Kazimierz Świetliński Archives - bruckfamilyblog.com

POST 139: THE STORY OF A JEWISH WOMAN BURIED IN RACIBÓRZ’S CATHOLIC CEMETERY

INTRODUCTION

The following is a guest post written by Ms. Magda Wawoczny, a student in Jewish studies at Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland, who hails from Racibórz, Poland. Magda first contacted me in 2021 when she was working on her bachelor’s degree and interviewed me about my family’s connection to Ratibor (today: Racibórz, Poland), when the city was part of Germany. Regular readers know that my family owned the Bruck’s “Prinz von Preußen” Hotel in Ratibor from around 1850 through the mid-1920s. Knowing I had visited Racibórz on a few occasions, Magda was also interested in my impressions of the city.

In May 2023, Magda reached out to me again in connection with her ongoing master’s degree work in Jewish studies, still centered around her hometown. Surprisingly, she asked if I could help her get in touch with Monica Lewinsky’s father, Dr. Bernard Lewinsky, who is a Radiation Oncologist in Los Angeles. Unbeknownst to me, Monica’s immediate ancestors come from Ratibor and her great-grandfather, Salo Lewinsky, was once buried in the former Jewish cemetery in Ratibor.

More recently Magda has been researching a Jewish woman by the name of Minna Linzer, née Guttmann (1873-1928) whose body had been exhumed in 1972 from the former Jewish cemetery in Ratibor prior to its destruction in 1973 and reburied in the town’s Catholic cemetery. The reason for this is explained in the current post. Magda’s interest in contacting Dr. Lewinsky stems from the fact that the Lewinsky and Linzer families were friends. Whereas the Lewinsky family emigrated to El Salvador during the 1920s and thereby survived the Holocaust, most of Minna Linzer’s family stayed in Ratibor and therefore perished.

Separately, but at around the same time as I was trying to reach Dr. Bernard Lewinsky, a German lady by the name of Ms. Jessica Nastos contacted me through my blog’s webmail. Jessica had stumbled upon Post 72 where I discussed so-called cabinet cards. One studio I’d specifically mentioned that produced these cards in Ratibor was the Helios Photo Studio, which was the subject of my previous post. Jessica told me her mother had once worked in the studio and offered to send me contemporary photos of the studio including a picture of an old envelope with the studio’s name and logo. Upon receiving the pictures, I realized they included images of the Linzer’s that Magda has been researching, including most family members from Ratibor who died in the Holocaust; astonishingly, there was even a picture of Minna Linzer, née Guttmann with her oldest son Jan (Germans: Hans). Minna’s husband, Hermann Linzer (1874-1944), carried this photo with him throughout World War I, and a bullet hole through the photo attests to a wound he suffered during the war. (Figure A)

Figure A. Minna Linzer, née Guttmann, with her oldest child, Jan Linzer; this photo was carried around by her husband Hermann Linzer during his deployment in World War I and bears a bullet hole attesting to a wound he received during the war (photo courtesy of Jessica Nastos family archive)

When so many Jews were murdered by the Nazis in their effort to obliterate proof of their existence, it is bitter satisfaction to uncover photos of some of these people to emphasize the fact that the Nazis ultimately failed.

With the above as backdrop, I now turn the lectern over to Magda.

POST 13, POSTSCRIPT: THE FORMER JEWISH CEMETERY IN RATIBOR (RACIBÓRZ)

POST 72: FAMILY CABINET CARDS FROM RATIBOR & BERLIN PHOTO STUDIOS

POST 138: INTRIGUING DISCOVERIES ABOUT RATIBOR’S HELIOS PHOTO STUDIO

POST 139: THE STORY OF A JEWISH WOMAN BURIED IN RACIBÓRZ’S CATHOLIC CEMETERY

MAGDA WAWOCZNY

JAGIELLONIAN UNIVERSITY

The most important places related to the Jewish heritage of Racibórz that survived the end of World War II were the synagogue and the cemetery. While the synagogue was destroyed by a fire on the 9^th of November 1938 on Kristallnacht (Figure 1), it endured as a ruin until it was demolished, the exact date of which is still being investigated. By contrast, the cemetery survived basically intact. Unfortunately, the Jewish inhabitants of Racibórz disappeared from the city’s landscape during the war—those who managed to escape after Kristallnacht survived outside Germany, those who remained died in concentration camps. As a result, the Jewish cemetery in Racibórz was eventually razed since the community which it had served no longer existed to take care of it. Or so it seemed until now. . .

Figure 1. The Jewish Synagogue in Ratibor on fire on the 9th of November 1938 on Kristallnacht

Currently, for the purposes of my master’s thesis, I am researching the Jewish cemetery which was ultimately demolished in 1973. Based on the available sources, it is known that before the liquidation, photo documentation of all the burials and headstones was made by Mr. Kazimierz Świtliński (Figure 2) at the request of the city authorities. The documentation is on file at the Museum of Racibórz, and illustrates impressive tombstones made of marble, granite, and sandstone. In this post I will focus on one belonging to Minna Linzer, née Guttmann. (Figure 3)

Figure 2. Mr. Kazimierz Świetliński, the Polish gentleman who at the request of city authorities documented all the tombs and burials in Ratibor’s Jewish cemetery prior to its liquidation in 1973

Figure 3. The photo of Minna Linzer, née Guttmann’s headstone taken by Kazimierz Świetliński

During my archival investigations, my attention was drawn to an application by a woman from Racibórz who requested permission from the city authorities to exhume the body of her grandmother Minna Linzer from Ratibor’s former Jewish cemetery and transfer it together with the tombstone to the Catholic cemetery in the Ostróg district on Rudzka street. The woman emphasized that in the face of the anticipated liquidation of the cemetery, she felt an obligation to save the grave of her grandmother that she had taken care of and maintained for many years. The granddaughter was Elizabeth (Elzbieta) “Lilly” Slawik, née Grzonka. Her application to the city authorities was accompanied by a card with the inscription “eternal memory of those lost in the Auschwitz camp: Hermann Linzer, Jan Linzer, Małgorzata and Henryk Schiftan, Lota and Maks Tichauer.” (Figure 4)

Figure 4. The card with family names that accompanied Elizabeth (Elzbieta) “Lilly” Slawik, née Grzonka’s application to Racibórz city authorities requesting permission to exhume her grandmother’s remains from the former Jewish cemetery

Knowing only Elizabeth’s name and address, I started searching for her relatives. Fortunately, I managed to reach Elizabeth’s son, Minna’s great-grandson currently living in Germany. He explained that Elizabeth was the daughter of a Jewish man and a Catholic woman, and that the above-mentioned names are inscribed on the relocated grave in the Catholic cemetery. Elizabeth’s son mentioned that his mother took care of his great-grandmother’s tomb, and when she learned it was about to be destroyed, asked permission for the grave to be exhumed. Fascinatingly, he also mentioned that his mother had looked after the grave of Monica Lewinsky’s great-grandfather, Salo Lewinsky. (Figure 5) Despite directions from Elisabeth’s son to Minna’s grave in the Catholic cemetery, it was not easy to find.

Figure 5. The tombstone of Salo Lewinsky (1860-1930) photographed by Kazimierz Świetliński

Having been given the name of Salo Lewinsky’s still living grandson, Bernard Lewinsky, by Lilly’s son, I decided to try and contact him. For this purpose, I asked Richard Brook, author of this blog, for help. Dr. Lewinsky is an oncologist in Los Angeles, so he was quickly able to get in touch with him. Upon establishing contact, Dr. Lewinsky confirmed that his father George Lewinsky (1903-1989) had remained in contact with Elisabeth who took care of his father’s grave. Until the death of Bernard’s father, the families remained in contact. Unfortunately, the grave of Bernard’s grandfather, Salo, could not be saved when the Jewish cemetery was dismantled.

Thanks also to Richard’s help, I was able to obtain some information on the names inscribed on Minna Guttmann’s headstone and found on the card accompanying Elizabeth’s request to exhume her grave, such as their former place of residence, their occupations, and the date of the deportations to the Theresienstadt concentration camp.

A breakthrough in my research came when Richard coincidentally received an email from Elizabeth’s great-granddaughter, Jessica Nastos, about the Helios Photo Studio which was the subject of Richard’s blog Post 138; it turns out “Lilly” had worked there. Thanks to Jessica, I learned that Elizabeth was the child of a Jew, Jan Linzer (mentioned on the card accompanying Elizabeth’s application to the city authorities), and a Catholic, Paulina Grzonka, who could not be together due to the Nazi rule and the specter of war. (Figure 6) To protect themselves and Elizabeth, Paulina and Jan decided not to get married, although they symbolically exchanged rings as keepsakes, with each other’s initials engraved on them. Paulina (1895-1971) and Elizabeth (1926-2016) survived, while Jan (1901-1945) died in the Auschwitz concentration camp.

Figure 6. A photo of Elizabeth (Elzbieta) “Lilly” Slawik, née Grzonka with her unmarried parents, Hermann Linzer and Pauline Grzonka, taken in Breslau (today: Wrocław, Poland) in 1926, the year of Lilly’s birth (photo courtesy of Jessica Nastos family archive)

Thanks to Jessica’s information, it was possible to establish the identities of the people on the card. Minna Linzer (1873-1928) was the first wife of Hermann Linzer (1874-1944). She died in 1928, and after her death Hermann got remarried to a woman named Amalie Nebenzahl (1884-1944). Both died in 1944 in Theresienstadt. Hermann and Minna had four children: Jan (German: Hans), Małgorzata (German: Margaret), Lota, and Leo. Leo, the youngest son, was the only one who survived the war. (Figure 7) Małgorzata and Lota together with their husbands also died in Theresienstadt.

Figure 7. Hermann Linzer and Minna Linzer, née Guttmann’s four children, from left to right: Jan, Leo, Małgorzata, and Lota (photo courtesy of Jessica Nastos family archive)

Thanks to Jessica, based on photos from the 1990s, which show a relocated grave in the Catholic cemetery, I was able to find it. It is still there and in very good condition. (Figure 8) When it seemed that only archival documents and stories remained of the city’s Jewish heritage, it turns out that there is a preserved remnant of Jews in Racibórz, and Minna’s grave is proof of that.

Figure 8. Minna Linzer’s headstone as it looks nowadays with the names of her husband, her three children, and their spouses who were murdered in the Holocaust

POST 85: FURTHER EVIDENCE OF MY UNCLE WALTER BRUCK’S DEATH IN INFANCY

Note: In this post I relate the story of how in the process of helping a reader whose grandmother died in 1940 in Ratibor, the birthplace of my father, I improbably discovered information on some of my own ancestors.

Post 13: The Former Jewish Cemetery in Ratibor (Racibórz)

Post 13, Postscript: The Former Jewish Cemetery in Ratibor (Racibórz)

Figure 1. 1903 Ratibor postcard of the “Oderbrücke,” the bridge over the River Oder dividing the town

Ratibor [today: Racibórz, Poland] (Figure 1), the town in the Prussian province of Upper Silesia where my father, Dr. Otto Bruck, was born in 1907 was one of the largest municipalities in the region. Periodically, readers who are descended from former inhabitants of Ratibor will contact me through my Blog asking for information I have or may have come across related to their ancestors. Often, their relatives are entirely unknown to me but seeing what, if anything, I can uncover about them becomes an extension of my own forensic genealogical endeavors. And, the pleasure I derive in helping others is sometimes magnified when I learn something about my own ancestors in the process. The inspiration for the current post stems from precisely such a situation.

Figure 2. Mr. Kazimierz Świetliński, the gentleman from Racibórz responsible for photographing and documenting all the headstones in the former Jewish Cemetery in Ratibor

One reader, Dan Ward, recently contacted me after perusing Post 13 and Post 13, Postscript, and learning the “Muzeum w Raciborzu” in Racibórz had given me an Excel spreadsheet with the names of the Jews that had once been interred in the former Jewish Cemetery in Ratibor, requesting a copy of this database. This cemetery was demolished in the 1960’s during Poland’s Communist era to further expunge evidence of German residency in the area. Fortunately, before the stout headstones were torn down and sold off locally, a Polish gentleman whom I wrote about in Post 13, Postscript, Mr. Kazimierz Świetliński (Figure 2), had the foresight to photograph all the gravestones; these images served as the basis for the creation of the Excel database, with the Racibórz Museum staff gleaning as much vital information as possible from the high-quality snapshots. Despite the sharp and fine details on the photos, not all the data is discernible. More on this below.

Dan Ward contacted me seeking information on the tombstone and burial location of his grandmother, Rosa Wartenberger née Perl, who according to records he found was buried on the 29^th of March 1940 in the Jüdischer Friedhof Ratibor, Jewish Cemetery in Ratibor, in Plot 153; she died or committed suicide before she was scheduled to be deported to a concentration camp. As a quick aside, the “Ward” surname is clearly the Anglicized version of the “Wartenberger” family name. Dan sent me screen shots with the source of this information, Jewish Gen. As readers can see, Rosa Wartenberger’s name was misspelled as “Risa Wortenberger,” although the transcriber obviously had trouble deciphering the script. (Figure 3)

Figure 3. Screen shot from “JewishGen” with information on Rosa Wartenberger, misspelled as “Risa Wortenberger,” showing she was interred on the 29th of March 1940 in the “Jüdischer Friedhof Ratibor” in Plot 153

Armed with the information Dan sent me, I immediately began my own research. The first thing I checked was the Excel spreadsheet with the names of Jews formerly buried in the Jewish Cemetery in Ratibor, and Rosa Wartenberg is not listed. Dan would later tell me his grandmother’s maiden name was “Perl,” and I found four individuals with this surname once interred in the Jewish graveyard, but being unfamiliar with Dan’s family tree, I am not sure how they might have been related to her.

Next, I checked address books and phone directories for Ratibor. I have previously told readers about a database on ancestry.com, entitled “Germany and Surrounding Areas, Address Books, 1815-1974 (Adressbücher aus Deutschland und Umgebung, 1815-1974),” with address books for Germany, Poland, and other neighboring countries. In the only address book in this database for Ratibor for the year 1938, I found a single “Wartenberger.” It was for a man named “Kurt Wartenberger,” identified as a “gastwirt,” innkeeper, shown living at “Breite Straße 54.” (Figure 4)

Figure 4. Page from 1938 Ratibor Address Book listing “Kurt Wartenberger,” an innkeeper, shown living at “Breite Straße 54”

I asked my friend Mr. Paul Newerla from Racibórz, a retired lawyer whom regular readers have often heard me mention, who now researches and writes about the history of Silesia, whether the surname “Wartenberger” is familiar to him. It is not, but in a 1926 Ratibor Address Book not included among the “Germany and Surrounding Areas” directories, he too found “Kurt Wartenberger” listed, identified then as a “destillateur,” distiller, living at “Brunken 54.” (Figure 5) Other than finding Kurt Wartenberger’s name in the 1926 Ratibor directory, Paul could add nothing more.

Figure 5. Section from 1926 Ratibor Address Book listing “Kurt Wartenberger,” then a distiller, shown living at “Brunken 54”

I found it odd the address number “54” was identical in 1926 and 1938 but that the street names were different. Paul Newerla explained that “Brunken” was a connecting street to what is referred to as the Altendorf district, that’s to say, a little “outside” of Ratibor along the main road towards Oppeln [today: Opole, Poland] and Leobschutz [today: Głubczyce, Poland]. I located this street, respectively, on plan maps of Ratibor from 1927-28 (Figure 6) and 1933 (Figure 7), although a plan map from 1914 names it “Große-Vorstadt.” (Figure 8) In tiny print on all three plan maps, readers can see the number “54,” confirming it was the same corner lot with different street names over time.

Figure 6. 1927-28 Ratibor Plan Map with “Brunken” and number “54” circled

Figure 7. 1933 Ratibor Plan Map with “Brunken” and number “54” circled

Figure 8. 1914 Ratibor Plan Map with “Große-Vorstadt” and number “54” circled

I passed along what Paul and I had found to Dan Ward. He confirmed that Kurt had owned a tavern and that family papers in his possession place Kurt’s business at “Große-Vorstadt 54,” papers which must clearly pre-date 1927-28, by which time the street was known as “Brunken.” By 1938, the street had been renamed yet again because it was then called “Breite Straße.” According to Dan, Kurt Wartenberger was murdered in the Shoah in Buchenwald, and, indeed, Yad Vashem lists him as a victim of the Holocaust. (Figure 9)

Figure 9. Page from Yad Vashem confirming Kurt Wartenberger, born in 1884, was murdered during the Shoah

Next, I retraced Dan Ward’s steps to track down the source of the information on his grandmother, misspelled as mentioned above as “Risa Wortenberger.” The data, as I previously also said, originates from JewishGen, and relocating it was straight-forward. Here, however, is where things took an interesting turn. The source documentation for the data in JewishGen comes from elsewhere, namely, from the Church of Latter-Day Saints’ (LDS) “Family History Library International Film 1184447, Item 2” (Figure 10), which is one of three microfilm rolls with data on the former Jewish inhabitants of Ratibor. While I had last examined this microfilm many years ago, when it was still necessary to order films from the LDS Church in Salt Lake City and have hard copies sent to a local Family History Library for viewing, I clearly remembered this roll as having limited or, at least, confusing information. Now that the Ratibor records are accessible online through familysearch.org, I decided to reexamine film 1184447.

Figure 10. Source of information on Rosa Wartenberger circled, namely, the Church of Latter-Day Saints’ (LDS) “Family History Library International Film 1184447, Item 2”

For anyone interested in seeking similar information from familysearch.org for towns they are researching, they can replicate these steps:

1) Go to familysearch.org (you can create a free account);

2) Under the “Search” button, scroll down to “Catalog,” click enter, and go to the following page;

3) Next, type in “Raciborz” under “Place,” or whatever town you are seeking records for (i.e., different spellings yield different results, so for towns that are now located in different countries than they once were, you may need to try alternate spellings);

4) Scroll down to “Poland, Opole, Racibórz (Racibórz),” then hit “Search”;

5) Select “Poland, Opole, Racibórz (Racibórz) – Jewish records (1),” hit enter;

6) Next select “Matrikel, 1814-1940”;

7) On the next screen select “1184447, Item 2” (select the camera icon all the way to the right; if there is a key above a camera icon, the microfilm is unavailable online).

There are 342 pages on Microfilm 1184447 but only pages 220 through 338, referred to as “Item 2,” specifically deal with Ratibor. The film contains “Friedhofsurkunden 1888-1940” for Ratibor, which Peter Hanke, my German friend who helps me with translations and making sense of German records, tells me is more aptly referred to as “Friedhofsdokumente,” or cemetery documents. The cemetery administration would use these files to see which tombs were unused; which ones could be reused after 25 or 30 years if descendants stopped paying to keep their ancestors interred; which tombs were reserved in perpetuity for so-called “family graves”; or simply to help visitors locate specific graves. These files often contain useful information for genealogists, as I illustrate below.

Let me digress for a moment. Given the disparate sources of ancestral information I have accessed over the years, including in this current post, I am often reminded of the American television game show “Concentration” that aired from 1958 until 1991. Basically, the game was based on the children’s memory game of the same name. Players had to match cards which represented prizes they could win. As matching pairs of cards were gradually removed from the board, it would slowly reveal a rebus puzzle that contestants had to solve to win a match. The similarity I see with genealogical research is not so much solving the rebus, but matching pairs of cards. Often years pass before a “genealogical card” I newly discover can be “matched” to one or more I found earlier in my investigations. The challenge, particularly as I get older, is retrieving the earlier “card” from my memory. Such is the case with connections to Microfilm 1184447, Item 2.

I downloaded, saved, and studied all 119 pages from this film, and made several interesting discoveries and connections. Of immediate interest, I found Rosa Wartenberger’s name in an index (Figure 11); as readers can discern from what I have circled in Figure 11, the number “46” appears to the right of Rosa’s name; this refers to the page number in the “Friedhofsdokumente,” on which Rosa’s name and interment date appear. Initially, I found only one page 46, not realizing there was a left page-right page pair.

Figure 11. Page 69 from Ratibor’s Cemetery Records with Rosa Wartenberger’s name circled, showing that her specific information can be found on page 46 of this register

Let me briefly explain. When the LDS Church originally photographed vital records for Ratibor and other places, they typically started by photographing the left-side pages from the front to the back of the register, then in reverse order from the back to the front photographed the right-side pages; thus, the left page-right page pairs, either identically numbered or consecutively numbered, from any register will not be found on consecutive microfilm images. Thus, while Rosa’s name does not appear on the left-hand page 46, it is found on the right-hand page 46; for reader’s ease, I have “grafted” the two pages in one (Figure 12), and translated, using a different grafted left-right pair of pages, the headers for each column. (Figure 13)

Figure 12. Left and right-hand sides of page 46 “grafted” together

Figure 13. The column headers translated for a left-right pair of pages containing information on what are called “Erbbegräbnisse,” multi-generational “hereditary graves”

As readers can see, by “Grabnummer,” grave number, 153, the date of Rosa’s interment is shown, the 29^th of March 1940, which matches the information in JewishGen. The column titled “Belegt” translates to “occupied,” and signifies when a person was interred, rather than when they died.

Once a researcher understands the organizational “structure” of microfilms with cemetery documents, they are easy though tedious to use. On one left-right pair of pages, I was able to find both sets of great-grandparents on my father’s side. (Figure 14) Oddly, the names of Fedor Bruck (Figure 15) and his wife, Friederike Bruck née Mockrauer (Figure 16), are not found in the Excel spreadsheet at the Muzeum w Raciborzu, meaning no photo of their headstone was taken. However, Hermann Berliner (Figure 17) and Olga Berliner née Braun’s names do appear in the Excel spreadsheet indicating a picture of their gravestone exists. (Figure 18)

Figure 14. Index in “Family History Library International Film 1184447, Item 2” with the names of both sets of my great-grandparents on my father’s side circled, Fedor Bruck and his wife, “Frau F. Bruck” (Friederike Bruck née Mockrauer), and Olga Berliner née Braun and her husband, Hermann Berliner

Figure 15. One of my great-grandfathers, Fedor Bruck (1834-1892)

Figure 16. My great-grandfather Fedor Bruck’s wife, Friederike Bruck née Mockrauer (1836-1924), who died in Berlin but was interred in Ratibor

Figure 17. Another of my great-grandfathers, Hermann Berliner (1840-1910)

Figure 18. Headstone for my great-grandparents, Olga and Hermann Berliner, once interred in the “Jüdischer Friedhof Ratibor”

I know from a family tree in the Pinkus Family Collection at the Leo Baeck Institute that my great-grandmother Friederike Bruck née Mockrauer died in Berlin on the 29^th of February 1924 (Figure 19), though she was not buried there. From Microfilm 1184447, I learned she was instead interred on the 11^th of May 1924 in Ratibor, almost 10 weeks later, presumably alongside her husband. Jews are typically interred within two to three days after they die, so a 10-week delay is very unusual. (Figure 20)

Figure 19. Family tree in the Pinkus Family Collection at the Leo Baeck Institute showing my great-grandmother Friederike Bruck née Mockrauer died in Berlin on the 29th of February 1924

Figure 20. Page 7 from Ratibor’s Cemetery Records showing Friederike Bruck was interred in the Jewish Cemetery on the 11th of May 1924, more than 10 weeks after she died in Berlin

On Microfilm 1184447, I also found a single page mentioning one of my father’s older brothers who died in infancy, Walter Bruck. (Figure 21) His name is found on a page entitled “Kleiner Kinderfriedhof,” small children’s cemetery. This is further proof of his existence. A brief explanation. After I began immersing myself in family history and creating a family tree years ago, I started to wonder why there was a nine-year age difference between my father’s oldest brother, Fedor Bruck, born in 1895, and my father’s older sister, Susanne Bruck, born in 1904, in an era where families were large. I eventually learned in 2014 when I visited the “Archiwum Państwowe w Katowicach Oddział w Raciborzu” (“State Archives in Katowice Branch in Raciborz”) that another sibling had been born in 1900 (Figure 22) who died in infancy the next year (Figure 23), named Walter Bruck. I was able to retrieve both his birth and death certificates among the civil records archived at the Archiwum Państwowe. Thus, the discovery of Walter Bruck’s name on Microfilm 1184447 was confirmation he was once buried in the Jüdischer Friedhof Ratibor.

Figure 21. Page 30 of Ratibor’s Cemetery Records with my Uncle Walter Bruck’s name, interred in the “Kleiner Kinderfriedhof,” small children’s cemetery

Figure 22. My uncle Walter Bruck’s birth certificate showing he was born on the 15th of August 1900 in Ratibor

Figure 23. My uncle Walter Bruck’s death certificate showing he died on the 11th of April 1901

Among the photos that Mr. Kazimierz Świetliński took at the former Jewish Cemetery in Ratibor before it was demolished is one showing the “Kindergräber,” children’s graves. (Figure 24) As readers can see, the children’s names on some of the headstones can be made out, though most are indecipherable. Interestingly, there is a separate index on Microfilm 1184447, entitled “Großer kinderfriedhof,” big children’s cemetery (Figure 25), with the names of older children buried in the Jewish Cemetery. Infants may have been interred in graves identified only by number, as I discovered in the Weißensee Jewish Cemetery in Berlin.

Figure 24. Mr. Kazimierz Świetliński’s photo of the “Kindergräber,” children’s graves, the section in the former Jewish Cemetery in Ratibor where infants and young children were interred

Figure 25. Separate index on Microfilm 1184447, entitled “Großer kinderfriedhof,” big children’s cemetery, with the names of older children who died and were buried in Ratibor

As a tedious exercise for another day, which I started while researching and writing this post, is cross-checking the names on Microfilm 1184447 with those on the Excel spreadsheet. Some names on Microfilm 1184447 are not in the Excel database, while others are found in both. Preliminarily, I was able to amend death dates or years in the Excel directory, which, as previously mentioned, was compiled from photos, some of which are indistinct.

In closing, I would say one final thing. Based on the Excel index I obtained years ago, I mistakenly concluded then that none of my Bruck relatives had ever been interred in the Jewish Cemetery in Ratibor, even though I knew some died there when the cemetery was still in use. However, with the benefit of the information I recently acquired from the Jewish records on Microfilm 1184447, I am certain that at least three relatives with the Bruck surname were once buried there. And, this discovery was spurred by helping a reader learn about one of his relatives, a case of helping yourself by aiding others, a most satisfying outcome!

POST 13, POSTSCRIPT: THE FORMER JEWISH CEMETERY IN RATIBOR (RACIBÓRZ)

Note: This postscript provides an opportunity to acknowledge a “righteous man,” Mr. Kazimierz Świetliński, the Polish gentleman I learned was responsible for photographing and documenting the tombstones in the former Jewish Cemetery in Ratibor. I recently learned about this Polish gentleman from Mr. Paul Newerla, the retired lawyer and Racibórz historian, who was a friend of Mr. Świetliński. In the process, I also learned about “lost treasure” recovered in Racibórz.

POST 13: THE FORMER JEWISH CEMETERY IN RATIBOR (RACIBÓRZ)

Readers will recall from my earlier post that the former Jewish Cemetery in Ratibor was “liquidated,” not during the Third Reich but rather during Poland’s Communist era. I learned that prior to its destruction, all the tombstones, the oldest of which dated to 1821, the youngest to 1940-1941, and their locations within the cemetery were photographed and plotted on a map. I was told the original photographs and plan maps are stored at the Muzeum Raciborzu, so I arranged with the museum to view and photograph all these materials in 2015.

It had been cynically suggested that the headstones had been photographed perhaps by an agent of the Polish security services, possibly to fend off future attempts by Jewish descendants to reclaim property confiscated from their relatives by the Nazis. Exactly how documenting the tombstones would have blocked such claims is not clear, on the contrary.

Figure 1. Mr. Kazimierz Świetliński, the gentleman from Racibórz responsible for photographing and documenting all the headstones in the former Jewish Cemetery in Ratibor

Figure 2. Plan map of the former Jewish Cemetery in Ratibor showing the location of the headstones whose images appear in photo album no. 6

Regardless, in June 2018, when I met Mr. Paul Newerla, Racibórz historian, I asked him whether he knew the history about the images. Paul told me the pictures and maps had been made by a now-deceased friend of his, Mr. Kazimierz Świetliński. (Figure 1) Mr. Świetliński was the college-educated Chief of Racibórz’s Parks Department, and an excellent gardener. He produced two copies of all the images and photo albums (Figure 2), one of which he donated to the Muzeum Raciborzu, the other which he retained for himself. Produced as they were in the days before digital photography, developing the pictures came at great personal cost and sacrifice.

In anticipation of preparing this post, Paul Newerla passed along an article, which I will return to below, that included a little background on Mr. Świetliński and on the fate of the Jewish kirkut or “cemetery” in Racibórz. Roughly translated from Polish, I quote:

“In 1972-73, the kirkut was liquidated. Local stonemasons were permitted to remove Classical, neo-Gothic, and modernist matzevot [“tombstone”], which they later turned into tombstones in Catholic cemeteries. Today, only old trees remain in the necropolis.” (Figure 3)

Figure 3. Fragment of a headstone from the former Jewish Cemetery in Racibórz, photographed in 2014

From this article, we learn Mr. Świetliński photographed the tombstones sometime before 1972, and the disposition of the Jewish tombstones.

Among the photographic images captured by Mr. Świetliński from the former Jewish Cemetery in Ratibor are ones showing the “kindergräber,” or children’s graves (Figure 4); most of these graves appear to have headstones inscribed with the name and dates of birth and death of the children, some with sufficient clarity to make out specific information. (Figure 5) I had hoped I might be able to find an image showing the grave of my father’s older brother, Walter Bruck, who died in infancy in Ratibor in 1901, to no avail.

Figure 4. One of Mr. Świetliński’s images, showing the “kindergräber,” or children’s graves, in the former Jewish Cemetery in Racibórz

Figure 5. Close-up of the headstone of Ernst Tichauer who died at two years of age and was buried in the former Jewish Cemetery in Racibórz

Figure 6. The children’s grave for Wolfgang Bruck, one of my father’s first cousins buried in the Jüdischer Friedhof Weißensee in East Berlin, whose headstone only has the number “33210” inscribed

The former children’s tombstones in Ratibor are unlike the kindergräber I recently had the opportunity to visit in the Jüdischer Friedhof Weißensee in East Berlin, where at least three of my ancestors are interred, including one of my father’s first cousins who also died in infancy; here, the children’s tombstones are inscribed only with numbers (Figure 6), but without an index it is impossible to know who was buried where. Fortunately, an index does survive for the cemetery in East Berlin.

The information on Mr. Świetliński and the disposition of the headstones from the Jewish Cemetery in Ratibor in the article sent to me by Paul Newerla are only footnotes to the broader subject of the article. The original article deals with an intriguing bit of local history and relates to a file from 60 years ago marked “CONFIDENTIAL” that was found at the Polish State Archives in Racibórz.

Figure 7. Historic postcard showing the former Jewish Synagogue in Ratibor

Figure 8. Plan map of Ratibor from 1927-28 showing the location of the former Jewish Cemetery in relation to the former Jewish Synagogue (both circled in red)

Figure 9. A photo of he former Jewish Synagogue in Ratibor in flames on Kristallnacht, November 9, 1938

Apparently, a chest of papers and documents owned by Leon Blum, the former Socialist Prime Minister of France who was Jewish, wound up in Racibórz, hidden there in 1943 by the Germans; seemingly, the chest was squirreled away in the synagogue at the Jewish cemetery, once located on the outskirts of town along Leobschützstraße [today: Wilczej Górze and Fojcik głubczycki streets]. The problem, according to maps drawn by Mr. Kazimierz, is that no synagogue or chapel existed on the cemetery grounds. Possibly, the chest was stored at the synagogue on Schuhbankstraße [today: ulica Szewska], once located in Ratibor’s city center. (Figures 7 & 8) While torched on Kristallnacht (Figure 9), the synagogue survived WWII but was ultimately dismantled during the Communist era. Interestingly, a black, sealed chest belonging to Leon Blum was eventually discovered in Racibórz, although the final correspondence, dated December 22, 1945, found in the “Confidential” file, makes no mention of where. Possibly it was found in one of the larger family tombs at the cemetery, perhaps in the synagogue, or maybe even in the private home of a person who hid Blum’s souvenirs. It’s assumed the black, sealed chest was transferred to Katowice, as Polish authorities had requested be done in 1945, and from there to the French embassy.

Needless, to say, the question of how Leon Blum’s chest of personal papers wound up in Racibórz very much intrigued me, almost like a scene out of “The Monuments Men,” so I posed this question to Paul Newerla. According to Paul, Leon Blum’s papers were confiscated by the Nazis in Paris around 1943 by the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg or “ERR,” the Nazi Party organization dedicated to appropriating cultural property during the Second World War and deposited in Racibórz. At the time, the town was deemed to be sufficiently out of reach of Allied bombers and Russian forces to ensure the papers were not inadvertently destroyed.

Mr. Świetliński is owed a major debt of gratitude. I characterize him as a “righteous man,” because in my mind he anticipated that one day Jewish descendants might want to know where their ancestors had been buried, see images of their ancestors’ graves, and know that someone, unrelated to the deceased, cared enough to record the existence of their relatives. And, possibly, Mr. Świetliński thought future generations of Poles might be curious that a Jewish community once thrived in Racibórz and want to know how and why it disappeared.