Helen casually mentioned an unframed painting that she and her sister once saw 30 or more years ago of a diminished, toothless old man. The unnerving effect it had on young children means the picture remained secreted. Given her family’s ancestral connection to Nathan Bruck, could it be that this painting is a rendering of Nathan Bruck? The search is now on by Helen and her sister to try and relocate this potential “treasure.” Stay tuned!
Jacob Nathan Bruck is my and Helen Winter’s last common Bruck relative, being the third great-grandfather to both of us. Helen’s paternal grandfather, Eberhard Friedrich Bruck (1877-1960) (Figure 6) wrote a memoir for his daughter Margot Renshaw, nee Bruck, Helen’s mother, in which he briefly mentioned Jacob.
The original German passage and the English translation read as follows:
ORIGINAL PASSAGE
Mein Urgrossvater Jacob Bruck, 1762-1832, war Hotelbesitzer. Ihm gehörte das erste Hotel in Ratibor an der Oder ( Oberschlesien ). Das Hotel hiess “Prinz von Preussen”. Es wurde von Jacob Bruck um 1800 erbaut und bestand noch, wie ich aus einer Zeitungsnotis entnahm, 1933. Jacob Bruck war ein unternehmender Mann. Er besass auch eine Werft an der Oder, wo grössere Schiffe ( sog. “Oderkähne”) gebaut wurden. Um das nötige Holz zu erhalten, pachtete er Walder in Osterreichisch- Schlesien.
TRANSLATION
My great grandfather, Jacob Bruck, 1762 -1832 [EDITOR’S NOTE: INCORRECT DATES], was a hotelier. He owned the first hotel in Ratibor on Oder in Upper Silesia. The hotel was called the “Prince of Prussia.” He had it built in around 1800 and it was still standing in 1933, according to a newspaper item I saw. Jacob Bruck was an enterprising man. He also owned a shipyard on the Oder, where large craft (the so called ‘Oder Barges’) were built. To obtain the timber needed for these, he leased forests in Austrian Silesia.
A few observations and comments concerning what Eberhard Bruck wrote about Jacob and his occupational endeavors. As previously discussed, Jacob was born in 1770, not in 1762, and passed away in 1836, not in 1832. Eberhard was born in 1877 so would not personally have known his great-grandfather. Likely, his “memories” of Jacob would be recollections he’d heard of him as a child and would be distorted by the prism through which childhood memories are often processed and remembered.
I have tried to confirm whether what Eberhard wrote vis a vis Jacob Bruck is true, and in the process crafted what I consider to be a more accurate scenario of what likely happened. I will relate this is a future blog post where I recount when the Bruck’s “Prinz von Preussen” Hotel was probably built based on documented accounts of when the walls and towers surrounding and historically protecting Ratibor were torn down. I invite readers to stay tuned for this upcoming post but suffice it for now to say that it’s unlikely that Jacob had the Bruck’s Hotel constructed prior to his death nor that he was its first owner. This does not mean that Jacob did not operate the town’s first hotel as he is known to have owned several parcels of land in Ratibor. More on this below.
As I’ve discussed in earlier posts, the Bruck’s “Prinz von Preussen” Hotel survived WWII mostly intact but was dismantled by the Communist authorities to harvest the hotel’s bricks to rebuild Warsaw.
Prior to his passing, I asked my friend Paul Newerla whether Oderkähne, or Oder River barges, had ever been constructed in Ratibor, and he confirmed there had once been a shipyard there along the Oder River. He sent a postcard showing a large craft, possibly of the type Jacob manufactured. (Figure 7) Given that Jacob Bruck was fabricating these before he died in 1836 and that 1839 is the generally accepted date as the birth year of practical photography, no photographs of the barges Jacob manufactured are known.
I also discussed this matter with another good friend, Peter Albrecht von Preußen. As he was reading an 1861 book on Ratibor entitled “Geschichte der Stadt Ratibor und deren Stadtteile” (“History of the Town of Ratibor and Its Districts”) by Augustin Weltzel, I asked him to be on the lookout for any mention of Oder River barges or ship building activities in Ratibor but neither subject was broached.
A quick note about Augustin Weltzel’s 1861 book. Regrettably it is written in Fraktur font, a calligraphic hand of the Latin alphabet and any of several blackletter typefaces derived from this hand; Fraktur was commonly used to write German and other European languages from the 16th to the 20th century. Regrettably, this invaluable book has not been transcribed into modern-day German script, nor translated into Polish or English. On my behalf, Peter read through and synopsized relevant sections for me. Suffice it to say this book is full of valuable historical insights about the history of Ratibor that will serve as the foundation for my theory as to when the Bruck’s “Prinz von Preussen” Hotel could realistically have been constructed.
Returning briefly to the issue of Oder River barges, Peter discovered that on average an Oderkahne was 130 feet long, 13 to 15 feet wide, and 3 to 4 feet deep, so by no means a small boat. Assuming these were assembled on land, the factory or shop would have had to have been very close to the river. Possibly the shipyard was located outside Ratibor’s city limits, and therefore not mentioned in Weltzel’s book.
Intriguingly, Peter sent me a photograph of the type of barge I initially imagined Jacob Bruck was constructing. (Figure 8) The reason it seems more representative of barges Jacob Bruck was building is that they were mostly used to transport agricultural products from Ratibor to Breslau [today: Wrocław, Poland], which this one appears to have been suited for. According to Weltzel, the three primary industries at the time wrote his book were weaving, grain production, and limestone manufacturing.
The pole on the barge in Figure 8 would have been attached to a rope which in turn would have been fastened and pulled upstream by a horse from the banks of the Oder. Once unloaded, it could basically float empty downriver. The “newer” type of barge illustrated in Figure 7, which began to appear between around 1850 to 1860, would have been steam-powered. According to Weltzel, the Oder River was not well suited for larger barges between Ratibor and Breslau, even during the rainy seasons in the spring when high waters would have made navigating larger craft easier.
A constant concern for the city were the bridges spanning the Oder River which collapsed or were destroyed no fewer than a dozen times historically because of fires, wars, flooding, ice buildup, and strong currents undermining the structures. The bridges were constantly rebuilt in different locations but because of the sandy sediment of the Oder they rarely survived for long until advanced building techniques were devised.
Eberhard Bruck’s fleeting reference to the fact that Jacob obtained his wood to build barges from Austrian Silesia sent me on a search to find maps delineating this area. In the attached figure, readers can see where “Oster Schlesien,” Austrian Silesia, was situated. (Figure 9) According to Paul Newerla, later shipyards apparently obtained their wood from Slovakia and Hungary, perhaps cheaper alternatives. Regardless, all three areas would have been logical places from which to obtain wood given their proximity to Ratibor.
Other fleeting references to Jacob Bruck can be found in a 1995 book by Thomas Wardenga entitled “Häuserbuch der Stadt Ratibor” (“House register of the town of Ratibor”). This book includes an 1812 map of Ratibor showing the town’s lots at the time, identifying property owners. Jacob is shown as the co-owner of three lots. (Figure 10)
Jacob is identified as a so-called “arrendator.” Not recognizing or being able to obtain a clear translation of this obscure and obsolete occupation, I turned to Paul Newerla, my recently deceased friend, for clarification. Translated, this is what Paul explained about Jacob’s line of work:
Arendator [EDITOR’S NOTE: ALSO SPELLED AS “ARRENDATOR”] is known to be a tenant of a pub, for example. During my research, I came across several instances where a tavern was leased by the noble owner of the village, for example. The right to produce spirits (distiller) was sometimes associated with the bar. However, the tenant had to buy the beer from the owner’s brewery. Sometimes it was the other way round: the right to brew beer was linked to the arrende, but the brandy had to be bought from the “lord”. In such cases, it can be said that a person could have been both “arrendator” and “distiller” and/or beer tenant (brewer).
Recently, while doing further research I discovered an excellent article by Alan Weiser entitled “The Arenda System: A Boon or Bane for Jews.” According to the author, “The arenda has been defined by the University of Virginia in its course on European Jewry as a system of leasing property in early modern Poland in which in exchange for a predetermined rent the lessor agreed to transfer to the lessee control over property or rights; thus, enabling the lessee to pocket any income produced from the leased property or rights. The arenda provided a livelihood for a significant proportion of Polish Jewish families.” Jacob as the lessee in an arenda contract would have been called an “arendar” or “arrendator.”
It has been suggested that because of the pressure the Jewish arendars were under to make payments to magnates and kings who owned the leased properties this resulted in large scale Jewish community debt causing the arendars to apply harsh measures to their serfs to ensure high productivity as soon as possible. According to Alan Weiser, “There was considerable anti-Semitic backlash resulting from this interaction.”
I encourage readers interested in learning more about the Arenda system to read Alan Weiser’s article and review his bibliographic references.
Thanks to another of my Polish acquaintances, Mr. Kamil Kotas from Chałupki, Poland, known in Prussian times as Annaberg, I was made aware of another very obscure reference to Jacob Bruck I would never have found on my own. On the Leo Baeck Institute’s website, in a file entitled the “Ratibor Community Collection,” Kamil found a typed German report translated as “The Jewish Community of Ratibor and its Cemetery” by C. Baendel. According to this document Jacob Bruck was one of the members of the Jewish community in Ratibor authorized to carry out the transaction of purchasing the land for the Jewish cemetery in 1814; according to C. Baendel, the deed is dated the 4th of October 1814.
Interestingly, the deed was signed by all those authorized on the Jewish side authorized to negotiate the purchase, while on the selling side, the three heirs of a man named Johann Huttny had to use the help of a witness to confirm their signatures (they were probably illiterate) and a translator (they were probably from the Slavic-speaking local population). C. Bandel notes the cemetery was once used to mine brown coal, the prospects of which do not appear to have been lucrative. He also mentions the centennial celebration of the cemetery was set for the 26th of November 1913. The link to C. Baendel’s document can be found among the references.
The Polish website, Cmentarz Żydowski w Polsce, List of Jewish Cemeteries in Poland, provides additional historical background on the Ratibor Jewish cemetery. Prior to its acquisition in 1814, Jews from Ratibor were buried in nearby Zülz [today: Biała Prudnicka, Poland], Nikolai [today: Mikołów, Poland], Langendorf [today: Hlučín, Czech Republic], or Hotzenplotz [today: Osoblaha, Czech Republic], or further afield in Bodzanów in central Poland. Purportedly, burials did not begin until 1817, though the oldest documented headstone dated from 1821. The last burials took place, respectively, in March 1940 and February 1941.
As I discussed in Post 13 and Post 13, Postscript, the Jewish Cemetery in Ratibor was demolished during Poland’s Communist Era in 1973. Quoting from an anonymous resident of Racibórz, who sent a letter to the Polish website Cmentarz Żydowski w Polsce, described the events as follows: “One day gentlemen appeared, described all the tombstones with colored paint, then arranged them according to some key. The most beautiful ones were taken to the reconstruction of the Royal Castle in Warsaw. The less attractive ones were sold to stonemasons. The remains of the stones were still lying around for a long time. It looked terrible; the real devastation of the cemetery, demolished, felled, dug up stones. What was left was chaos, rubble, and so the bushes were overgrown. I think that the destruction was undertaken due to the necessity of delivering the marbles to Warsaw.”
A plaque was placed at the cemetery by a Pawel Głogowski in April 2014 (Figure 11), and more recently on 19th of December 2023, a ceremony was held there with representatives from Warsaw’s Muzeum Historii Żydów Polskich Polin, the Museum of the History of Polish Jews; Director of the Museum in Racibórz; and several Jewish attendees including a Rabbi who offered a prayer. (Figure 12) Fragmentary pieces of headstones were collected. (Figure 13)
In closing, I would note that while the historical references to my third great-grandfather are elusive, they’ve provided me the opportunity to discuss a wide number of topics including the geopolitical landscape at the time; ship building in Ratibor; the source of wood used in barge construction; the Arenda System; and the purchase of land for the construction of the Jewish Cemetery in Ratibor and its ultimate destruction.
Note: In this post I discuss some primary source documents from Ratibor [today: Racibórz, Poland] and Upper Silesia I was recently made aware of. I also explain to readers how to access these online ancestral records digitized by the Upper Silesian Genealogical Society. Finally, I highlight a few “gems” I uncovered that date back to my earliest known Bruck ancestor from Ratibor.
This story begins with an email my good friend Peter Albrecht von Preußen (Figure 1) sent me with a link to a Dropbox account with a stash of primary source documents from Ratibor, Germany [today: Racibórz, Poland]. Regular readers will recognize this as the town in Upper Silesia (Figure 2) to which some of my Jewish ancestors had an association of over 100 years and where the erstwhile family establishment, the Bruck’s “Prinz von Preußen” Hotel, was owned through three generations of my family, from around 1850 until 1926.
Having previously and on multiple occasions carefully examined three microfilm rolls of Jewish vital records from Ratibor (i.e., LDS Family History Center (FHC) Microfilms 1184447, 1184448, & 1184449) available through the Mormon Church’s familysearch website and having personally visited and spent many hours at the Archiwum Państwowe w Katowicach Oddział w Raciborzu, the State Archives in Katowice, Branch in Racibórz (Figure 3), scrutinizing civil registration records of vital events for my family, I had scant expectations of finding anything new. I had no reason to believe additional documents of vital events for Jews from Ratibor still exist. I could not have been more wrong.
Below I will walk readers step-by-step through how to access the database I learned about that includes not only primary source documents about Jews from Ratibor and some adjoining towns but also the more extensive Catholic and Lutheran parish records from across Upper Silesia. I will also detail some of the most satisfying discoveries I made about some near and distant forebears, breakthroughs I honestly thought I would never realize. However, I’m going to start at the tail end and explain the origin of these primary source documents.
The source of the documents Peter sent me is the “Górnośląskie Towarzystwo Genealogiczne ‘Silius Radicum’,” or the Upper Silesian Genealogical Society “Silesian Roots.” Under an agreement signed on the 21st of January 2015 with the State Archives in Katowice, the Society obtained permission to digitize genealogical records in the State Archive, a function not then being undertaken by the National Archives. The Society further obtained authorization to post the digitized records to their website.
The published books are classified according to the three main faiths, Roman Catholic, Evangelical, and Jewish within the historical area of Upper Silesia. The records generally cover the years 1800 to 1874 and are duplicates of records which were submitted to the court. At the time these records were created, the Standesämter, the civil registration offices, had not yet been established in Prussia, something which began in 1874.
The Ratibor-related files to which Peter Albrecht sent me the Dropbox link are listed in the following table:
Book Signature Number
Polish & English Names
No. of Pages
1693
Racibórz akta ludności wyznania mojżeszowego—urodzenia 1851-1855.
Racibórz population records of the Jewish faith, births 1851 – 1855.
304
1694
Racibórzakta ludności wyznania mojżeszowego–urodzenia 1910
Racibórz population records of the Jewish faith, births 1910
12
1695
Racibórzakta ludności wyznania mojżeszowego–małżeństwa 1869-1870
Racibórz records of Jewish population, marriages 1869-1870
299
1696
Racibórzakta ludności wyznania mojżeszowego–małżeństwa 1872-1885
Racibórz records of the Jewish population, marriages 1872-1885
376
1697
Racibórzakta ludności wyznania mojżeszowego–urodzenia, małżeństwa 1852-1853
Racibórz population records of the Jewish faith, births + marriages 1852-1853
386
1698
Racibórz(powiat)akta ludności wyznania mojżeszowego–urodzenia, zgony 1841-1847
Racibórz (county) population records of the Jewish faith, births + deaths 1841-1847
17
1699
Racibórzakta ludności wyznania mojżeszowego–urodzenia, małżeństwa, rozwody, zgony 1815-1844
Racibórz Jewish population records – births + marriages + divorces + deaths 1815-1844
87
1700
Racibórzakta ludności wyznania mojżeszowego–urodzenia, małżeństwa, rozwody, zgony 1845-1847
Kornowacakta ludności wyznania mojżeszowego–urodzenia, małżeństwa, zgony1845-1848
Kornowac (Kornowatz) Jewish population records – births, marriages, deaths 1845-1848
24
TOTAL PAGES
1,549
For my purposes, Signature Books 1701 (Groß Gorschütz) and 1702 (Kornowatz) were of no interest.
While theoretically including records between 1800 and 1874, readers will notice significant gaps in what’s been digitized. Whether those records still exist or have yet to be scanned is unknown. Excluding Signature Books 1701 and 1702 which cover areas outside Ratibor, the table below shows the years for which birth, marriage, divorce, and death records are available for Ratibor through the Upper Silesian Genealogical Society’s website:
Ratibor Births
Ratibor Marriages
Ratibor Divorces
Ratibor Deaths
1815-1844 (Book 1699)
1841-1847 (Book 1698)
1845-1847 (Book 1700)
1851-1855 (Book 1693)
1910 (Book 1694)
1815-1844 (Book 1699)
1845-1847 (Book 1700)
1869-1870 (Book 1695)
1872-1885 (Book 1697)
1815-1844 (Book 1699)
1845-1847 (Book 1700)
1815-1844 (Book 1699)
1841-1847 (Book 1698)
1845-1847 (Book 1700)
Comparing the above to what’s available for Ratibor through the Mormon Church’s Family History Library, we find three films with Jewish records. Microfilm 1184447 includes cemetery deeds between 1888 and 1940; Microfilm 1184448 records deaths between 1865 and 1930; and Microfilm 1184449 documents births between 1815 and 1874 and marriages between 1814 and 1862. Clearly researchers would want to examine both databases since there’s only partial overlap. More on this below.
Before discussing the most informative documents found in the other Signature Books, let me describe the process step by step for accessing the primary source documents digitized by the Upper Silesian Genealogical Society:
Go to https://siliusradicum.pl/en/ksiegi-metrykalne/
On the portal page, readers can select one of four languages: English, German, Polish, or Czech;
While the “User Panel” allows you to sign in or register, the records can be accessed without doing so simply by scrolling down the page to the list of towns;
The towns for which Signature Books are available are listed alphabetically;
By way of example, select “ASC Jewish Community—Racibórz (Ratibor”;
Select “Browse online with Dropbox” towards the bottom of the page, and the ten Signature Books described above will be listed;
Select one, then scroll through the pages, and download relevant pages individually;
Once done perusing all the pages in a particular Signature Book, hit the “Back” button. Select “ASC gminy żydowskiej – Racibórz (Ratibor)” under “Copy to Dropbox” or “Download” and you’ll be taken back to the list of Signature Books. The first page of each Signature Book is a PDF page that describes its contents.
For my purposes, Ratibor Signature Books, 1693, 1695, 1699, and 1700 were most informative.
I dub my great-great-great-grandfather Jacob Nathan Bruck (1770-1836) the paterfamilias of the Ratibor line of the Bruck family. As recently as Post 149, Part 1, I wrote it was indeterminately estimated he was born in 1762 or 1770 and died in 1832 or 1836. Thanks to a death register listing I found in Signature Book 1699, I now know his exact death date, the 29th of June 1836, when he was 66 years of age (Figure 4), meaning he obviously was born in 1770. This was the most exciting find in the Signature Books from Ratibor.
I will devote an upcoming post to the scant but tantalizing clues I’ve collected about Jacob Nathan Bruck, including the number of children I can firmly document that he and his wife, Marianne Aufrecht, begat. Various ancestral trees I’ve found on ancestry.com and in MyHeritage claim that his first offspring was a daughter named Helene Bruck who was purportedly married to an Itzig Mendel Guttman Aufrecht. Serendipitously, I also found Helene Aufrecht, née Bruck’s, death register listing showing she died in 1838 at the age of 68 (Figure 5), meaning that like Jacob Bruck she too was born in 1770. They could conceivably have been twins but were more likely cousins. While it’s possible Jacob’s first daughter was indeed named Helene, something I’ve not yet found evidence of, Helene Aufrecht was assuredly not Jacob’s daughter and Itzig Aufrecht was certainly not Jacob’s son-in-law. Intriguingly, Helene gave birth to a child in 1815 at the improbable age of 45. (Figure 6)
I often remind readers that some information found on family trees in ancestry.com, MyHeritage, and Geneanet with respect to dates of vital events and names and numbers of offspring is notoriously unreliable. Unverified vital data is often cloned from existing trees by people seeking to build their own genealogical charts. I typically reject much of this data unless it’s backed up by primary source documentation, particularly as it relates to individuals born in the late 18th and early 19th centuries when records on Jews living then are sparse.
It is not my intention to review all the personally intriguing discoveries I made in perusing the digitized Silius Radicum records from Ratibor, since they are of scant interest to most readers. However, several things stand out that are worth briefly discussing.
Even if the Ratibor records in Silius Radicum themselves are unique, some of the data was previously known to me from similar documents in which the same data was recorded. For example, three of the paterfamilias Jacob Nathan Bruck’s oldest daughters were married, respectively, in 1814 (Wilhelmine Bruck), 1817 (Dorothea Babette Bruck), and 1822 (Fanny Bruck). I previously discovered this information on LDS Family History Center Microfilm 1184449 where a register documenting their marriages and family relationships was found. (Figures 7-8) On the typed Jewish Records Indexing-Poland database, much of the same information is recorded, presumably copied from the Mormon Church’s films. (Figure 9)
In Silius Radicum I discovered register pages for the same three marriages, with family relationships similarly noted. (Figures 10-11) However, the handwriting is noticeably different and the registers dissimilar in appearance, meaning the information was recorded in duplicate and likely stored separately. Clearly, the records that Silius Radicum digitized were never photographed by the Mormon Church. Obviously, this is noteworthy because it means the possibility exists that additional records for Jews from Ratibor and Upper Silesia may eventually materialize.
One of my ancestors from Ratibor through whom I’m related to most of my cousins in America because of his fecundity was the brewer Markus Braun (1817-1870). On LDS Family History Center Microfilm 1184449, the birth register shows he had twelve children with his first wife, Caroline Spiegel, then another two with his second wife, Johanna Goldstein, the last of whom was born after he died and named after him. Signature Book 1693, while only covering the years 1851 through 1855, includes copies of the actual birth certificates for several of Markus’ children with his first wife. In Signature Book 1700, I learned that Markus and Caroline were married on the 25th of August 1846 (Figure 12), and discovered they had a daughter named Sara, the first of 13 rather than only 12 children, on the 28th of October 1846 (Figure 13), shortly after they wed.
Again, the dates of birth of most of Markus’ children was previously known to me from Microfilm 1184449. What is new based on the Signature Books from Ratibor are the actual birth certificates for several of Markus and Caroline’s children and the discovery of a 13th child with his first wife. This again proves that the documents digitized by Silius Radicum were not previously photographed by the Mormon Church and likely have not been closely studied by people investigating their ancestors from Ratibor.
One of the most extensive records I discovered was a 14-page marriage folio in Signature Book 1695 which includes Ratibor marriages from only 1869 and 1870. This brief period happens to coincide with when Alma Braun (1851-1919) (Figure 14), one of Markus’ daughters, got married to Adolph Schück (1840-1916) (Figure 15) on the 1st of September 1870, and is their marriage file. One of my German cousins translated and interpreted the document for me. Suffice it to say, the pages contain an astonishing amount of ancestral information, including the precise date Markus Braun died, the 4th of February 1870, at the age of 52; clearly, he died some months before Alma got married. Additionally, had I not already known this information, the file would have allowed me to work out family relationships which are recorded in detail.
As I mentioned above, there is some overlap between the Jewish records for Ratibor available online through familysearch and the newer stash found in Silius Radicum. For example, all the offspring of Jacob Nathan Bruck’s three eldest daughters married, respectively, in 1814, 1817, and 1822, are found in both databases. By contrast, for my great-great-grandparents Samuel Bruck (1808-1863) (Figure 16) and Charlotte Marle (1809-1861) (Figure 17), the Silius Radicum records only include eight of their nine known children; the ninth one can only be found on LDS Microfilm 1184449.
In closing, I admit that I do not know whether the Jewish and non-Jewish vital records the Upper Silesian Genealogical Society has digitized are widely known and/or used by ancestral researchers. I can only speak for myself and acknowledge that I was unaware of them. I hope for others who are in my situation that they may discover some hidden “gems” like I did.
Note: In this post, I discuss how I recently came into possession of images of ancestors from a branch of my family that originates mostly from Breslau [today:Wrocław, Poland], and learned about a memoir written by the grandfather of the English lawyer who shared these pictures.
A scant three months ago, on the 29th of September 2023 to be precise, I received an email from a lawyer living in Wolverhampton in the West Midlands of England, Helen Winter, née Renshaw. (Figure 1) I say “scant” because in the short period since we’ve been in touch, we’ve already exchanged several hundred emails.
In Helen’s initial missive, she explained that she is a descendant of the Bruck family and that her maternal grandfather was Professor Eberhard Friedrich Bruck (1877-1960). (Figure 2) He taught law at the University of Bonn until enactment of “The Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service” (German: Gesetz zur Wiederherstellung des Berufsbeamtentums, shortened to Berufsbeamtengesetz) by the Nazis on the 7th of April 1933. The primary objective of this law was to establish a “national” and “professional” civil service by dismissing certain groups of tenured civil servants, including individuals of Jewish descent and non-Aryan origins. Additionally, the law forbade Jews, non-Aryans, and political opponents from holding positions as teachers, professors, judges, or within the government. It also extended to other professions such as lawyers, doctors, tax consultants, musicians, and notaries.
Following Eberhard’s dismissal as university professor and confiscation of his home, he fled to the United States and wound-up teaching at Harvard University. As Helen further explained, her grandfather wrote a memoir for his daughter, Helen’s mother (Figure 3), relating the history of his branch of the Bruck family. As a Christmas gift to her nephews and nieces, Helen has slowly been translating the account. Her grandfather’s chronicle makes mention of the Bruck’s “Prinz von Preußen” Hotel, the family business in Ratibor [today: Racibórz, Poland] owned by three generations of my family. (Figure 4) While researching the history and fate of the hotel, Helen stumbled on multiple blog posts where I made mention of the establishment.
Helen has promised to share her grandfather’s translated story but has given me a preview of the brief entry her grandfather Eberhard Bruck wrote about his great-grandfather, Jacob Nathan Bruck, my great-great-great-grandfather from Ratibor. Since Jacob arguably died in 1832 or 1836 and Eberhard was born in 1877, he would not have known him personally. Eberhard’s written accounts of Jacob are likely stories he heard about him growing up and may have been clouded by the lens through which childhood memories are often remembered. In an upcoming post, I intend to discuss the meager details I’ve been able to uncover about my earliest known ancestor from Ratibor but suffice it for now to say the particulars caused me to more thoroughly investigate when the Bruck’s Hotel might have been built. These findings will be the basis for yet another post because they give insights on avenues others may want to follow in examining their own family histories.
On various occasions I’ve told readers that my ancestral tree has fewer than 1,500 names, which pales in comparison to multiple trees I’ve come across with more than 100,000 names. I use my tree mostly to orient myself to the people I write about on my blog. That said, I have people in my tree, living and deceased, whose names I’ve come across without knowing anything about them. This was the case with my fourth cousin Thomas “Tom” Friedrich Brook until he contacted me asking if we were related; I wrote about Tom in Post 143. (Figure 5) This was also true of Helen who previously existed only as a wraith. Coincidentally, Tom and Helen Winter are second cousins who’ve never met (i.e., Helen and Tom’s grandfathers were brothers), and like Tom, Helen is my fourth cousin.
In conjunction with translating her grandfather’s memoirs, Helen recently obtained family documents and pictures her older sister was curating. (Figure 6) Scrutinizing these items in combination has caused Helen to become obsessed with ancestral research. I can relate!
It is not my intention to further dwell on this branch of my family. However, as I just mentioned, I have numerous individuals in my tree I know nothing about and have no idea what they looked like. As names only, they are lifeless. Helen has been like the gift that keeps on giving because she has sent me pictures of many of my ancestors, including some of the earliest known ones from Breslau [today: Wrocław, Poland]. Acquiring these visuals for my ancestral tree is like filling in my Bingo card!
Among the most beguiling images Helen sent are ones of Jacob Bruck’s son and daughter-in-law, Dr. Jonas Julius Bruck (1813-1883) (Figures 7a & b-10) and Rosalie Bruck, née Marle (1817-1890) (Figures 11-12) and his famous grandson, Dr. Julius Bruck (1840-1902). (Figure 13) Julius is known for having designed in 1867 a water-cooled diaphanoscopic instrument for transillumination of the bladder via the rectum.
Jonas and Julius Bruck and their respective wives are interred in a mausoleum-like structure at the Old Jewish Cemetery in Wrocław, Poland (Figure 14), and are among my only Bruck ancestors whose burial location is known. Because I am friends with the Branch Manager of the Old Jewish Cemetery, Dr. Renata Wilkoszewska-Krakowska (Figure 15), I shared the pictures Helen sent with her and she was thrilled to receive them since some of the people are interred in “her” cemetery.
To close this post, I will share two other images (Figures 16-17) Helen has sent over the last several weeks, like the twelve daily gifts of Christmas! Suffice it to say, my Bingo card is becoming quite full!
Note: In this post, I discuss a recently obtained list of students who attended Ratibor’s Gymnasium, or high school, between its opening in 1819 and 1849, and facts I’ve gleaned from this registry. While I expected a linear unfolding of the ledger’s contents and information, in some ways it has turned into a game of three-dimensional chess, as I’ll explain. This post also provides an opportunity to lay out the exacting approach I try and take to make a case for ancestral connections relying on primary source documents.
One of the most exciting moments doing forensic genealogy occurs when you discover a copy or original historic document with the names of your ancestors, particularly when the names are those of your oldest known relatives. As a former archaeologist, this is analogous to unearthing an artifact that was last handled by a human hundreds if not thousands of years ago. The context in which an artifact or document is found is key to properly interpreting its significance.
Last year, Mr. Paul Newerla, my friend from Ratibor, retired lawyer and current writer of Silesian history, mentioned that 2019 marked the bicentennial of Ratibor’s Gymnasium, or high school, still used today as a commercial school. To remind readers, Ratibor is the town where my father, Dr. Otto Bruck, was born in 1907. In Post 60, using background information provided by Mr. Newerla, I discussed the high school’s history and a publication Paul found archived at the British Museum written by the school’s first director, Dr. Carl Linge, entitled “Denkschrift über die feierliche Eröffnung des Königl. Evangel. Gymnasium zu Ratibor am 2. Juni 1819. . .,” “Memorandum on the solemn opening of the Royal Evangelical High School in Ratibor on June 2, 1819. . .” (Figure 1) This publication, printed in 1820, included a list of names of all first-year attendees, including two members of my Bruck family with only the initials of their forenames written in elaborate Gothic script, read by Paul as “S. Bruck” and J. Bruck.” (Figure 2) Based on the intimate knowledge of my family tree, I concluded these stood for Samuel Bruck (1808-1863) and Jonas Bruck (1813-1883), brothers who are shown as the children of Jacob Bruck in an abridged typed family tree developed by my Uncle Dr. Fedor Bruck. (Figure 3)
Typically, attendance at Gymnasiums begins between the ages of 10 and 12, give or take a year, so Samuel’s attendance in 1819 when he would have been 11 years old makes sense. However, his brother Jonas’s attendance in 1819, when he was only six years old seems implausible, unless he was exceptionally precocious. Absent any other incontrovertible evidence, however, this is the preliminary conclusion I came to in Post 60, namely, that Jonas Bruck had attended the Ratibor Gymnasium at a very early age.
Naturally, I became curious whether the original ledger of student names upon which Dr. Linge’s publication was based still exists, whether it is in the Polish State Archives in Racibórz or possibly curated by the Muzeum Racibórzu. Paul explained that because an existing commercial school now occupies the buildings of the former high school (Figure 4), some of the original records are retained there. In the recent past, there had apparently been some discussion about transferring the remaining ledgers to the archive or museum but for unknown reasons these negotiations ended acrimoniously.
Paul offered to contact the commercial school and inquire about the student ledgers, which he knew to have existed at one time because a colleague had shared some pictures of the “Album,” as it is referred to. Paul was recently granted access to the Gymnasium’s records. This turned out to be a frustrating exercise because the school was unable to initially locate the Album of student names for the period 1819 to 1849, even presented with irrefutable evidence of its existence in the form of pictures; Paul even checked the school’s archives, to no avail. Dispiritedly, Paul left his name and number, and asked them to call him if the Album was ever found.
Paul was not optimistic the ledger would turn up. He’s related some horror stories how nearby Polish and Czech Republic parishes have on occasion burned Kirchenbücher, church books, Kirchenmatrikeln, the roll or register of parishioners, and Pfarrmatrikel, parish matriculations, related to former German occupants of the area simply because none of their descendants live locally anymore. To use another archaeological analogy, it’s like pillaging a cultural site, ripping a page from prehistory, so to speak. So, it came as a pleasant surprise when several weeks after Paul’s visit to the former Ratibor Gymnasium he received a call telling him they’d finally located the Album in question. Paul promptly visited the commercial school and took pictures of the entire ledger of students covering the period 1819 through 1849, roughly 90 pages worth of material, which he sent me. (Figure 5)
I’ve been a coin collector much of my life and going through all the pages of the Ratibor Gymnasium Album was comparable to sorting through a cache of pennies in search of pre-1959 wheat chaff coppers. While the names of family members I discovered were relatively few, the information corresponding to each ancestor has provided multiple avenues for further investigation. The challenge is making sense of ancestral connections for people who lived 170 to 200 years ago in the context of what was a very large Bruck family at the time. As I mentioned at the outset, it’s a bit like playing three-dimensional chess
In the table below, I summarize the family data I gleaned from the Ratibor student ledger. Then, I examine using available primary source documents how or whether these people are or may be related.
SUMMARY OF FAMILY NAMES FROM RATIBOR GYMNASIUM ALBUM, 1819-1849
Readers will note that Isaac and Samuel Bruck’s names are listed in succession and bracketed, and the profession of their father is identical, an “Arrendator,” a leaseholder (i.e., holding property by lease). Thus, I assume they were brothers, although I had no prior knowledge of Isaac. Samuel Bruck (1808-1863) (Figure 7) was my great-great-grandfather, and I have photos of both he and his wife, Charlotte Bruck née Marle (1809-1861), later in life. Samuel purchased the family hotel in Ratibor, the Bruck’s “Prinz von Preußen” Hotel, around the middle of the 19th Century, following a career as a wood merchant.
My uncle Dr. Fedor Bruck produced an abbreviated typed family tree (Figure 3) that includes the names of Samuel Bruck and his brother Jonas (more on him later), shown to be the sons of Jacob Bruck and his wife Maria Aufrecht. From primary source documents, Jacob (Jakob) Nathan Bruck, his complete name, and Maria Aufrecht are known to have had other children. LDS microfilm roll 1184449 for Ratibor documents the birth of a daughter named Rebecka on the 10th of January 1815. (Figure 8) The same microfilm roll also documents the marriages of three of Jacob’s daughters, Wilhelmina, Dorothea, and Fanny, respectively, in 1814, 1817, and 1822 (Figure 9); the mother is not identified but I presume is Maria Aufrecht. And, yet another primary source document identifies Jacob Nathan Bruck as the father of a son named Marcus Moritz Bruck who married Nanette von Aldersthal in 1836 in Berlin at the age of 36 (Figure 10); again the mother is not named but I presume is Maria. So, from various sources, I can reasonably document that Jacob Nathan Bruck likely had at least eight children (i.e., Wilhelmina, Dorothea, Fanny, Marcus Moritz, Isaac, Samuel, Jonas, and Rebecka).
Let’s move on to Isaac and consider what primary sources are available for him. With the original Ratibor Gymnasium Album for 1819-1849 in hand, and with Isaac Bruck’s full name written out, I am now certain the initial for Isaac’s forename in Dr. Carl Linge’s 1820 publication referenced above was mistakenly recorded as a “J.” rather than an “I.” This led me to initially conclude that Jonas had attended the high school at the precocious age of 6. Not the case.
Isaac’s age at the time he attended the Ratibor Gymnasium in 1819 is stated as 13. Given that the Gymnasium Ratibor Album records students’ names starting on the 11th of May 1819, I generally place Isaac’s birth in the early part of 1806, though it could certainly have been in the latter half of 1805. I discovered a family tree on MyHeritage that gives an Isaac Bruck’s exact date of birth as the 9th of November 1805 in Breslau. However, upon locating the original birth register listing for this individual in the LDS microfilm for Breslau (LDS Roll 1184380, page 34 of 594), I found the listing is for someone named ISAAC BRUG. (Figure 11) Conceivably, an alternate spelling for “Bruck” in the early 19th Century could have been “BRUG,” but because the father is identified as “abr. Meyer Brug,” I’m dubious this is the same Isaac. I’m convinced Isaac’s father was Jacob Nathan Bruck because of his association in the student ledger with the name “Samuel Bruck,” whose father was assuredly Jacob. This is another example of something I rail about, the need to be cautious about adopting and replicating information found in other family trees without confirming the source of the data.
Years ago when I did a basic Google query on Isaac Bruck, I stumbled upon an intriguing announcement in Volume 18 of the “Amtsblatt für den Regierungsbezirk Marienwerder (Official Gazette for the Marienwerder District),” dated the 26th of May 1828 about him. (Figures 12a-b) There is no question the announcement relates to my ancestor as he is said to have come from Ratibor, and his age of 22 in 1828 coincides with my estimate of how old he would have been then had he been born between 1805 and 1806. It seems, the Security Services from the West Prussian town of Graudenz issued a bulletin in May of 1828 alerting the police authorities to arrest Isaac Bruck after he had gone AWOL or escaped from the local penitentiary. He was described as Jewish, 22 years old with black and curly hair, a black beard, a normal sized mouth, having an oval chin and face, of average stature, 5 feet 2 inches, with a scar on his right forearm from a horse bite. Whether Isaac was ever brought to justice remains unknown.
Several other primary sources from Ratibor make mention of Isaac Bruck and his wife Caroline Bruck née Stolz, who is identified as the daughter of Joachim Meyer Stolz. The birth register for Ratibor records Isaac and Caroline gave birth to a daughter named Fany on the 28th of December 1833 (Figure 13), who according to one of my cousins supposedly died in 1834. Isaac and Caroline’s divorce is recorded on the 19th of July 1835, and gives the name of Caroline’s father as “Joachim Meyer Stolz.” (Figure 14) Yet a third primary source from 1835, claiming that Caroline and Isaac are then living separately, states Isaac remarried a woman named Charlotte Leopold; this same document gives the names and dates of birth of Isaac and Caroline’s two other children, Marie born on the 27th of June 1832, and Heinrich on the 6th of January 1835. (Figure 15) Caroline Bruck née Stolz’s death certificate records her death in Berlin on the 24th of January 1875, and claims she was born in 1803 in Rawitsch [today: Rawicz, Poland]. (Figures 16a-b)
The Ratibor Gymnasium Album records Heimann’s enrollment on the 4th of April 1823, when he was 11 years old, placing his birth around 1812. Some ancestral trees claim his full name was “Heinrich Hermann Heimann Bruck.”
The Ratibor Gymnasium Album states that Heimann’s father was a “Destillateur,” a distiller, unlike Isaac and Samuel’s father, who, as mentioned, was an “Arrendator,” a leaseholder. Given that Jacob Nathan Bruck had so many siblings, it’s possible some lived in Ratibor, and that Heimann was one of Jacob’s nephews rather than his son. There is insufficient data to conclusively determine Heimann’s relationship to Jacob Bruck.
A Jonas Bruck, whose father was also a “Destillateur,” a distiller, was enrolled in the Ratibor Gymnasium on the 21st of April 1824, when he was 10 ½ years of age. Once again, the question of whether this Jonas was the son of Jacob Bruck or the son of one of his brothers or cousins is subject to debate. Let me explain.
The Jonas Bruck who was the son of Jacob Nathan Bruck and the father of the famed dentist Dr. Julius Bruck, discussed in Post 68, is buried in the Jewish Cemetery in Breslau; his dates of birth and death are thus known (i.e., b. 5 March 1813-d. 5 April 1883). (Figure 19) In April 1824, when Jonas was enrolled, he would already have been 11 years of age, not 10 ½ as noted. This, and the fact that the father of the Jonas who was enrolled in the Ratibor Gymnasium in April 1824 was “Destillateur” would suggest this is possibly not Jacob’s son. No way to be sure.
Marcus (Markus) Braun was enrolled at the Ratibor Gymnasium on the 19th of May 1829 at the age of 12 ½. Marcus, my great-great-grandfather, a Brauereipachter, or tenant brewer, was the subject of Post 14. He is known to have been born in 1817, and his age in 1829 confirms this.
Oscar (Oskar) Bruck was registered as a student at the Ratibor Gymnasium on the 22nd of May 1845. By this year, the precise date of birth of students rather than their age was recorded, and Oscar’s birth is noted as the 8th of October 1832, which corresponds with data available to me elsewhere (i.e., the Pinkus Family Collection at the Leo Baeck Institute). Oscar Bruck was my great-great-uncle.
On the 3rd of January 1846, a Heimann Bruck from another generation is enrolled at the Ratibor Gymnasium, and his father was “Sattlermeister,” or saddler. His date of birth is noted as the 26th of December 1833. It’s not clear how he’s related to Jacob Nathan Bruck. Figure 15 indicates that Isaac Bruck and Caroline Bruck née Stolz had a son named Heimann, born on the 6th of January 1835, so presumably the parents of the Heimann born on the 26th of December 1833 were someone other.
My great-grandfather Fedor Bruck (Figure 24), brother of Oscar Bruck, was enrolled at the Ratibor Gymnasium on the 27th of April 1848. His date of birth is recorded as the 30th of September 1834, which again corresponds with data available in the Pinkus Family Collection at the Leo Baeck Institute.
In preparing this Blog post, I conferred with one of my fourth cousins. He has in his possession a memoir written by his great-aunt Bertha Jacobson née Bruck, great-granddaughter of Jacob Nathan Bruck, claiming he was one of 17 children and had 12 children of his own with Maria Aufrecht!! One family tree manager, now deceased, has precise vital data on Jacob’s dates and places of birth and death (b. 18 February 1770, Pschow-d. 29 June 1832, Ratibor), as well as the birth years of a few of his children, but cites no source. Given the very precise dates and places, I’m inclined to believe they’re authentic, but I can’t independently confirm this, so I reserve judgement as to their accuracy.
Given the large number of potential ancestors Jacob Bruck may have had and the likelihood that names repeated themselves within and across generations, it’s difficult to pinpoint the relationship among all the Bruck members who attended the Ratibor Gymnasium absent more primary source documents.
In closing, I cannot emphasize strongly enough that many of the family history stories I relate on my Blog would be impossible without the generous assistance of a cadre of researchers and genealogists who offer their help free-of-charge simply because they derive a vicarious “high” from doing so. Obtaining the help of local historians and researchers, particularly native speakers, is especially valuable as they often have knowledge of historic documents, not yet automated, that an outsider, like myself, would be unaware of. The mere existence of my Blog, albeit of limited interest to most of the world, attracts enough attention by people in a position to further my ancestral investigations and allows me to relate some of my tales. To these named and unnamed people I’m eternally grateful.
Note: In this post, I talk about the Royal Evangelical Gymnasium (High School) in Ratibor, celebrating its 200th anniversary in 2019, and briefly discuss a contemporary publication from 1820 confirming my family’s connection to the city at that time.
This year Racibórz, Poland celebrates “200 Jahre der Königlichen Evangelischen Gymnasium zu Ratibor,” 200 Years of the Royal Evangelical Gymnasium (High School) in Ratibor. Around Easter, my friend Mr. Paul Newerla, retired lawyer and current Silesian historian, presented a lecture at the Muzeum w Raciborzu on this subject. In researching the school’s history, Paul discovered an old book published in Ratibor in 1820 upon the school’s opening, archived at the British Museum, entitled “Denkschrift über die feierliche Eröffnung des Königl. Evangel. Gymnasium zu Ratibor am 2. Juni 1819. . .,” “Memorandum on the solemn opening of the Royal Evangelical High School in Ratibor on June 2, 1819. . .” (Figure 1) Prior to Paul’s discovery, this publication was unknown to local historians.
This 1820 book contains an alphabetical listing of the students enrolled at the time the Gymnasium was opened, that, interestingly, includes two of my earliest ancestors (Figure 2):
These ancestors were brothers Jonas Bruck (1813-1883) (Figure 3) and Samuel Bruck (1808-1863) (Figure 4), sons of Jacob Nathan Bruck (1770-1832). In Post 11, I told readers the original owner of the family hotel in Ratibor, the Bruck’s “Prinz von Preußen” Hotel, had been my great-great-grandfather, the Samuel Bruck who attended the Ratibor Gymnasium. Previously, I’d known my family’s connection to Ratibor extended back to at least 1850, which corresponded to the approximate time when Samuel Bruck purchased the family hotel. However, Mr. Newerla brought to my attention information proving the Bruck family’s association with Ratibor in fact extended back at least one more generation to Samuel’s father. In Post 11, I reported that according to land registers from the city of Ratibor from the time of Jacob Bruck, he had been an arrendator, a leaseholder, on two properties within Ratibor. These were located, respectively, on Jungfrauenstraße and Stockhaus-Gasse, shown on an 1812 city map sent to me by Mr. Newerla. (Figure 5) How much earlier my Bruck family may have arrived in Ratibor, and from which Silesian town, remains unknown. Regardless, the list of the students enrolled at the Royal Evangelical Gymnasium in 1819 confirms an early 19th century connection to Ratibor by my ancestors.
Let me provide some brief historical background on the Royal Evangelical Gymnasium in Ratibor to help readers better understand the origins of the school, its locations, the age of the students, and their religious makeup.
Following a decision by the Royal Prussian Government on the 1st of October 1817, Ratibor became the seat of the Higher Regional Court of the Province of Upper Silesia. This coincided with the arrival of about twenty lawyers who discovered that Ratibor, then the largest city in Upper Silesia, had no grammar school for their children. Notably, those high schools that existed elsewhere at the time in Upper Silesia were all run by Catholic institutions or were in monasteries and were Catholic. The judges of the Higher Regional Court, as well as many other representatives of the intelligentsia, however, were Protestant. Thus, the President of the Regional Court of the Province of Upper Silesia appealed for the establishment of an Evangelical grammar school in Ratibor, which the King of Prussia granted on the 5th of June 1818. He appropriated 2,500 Reichtalers from the treasury for the maintenance of the new school and gave it the very spacious monastery of the Holy Ghost Dominican Church (Figure 6), which had been secularized in 1811. The monastery was located adjacent old city walls at the end of Jungfrauenstraße, coincidentally along the very street where Jacob Bruck leased property. Because the monastery buildings had to be renovated for school purposes, the Gymnasium was housed for a time in the former Franciscan monastery along Brunken (Figure 7), then located outside the city walls. Ratibor’s city walls, towers and gates, surrounding the town, were only demolished in 1828, after which the Prinz von Preußen was constructed at the corner of Oderstraße and Bollwerkstraße, eventually becoming the Bruck’s Hotel in the mid-19th Century.
When the Ratibor Gymnasium first opened its doors in the former Franciscan monastery, 114 students had passed an entrance examination and been admitted. Even though the high school was Protestant, paying students from all religious denominations could attend. The first class consisted of 40% Protestants, 50% Catholics, and 10% Jews. After only a few years the percent of Jewish students was at 20%, and never dropped much below this level, even though Ratibor’s Jewish population never exceeded 10%. This attests to the importance Jews attached to education.
The renovation of the grammar school on Jungfrauenstraße was not completed until 1827; the renovation included demolition of the east and north wings of the monastery, along with the removal of the city wall near the west wing, as it darkened the school rooms in this wing. Between 1819, when the grammar school opened, and 1827, when renovations were completed, the King of Prussia had issued an edict on January 16, 1821, giving the monastery church adjacent the Gymnasium to the Protestant parish (Figure 8) because their church located elsewhere in Ratibor was in danger of collapse on account of an unstable foundation.
By 1904, the Protestant parish had purchased a plot of land elsewhere in Ratibor on which to erect a new church. The plan had been to sell the former monastery church next to the Gymnasium to the Prussian State, dismantle the church, and use the parcel for the expansion of the grammar school. Even though essential components of the monastery dated to the 14th Century, the Conservator of the Provincial Burgermeister, essentially the Province of Silesia’s executive council, deemed the monastery to be of “insignificant monumental value.” This decision highlighted the power of Ratibor’s Protestants even over the General Conservator of the Province. It was only the refusal by the Prussian State to purchase the monastery that prevented its destruction and allows the facility to exist today as part of the Muzeum w Raciborzu. As a historic preservationist, I find it fascinating how serendipitous the survival of this noteworthy structure is.
By the 1870’s Ratibor’s Gymnasium numbered in excess of 700 students, so an approval and allocation of funds for an extension was obtained that was completed by 1881. (Figure 9) A third floor was eventually added to the high school. (Figure 10)
Attendance in kindergarten was optional. At the age of six one was admitted to elementary school. Schools were denominational until 1873, after which such religious schools were abolished. Compulsory education existed in Prussia since 1765, although unconditional compulsory education for boys and girls was not introduced until 1907. The school year started on the 1st of April, effectively after Easter. Following the fourth grade of elementary school, one could be admitted to high school with passage of an entrance exam, thus around the age of ten.
In the case of Samuel and Jonas Bruck who show up in 1819 as enrolled students in Ratibor’s Gymnasium, their attendance was no doubt due to passage of the entrance exam. Still, Jonas’ attendance at the precocious age of only six, he was born in 1813, seems early. There is no doubt, however, as to the year Jonas was born because he is buried along with one of his renowned sons and their respective wives in the Old Jewish Cemetery in Breslau [today: Wrocław, Poland], and his headstone provides his date of birth. (Figures 11a-b) Paul Newerla sent me one page of the register of students admitted to Ratibor’s Gymnasium along with their ages, and most were between 9 and 13 years of age. (Figure 12) This log still exists today, and, as we speak, Paul is working on having it donated to the Archiwum Państwowe W Katowicach Oddzial W Raciborzu (“State Archives in Katowice Branch in Racibórz”). Regardless of whether Paul is successful in this endeavor, he is working to access the log to check for other Bruck relatives who may have attended Ratibor’s Gymnasium over the years.
The names of the classes in the 9-year high school were taken from Latin. The lowest class was labeled “Sexta” (sixth), the next “Quinta” (fifth), then “Quarta.” The next three classes, “Tertia” (third), “Sekunda” (second), and “Prima” (first), each consisted of lower and upper grades, for example, “Untertertia” or “Obersekunda” (“unter” means lower, “ober” means upper). After completing the “Oberprima,” you could take the matriculation exam, the “Abitur,” that if passed allowed you to attend a university.
One other thing of passing interest regarding the Ratibor Gymnasium were its collections. In 1938, these consisted of a teacher’s library with 17,000 books, a student library with more than 2,000 volumes, as well as more than 200 books printed before 1600, and 28 incunabula, that is, books printed before 1501. The Ratibor Gymnasium also preserved collections considered useful such as minerals, plant specimens, seeds, mollusks and birds, as well as valuable numismatic collections. (Figures 13-14) When the Museum Raciborzu was founded in 1927, these collections were handed over to the museum. Unfortunately, the museum’s natural science collection, which was in the former Protestant rectory, burnt down in 1945 and has been completely lost.
One unusual exhibit, given to the Royal Evangelical Church in 1864 by the wealthy Jewish banker baron Anselm von Rothschild (Figure 15), lord of Chałupki and Szilerzowice, survives today in the Muzeum Raciborzu. As an archaeologist, I find this story fascinating. Around 1860, Anselm von Rothschild went on a journey to Egypt and brought back numerous souvenirs, among them a complete burial of an Egyptian woman which he intended as a wedding gift for his fiancée. The peculiar gift was rejected. Oddly, in Rothschild’s palace in Szilerzowice, in the presence of invited dinner guests, the two sarcophagi were opened, the cartonnage undone, and the embalmed corpse unwrapped from its bandages.
In 1864, the baron decided to rid himself of the mummy and donated it to the Antiquity Department of the Royal Evangelical Gymnasium. Along with the other collections preserved by the Gymnasium, the mummy was formally taken over by the Muzuem w Raciborzu when it was founded in 1927. The half-bandaged mummy, sarcophagi, and richly ornamented cartonnage as well as three canopic jars to keep the viscera of corpses, purchased from the Museum of Antiquity in Berlin before the war, today are the greatest attraction of the Muzeum w Raciborzu. (Figure 16) Scientific analysis on the mummy revealed it was an Egyptian woman who lived during the 12th Dynasty (946-722 B.C.) named Dzed-Amonet-ius-anch, meaning “goddess Amonet said she would live.” She was a wealthy married woman, probably the daughter of a priest and barber from Thebes, who apparently died of complications from pregnancy.
The Ratibor Gymnasium is still standing today and is currently used as an economic middle school. (Figure 17) According to Paul Newerla, this middle school is where the volume with the names of students enrolled in the former Gymnasium was once kept, along with portfolios of graduation certificates. As we speak, Paul is trying to track down the current provenience of these materials to access their contents and see what more they can tell us about my Bruck relatives.
1820 Denkschrift ueber die feierliche Eroeffnung des Koenigl. Evangel. Gymnasium zu Ratibor am 2. Juni 1819 nebst den dabei gehaltenen Reden des Consistorialrath Dr. Wachler und des Dr. Linge und anderen Beilagen, Ratibor.
Note: This postscript discusses additional information obtained about the Bruck’s “Prinz Von Preußen” Hotel from a Polish gentleman who has written a book on the history of Ratibor.
Following publication of Post 11, Mr. Paul Newerla from Raciborz, Poland, author of a book on Ratibor, entitled “Ratibor einst und jetzt” (“Ratibor, then and now”) (Figure 1), contacted me. He shared a lot of information and visuals from his book and other sources, including historic maps, to round out my understanding of the Bruck’s “Prinz von Preußen” Hotel, the inn owned by my family for three generations. Mr. Newerla also made me aware that my family’s connection to Ratibor extends a generation earlier. According to land registers from the city of Ratibor, Jacob Bruck (1770-1832), father of the original owner of the Prinz von Preußen, Samuel Bruck, was an arrendator, a lease-holder, on two properties within Ratibor. Jacob owned properties on Jungfernstrasse and Stockhaus-Gasse prior to construction of the family hotel; interestingly, an 1812 city map sent to me by Mr. Newerla shows the exact parcels owned by Jacob. (Figure 2)
Ratibor’s city walls, towers (Figure 3) and gates, surrounding the town, were only demolished in 1828, after which the Prinz von Preußen was constructed at the corner of Oderstraße and Bollwerkstraße. (Figures 4, 5, & 6) The same 1812 map just alluded to shows the city walls and gates. Approximating the position of the family hotel, it appears it was built almost atop where one Odertor, city gate, once stood.
A historian, Ms. Katrin Griebel from Zittau, Saxony, who has studied the surviving personal papers of two of my great-aunts, Franziska Bruck and Elsbeth Bruck, archived at the Stadtmuseum in Berlin, has gleaned some anecdotes about the family hotel. According to Ms. Griebel, the building occupied by the Bruck’s Hotel was the former palace of a marquis. Upon the nobleman’s death, the palace became known as the “Prinz von Preußen.”
By 1850, the marquis’s palace was assuredly a hotel. Mr. Newerla sent me notices related to two orchestral performances given by Johann Strauss the Younger at the “Prinz von Preußen.” In October 1850, Johann Strauss had plans to perform in front of the Russian Czar, and on his way to Russia he performed at the hotel the evening of October 17, 1850, spending the night. (Figure 7) On his return from Warsaw, he again stopped in Ratibor, giving an orchestral performance “im Saale des Prinzen von Preußen,” the “Hall of the Prince of Prussia,” on the afternoon of November 17, 1850 (Figure 8), leaving that same evening for Vienna.
The Bruck’s Hotel’s “Saale des Prinzen von Preußen” (Figure 9) served other community functions. Mr. Newerla has found records indicating that on October 31, 1859, Ratibor’s fire department held a large carnival ball there; the fire department also organized a theatrical performance, the proceeds of which were earmarked for the assistance of an injured fire brigade colleague.
Several pages from Mr. Newerla’s book discuss the founding in Ratibor of the “Peace Lodge XVII No. 361”of the “Independent Order B’nai B’rith” on May 9, 1886, which met at the “Prinz von Preußen.” B’nai B’rith was originally founded in 1843 in New York, and became established in Berlin, Germany in 1882. My great-grandfather, Fedor Bruck, was a member of Ratibor’s Lodge. Even though the statute of the Lodge specifically excluded politics from its field of activities, they were under police surveillance. While the Lodge continued to meet at the Bruck’s Hotel until at least April 1934 and steered clear of political matters, they appear to have been under pressure to disband.
Page 39 from Ratibor’s 1889 Address & Business Book (Figure 10), sent to me by Mr. Newerla, lists residents along Oderstraße, including number 16. Both my great-grandfather, Fedor Bruck, and grandfather, Felix Bruck, are listed at this address. Fedor is the “Besitzer,” or owner, and Felix Bruck the “Geschäftsführer,” the Managing Director (Figure 11); by 1892 Fedor Bruck was deceased. Under business listings, there are none for hotels, but Fedor Bruck is listed under “Gasthöfe 1 Classe,” first-class inns, and, oddly, under “Bade-Anstalten,” or bathing establishments. (Figure 12)
Mr. Newerla sent me a series of advertisements for the Bruck’s Hotel. (Figures 13-19) They appear to extend from the time the hotel was owned by my great-grandfather, Fedor Bruck, possibly through the 1930’s and later. Throughout its existence, it was known as the “Bruck’s ‘Prinz von Preußen’ Hotel,” even though it was no longer owned by my family.
