Margareth August Berliner (Grete Brauer) Archives

POST 122: HERTA BRAUER, THE FAMILY CONNECTION TO THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC’S NOTORIOUS DICTATOR, RAFAEL TRUJILLO

Note: In this lengthy post, I discuss one of my Jewish relatives by marriage who along with her family wound up in the Dominican Republic during WWII. I explore the cultural and political context in which Herta Brauer worked and her role in introducing ballet to the country under the sponsorship of Flor de Oro Trujillo, the daughter of the country’s longtime dictator Rafael Trujillo.

POST 34, POSTSCRIPT: MARGARETH BERLINER, WRAITH OR BEING? DEATH IN THERESIENSTADT

POST 34, POSTSCRIPT 2: MARGARETH BERLINER, WRAITH OR BEING? MORE DISCOVERIES

It is generally accepted there are seven continents in the world, from largest to smallest, Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Antarctica, Europe, and Australia. Probably not unlike many readers, I can trace ancestors or relatives connected to all these continents apart from Antarctica. Within North America, I occasionally learn about family that passed through one of the Caribbean islands, usually Cuba. This post dwells on one Jewish family member, Herta Brauer, who lived with her family in the Dominican Republic for several years. As a result of a relationship she mysteriously established with Flor de Oro Trujillo (Figure 1), one of the daughters of the Dominican Republic’s longtime notorious and brutal dictator, Rafael Leónidas Trujillo Molina, Herta was instrumental in the introduction of ballet into the country. In this post I discuss Herta Brauer’s time in the Dominican Republic and the significance of her contribution to Dominican culture.

Figure 1. Flor de Oro Trujillo (1915-1978), first-born daughter of the Dominican Republic’s longtime dictator Rafael Trujillo (1891-1961)

For the benefit of new subscribers as well as longtime followers, let me briefly review how I learned about Herta Brauer, a relative by marriage whom I introduced to readers in Post 34. Several years ago while in Germany visiting the son of my deceased first cousin, I was perusing my uncle Dr. Fedor Bruck’s photographs that had been inherited by this cousin. One picture immediately caught my attention. On the reverse was written in German what translates as, “Three generations: Grete-Herta-Till & Neubabelsberg 1933”; Neubabelsberg is located near Spandau, on the western outskirts of Berlin. Then, in what was unmistakably my uncle’s shaky handwriting he had added: “Aunt Grete Brauer (mother’s sister with her daughter-in-law and grandson).” (Figures 2a-b) I had an epiphany at this moment when I realized that my grandmother’s sister, Margareth Auguste Berliner, whose birth record I had previously discovered on LDS Microfilm Number 1184449 (Figure 3), had survived to adulthood; this was an “aha” moment because my father had never mentioned the existence of his maternal aunt, so I assumed after first learning about her that she had died at birth or in infancy. As I explained in Post 34, I would eventually learn that my great-aunt Margareth, Grete for short, had been murdered in Theresienstadt in 1942.

Figure 2a. Greta Brauer, her daughter-in-law Herta Brauer, and her grandson Till Brauer, Neubabelsberg, Germany, 1933

Figure 2b. Captions on the back of photo with Grete Brauer, Herta Brauer, and Till Brauer, Neubabelsberg, Germany, 1933

Figure 3. Margareth Auguste Berliner’s birth record (March 19, 1872) (LDS Microfiche 1184449, p. 101)

I first came across the surname “Brauer” when examining the personal papers of my paternal great-aunts Franziska Bruck and Elsbeth Bruck that are archived at Berlin’s Stadtmuseum, coincidentally also in Spandau. Here, I discovered multiple letters written to my great-aunt Elsbeth in East Berlin from Calvia, Mallorca by Hanns & Herta Brauer between 1965 and 1967. (Figure 4) The letterhead on some letters read “Dr. E. H. Brauer,” and they were variously signed “Ernst,” “Hanns,” and “Ernst & Herta.” Elsbeth’s archived materials also include photos the Brauer family sent her, though none of Grete Brauer. (Figures 5-6) Until I found the previously mentioned photo of Grete, I had assumed the Brauers were friends of my great-aunt, not closely related family.

Figure 4. Letter from Herta & Ernst Brauer dated the 9th of November 1967 sent from Calvia, Mallorca to my great-aunt Elsbeth Bruck in East Berlin

Figure 5. Photo of Ernst Hanns Brauer in Calvia, Mallorca dated September 1967

Figure 6. Photo of Ernst Hanns Brauer standing next to the noted author Robert Graves (1895-1985) in Deià, Mallorca in April 1967

Margarethe Berliner (1872-1942) married a man named Siegfried Brauer (1859-1926) in August 1891. (Figure 7) They had two sons, Kurt Brauer (born on July 7, 1893) and Ernst Han(n)s Brauer (born August 9, 1902) (Figure 8) and at least one daughter, Hildegard Brauer (born April 8, 1892), who was also murdered in the Holocaust; possibly, a Thea Brauer born in 1911 who perished in 1919 and who was buried in the Jewish Cemetery in Ratibor [today: Racibórz, Poland] may have been another of their daughters. Kurt Brauer died in 1920 and was also interred in the Jewish Cemetery in Ratibor, but Ernst Hanns Brauer (1902-1971) married Herta Brauer née Stadach (1904-1983) in 1932. (Figures 9a-c) Herta had a daughter by a previous marriage while Ernst and Herta had two sons. The vital statistics for Margarethe and Siegfried Brauer and select descendants and close family are included in a table at the end of this post.

Figure 7. Marriage announcement for Siegfried Brauer and my maternal great-aunt Margarethe Brauer née Berliner showing they married in Cosel O.S. (Oberschlesien) in August 1891

Figure 8. Birth certificate for Siegfried & Grete Brauer’s son, Ernst Han(n)s Brauer, showing he was born in Cosel, Germany [today: Koźle, Poland] on August 9, 1902

Figure 9a. Cover page for Ernst Hanns Brauer and Margareth Muenchow née Stadach (aka Herta Brauer) 1932 marriage certificate

Figure 9b. Page 1 of Ernst Hanns Brauer and Margareth Muenchow née Stadach (aka Herta Brauer) 1932 marriage certificate

Figure 9c. Page 2 of Ernst Hanns Brauer and Margareth Muenchow née Stadach (aka Herta Brauer) 1932 marriage certificate

As I explained to readers in Post 34, after learning of my maternal great-aunt’s existence, I quickly turned to ancestry.com. There, I found a surprising number of documents and information on the Brauer family which began to fill in some temporal gaps. With information recently acquired, I am better able to partially understand the Brauer family’s movements from 1941 onwards although their length of residence during some periods is still unclear.

One document I found for Herta Brauer was her Social Security Death Index which indicated that she died in August 1983 (Figure 10), and that her last supposed place of residence was in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Aware of a Puerto Rico connection, I Googled the Brauer surname and Puerto Rico, and found a promising lead in the form of a “Till Carl Brauer Mongil”; as an aside in most Spanish-speaking countries offspring carry two surnames, that of their father and mother, thus “Brauer” and “Mongil.” Since Till Brauer once ran a fishing business in Puerto Rico (Figure 11), I was easily able to contact him via email and confirm that he was indeed related to Ernst and Herta Brauer; he was their grandson. We exchanged information and photos and have continued to stay in contact.

Figure 10. Herta Brauer’s Social Security Death Index indicating she died in San Juan, Puerto Rico in August 1983

Figure 11. Till Carl Brauer Mongil, my third cousin once removed

Fast forward. The source for an increasing number of my Blog stories is inspired by readers who contact me through Webmail. Typically, I’m asked for or offered information about the people whom I write about, or people ask whether we are related; often readers are curious as to the source of my information.

I was recently contacted by a Mr. Francisco Pou (Figure 12) from the Dominican Republic who is working on a documentary about the history of classical ballet in his country. It turns out that Herta Brauer is the person who introduced ballet into the Dominican Republic. Since Francis stumbled upon mention of her in my Blog, he was curious whether I could provide additional background information about Herta since she disappeared from the country’s records “almost mysteriously,” according to Francis. I sent him some ancestry.com documents, as well as copies of the letters written by Ernst and Herta Brauer from Calvia, Mallorca to my great-aunt Elsbeth Bruck in East Berlin in the mid-1960’s; I also sent Francis a few family photos obtained either from Till Brauer or found among my great-aunt Elsbeth’s personal papers archived at the Stadtmuseum in Spandau. However, the tale that Francis related is much more compelling, the telling of which will allow me to share lesser-known history about the Dominican Republic’s role during WWII offering to save Jewish refugees.

Figure 12. Francisco Pou, documentarian from the Dominican Republic, chronicling the history of classical ballet in his country, including the role that Herta Brauer played

Let me provide some context for the Dominican Republic’s role in offering Jews safe haven during WWII and the direct impact this had on Herta Brauer and her family.

In July 1938, delegates from 32 countries met in Evian, France to try and address the issue of German-Jewish refugees caused by the Nazis’ aim to make Germany judenrein (cleansed of Jews). This international conference was in response to the mounting political pressure on the United States and other nations. Most Jews from Germany and elsewhere wanted to go to the United States but were unable to obtain visas needed to enter. Even though the violent pogroms in Germany of November 1938 were widely reported on in the news, Americans were unwilling to welcome Jewish refugees; amid the Great Depression, Americans feared these displaced persons would compete with them for jobs and social programs set up to help them.

Rather than sending our Secretary of State to the Evian Conference, President Roosevelt instead selected a businessman and close friend of his to attend, Myron C. Taylor. During the nine-day meeting, while nation after nation expressed sympathy for the plight of the Jews, most nations including the United States refused to accept any refugees. One notable exception to this position of refusing to allow more Jewish refugees was the tiny nation of the Dominican Republic. Astonishingly, they offered to accept up to 100,000 refugees.

The Dominican Republic Settlement Association Inc. (DORSA) acquired 22,230 acres on the north coast of the country in a place called Sosúa from the Dominican President Rafael Trujillo; the American Jewish Joint Agricultural Corp. (Agro-Joint) heavily subsidized the project. The agreement ultimately negotiated and signed by DORSA and the Dominican Republic assured the immigrants freedom of religion and eased immigration by offering tax and customs exemptions.

While the Dominican Republic had agreed to accept up to 100,000 Jewish refugees, it is estimated that only about 5,000 visas were issued and that barely 700 Jews made it there. The reality is that while the visas would have allowed the recipients to escape the Holocaust, most of the refugees receiving them never reached the Dominican Republic since transatlantic travel proved to be extremely difficult, especially for Jews from occupied countries.

When WWII started, there were only about 40 Jews in the Dominican Republic. The first immigrants arrived in the middle of 1940, and it is estimated that by 1942 the Jewish population was 472. Jews continued to arrive in the Dominican Republic after WWII ended so that by 1947, they numbered 705. The project to bring Jews to Sosúa was intended to promote agricultural development along the Dominican Republic’s northern coast though most refugees were not inclined towards agriculture and preferred to work as businessmen and artisans. Each refugee family was given 82 acres of land, 10 cows plus one additional cow per child, and a $10,000 loan at one percent interest. The number of Jews in the Dominican Republic gradually continued to decline in the decades after WWII. By the 1980’s, most of the Jewish refugees in Sosúa had sold their land to tourist developers and left the country to pursue economic opportunities elsewhere. According to the estimates of Hebrew University demographer Sergio Della Pergola’s “World Jewish Population, 2016,” the Dominican Republic is home to between 100 and 300 Jews.

The motivation for Jews to escape to the Dominican Republic during WWII is obvious but readers may wonder what motivated President Trujillo to offer to accept up to 100,000 Jewish refugees. As previously stated, Trujillo hoped that these refugees could contribute to the country’s agriculture and consequently donated land in Sosúa in anticipation of a Jewish agricultural settlement. It is also believed that he supported letting Jewish refugees into the country as part of his strategy to encourage European rather than Haitian immigration. Trujillo was reputedly extremely racist and wanted Jewish immigrants as a way of “whitening” the Dominican Republic. Additionally, Trujillo personally profited by pocketing the “processing fees” that immigrants (or their sponsors) had to pay to be allowed in.

Trujillo used this same approach with refugees from the Spanish Civil War and Japanese migrants. In the case of the latter, the Dominican Republic signed a treaty with Japan in 1956. The Japanese motivation was to use emigration policy to improve the country’s international image following WWII by having the Japanese contribute to the development of foreign countries. Trujillo, dictator of the Dominican Republic from 1930 until his assassination in 1961, by contrast sought to use Japanese migrants as a buffer against black Haitian squatters by settling them along the country’s western border with Haiti.

There is a tragic side note to Trujillo’s decision to accept Jewish refugees during WWII. In 1937, the border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic, who share the island of Hispaniola, was the scene of a mass slaughter in which historians estimate between 9,000 and 20,000 Haitians were killed in the Dominican Republic. It earned the name the “Parsley Massacre” because Dominican soldiers carried a sprig of parsley. When the soldiers encountered people suspected of being Haitian, they would ask them to pronounce the Spanish word for it, “perejil.” Haitians whose first language was Haitian Creole found it difficult to say it correctly, which cost many of them their lives.

In any case, the U.S. administration regarded Trujillo as a staunch ally but after the scale of the massacre emerged, President Roosevelt’s administration made the Dominican Republic pay reparations to the victims’ families, money which ultimately never reached them. Regardless, it is believed that by agreeing to take in Jewish refugees Trujillo was trying to get back into the good graces of the United States.

Let me turn now to discussing Herta Brauer and her family’s arrival in the Dominican Republic, and the specific role she played there insofar as it is known. Shortly after Francis Pou contacted me, he sent me copies of the Dominican Republic Immigration Bureau’s “Application for residence permit in accordance with law no. 95” for Herta and her family. (Figures 13-16) It shows they arrived at Ciudad Trujillo (https://www.encyclopedia.com/…/ciudad-trujillo), as Santo Domingo was known from January 1936 until November 1961, on the 25^th of March 1941. Herta was accompanied by her husband Ernst, their son Till Brauer, and Herta’s daughter by her first marriage, Yutta Maria Muenchow.

Figure 13. The Dominican Republic Immigration Bureau’s “Application for residence permit” for Herta Brauer showing she arrived there on the 25th of April 1941

122-Figure 14. The Dominican Republic Immigration Bureau’s “Application for residence permit” for Ernst Hanns Brauer showing he arrived there on the 25th of April 1941

Figure 15. The Dominican Republic Immigration Bureau’s “Application for residence permit” for Yutta Maria Muenchow, Herta’s daughter by her first marriage, showing she arrived there on the 25th of April 1941

Figure 16. The Dominican Republic Immigration Bureau’s “Application for residence permit” for Till Brauer showing he arrived there on the 25th of April 1941

A ”List or Manifest of Alien Passengers for the United States” shows the family left Lisbon, Portugal on the 22^nd of February 1941 aboard the ship the “S.S. Marques de Comillas” (Figure 17); this same form shows their last previous address was in Rome, Italy. The “Record of Aliens Held for Special Inquiry” form shows the family arrived in New York City on the 12^th of March 1941 (Figure 18), so a little less than three weeks later. A handwritten note on this form indicates they “Transshipped to Santo Domingo” on the 20^th of March 1941 aboard the “S.S. Cosmo.” Another “List or Manifest of Alien Passengers for the United States” confirms the family sailed from New York City on the 20^th of March 1941. (Figure 19) The family appears to have briefly made landfall in San Juan, Puerto Rico on the 25^th of March before sailing onto Santo Domingo the same day; the nautical distance between these two spots is 252 miles. Prior to receiving the Brauer’s Dominican immigration forms from Francis, I had mistakenly assumed the family had ridden out the war in Puerto Rico. It’s now clear to me that by the 25^th of March 1941, Herta and her family were in fact in the Dominican Republic.

Figure 17. ”List or Manifest of Alien Passengers for the United States” showing the Brauers left Lisbon, Portugal on the 22nd of February 1941; form shows they previously lived in Rome

Figure 18. “Record of Aliens Held for Special Inquiry” form showing the Brauers arrived in New York City on the 12th of March 1941; notation shows they “Transshipped to Santo Domingo” on the 20th of March 1941 aboard the “S.S. Cosmo”

Figure 19. “List or Manifest of Alien Passengers for the United States” confirming the Brauers sailed from New York City on the 20th of March 1941

The Dominican immigration forms sent to me by Francis Pou show the family resided at “Calle Socorro Sanchez #9” in Ciudad Trujillo upon their arrival. However, according to Francis, the family did not stay in Ciudad Trujillo, nor did they relocate to the Jewish community of Sosúa. Instead, they moved to the town of Jarabacoa, located in the Central Mountain Range of the Dominican Republic at an elevation of more than 1700 feet; Francis characterizes this as the “Switzerland of the Caribbean.” (Figures 20-21) Francis believes that Herta and her family moved to this mountain town because it was in a safe and remote place, and only later relocated to Ciudad Trujillo when they realized the Dominicans were no threat to them as Jews and because her work required her to be in a larger city.

Figure 20. The picturesque setting of Jarabacoa in the Dominican Republic’s Central Range

Figure 21. The town of Jarabacoa in the Dominican Republic’s Central Range where the Brauers lived for a year after arriving

The name Jarabacoa comes from Taino indigenous people who spoke a dialect of the Arawakan language group. Notably, the Lucayan branch of the Taíno were the first New World peoples encountered by Christopher Columbus, in the Bahama Archipelago on October 12, 1492.

I recently stumbled on a 2015 paper by Jorge Mendoza entitled “Danza en República Dominicana: raíces, tradición y vanguardia,” translated as “Dance in the Dominican Republic: roots, tradition and avant-garde.” This paper includes numerous references to Herta Brauer and explains the political and cultural context in which she worked; it rounds out my understanding of Herta’s involvement in the Dominican Republic. I will highlight some of the author’s findings.

The dictator Rafael Leónidas Trujillo Molina was sworn in as head of the Dominican Republic on the 16^th of August 1930. A devastating cyclone hit the island 18 days later that is estimated to have killed between 2,000 and 8,000 people, a significant percentage of the capital’s 50,000 inhabitants. Trujillo’s emergence and the rapid reconstruction he instigated in the wake of the devastating cyclone resulted in the emergence of lower-class workers and peasants and middle- and upper-class civil servants, intellectuals, and businessmen who supported the dictatorship. Herta Brauer arrived in the country amid Trujillo’s 31 years in office when the life of Dominicans revolved around his image and that of his family.

Jorge Mendoza uncovered information on Herta in an article published on the 9^th of October 1944 in the defunct Dominican newspaper “La Nación” entitled “Nace el ballet en República Dominicana,” “Ballet is born in the Dominican Republic.”; the article was based on an interview conducted with her by a journalist identified only by the initials “R.M.A.” Curiously, the news story noted that Herta and Dr. Ernst Hanns Brauer apparently received a special dispensation from Pope Pius XI himself to marry while they were living in Rome. This notation is a bit puzzling since Herta and Ernst are known to have gotten married in Berlin on the 12^th of March 1932 and self-identified as Jewish. Could this marriage exemption mean they had converted to Catholicism after they arrived in Italy whenever that was? If I’m interpreting things correctly, it was around the same time Pope Pius XI granted the Brauers a special marriage release that they decided to emigrate to the Dominican Republic. Whether the Pope interceded on their behalf to facilitate this or whether they obtained visas under the terms negotiated at the Evian Conference is unknown.

The idea of creating a dance school came to the Brauers while they were living in Jarabacoa. According to the journalist R.M.A., the Brauers “. . .became intoxicated with the light and color of the tropics,” and listening to the typical merengue imbued them with the rhythmic sense of “the simple people of the mountain.” The Brauers lived for a year in Jarabacoa before relocating to a house in Ciudad Trujillo located a block away from the ocean that still stands today.

While Herta Brauer was not alone in teaching ballet in Ciudad Trujillo, through circumstances that are unknown, she was fortunate to meet and obtain the financial support of Flor de Oro Trujillo, Rafael Trujillo’s first-born daughter. According to Francis Pou, Flor de Oro Trujillo was very different than the dictator’s other children. She was not a criminal like her siblings and had a very troubled relationship with her father. She was very liberal, well-educated, and a socialite in Europe. She was married an astonishing nine times and spent the last twelve years of her life in New York, dying there in 1978 reliant on friends for financial support; she’d clearly been disinherited by her family.

Soon after Herta relocated to Ciudad Trujillo she started offering ballet classes in the living room of her house probably beginning in early 1943. (Figure 22) Flor de Oro covered the scholarship expenses for Herta’s pupils, while other donors apparently covered the cost for ballet slippers, costumes, and tights for regular practices. As in other countries, ballet in the Dominican Republic was born as a pastime of the middle and upper classes. Training sessions are known to have lasted between six and seven hours a day.

Figure 22. A photo sent to me by Francis Pou believed to be Herta Brauer surrounded by her ballet students

It’s hard to imagine that Herta was unaware that she had escaped one totalitarian regime only to be taken in by another. Perhaps her ambition forced her to overlook this uncomfortable truth because, clearly, she could not have opened her academy without the help of Flor de Oro Trujillo. When it did eventually open it was named after her benefactor. This could have been out of gratitude or because she was compelled to identify herself with and contribute to the general atmosphere which paid constant homage to Generalissimo Trujillo.

During Trujillo’s rule, art and culture became a means of propaganda and a distraction from the regime’s brutal excesses. Trujillo imposed merengue as the national dance in Dominican society, and in his honor, merengues were written extolling his virtues. Herta Brauer was the first dance teacher to bring merengue to ballet. Taking the basic steps of this popular dance, she combined them with the techniques of ballet to favorable review. In the first merengue ballet she choreographed, Herta named the musical piece “El general llegó,” “The General Arrived,” a clear reference to Trujillo. There can be little doubt that Herta had taken note of the price she had to pay for the privileges she was granted by the Trujillo regime, which included being “untouchable” by any competitors wishing to diminish her cultural influence.

Francis believes that Flor de Oro’s cultured lifestyle may have drawn her to Herta and that introducing her father to ballet may have given Flor an entrée into his government.

Herta Brauer will be prominently featured in the documentary Francis is currently developing. She is important because she introduced ballet into the Dominican Republic, because she was the first person to blend Dominican folk music with ballet, and because she created choreographies for public events where Trujillo was in attendance. Significantly, coming from a country of a little more than ten million people, Herta trained a generation of accomplished ballet dancers that continue to be over-represented in some of the world’s major ballet companies, such as Martha Graham, the Washington Ballet, etc.

Regardless, in around 1947 Herta decided to take leave of the Dominican Republic leaving everything in the hands of a Hungarian dance teacher, a Magda Corbett, another Jew. (Figure 23) The reasons for Herta’s departure are not entirely clear, although a negative review may have angered her, or she may simply have accepted a better offer from the University of Puerto Rico.

Figure 23. The Dominican Republic Immigration Bureau’s “Application for residence permit” for Magdalene E. Starr de Corbett, the Hungarian Jewish teacher who replaced Herta Brauer after she left for Puerto Rico in around 1947; the form shows that Magda Corbett arrived in the Dominican Republic on the 16th of December 1947

A “Passenger Manifest” for Pan American Airways shows that Ernst Brauer arrived in San Juan, Puerto Rico alone from the Dominican Republic on the 7^th of October 1947 (Figure 24), roughly coinciding with the time the Brauers are believed to have left the country. As with historic documents that provide temporal information, the passenger manifest includes another interesting fact. It shows that at the time that Ernst Brauer departed the Dominican Republic he was still deemed to be “Stateless” and had only ever been issued a Dominican residence permit; he never received Dominican citizenship even though he had lived there for almost seven years. It may be that only Ernst and Herta’s youngest son, Oliver Brauer (Figure 25), born in the Dominican Republic on the 24^th of January 1942 ever obtained Dominican citizenship. (Figure 26) What is known about Oliver is that he along with the rest of the Brauers became American citizens, likely in Puerto Rico. To avoid the draft during the Vietnam War Oliver left for Germany, where he is believed to have died.

Figure 24. A Passenger Manifest for Pan American Airways showing that Ernst H. Brauer arrived in San Juan, Puerto Rico from the Dominican Republic on the 7th of October 1947

Figure 25. Undated photo of Till Brauer (right) with his younger brother Oliver Brauer, born in the Dominican Republic in 1942

Figure 26. Herta Brauer’s 1949 USA “Petition for Naturalization” showing that Oliver Brauer, her youngest son with Ernst Brauer, was born in the Dominican Republic on the 24th of January 1942

It’s unclear how long Herta and Ernst Brauer resided in Puerto Rico. However, an undated newspaper article about Ernst and Herta Brauer’s continued balletic work in Mallorca, Spain after their arrival there unequivocally states they remained in Puerto Rico for eight years. (Figure 27) Assuming they arrived there from the Dominican Republic in 1947, that would mean they stayed until around 1955; this would also coincide with their arrival in Mallorca, Spain. The “Report of the Death of an American Citizen” was completed for Ernst showing he died on the 19^th of May 1971 in Calvia, Mallorca, where he is interred. (Figure 28) As previously mentioned, Herta’s Social Security Death Index indicates she died in August 1983 and claims her address at the time was in San Juan, Puerto Rico. (see Figure 10) For this reason, I erroneously assumed she had left Mallorca and rejoined her children in Puerto Rico following her husband’s death. Till Brauer, however, confirms that Herta Brauer died in Mallorca and is buried in the same cemetery alongside Ernst Brauer.

Figure 27. Undated newspaper article discussing Herta & Ernst Brauer’s work with the Palma de Mallorca’s ballet company

Figure 28. U.S. State Department Form for “Report of Death of An American Citizen,” showing Ernst Hanns Brauer died on May 19, 1971, in Mallorca

In reading the undated news article discussing Herta and Ernst’s continuing work in Mallorca, it’s clear that Herta taught dance while her husband oversaw the business aspects of running the dance studio. Why Ernst and Herta came to Mallorca is another unanswered question, but Francis directed me to a 1954 video on YouTube showing the close relationship that Trujillo had with Generalissimo Francisco Franco of Spain. Is it possible that Flor de Oro Trujillo recommended Ernst and Herta to Franco? Like in the Dominican Republic, according to Francis, it appears that their school in Mallorca was also subsidized and that free ballet lessons were offered. Regardless, it seems that Ernst and Herta could not avoid living in yet a third totalitarian country.

REFERENCES

ANU Museum of the Jewish People. “The Jewish Community of the Dominican Republic.” https://dbs.anumuseum.org.il/skn/en/c6/e250705/Place/Dominican_Republic

Davis, Nick (2012, October 13). The massacre that marked Haiti-Dominican Republic ties. BBC.

“History of the Jews in the Dominican Republic.” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_the_Dominican_Republic

“Japanese Settlement in the Dominican Republic.” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_settlement_in_the_Dominican_Republic

Johnson, Rudy (1978, February 17). Flor de Oro Trujillo, Whose Father Led Dominican Republic. New York Times, Section D, Page 12.

Mendoza, Jorge (2015, January-December). Danza en República Dominicana: raíces, tradición y vanguardia (Dance in the Dominican Republic: roots, tradition and avant-garde). Istimica, pp. 99-130.

Museum of Jewish Heritage A Living Memorial to the Holocaust. “Sosúa: A Refuge for Jews in the Dominican Republic (Sosúa: Un Refugio de Judíos en la República Dominicana),” https://mjhnyc.org/exhibitions/sosua-refuge-jews-dominican-republic-sosua-un-refugio-de-judios-en-la-republica-dominicana/

R.M.A. (1944, October 9). Nace el ballet en República Dominicana (Ballet is born in the Dominican Republic). La Nación.

“The Jews of the Dominican Republic.” YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=ysm2cqydwwE

“Trujillo Y Franco 1954.” YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5JO_f-OZsg

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. “The Evian Conference,” https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/the-evian-conference

World Jewish Congress. “Dominican Republic.” https://www.worldjewishcongress.org/en/about/communities/DO

VITAL STATISTICS OF MARGARETH BRAUER NÉE BERLINER & SELECT FAMILY & DESCENDANTS

NAME	EVENT	DATE	PLACE	SOURCE

Auguste Margareth Berliner (self)	Birth	19 March 1872	Ratibor, Germany [today: Racibórz, Poland]	Margareth Auguste Berliner’s birth record (LDS Microfiche 1184449, p. 101); 1891 marriage certificate
	Marriage	14 July 1891	Cosel, Germany [today: Koźle, Poland]	1891 marriage certificate
	Death	25 November 1942	Theresienstadt Ghetto [today: Terezín, Czech Republic]	Memorial Book (Victims of the Persecution of Jews under National Socialist Tyranny in Germany, 1933-1945)
Siegfried Brauer (husband)	Birth	29 November 1858	Biskupitz/Hindenburg Oberschlesien (Upper Silesia), Germany [today: Biskupice (Zabrze), Poland]	1891 marriage certificate
	Marriage	14 July 1891	Cosel, Germany [today: Koźle, Poland]	1891 marriage certificate
	Death	5 February 1926	Cosel, Germany [today: Koźle, Poland]	1926 death certificate
Ernst Hanns Brauer (son)	Birth	9 August 1902	Cosel, Germany [today: Koźle, Poland]	1902 birth certificate
	Marriage (to Herta Münchow née Stadach)	12 March 1932	Wilmersdorf, Berlin, Germany	1932 marriage certificate
	Death	19 May 1971	Calviá, Mallorca, Spain	Department of State form “Report of the Death of an American Citizen”
Herta Margarete Leonore Stadach (Herta Brauer) (daughter-in-law)	Birth	4 February 1904	Neumünster, Germany	1925 marriage certificate; 1950 “Declaration of Intention” form to become a U.S. citizen
	Marriage (to Karl Ferdinand Hermann Münchow)	3 October 1925	Kolberg, Germany [Kołobrzeg, Poland]	1925 marriage certificate
	Marriage (to Ernst Hanns Brauer)	12 March 1932	Wilmersdorf, Berlin, Germany	1932 marriage certificate
	Naturalization	16 May 1955	San Juan, Puerto Rico	U.S.A. “Petition for Naturalization”
	Death	March 1983	Mallorca, Spain	Till Brauer (oral communication)
Yutta Maria Münchow (daughter of Herta Brauer by her first husband)	Birth	30 August 1926	Koslin, Germany [today: Koszalin, Poland]	Herta Brauer’s U.S.A. “Petition for Naturalization”
	Death	26 October 1986	San Juan, Puerto Rico	Puerto Rico Death Certificate
Till Brauer (grandson)	Birth	7 November 1932	Berlin, Germany	Herta Brauer’s U.S.A. “Petition for Naturalization”
Till Brauer (grandson)	Death	11 December 2001		Till Brauer (oral communication): Information attached to photo with his brother Oliver found on ancestry.com
Oliver Domingo Frederic Brauer (grandson)	Birth	24 January 1942	Ciudad Trujillo, Dominican Republic [today: Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic	U.S.A. “Petition for Naturalization”
Oliver Domingo Frederic Brauer (grandson)	Death		Germany	Till Carl Brauer Mongil (oral communication)

POST 93: GUIDE TO THE MORMON CHURCH’S FAMILIAL MICROFILMS: USING THEM TO UNRAVEL MY GREAT-GRANDFATHER’S LINEAGE

Note: This post tiers off the previous one where I discussed a Hermann Berliner with links to Ratibor, Germany [today: Racibórz, Poland], like my identically named great-grandfather; Ratibor is where my father was born and where many of my Jewish Silesian ancestors hail from. In trying to initially determine whether I was dealing with the same person, I accessed the Mormon Church’s online Jewish microfilm records found at familysearch.org to work out the solution. This post, thus, allows me to provide readers with a brief guide on how to access these records, as well as point out that even among primary source documents, which for me are the “gold standard,” errors can be found.

Post 92: Beware Identical Ancestral Names, The Case of My Maternal Great-Grandfather Hermann Berliner

Genealogists today have the advantage of being able to access online from the comfort of home many microfilm records from towns across the globe that once could only be ordered, paid for, and have mailed to a local Mormon Family History Library. These microfilms can be accessed for free by registering and creating a personal account at “familysearch.org.” (Figure 1)

Figure 1. “FamilySearch.org” page where free account is created

I will walk readers through the simple steps for retrieving these digital records, using Ratibor, Germany [today: Racibórz, Poland] as an example, the town in Upper Silesia where my father and many of his relatives were born and/or lived. After readers have created their free ancestry account, they should go to the portal page for “familysearch.org.” On the pulldown menu under “Search,” readers should select “Catalog” (Figure 2) which will take them to a page entitled “FamilySearch Catalog.” (Figure 3) Under “Place,” readers should type the name of the town they are seeking records from. In my case, I typed in Ratibor, although if I type in the current Polish name of the town, “Racibórz,” the results on the next screen will be slightly different. My suggestion, at least when researching towns formerly in Germany, is to type the former German town name as well as the current Polish town name; a simple Google search will give you the name of towns over time.

Figure 2. “FamilySearch.org” portal page with pull-down “Search” menu

Figure 3. “FamilySearch Catalog” page where “Place” one is searching is entered

The “Catalog Print List” enumerates the records available for the town you have selected. For Ratibor, I was interested in “Jewish Records,” which yields “Matrikel, 1814-1940,” birth, marriage, and death registers for Ratibor from between 1814 and 1940. (Figure 4) A few things should be noted. First, the “Matrikel” are simply registers maintained by the Jewish synagogues. Second, they do not give you access to the underlying birth, marriage, and death certificates, assuming these still exist. Third, the “Matrikel” are not a complete register of all Jewish births, marriage, and deaths between 1814 and 1940. Because of the “Kulturkampf,” discussed in Post 12, after the early 1870’s, most birth, marriages, and deaths were no longer registered by religious denominations in Germany but were recorded as civil events. Oddly, the names of Jews who died following the “Kulturkampf” and were interred in the former Jewish cemetery in Ratibor or elsewhere in Germany are registered both in the Jewish microfilm records as well as in the civil ledgers.

Figure 4. Search Results for Ratibor listing Jewish records, “Matrikel, 1814-1940”

Selecting “Matrikel, 1814-1940” yields a list of available digital films, in the case of Ratibor, LDS microfilms 1184447, 1184448, and 1184449. (Figure 5) On the far right, readers should see a camera icon on which they should click to be taken to the digital film. If a microfilm reel icon or key shows up above the camera icon, the microfilm is not generally available online and can only be viewed at the Mormon Family History Library in Salt Lake City.

Figure 5. “Matrikel, 1814-1940” Microfilms for Ratibor, numbered 1184447 (“Friedhofsusrkunden 1888-1940” (Cemetery Documents)), 1184448 (“Tote 1865-1930) (Deaths)), and 1184449 (“Geburten 1815-1874 Heiraten 1814-1862” (Births & Marriages))

I first accessed the microfilms for Ratibor, Germany [today: Racibórz, Poland] almost 40 years ago on a visit to the Family History Library in Salt Lake City. Years later, I would order and pay for these films to be sent to a local Mormon Family History Library, so I could leisurely examine and take notes on them. I created a table summarizing what I had found on births, deaths, and marriages for members of my extended family. However, given that the registers were handwritten in German and often indecipherable, my log was incomplete. Only more recently have I made the effort to have a German relative or friend translate previously unreadable words or phrases. This is considerably easier since individual microfilm pages can now easily be downloaded from the Mormon Church’s website for closer study. (Figure 6) Thus, I am constantly refining and learning new things from these microfilm, as I will illustrate below.

Figure 6. “FamilySearch Catalog” print list for Ratibor Microfilm 1184449 containing births (1815-1874) and marriages (1814-1862)

My maternal great-grandfather Hermann Berliner (1840-1910) is known to me through a single picture I have of him. (Figure 7) He was married to Olga Berliner née Braun (1852-1920), and the two were interred together in the former Jewish Cemetery in Ratibor. Together they had three children, my grandmother Else Bruck née Berliner (1873-1957), her older sister Margareth Braun née Berliner (1872-1942), who was murdered in the Holocaust, and a younger brother Alfred Max Berliner (1875-1921), who died young in Ratibor.

Figure 7. My maternal great-grandfather Hermann Berliner (1840-1910)

The Hermann Berliner who was the subject of Post 92 had a son, Ernst Berliner, born in 1878, which initially confused me into thinking my great-grandfather sired another child with a different woman, Sara Riesenfeld, although I eventually concluded they were two different Hermann Berliners. My great-grandfather was a “brauereimeister,” a master brewer (Figure 8), and likely inherited the brewery business from his father-in-law, Markus Braun, while the “other” Hermann Berliner was a Bank Director.

Figure 8. Page from an 1889 Ratibor Address Book listing my great-grandfather Hermann Berliner and identifying him as a “brauereimeister,” a master brewer

The birth register for Ratibor records the occupation or profession of the father. Even though I consider these registers primary source documents, my “gold standard” so to speak, they are not error-free. Consider the birth register listing for my grandmother Else Berliner. Her father is misidentified as a “maurermeister,” a master mason (Figure 9), when I know him to have been a master brewer. My German friend offered a possible explanation for this error. Upon my grandmother’s birth, her father’s profession may have been conveyed verbally, and the recorder may have misunderstood or incorrectly recorded what was said.

Figure 9. My grandmother’s birth register listing from Family History Library (FHL) Ratibor Microfilm 1184449 showing she was born on 3 March 1873, and misidentifying her father’s profession as “Maurermeister,” master mason

I discussed in Post 92 the process I followed in determining I was dealing with two different Hermann Berliners. Throughout the remainder of this post, I will focus on my great-grandfather, and how I figured out who his parents were. While this information was always in hand, it was only recently that a German friend translated a few key words that enabled me to understand what I had in hand.

Ratibor LDS microfilm roll 1184448 contains the death register for my great-grandfather Hermann Berliner, his wife and son, and his parents. The column headers and titles from the death register are italicized in German and translated in the table below; included is the information for Hermann (Figure 10) and his wife, Olga Berliner (Figure 11); Hermann’s father, Abraham Berliner (Figure 12); Hermann’s mother, Philippine Berliner (Figure 13); and Hermann’s son, Alfred Berliner (Figure 14):

*Sterbmonat* *ev. Jahr*	*Sterbetag.*	*Namen*	*Beerdigungsort*	*Angehörige*	*Bemer-* *kungen*
Month of death Protestant Year	Day of death	Name	Place of burial	Relative	Remarks (relationship of deceased)
*1868*		*Abr. Berliner*	*Neisse*	*Stadtrath Berliner*	*Vater*
1868		Abr. (Abraham) Berliner	Neisse [today: Nysa, Poland]	City councilor Berliner	Father
*1907 März*	31	*Philippine Berliner*	*Leobschütz*	*Stadtr. Berliner*	*Mutter*
1907 March	31	Philippine Berliner (née Glogauer)	Leobschütz [today: Głubczyce, Poland]	City councilor Berliner	Mother
*3 September*	*1910*	*Hermann Berliner* *(Name in Hebrew)*	*Ratibor*	*Alfred Berliner* *Frau Bruck* *Frau Berliner*	*Vater* “ *Gatte*
1910 September	3	Hermann Berliner	Ratibor [today: Racibórz, Poland]	Alfred Berliner Else Bruck née Berliner Olga Berliner (née Braun)	Father “ Husband
*1920/5680 August*	23	*Frau Olga Berliner*	*Ratibor*	*Frau Herm. Zweig* *Fr. Else Bruck* *Alfred Berliner*	*Schwester* *Mutter* “
1920 August [5680 Hebrew year]	23	Mrs. Olga Berliner (née Braun)	Ratibor [today: Racibórz, Poland]	Mrs. Hermine Zweig née Braun Mrs. Else Bruck (née Berliner) Alfred Berliner	Sister Mother “
*1921/5680* *Februar*	19	*Alfred Berliner* *(Name in Hebrew)*	*Ratibor*	*Frau Lotte Berliner*	*Gatte*
1921 February [5680 Hebrew year]	19	Alfred Berliner	Ratibor [today: Racibórz, Poland]	Mrs. Lotte Berliner (née Rothe)	Husband

Figure 10. Hermann Berliner’s death register listing from FHL Microfilm 1184448 (Ratibor) showing he died on 3 September 1910 in Ratibor

Figure 11. Olga Berliner’s death register listing from FHL Microfilm 1184448 (Ratibor) showing she died on 23 August 1920 in Ratibor

Figure 12. Hermann Berliner’s father, Abraham Berliner, death register listing from FHL Microfilm 1184448 (Ratibor) showing he died in Ratibor, supposedly in 1868, but was buried in Neisse [today: Nysa, Poland]

Figure 13. Hermann Berliner’s mother, Philippine Berliner, death register listing from FHL Microfilm 1184448 (Ratibor) showing she died on 31 March 1907 in Ratibor but was buried in Leobschütz

Figure 14. Hermann Berliner’s son, Alfred Berliner, death register listing from FHL Microfilm 1184448 (Ratibor) showing he died on 19 February 1921 in Ratibor

A few comments on the table above. Part of my difficulty in recognizing Hermann Berliner’s parents is that his forename was not recorded in the death register. Instead, he was identified as “Stadtrath Berliner,” City Councilor Berliner, clearly a prominent citizen of Ratibor. “Frau Bruck,” that is to say “Else Bruck,” was my grandmother. Finally, because the relationship of the witnesses to the deceased was identified in the last column, I was eventually able to work out all their names and, in the case of wives, figure out their maiden names.

From the death register, I know that Hermann and Olga Berliner, and their son Alfred Berliner all died and were interred in Ratibor. In the case of Hermann’s parents, however, I learned his father Abraham Berliner was buried in Neisse (Figure 12), Germany [today: Nysa, Poland] and his mother Philippine Berliner was interred in Leobschütz, Germany [today: Głubczyce, Poland]. (Figure 13) Consequently, I next turned my attention to the LDS microfilm rolls, respectively, for Neisse and Leobschütz to see if I could learn anything more about Hermann’s parents.

LDS microfilm 1184444 includes the Jewish deaths in Neisse, Germany for the period when Abraham Berliner died. Given that Abraham died in Ratibor, supposedly in 1868, I had no reason to think his death was also registered in Neisse, yet it was. The only Abraham Berliner listed in the Neisse index of deaths died on the 21^st of June 1858 (Figure 15), NOT in 1868 as LDS Microfilm Roll 1184448 indicates. Given the precise death date in the Neisse register, I am inclined to believe 1858 is the correct year of Abraham’s death and this is in fact Hermann Berliner’s father. Readers may wonder why the Neisse death register is typed rather than handwritten. Occasionally, original registers are degraded so that for the data to be preserved, the original information must be transcribed.

Figure 15. Hermann Berliner’s father, Abraham Berliner, death register listing from FHL Microfilm 1184444 (Neisse) showing he died not in 1868 but on 21 June 1858

In 2018, when I visited the archives in Ratibor for the third time, where the civil birth, marriage, and death records are stored from the time of the “Kulturkampf,” I found Hermann Berliner’s death certificate. (Figure 16) This not only confirmed his death date, but also showed where he was born in 1840, the town of Zülz, Germany [today: Biała Prudnicka, Poland]. So, along with Neisse and Leobschütz, this provided yet a third venue to search for microfilms. (Figure 17)

Figure 16. Hermann Berliner’s death certificate from the “State Archives in Katowice Branch in Racibórz (Ratibor)” showing he died on 3 September 1910; that he was born in Zülz, Germany; that his wife was born “Philippine née Glogauer”; and that his father was named “Ismar Berliner”

Figure 17. 1893 map of Silesia with the towns mentioned in the text of Ratibor, Germany (today: Racibórz, Poland); Leobschütz, Germany (today: Głubczyce, Poland); Neisse, Germany (today: Nysa, Poland); and Zülz, Germany (today: Biała, Poland) circled

Hermann’s death certificate also gives his mother’s maiden name, Philippine Glogauer. As previously noted, she was buried in Leobschütz, Germany [today: Głubczyce, Poland]. Like her husband, Abraham Berliner, whose death was recorded in both Ratibor and Neisse, Philippine Berliner’s death was registered in both Ratibor and Leobschütz. Unlike vital records from Ratibor, some from Leobschütz have been digitized and are available on ancestry.com; I was able to find Philippine Berliner’s death certificate here. (Figure 17) Suffice it to say, her death certificate “pushes” Hermann Berliner’s lineage back yet another generation, naming his father-in-law as Isaac Glogauer. Philippine’s death certificate shows that like her husband and son she too was born in Zülz, Germany [today: Biała Prudnicka, Poland]. Family History Library Zülz Microfilm 1271493 registers births for all three of them, as well as the birth of one of Hermann Berliner’s younger siblings Julchen Berliner in 1842; Hermann Berliner had additional younger siblings, but they were born elsewhere in Silesia.

Figure 18. Hermann Berliner’s mother, Philippine Berliner née Glogauer, death certificate showing she supposedly died on 31 March 1907 in Leobschütz at age 93 (she actually died in Ratibor but was interred in Leobschütz)

In closing, I would urge readers to focus not on the names of my family members whom I discuss but rather on the process of how I recovered data on their vital events, Readers may be able to follow a similar path to extract comparable information for their ancestors. As you do so, you too may discover that primary source documents are not without errors but that they may still be an improvement over vital data found in family trees developed by genealogists who copy and perpetuate inaccurate information.

VITAL STATISTICS FOR HERMANN BERLINER & HIS IMMEDIATE RELATIVES

NAME (relationship)	VITAL EVENT	DATE	PLACE	SOURCE OF DATA

Hermann Berliner (self)	Birth	28 May 1840	Zülz, Germany [today: Biała Prudnicka, Poland]	Family History Library (FHL) Zülz Microfilm 1271493 (births) (FIGURE 19)
Hermann Berliner (self)	Death	3 September 1910	Ratibor, Germany [today: Racibórz, Poland]	State Archives in Katowice Branch in Raciborz death certificate (FIGURE 16); FHL Ratibor Microfilms 1184447 (burials) (FIGURE 20) & 1184448 (deaths) (FIGURE 10); tombstone from former Jewish Cemetery in Ratibor
Olga Braun (wife)	Birth	23 July 1852	Ratibor, Germany [today: Racibórz, Poland]	FHL Ratibor Microfilm 1184449 (births)
Olga Braun (wife)	Death	23 August 1920	Ratibor, Germany [today: Racibórz, Poland]	FHL Ratibor Microfilms 1184447 (burials) (FIGURE 20) & 1184448 (deaths) (FIGURE 11); tombstone from former Jewish Cemetery in Ratibor
Margareth Berliner (daughter)	Birth	19 March 1872	Ratibor, Germany [today: Racibórz, Poland]	FHL Ratibor Microfilm 1184449 (births)
	Marriage (to Siegfried Brauer)	14 July 1891	Ratibor, Germany [today: Racibórz, Poland]	State Archives in Katowice Branch in Raciborz marriage certificate
	Death	24 November 1942	Theresienstadt Ghetto, Czechoslovakia	Yad Vashem Victims’ Database
Else Berliner (daughter)	Birth	3 March 1873	Ratibor, Germany [today: Racibórz, Poland]	FHL Ratibor Microfilm 1184449 (births) (FIGURE 9)
	Marriage (to Felix Bruck)	11 February 1894	Ratibor, Germany [today: Racibórz, Poland]	State Archives in Katowice Branch in Raciborz marriage certificate
	Death	18 February 1957	Manhattan, New York	New York, Hebrew Burial Records (HFBA), Silver Lake and Mount Richmond Cemeteries, 1899-1991
Alfred Max Berliner (son)	Birth	6 November 1875	Ratibor, Germany [today: Racibórz, Poland]	State Archives in Katowice Branch in Raciborz marriage certificate; tombstone from former Jewish Cemetery in Ratibor
	Marriage (to Charlotte Rothe)	17 January 1909	Meseritz, Germany [today: Międzyrzecz, Poland]	Meseritz, Germany marriage certificate from ancestry.com
	Death	19 February 1921	Ratibor, Germany [today: Racibórz, Poland]	FHL Ratibor Microfilm 1184448 (deaths); Ratibor death notice (FIGURE 21); tombstone from former Jewish Cemetery in Ratibor
Abraham Berliner (father)	Birth	8 June 1818	Zülz, Germany [today: Biała Prudnicka, Poland]	FHL Zülz Microfilm 1271493 (births) (FIGURE 22)
	Death	21 June 1858	Ratibor, Germany [today: Racibórz, Poland	FHL Ratibor Microfilm 1184448 (deaths) (FIGURE 12); FHL Neisse Microfilm 1184444 (deaths) (FIGURE 15)
	Burial	1858	Neisse, Germany [today: Nysa, Poland]	FHL Neisse Microfilm 1184444 (deaths)
Philippine “Zipperle” Glogauer (mother)	Birth	25 March 1814	Zülz, Germany [today: Biała Prudnicka, Poland]	FHL Zülz Microfilm 1271493 (births) (FIGURE 23); FHL Leobschütz Microfilm 1184434 (deaths) (FIGURE 24); Leobschütz death certificate from ancestry.com (FIGURE 17)
	Death	31 March 1907	Ratibor, Germany [today: Racibórz, Poland	FHL Ratibor Microfilm 1184448 (deaths) (FIGURE 13); FHL Leobschütz Microfilm 1184434 (deaths) (FIGURE 23); Leobschütz death certificate from ancestry.com (FIGURE 18)
	Burial	1907	Leobschütz, Germany [today: Głubczyce, Poland]	FHL Ratibor Microfilm 1184448 (deaths) (FIGURE 13); Leobschütz death certificate from ancestry.com (FIGURE 18)

Figure 19. Hermann Berliner’s birth register listing from FHL Microfilm 1271493 (Zülz) showing he was born on the 18 May 1840, that his father was Abraham Berliner, and that he was married to Philippine née Glogauer

Figure 20. Olga & Hermann Berliner’s cemetery records listing from Microfilm 1184447 (Ratibor) showing, respectively, they were buried three days after their deaths

Figure 21. Alfred Berliner’s “Death Notice” confirming he died in Ratibor on 19 February 1921

Figure 22. Abraham Berliner’s birth register listing from FHL Microfilm 1271493 (Zülz) indicating he was born on 8 June 1818

Figure 23. Hermann Berliner’s mother, Philippine Glogauer, birth register listing from FHL Microfilm 1271493 (Zülz) showing she was born on 25 March 1814 as “Zipperle” and that her father was named Isaac Glogauer, matching the name shown on her 1907 death certificate

Figure 24. Hermann Berliner’s mother, Philippine Berliner née Glogauer, death register listing from FHL Microfilm 1184434 (Leobschütz) showing she supposedly died on 31 March 1907 in Leobschütz at age 93 (she actually died in Ratibor but was interred in Leobschütz)

POST 92: BEWARE IDENTICAL ANCESTRAL NAMES, THE CASE OF MY MATERNAL GREAT-GRANDFATHER HERMANN BERLINER

Note: In this post, I discuss a man named Ernst Berliner born in 1878 in Ratibor, Germany to a Hermann Berliner, coincidentally the same name as my great-grandfather. Initially I thought Ernst might be a previously unknown great-uncle, a younger brother of my grandmother, Else Bruck née Berliner.

Post 34, Postscript: Margareth Berliner, Wraith or Being? Death in Theresienstadt

Post 34, Postscript 2: Margareth Berliner, Wraith or Being? More Discoveries

Figure 1. In the early 1950’s in New York City, my father Dr. Otto Bruck holding me in his lap, seated next to his mother Else Bruck née Berliner, and brother, Dr. Fedor Bruck

This story started simply when I queried ancestry.com for the surname “Berliner.” This was my grandmother Else Bruck’s maiden name, who was born on the 3^rd of March 1873 in Ratibor, Germany [today: Racibórz, Poland]. I knew her as a child growing up in New York City, although she died when I was only six years old. (Figure 1) Not surprisingly, she never spoke to me about her siblings and ancestors. Had she done so, I would not in any case have remembered since none of my relatives ever reinforced this knowledge.

My search yielded an intriguing result, the name “Ernst Berliner.” This was an unexpected discovery because according to ancestry.com he was born on the 7^th of March 1878 in Ratibor, where many of my father’s family were born. Given my familiarity with Berliners living there at around this time, I was uncertain whether or how he might be related to my grandmother. While Ernst Berliner’s birth certificate was not available online, from the records I could locate, it showed he had lived in Frankfurt am Main before WWII; had been a Bank Director there prior to the war; emigrated to England; had his German nationality annulled following his departure from Germany (Figure 2) and was registered in England as a World War II Alien Internee upon his arrival there (Figure 3); was registered as a “German Persecutee” in 1950 (Figure 4); died in Willesden, Middlesex, England on the 15^th of February 1956; and according to the “Index of Wills and Administration” from the National Probate Calendar had his estate administered on the 29^th of May 1956. (Figure 5) He left his personal effects to a married woman named Barbara Friedlaender, a domestic helper. The England Death Register only shows that Ernst died in the first quarter of 1956 but provides specific information in which English register his death certificate can be found. (Figure 6)

Figure 2. Evidence of the Nazi Regime’s annulment of Ernst Berliner’s German nationality, showing he was born on the 7th of March 1878 in Ratibor, that he was a Bank Director, and last lived in Frankfurt (Main) prior to leaving Germany

Figure 3. England’s “Alien Exemption from Internment” card for Ernst Berliner dated the 8th of November 1939, showing his date and place of birth and occupation

Figure 4. Frankfurt, Germany “Registration of Foreigner and German Persecutee, 1939-1947,” dated the 4th of May 1950, listing Ernst Berliner

Figure 5. Page from England’s “National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administration)” showing Ernst Berliner died in Willesden, London, England on the 25th of February 1956, had his will administered on the 29th of May 1956, and left his personal effects to Barbara Friedlaender

Figure 6. Page from England’s “Civil Registration Death Index,” showing Ernst Berliner died in the first quarter of 1956, and indicating the register where his death certificate can be found

With this data in hand, I turned to the United Kingdom’s (UK) General Register Office online database and ordered Ernst Berliner’s death record in April 2020. Previous UK death certificates I have ordered sometimes name the father, and I was hoping this would again be the case. During these Covid-19 times, it took more than three months for the official document to arrive. But, when it arrived, I realized it included negligible new information and named neither his father nor any next-of-kin. (Figure 7) The person who caused Ernst Berliner’s body to be cremated, identified as Erica Weiss, I later learned was someone who probably worked in his household as a domestic helper.

Figure 7. Ernst Berliner’s death certificate obtained from the United Kingdom’s “General Register Office,” confirming he died on the 25th of February 1956 in Willesden, London, England

Realizing there was little to be learned from the “backend” of Ernst’s life, I turned my attention to obtaining his birth certificate. Given Ernst’s year of birth in 1878, I knew the record would be among the civil records found at “Archiwum Państwowe w Katowicach Oddział w Raciborzu,” State Archives in Katowice Branch in Raciborz. I asked my historian friend from Racibórz, Poland, Mr. Paul Newerla, whether he could obtain a copy of Ernst Berliner’s birth certificate. Even though the State Archives is currently shuttered to the public on account of the Covid pandemic, Paul was able to contact their office and quickly obtain a copy of the document in question. (Figures 8a-b) The record identified Ernst’s father as Hermann Berliner, and, initially, I was stunned and excited by the discovery, thinking I had uncovered a previously unknown sibling of my grandmother. This would not have been unprecedented. In Post 34 and the postscripts, I discussed my grandmother’s older sister, Margareth “Grete” Brauer née Berliner, who I learned about from a single picture of her found among my cousin’s collection of family photographs (Figure 9); my great-aunt Grete Brauer was murdered in the Theresienstadt Ghetto on the 24^th of November 1942 and was never mentioned to me growing up so I naturally assumed the same might have been true of a previously unknown great-uncle.

Figure 8a. Ernst Berliner’s birth certificate obtained from the “State Archives in Katowice Branch in Raciborz,” proving he was born on the 7th of March 1878 in Ratibor to a Herman Berliner, coincidentally the same name as my great-grandfather

Figure 8b. Translation of Ernst Berliner’s birth certificate

Figure 9. My great-aunt Margareth “Grete” Brauer née Berliner (1872-1942), murdered in the Theresienstadt Ghetto in 1942

My grandmother was born in 1873, her older sister Grete in 1872, and her younger brother Alfred Max Berliner in 1875; the timing of Ernst’s birth in 1878 would not have been illogical. However, upon obtaining a translation of Ernst Berliner’s birth certificate, I discovered that his mother had not been my great-grandmother Olga Berliner née Braun but had instead been a Sara Riesenfeld.

I was next left to contemplate whether my great-grandfather Hermann Berliner (Figure 10) might have divorced his first wife and remarried this Sara. I swiftly concluded based on two pieces of evidence this was unlikely to have occurred. The Hermann Berliner who was married to Sara Riesenfeld was identified on their child’s birth certificate as a “hausierer,” an old-fashioned professional title meaning “street vendor,” or “door-to-door salesman.” I know that my great-grandfather was a “brauereimeister,” a master brewer, although I considered the possibility he might have changed professions after 1878. The more compelling evidence that I was looking at two different Hermann Berliners is that my great-grandparents Hermann and Olga were once interred together in the now destroyed Jewish Cemetery in Ratibor; I have a picture of their former headstone. (Figure 11)

Figure 10. My great-grandfather Hermann Berliner (1840-1910)

Figure 11. Headstone from the former Jewish Cemetery in Ratibor for my great-grandparents, Hermann Berliner and Olga Berliner née Braun (1852-1920)

Not entirely satisfied with the evidence I had mustered, I continued to look for further proof I was dealing with two different people by the same name. An 1889 Ratibor Address Book lists only one Hermann Berliner (Figure 12), so this was inconclusive.

Figure 12. Page from an 1889 Ratibor Address Book listing my great-grandfather Hermann Berliner and his mother Pauline Berliner, identifying her as “Witwe,” a widow

I returned my attention to Ernst Berlin, and ultimately found in MyHeritage a “1939 Register of England and Wales,” with his name and the members of his household then residing in London. (Figure 13) His wife “Grete” (i.e., misidentified as “?Rete”) and her date of birth, 6^th of June 1880 (i.e., she was actually born in July), were listed. I quickly discovered she was born in Breslau, Germany [today: Wrocław, Poland] as Grete Moskowicz. Like her husband and many other Jews, she had her German nationality annulled following her departure from Germany (Figure 14) and was registered in the United Kingdom as a World War II Alien Internee upon her arrival there. She died in London on the 7^th of April 1940, and her probate hearing was held on the 25^th of July 1940 (Figure 15); Ernst, shown to be a retired bank director, inherited. I have found no evidence that Ernst and Grete had any children.

Figure 13. “1939 Register of England and Wales” for Ernst Berliner and his household members, listing his wife and domestic helpers, and their dates of birth

Figure 14. Evidence of the Nazi Regime’s annulment of Grete Berliner née Moskowicz’s German nationality, showing she was born on the 6th of June 1880 (July is the correct month) in Breslau and last lived in Frankfurt (Main) prior to leaving Germany

Figure 15. Page from England’s “National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administration)” showing Grete Berliner died in Willesden, London, England on the 4th of April 1940, had her will administered on the 25th of July 1940, and left her personal effects to her husband Ernst Berliner, a retired banker

I next turned my attention to family trees on ancestry.com and MyHeritage. With respect to these, I have often expressed my deep-seated concern that because these are not typically based on primary source documents, the data contained within them is often wrong. Compounding the problem is that genealogists developing their own trees often replicate errors from earlier trees. Still, I have begun to apply a principle I have learned from listening to an investment service to which I am subscribed that maintains the statistical data cited for stocks and companies may be “directionally correct but precisely wrong.” Applied to ancestral data, this means that while vital data of people included in trees may not always be precisely accurate, the relationship among the people may be correct.

Having had limited success finding additional information on Hermann Berliner, I turned my attention to his wife Sara Riesenfeld. Indirectly, I found a surprising amount of information on both in one family tree developed by a “Peter Lax,” confirming Ernst’s father was indeed a different Hermann Berliner than my great-grandfather (Figure 16); this tree identifies another of Hermann and Sara’s sons named Hans born on the 17^th of February 1891 in Breslau. I also found the 1913 marriage certificate for a third son, Arthur Berliner, born on the 8^th of September 1880, also in Breslau. (Figure 17a-b) According to Yad Vashem, both Arthur and Hans were murdered in the Shoah. There is quite a time span between the birth of Hermann and Sara Berliner’s three sons, 1878 to 1891, so the possibility of additional children exists. Still, based on the information in hand, it seems only Ernst survived the Holocaust.

Figure 16. Screen shot of Peter Lax’s family tree with information on Sara Riesenfeld (Ernst Berliner’s mother); circled is the incorrect date of her birth, shown as the 12th of January 1949 when it is in fact the 1st of December 1849, and the name of her father, “Israel Jacob Riesenfeld”

Figure 17a. Ancestry.com cover page for the marriage of Ernst Berliner’s younger brother Arthur Berliner to Amalie Luise Bernhardt on the 30th of April 1913 in Breslau, Germany

Figure 17b. Arthur Berliner’s 1913 marriage certificate with the names of his parents, Hermann Berliner and Sara Riesenfeld, circled

Peter Lax’s tree, with more than 100,000 names in it, allows me to illustrate the point I was alluding to above that even the seemingly best documented trees contain errors. Case in point, Mr. Lax’s tree indicates Sara Riesenfeld was born on the 12^th of January 1849 in Biała, Opolskie, Poland [formerly: Zülz, Germany], and identifies her father as “Israel Jacob Riesenfled (181601860).” (Figure 16) Consulting the Family History Library Microfilm Roll No. 1271493, found online at familysearch.org, with Jewish birth records from Zülz, Germany (Figure 18) for January of 1849, I could not initially locate Sara’s birth register listing. However, I eventually found her birth register listing under December of 1849. (Figure 19) Inadvertently, Peter Lax transposed “1/12/1849” (i.e., European designated date of 1^st of December 1849) as “12/1/1849” (i.e., English designated date of the 12^th of January 1849). This is another cautionary tale of consulting primary source documents where they exist to verify vital data.

Figure 18. 1893 map of Silesia with the towns of Ratibor, Germany (today: Racibórz, Poland); Beuthen, Germany (today: Bytom, Poland); and Zülz, Germany (today: Biała, Poland) circled

Figure 19. Birth register listing for Sara Riesenfeld circled identifying her father as Israel Riesenfeld and her date of birth as “1/12” (i.e., 1st of December 1849) (Source: Family History Library’s microfilm roll 1271493 for Zülz, Germany, pages 80 and 231 of 380 pages on this roll)

One specific piece of information included in Peter Lax’s family tree was the purported place and date of birth of Ernst Berliner’s father, Hermann, on the 1^st of June 1852 in Beuthen, Silesia [today: Bytom, Poland]. (Figure 20) I again turned to the Family History Library online microfilms to confirm this, and successfully found and had transcribed and translated Hermann Berliner’s birth register listing. (Figures 21a-b) Hermann’s birth register listing includes the names of his parents, Hirschel Berliner and Jalünder Rohel née Silbermann, both of whom I later found in the “Jewish Records Indexing-Poland” and “JewishGen Worldwide Burial Registry,” “JOWBR.” This allowed me to “push back” their ancestral tree another generation.

Figure 20. Screen shot of Peter Lax’s family tree with information on Hermann Berliner (Ernst Berliner’s father), showing his date and place of birth, the 1st of June 1852 in Bytom, Poland (formerly: Beuthen, Germany)

Figure 21a. Birth register entry for Hermann Berliner circled, identifying his parents as Hirschel Berliner and Jalünder Rohel née Silbermann and his date of birth as 1st of June 1852 (Source: Family History Library microfilm roll 1335074 for Beuthen, Germany, page 31 of 476 pages on this roll)

Figure 21b. German transcription and English translation of Hermann Berliner’s birth register entry

Having confirmed that Hermann Berliner, father of Ernst Berliner born on the 7^th of March 1878 in Ratibor, was not my grandmother’s father prompted me to trace my great-grandfather’s lineage with reference to primary source documents. In the ensuing post, I will present this information. Regular readers know that without primary source documents in hand, I am most hesitant to accept ancestral and vital data found on other trees. Regarding my ancestral tree, I am much more interested in having well-sourced data and pictures on fewer people than unproven information going back multiple generations. While I assume there exists an ancestral connection between my grandmother Else Bruck née Berliner and Ernst Berliner and his ancestors, I have not yet ferreted out this relationship.

VITAL STATISTICS FOR ERNST BERLINER & HIS IMMEDIATE RELATIVES

NAME (relationship)	VITAL EVENT	DATE	PLACE	SOURCE OF DATA

Ernst Berliner (self)	Birth	7 March 1878	Ratibor, Germany [today: Racibórz, Poland]	Ancestry.com; State Archives in Katowice Branch in Raciborz birth certificate
Ernst Berliner (self)	Death	25 February 1956	Willesden, Middlesex, England	UK “Index of Wills and Administration, National Probate Calendar”; UK General Register Office death certificate
Grete Moskowicz (wife)	Birth	6 July 1880	Breslau, Germany [today: Wrocław, Poland]	Multiple ancestry.com documents
Grete Moskowicz (wife)	Death	7 April 1940	Willesden, Middlesex, England	UK “Index of Wills and Administration, National Probate Calendar”
Hermann Berliner (father)	Birth	1 June 1852	Beuthen, Germany [today: Bytom, Poland]	Family History Library Microfilm Roll 1335074 (Beuthen, Germany)
Hermann Berliner (father)	Death		Kattowitz, Germany [today: Katowice, Poland]	Peter Lax Family Tree
Sara Riesenfeld (mother)	Birth	1 December 1849	Zülz, Germany [today: Biała, Poland]	Family History Library Microfilm Roll 1271493 (Zülz, Germany)
	Marriage	5 February 1876	Breslau, Germany [today: Wrocław, Poland]	Peter Lax Family Tree
	Death		Kattowitz, Germany [today: Katowice, Poland]	Peter Lax Family Tree
Arthur Berliner (brother)	Birth	8 September 1880	Breslau, Germany [today: Wrocław, Poland]	Eastern Prussian Provinces marriage certificate
	Marriage (to Amalie Luise Bernhardt)	30 April 1913	Breslau, Germany [today: Wrocław, Poland]	Eastern Prussian Provinces marriage certificate
	Death	29 November 1941	Fort IX, Kaunas, Lithuania	Yad Vashem
Hans Berliner (brother)	Birth	17 February 1891	Breslau, Germany [today: Wrocław, Poland]	Peter Lax Family Tree
Hans Berliner (brother)	Death	Between 1941 and 1944	Minsk Ghetto, Belarus	Yad Vashem; Peter Lax Family Tree

POST 34, POSTSCRIPT 2: MARGARETH BERLINER, WRAITH OR BEING? MORE DISCOVERIES

CORRECTED

Note: In this second postscript to Blog Post 34, I relate to readers additional information that has come to my attention about my great-aunt, Margareth “Grete” Brauer née Berliner, and her family, largely the result of a member of the Brauer family having come across my family history blog and having contacted me.

Post 34, Postscript: Margareth Berliner, Wraith or Being? Murdered in Theresienstadt

One of my expressed desires when I launched my Bruck family history blog in April 2017 is that not only would I relate to readers forensic discoveries I’d made about my father’s family, friends and acquaintances, but perhaps from time to time readers would come across my blog, contact me, and tell me how we are related or share additional information or tales about people that have been the subject of my posts. My expectations have been met, in some cases exceeded, on multiple occasions. This is particularly satisfying when the people or family I’ve written about met a tragic end at the hands of the Nazis and their henchmen. The opportunity to relate even a small part of these people’s lives ensures they will not have passed through this world completely unnoticed.

Figure 1a. My great-aunt Margarethe “Grete” Brauer, her daughter-in-law Herta Brauer, and her grandson Till Brauer, Neubabelsberg, Germany, 1933, a photo found among my Uncle Dr. Fedor Bruck’s surviving papers

Figure 1b. Captions on back of photo with Margareth “Grete” Brauer, her daughter-in-law Herta Brauer, and her grandson Till Brauer, Neubabelsberg, Germany, 1933

Figure 2. Margareth Auguste Berliner’s birth record (March 19, 1872) (LDS Microfiche Roll 1184449, p. 101)

For readers who’ve not followed the previous posts about my great-aunt Margareth Auguste Brauer née Berliner, let me briefly review. In early 2018, while visiting my German first cousin’s son who is in possession of some of my uncle Dr. Fedor Bruck’s surviving pictures and papers, I asked if I could peruse these documents. Surprisingly, included among the pictures was a single photo captioned partly in my uncle’s handwriting, identifying my grandmother’s sister, Grete Brauer, a great-aunt. (Figures 1a-b) I’d never heard about her growing up, though had discovered a record of her birth on March 19, 1872 (Figure 2), in the Jewish microfilm records available online for Ratibor [today: Racibórz, Poland] from the Church of Latter Day Saints; having previously never found any evidence she survived into adulthood, I’d erroneously assumed she’d died at birth or in childhood. While I knew my grandmother, Else Bruck née Berliner (Figure 3), growing up, I was only six years of age when she passed away in New York City, so it’s not unexpected my grandmother would never have spoken to me about her older sister. Readers may well wonder why my father never told me about her, and I can merely respond by saying that, apart from his beloved sister Susanne, murdered in Auschwitz in September 1942, he had scant interest in family. Regardless, the picture from my uncle’s estate dated 1933 proved that Margareth Brauer née Berliner had indeed lived well into adulthood. What happened to her after 1933 was initially a mystery.

Figure 3. My grandmother and Margareth Brauer née Berliner’s younger sister, Else Bruck née Berliner (1873-1957)

While learning about my great-aunt Margareth Brauer was a new development, I had previously come across the surname “Brauer.” In 2014, when examining the personal papers of two renowned great-aunts, Franziska and Elsbeth Bruck, archived at the Stadtmuseum in Spandau, a suburb of Berlin, I’d come across multiple letters penned to Elsbeth Bruck by Ernst Hanns Brauer and his wife Herta Brauer from Calvia, Mallorca, Spain; just to be clear, Franziska and Elsbeth were sisters of my father’s father, as opposed to Margareth, who was a sister of my father’s mother. At the time, I’d not yet worked out that my Bruck relatives were related to the Brauers through my great-aunt Margareth Berliner’s marriage to a man named Siegfried Brauer, and that Ernst Hanns Brauer (1902-1971) (Figure 4) was their son and my father’s first cousin. (Interested readers will find a table at the end of this post with vital statistics of my great-aunt Margareth Brauer and her immediate family.)

Figure 4. Margareth Brauer’s youngest son, Ernst Hanns Brauer (1902-1971), in 1967 in Calvia, Mallorca, Spain

Figure 5a. Photo from left to right: Oliver Brauer, Ernst Brauer, Herta Brauer, Till Brauer, and a family friend “Ricardo,” taken on the day of Till Brauer’s wedding

Figure 5b. Captions on the reverse side of Figure 5a

Regular readers may recall I was eventually able to track Ernst and Herta Brauer’s descendants to Puerto Rico. (Figure 5a-b) I discussed this in the first postscript to Post 34. In the earlier postscript I also explained to readers that my great-aunt Margareth Brauer had been murdered in Theresienstadt, a fact I uncovered in the Yad Vashem “Shoah Names Database,” a directory I’d neglected to check before publishing my original post.

Figure 6a. Death certificate for Margareth Brauer’s husband, Siegfried Brauer (1859-1926), with the name of their daughter, Hildegard Brauer, circled

Figure 6b. Translation of Siegfried Brauer’s death certificate

Margareth Brauer’s husband, Siegfried Brauer, died in 1926 in Cosel, Germany [today: Koźle, Poland]. (Figures 6a-b) His death was reported to authorities by a Hildegard Brauer, whom I confused with Herta Brauer, Siegfried’s daughter-in-law, Ernst Brauer’s wife. I hadn’t yet discovered that Margareth and Siegfried Brauer had had a daughter named Hildegard. Once I found Hildegard’s birth certificate (Figures 7a-b) and checked her name in the “Shoah Names Database,” I realized she too had been a Holocaust victim, like her mother. (Figure 8)

Figure 7a. Cover page of Hildegard Brauer’s birth certificate from ancestry.com showing she was born on the 8th of August 1892 in Cosel, Germany; her surname, along with those of her parents, is misspelled as “Brawer”

Figure 7b. Hildegard Brauer’s birth certificate

Figure 8. Page from Yad Vashem’s “Shoah Names Database,” showing Hildegard Brauer was deported to Auschwitz from Berlin on the 3rd of March 1943

Figure 9. My great-aunt and -uncle Margareth & Siegfried Brauer (photo courtesy of Eri Heller)

Figure 10. The “Justizrat” (Judicial Councilman) Siegfried Brauer (~1859-1926) (photo courtesy of Eri Heller)

Figure 11. Margareth & Siegfried Brauer’s daughter, Hildegard “Hilde” Brauer (1892-1943) (photo courtesy of Eri Heller)

This current postscript was originally intended to merely update readers on Hildegard Brauer’s fate until I was contacted through my blog’s webmail by a delightful gentleman from Los Angeles named Eri Heller. Like other individuals researching their ancestors, he accidentally discovered my family history blog, specifically the posts about my great-aunt Margareth Brauer. He learned about some of his ancestors and family history he’d previously been unaware of; he also graciously shared with me high-quality pictures of Margareth and Siegfried Brauer (Figures 9-10), as well as their daughter Hildegard (Figure 11), and explained our familial connection. Unbeknownst to me, Siegfried Brauer (~1859-1926) had an older brother, Adolf Brauer (1857-1933) (Figures 12-14), that’s to say Margareth Brauer’s brother-in-law and Eri Heller’s grandfather. So, while Eri and I are not blood relatives, we are second cousins by marriage. Using MyHeritage, I was able to reconstruct much of Eri Heller’s ancestry and find additional photos of his family, although it is not my intention to elaborate on that here.

Figure 12. Adolf Brauer (1857-1933), Siegfried Brauer’s older brother and Eri Heller’s grandfather (photo courtesy of Eri Heller)

Figure 13. Adolf Brauer’s wife and Eri Heller’s grandmother, Fanny Brauer née Krebs (1863-1944) (photo courtesy of Eri Heller)

Figure 14. Adolf Brauer and his daughter, Margarete “Grete” Brauer (1892-1982), respectively, Eri Heller’s grandfather and mother (photo courtesy of Eri Heller)

I’ve previously mentioned to readers I’ve come across a Jewish Silesian family tree on ancestry.com with in excess of 60,000 names; my tree has slightly more than 750 names, and I use it mostly to orient myself when writing about various forebearers and figuring out ancestral connections. One of the greatest pleasures I derive is attaching photos to people in my tree. Without my blog, it’s unlikely I would ever have obtained pictures of my great-aunt and-uncle, Margareth and Siegfried Brauer, and their daughter, Hildegard Brauer, two of whom were victims of the Holocaust. As I implied at the outset, having pictures of individuals and researching and writing their stories makes these otherwise spectral beings in my tree come to life. And, likewise, this is the reason I liberally pepper my blog posts with documents and photos to “prove” these individuals once walked among us.

MARGARETH BRAUER NÉE BERLINER & HER IMMEDIATE FAMILY

Name (Relationship)	Vital Event	Date	Place

Margareth “Grete” Berliner (self)	Birth	19 March 1872	Ratibor, Germany (Racibórz, Poland)
	Marriage	14 July 1891	Ratibor, Germany (Racibórz, Poland)
	Death	24 November 1942	Theresienstadt Ghetto, Czechoslovakia
Siegfried Brauer (husband)	Birth	1859	Biskupitz, Germany (Zabrze, Poland)
	Marriage	14 July 1891	Ratibor, Germany (Racibórz, Poland)
	Death	5 February 1926	Cosel, Germany (Koźle, Poland)
Hildegard Brauer (daughter)	Birth	8 August 1892	Cosel, Germany (Koźle, Poland)
Hildegard Brauer (daughter)	Death	3 March 1943	Auschwitz, Poland (Oświęcim, Poland)
Kurt Brauer (son)	Birth	7 July 1893	Cosel, Germany (Koźle, Poland)
Kurt Brauer (son)	Death	27 August 1920	Cosel, Germany (Koźle, Poland)
Ernst Hanns Brauer (son)	Birth	9 August 1902	Cosel, Germany (Koźle, Poland)
Ernst Hanns Brauer (son)	Death	19 May 1971	Calvia, Mallorca, Spain
Adolf Brauer (brother-in-law)	Birth	10 May 1857	Biskupitz, Germany (Zabrze, Poland)
Adolf Brauer (brother-in-law)	Death	17 December 1933	Berlin, Germany

POST 34, POSTSCRIPT: MARGARETH BERLINER, WRAITH OR BEING? DEATH IN THERESIENSTADT

Note: This postscript about my great-aunt Margareth “Greta” Brauer née Berliner details the substantial amount of new information I’ve learned about her and her family in the few short months since I published the original post in September 2018. In the process, sadly, I also learned when and where she died.

Related Post: Post 34: Margareth Berliner, Wraith or Being?

Figure 1. Till Carl Brauer Mongil, charter fisherman in Puerto Rico, my third cousin once-removed

Aware of a Puerto Rican connection to my great-aunt Greta Brauer’s family and frustrated I had been unable to learn what happened to her after 1933, I recently did an Internet query on the member of her family I knew had lived there, namely, “Till Brauer.” However, given the cataclysmic events associated with Hurricane Maria in September 2017, I had scant expectations I would be able to locate much less connect with any member of the Brauer family; on the contrary, I expected anyone from the family who’d survived the Hurricane to have decamped for an unknown destination on the U.S. Mainland, as many Puerto Ricans did. So, it came as an enormous surprise when I quickly discovered a “Till Brauer Mongil” (Figure 1), operating a charter fishing business out of Carolina, Puerto Rico, which lies immediately east of the capital San Juan. His website stated he was no longer in business, but because it had once been an active operation, an email address was provided. I immediately sent a message with tempered expectations, but within less than an hour, surprisingly, I received a response from Till Brauer asking me to call him. I immediately did.

Till Carl Brauer Mongil, born in 1959 in Puerto Rico, it turns out, is the great-grandson of Greta Brauer, and my third cousin once-removed. As we speak, Till has contracts to conduct inspections related to cleanup and reconstruction of Puerto Rico’s infrastructure resulting from Hurricane Maria, and is extremely busy. Understandably, we’ve had only one opportunity to communicate, so all I’ve learned is from a brief phone conversation. Still, I was able to pick up enough information to correct and supplement what I discussed in Post 34.

Figure 2b. Captions on the back of photo showing Grete Brauer, Herta Brauer, and Till Brauer, Neubabelsberg, Germany, 1933

Figure 3. Ernst & Herta Brauer’s son, Oliver, holding his daughter Margarita, Christmas 1966, Calvia, Mallorca

In my original post I included a picture of three generations of Brauer taken in 1933 in Neubabelsberg, near Spandau, outside Berlin. The photo, reprinted here, shows my great-aunt Greta, her daughter-in-law, Herta Brauer, and her grandson Till as a baby. (Figures 2a-b) I also showed an image taken in Calvia, Mallorca in 1966, similarly reprinted here, showing a son Oliver holding a young daughter named Margarita. (Figure 3) I mistakenly concluded that Till Brauer and Oliver were one person, but, in fact, Ernst and Herta Brauer had these two sons. This was my first error, but not my only one. Till Carl Brauer Mongil, I learned, is the son of the Till Brauer shown in the 1933 photograph. To remind readers, in Spanish-speaking countries, newborns are given two surnames, that of their father and mother, thus the “Brauer Mongil” attached to Till’s name.

Briefly, let me discuss some of the documents and Passenger Manifests I found for Ernst and Herta Brauer’s family on ancestry.com and connect these to some of what Till Brauer told me.

Figure 4. Brauer family listed on “Manifest of Alien Passengers” bound for New York City aboard the Spanish liner SS Marques de Comillas that departed Lisbon, Portugal on February 22, 1941

Figure 5. Brauer family listed on “Record of Aliens Held for Special Inquiry,” showing their arrival in New York on March 12, 1941, and a notation they were “transshipped” to Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic on March 20, 1941

Figure 6. The SS Coamo, the US Merchant vessel on which the Brauer family was “transshipped” to Santo Domingo on March 20, 1941

Figure 7. Brauer family listed on “Manifest of Alien Passengers” departing New York on March 20, 1941

The names of Ernst, Herta, and Till Brauer, along with that of a Yutta Maria Muenchow clearly traveling with them, are listed on a “Manifest of Alien Passengers” bound for New York City aboard the Spanish liner SS Marques de Comillas that departed Lisbon, Portugal on February 22, 1941; this document showed their last permanent residence prior to leaving Europe had been Rome. (Figure 4) A “Record of Aliens Held for Special Inquiry,” shows the arrival of these four people in New York on March 12, 1941. (Figure 5) The title of this manifest suggests the Brauer family was separated from passengers disembarking in New York; a notation in the upper right-hand corner of this document confirms the family’s stay in New York was brief as they were “transshipped to Santo Domingo [Dominican Republic] on the SS Coamo (Figure 6) on March 20, 1941.” And, this comports with a third Passenger Manifest showing the entire family leaving New York City on March 20, 1941 aboard this passenger ship. (Figure 7) An Immigration & Naturalization Service (INS) file, dated May 2, 1941, lists the entire family having traveled aboard the SS Marques de Comillas. (Figure 8) Finally, another Passenger Manifest shows Ernst Brauer traveling alone to San Juan, Puerto Rico from Ciudad Trujillo, Dominican Republic on October 7, 1947 aboard a Pan Am flight. (Figure 9)

Figure 8. INS File dated May 5, 1941 showing the Brauers traveled on the SS Marques de Comillas

Figure 9. “Passenger Manifest” for Pan American Airways showing Ernst Brauer traveled alone to San Juan, Puerto Rico from Ciudad Trujillo, Dominican Republic on October 7, 1947

The four Passenger Manifests and the INS file generally confirm what Till Carl Brauer (to distinguish him from his father Till Brauer) related. Till Brauer was married to a Puerto Rican woman, a circumstance that eventually allowed the Brauers to settle in Puerto Rico, although not before first living in the Dominican Republic for several years by choice or necessity; Ernst and Herta’s son, Oliver, was born there, and judging from the various Passenger Manifests I found, it appears the Brauers lived in the Dominican Republic no longer than seven years, though Till Carl claims it was about four years.

Till Carl Brauer explained that Herta Brauer’s maiden name was “Stadach,” and that she had previously been married to a Karl Ferdinand Hermann Münchow (Figure 10), by whom she had had a daughter, Yutta Maria Münchow. (Figure 11) Thus, the “mysterious” Yutta Maria who traveled with the Brauers was Herta’s daughter by her first marriage.

Figure 10. Certificate for Herta Stadach (later Brauer) and Karl Ferdinand Hermann Münchow’s marriage on October 3, 1925. They had a daughter together, Yutta Maria Münchow, born on August 30, 1926

Figure 11. Yutta Maria Münchow’s “Civil Death Record,” showing she died on October 26, 1986 in Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico

As explained in Post 34, in ancestry.com I located a document titled “Report of the Death of An American Citizen,” for Ernst Hanns Brauer showing he passed away in Calvia, Mallorca on May 19, 1971. (Figure 12) I found no corresponding form for Herta Brauer, and, in fact, the Social Security Death Index recorded her address at the time of death in August 1983 as San Juan, Puerto Rico (Figure 13); I assumed she had died there. Till Carl told me that in truth both Ernst and Herta died in Mallorca. The circumstances that lead the Brauers to relocate there are connected to historical events in the United States during the late 1960’s. Readers will recall that at the time America was ramping up its presence in Vietnam. The compulsory draft would have made both Till and Oliver eligible to be called up since Puerto Ricans are citizens of the unincorporated territory of the U.S. Opposed to the war, and not wanting their sons to be drafted, the Brauers left the country. It’s clear that neither parent ever relinquished their American nationality, and, both sons, had dual American-German nationality; Oliver ultimately died in Germany, place unknown. Till Carl was unable to tell me anything about the daughter Oliver is shown holding in a 1966 picture of the two of them.

Figure 12. “Report of the Death of An American Citizen” for Ernst Hanns Brauer showing he died in Calvia, Mallorca on May 19, 1971

Figure 13. Social Security Death Index for Herta Brauer showing her address at time of death as San Juan, Puerto Rico, even though she died in Mallorca

The thing I had most wanted to find out from Till Carl was when and where Greta Brauer, his great-grandmother, died, but he didn’t know. I began to despair finding out. On this note, Till Carl and I ended our conversation with a promise on my part to send him all the documents I’d uncovered related to his family.

Figure 14. Page from the “Gedenbuch,” one of the Holocaust databases, showing Greta Brauer died in the Theresienstadt Ghetto on November 24, 1942

In compiling all this evidence, but convinced I’d already examined the various Holocaust victims’ databases, I decided to double check for Grete Brauer before sending all the family documents to Till Carl Brauer. For reasons that are unclear, I had never found or simply overlooked my great-aunt’s name in these databases but this time I found her and confirmed she died in the Theresienstadt Ghetto on November 24, 1942 (Figure 14), an all too familiar ending with Jewish relatives whose deaths remain unsolved during the Nazi era.

Figure 15a. Photo from left to right: Oliver Brauer, Ernst Brauer, Herta Brauer, Till Brauer, and a family friend “Ricardo,” taken on the day of Till Brauer’s wedding

Figure 15b. Captions in German on the reverse side of Figure 15b

Following my brief conversation with Till Carl, I exchanged an email with Larry Leyser, my third cousin once-removed whom I’ve alluded to in other posts. I told him in passing I’d spoken to one of our relatives in Puerto Rico, and, a short time, later he sent me a picture and a clipping from a Puerto Rican newspaper asking whether it had anything to do with the people shown or mentioned. Incredibly, it did. The photo and newspaper article were scanned from a horde of items Larry had borrowed from one of his cousins, curiously included in this stash, and set aside as people to be identified later. Simply because I mentioned Puerto Rico, Larry sent these documents to me on the off-chance they might be connected to what I was working on. The picture shows Herta and Ernst Brauer book-ended by their two sons, Oliver on the left, Till on the right along with a family friend, on the day of Till’s wedding. (Figure 15a-b) Herta and Ernst Brauer are rightmost in the newspaper picture, involved, as they were most of their lives, in dance and theater. (Figure 16)

Figure 16. A clipping from a Puerto Rican newspaper showing Herta & Ernst Brauer, third and fourth persons

One final thing. My still-living 89-year old mother, who knew my grandmother, Greta Brauer’s sister, says my grandmother never mentioned having an older sister. What, if anything, to make of this omission is unclear.

POST 34: MARGARETH BERLINER, WRAITH OR BEING?

Note: My paternal grandmother, Else Bruck née Berliner, had an older sister, Margareth Berliner, the evidence of whose survival beyond birth is examined in this post.

Figure 1. My grandmother, Else Bruck née Berliner (1873-1957)

Berliner was the maiden name of my grandmother, Else Bruck (Figure 1), born on March 3, 1873, in Ratibor, Germany (today: Racibórz, Poland). According to Jewish birth records for Ratibor, available from familysearch.org, my grandmother had two siblings, an older sister MARGARETH AUGUST BERLINER, born on March 19, 1872 (Figure 2), and a younger brother, ALFRED BERLINER, born on November 6, 1875. All three children were the offspring of my great-grandfather, HERMANN BERLINER, and his wife, OLGA BERLINER née BRAUN. (Figure 3)

Figure 2. Margareth August Berliner’s birth record (March 19, 1872) (LDS Microfiche 1184449, p. 101)

Figure 3. Olga & Herman Berliner’s headstone from the former Jewish Cemetery in Ratibor

Figure 4. Alfred Berliner’s headstone from the former Jewish Cemetery in Ratibor

As discussed in Post 14, Olga Berliner was one of twelve children the brauereipachter (tenant brewer) MARCUS BRAUN had with his wife CAROLINE BRAUN née SPIEGEL. Through the names and dates of birth of all of Marcus’s children, I was able to establish connections with descendants of Marcus Braun, distant cousins living in America whose names I’d heard about growing up. Thus, I was aware of and came to learn of Alfred Berliner’s three children with his wife CHARLOTTE ROTHE, first cousins of my father; readers may recall, Charlotte Rothe died in the Holocaust and was the subject of Post 18. Alfred died in 1921 in Ratibor and was once buried in the Jewish Cemetery there. (Figure 4)

Oddly, no one in my family ever mentioned my grandmother’s older sister Margareth Berliner, so after learning of her, I assumed she had died at birth or shortly thereafter; this would not have been unusual at the time.

Figure 5a. Grete Brauer, her daughter-in-law Herta Brauer, and her grandson Till Brauer, Neubabelsberg, Germany, 1933

Figure 5b. Captions on back of photo with Grete Brauer, Herta Brauer & Till Brauer, Neubabelsberg, Germany, 1933

Fast forward to this past summer when I visited my first cousin’s son in Hilden, Germany, who inherited my uncle Fedor Bruck’s personal papers and pictures. On the off-chance they might contain family items of interest, I asked if I could peruse these items. Cached among the photos was one labelled on the back as a GRETE BRAUER. (Figure 5a-b) This caught my attention because during my visit in 2014 to the Stadtmuseum, where the personal papers of two renowned great-aunts, Franziska and Elsbeth Bruck, are archived, I discovered multiple letters sent to my great-aunt Elsbeth in East Berlin from Calvia, Mallorca by HANNS & HERTA BRAUER. The letterhead on some letters read “DR. E. H. BRAUER,” and they were variously signed “Ernst,” “Hanns,” and “Ernst & Herta.” Elsbeth’s archived materials also include photos the Brauer family sent her, though none of Grete Brauer. Until I found Grete’s photo, I had assumed the Brauers were family friends of my great-aunt.

As I said, the photo of Grete in my uncle Fedor’s surviving papers was captioned. In one handwriting was written “Three generations: Grete-Herta-Till & Neubabelsberg 1933”; Neubabelsberg is located near Spandau, on the outskirts of Berlin. Then, in what was unmistakably my uncle’s shaky handwriting, he had added: “Aunt Grete Brauer (mother’s sister with her daughter-in-law and grandson).” This was an “aha!” moment because I knew then that my grandmother’s sister had indeed survived into adulthood and had lived at least as late as 1933, making her 61 years of age at the time. This is the first concrete evidence I’d come across confirming Margareth’s “existence.”

Armed with this new information, I turned to ancestry.com. I found a surprising number of documents and information on the Brauer family there, although notable gaps still exist. In combination with the photos and letters from the Stadtmuseum, I’ve been able to partially construct a family tree covering four generations.

Figure 6. Birth certificate for Siegfried & Grete Brauer’s son, Kurt Brauer (July 7, 1893)

Figure 7. Birth certificate for Siegfried & Grete Brauer’s son, Ernst Han(n)s Brauer (August 9, 1902)

Figure 8. Kurt Brauer’s headstone from the former Jewish Cemetery in Ratibor indicating he died in 1920

Among the documents found were birth certificates for two of Margareth Brauer’s sons. An older son, KURT BRAUER, was born on July 7, 1893 (Figure 6), in a place called Cosel, Prussia (today: Koźle, Poland), located a mere 20 miles north of Ratibor, where Margareth was born; the younger son, ERNST HAN(N)S BRAUER, was born on August 9, 1902 (Figure 7), also in Cosel, Prussia. The birth certificates provided the father’s name, SIEGFRIED BRAUER. Given the proximity of Cosel and Ratibor, I thought some Brauers might have been buried in the Jewish Cemetery in Ratibor, and, indeed, I discovered Kurt Brauer died in 1920 and was buried there, and that a photo of his headstone exists. (Figure 8)

Also, once buried in the Ratibor Jewish Cemetery was a young girl named THEA BRAUER, born in 1911 who died in 1919. Whether or how she might be related to Margareth and Siegfried Brauer is unclear, but a poor photo of her headstone also survives.

Figure 9. Siegfried Brauer’s death certificate (February 5, 1926)

Siegfried Brauer’s death certificate (Figure 9) states he was born in approximately 1859 in a place called “Biskupitz County Hindenberg” (today: Zabrze, Poland, near Katowice), and died at 67 years of age, on February 5, 1926 in Cosel, Prussia; he appears to have been a Judicial Councilman. Interestingly, his death was reported by a HILDEGARD BRAUER, who I initially thought was his daughter-in-law, the aforementioned “Herta”; because no maiden name is given, I now think Hildegard was another of Siegfried & Margareth’s children. A 1927 Address Book for Cosel, Prussia lists Siegfried’s widow (“witwe” in German) Margareth still living there. (Figure 10)

Figure 10. Page from a 1927 Address Book for Cosel, Prussia listing Margareth Brauer as a widow living at Bahnhofstraße 16

Figure 11. September 1967 photo of Ernst Hanns Brauer in Calvia, Mallorca

Figure 12. State Department Form for “Report of Death of An American Citizen,” Ernst Hanns Brauer (May 19, 1971)

Figure 13. Passenger Manifest listing Ernst Brauer & his family arriving in New York from Lisbon, Portugal on February 12, 1941

Figure 14. Passenger Manifest listing Ernst Brauer & his family leaving New York on March 20, 1941, for Puerto Rico

Margareth & Siegfried’s son, Ernst Hanns Brauer (Figure 11), eventually became an American citizen, and died on May 19, 1971 in Calvia, Mallorca, Spain (Figure 12), where he’s buried. He and his family traveled to Puerto Rico in 1941 (Figures 13 & 14), where they appear to have ridden out the war there before moving to Mallorca. Oddly, a 14-year old girl named YUTTA MARIA MUENCHOW was in their company when they traveled to Puerto Rico; her connection to the Brauer family is unknown. Ernst’s wife, HERTA LEONORE BRAUER, maiden name unknown, was born on February 4, 1904 in Neumünster, Germany, and passed away in August 1983 in San Juan, Puerto Rico. (Figure 15) According to letters Ernst and Herta sent to my great-aunt, their son, alternately referred to as “TILL” or “OLIVER,” born in 1933, was married to an unnamed Puerto Rican woman, and they had a daughter MERLE-MARGARITA, born 1966. (Figure 16) The fate of Oliver, his wife, and their daughter is unknown.

Figure 15. Social Security Death Index showing birth and death of Herta Brauer (b. February 4, 1904-d. August 1983)

Figure 16. Oliver (“Till”) Brauer with his daughter, Merle-Margarita, Christmas 1966, Calvia, Mallorca

These vital statistics merely highlight the large amount of data available from ancestry.com on the Brauer family.

Still, so far, I’ve been unable to determine when and where my great-aunt Grete died, someone who for the longest time was an ethereal figure. I tried one other thing attempting to ascertain her fate. I turned to the Mallorca White Pages to search for Brauers possibly still living there. I found a KERSTEN BRAUER living in a community only 22 miles north of Calvia, where Ernst Brauer is buried. I was firmly convinced I’d found one of his descendants. I was able to reach her by phone, after having carefully translated my questions into Spanish. Amusingly, I’d barely introduced myself in tortured Spanish, before Ms. Brauer impeccably asked, “do you speak English?” What a relief! Reaching Ms. Brauer was a veritable stroke of luck as she hails from Switzerland and spends only short periods in Mallorca. Nonetheless, originating from Switzerland and given that her name is spelled “Bräuer” (pronounced “Breuer”), makes it exceedingly unlikely she is distantly related to my great-aunt.

Figure 17. Clipping from a local newspaper discussing Herta & Ernst Brauer’s work with the Palma de Mallorca’s ballet company

The letters Ernst and Herta Brauer wrote to my great-aunt Elsbeth spoke of their public work in Mallorca, and even included a newspaper clipping. (Figure 17) Herta was working on a novel as well as building up the ballet school in Palma de Mallorca, while Ernst was play-writing and making connections with local members of international high society, such as the English writer Robert Graves settled in Deià, Mallorca. (Figure 18) One letter from 1967 (Figure 19) spoke about two Englishmen visiting Mallorca looking for two ballerinas from Herta’s ballet school to appear in a movie starring Michael Caine and Anthony Quinn, who did in fact collaborate on at least three different movies. Ernst did some translations of the German poet Rainer Maria Rilke’s works that were performed in Mallorca, while their son, Oliver, had a minor role in a movie starring Roy Black, the famous German schlager singer and actor. No mention is made of Grete in any of Ernst and Herta’s letters from Mallorca, so we can safely assume she was no longer alive.

Figure 18. April 1967 photo of Hanns Brauer with noted author Robert Graves (1895-1985) in Deià, Mallorca

Figure 19. November 1967 letter from Herta & Ernst Brauer to my great-aunt Elsbeth

The last year we can assuredly place my great-aunt Grete in Germany, 1933, would have been a very perilous time for Jews. Whether she escaped Germany with the rest of her family, died before the mass arrest of Jews there, or was deported on an age-transport to a concentration camp is unknown. More forensic work is required to answer these queries.

SIDEBAR:

Figure 20. My wife Ann standing by a bust of Roy Black along Lake Wörthersee, in southern Austria, June 2018

Part of the appeal for me in doing forensic genealogy is finding connections between people and places, sometimes in the most unexpected fashion. Case in point. One place in Europe my wife and I like to recuperate during our family pilgrimages is a town called Velden along the Wörthersee, a lake in the southern Austrian state of Carinthia, a place my parents first took me to as a young boy. Imagine my surprise this year when we were strolling along the lake and discovered a bust of Roy Black (1943-1991) in Velden. (Figure 20) Knowing that Roy Black was of German origin, I could not imagine why he was being celebrated in southern Austria. As it turns out, in the last years of his short life, Roy had a comeback as singer and leading actor of the hit TV show “Ein Schloß am Wörthersee (known internationally as “Lakeside Hotel”; literally “A Castle on Lake Wörthersee”).” Small world!