Maria Ulrike Pohlmann nee Pauly Archives

POST 94: MY GREAT-GREAT-UNCLE & AUNT JOSEF & ROSALIE PAULY’S NINE CHILDREN THROUGH TIME

“You know how the time flies

Only yesterday was the time of our lives

We were born and raised in a summer haze

Bound by the surprise of our glory days”

Adele “Someone Like You”

Note: In this post, I present photos of Josef and Rosalie Pauly’s nine children, my great-great-uncle and aunt’s offspring, showing them as young children, adolescents, young adults, middle aged, and elderly. Naturally, there are gaps in the photo sequences for some of the children.

Post 56: Reflections on Life and Family by The Paterfamilias, Dr. Josef Pauly

Post 57: Disappeared Without A Trace, Maria Pohlmann Née Pauly

Post 57, Postscript: Disappeared Without A Trace, Maria Pohlmann Née Pauly—Mystery Solved!!

Post 58: Finding Therese “Thussy” Sandler Née Pauly, My Great-Great-Uncle and Aunt’s Youngest Child

Post 89: Evidence of My 18th & 19th Centuries Marle Ancestors

I have often thought to myself that upon one’s birth, one is metaphorically handed an hourglass measuring the sands of time slowly or rapidly draining out. Regular readers may recall that in Post 89, I discussed my great-great-great-grandparents, Wilhelm Wolf Marle and his wife Rosalie (“Reisel”) Marle née Grätzer, whose headstones survive in the former Jewish Cemetery in Pless, Germany [today: Pszczyna, Poland]. (Figures 1-2) Given my musings about the passage of time, I was mildly surprised to see that an hourglass is carved into Rosalie Marle’s headstone signifying how quickly time passes. (Figure 2) Clearly, I can take no credit for the originality of this metaphor.

Figure 1. My great-great-great-grandfather Wilhelm Marle’s (1772-1846) tombstone in Pszczyna, Poland, formerly Pless, Germany

Figure 2. My great-great-great-grandmother Rosalie Marle née Graetzer’s headstone showing the hourglass carved into it signifying how quickly time flies

Josef Pauly (Figure 3) and Rosalie Pauly née Mockrauer (Figures 4-5), my great-great-uncle and aunt, had nine children all born in Posen, Germany [today: Poznan, Poland] between 1871 and 1885. (Figure 6) In perusing my digital collection of photographs, I realized I have photos of all of them capturing how they looked through the years. Not unexpectedly, there are gaps in the photo sequences for some of the children, which my third cousin, Andi Pauly, more closely aligned to this branch of my family, was partially able to fill. I think it is unusual to have a “continuous” sequence of photos for one’s relatives who were born in the 19^th century and died in the 20^th century, and for this reason I thought I would array these photos for readers to see. I certainly find it to be true that I can recognize photos of some of my ancestors from specific periods in their lives but not necessarily from other intervals in their lives; interestingly, I occasionally even find this to be true of photos of myself.

Figure 3. My great-great-uncle Dr. Josef Pauly (1843-1916)

Figure 4. My great-great-aunt Rosalie Pauly née Mockrauer (1844-1927)

Figure 5. My great-great-aunt Rosalie Pauly née Mockrauer with one of her newborns, likely one of her firstborn daughters, judging from Rosalie’s age (photo courtesy of Danny Sandler)

Figure 6. Photo of Josef and Rosalie Pauly’s six oldest daughters as children and infants, from left to right, Anna, Paula, Helene, Elisabeth, Margarethe, and Maria, probably taken ca. 1878 (photo courtesy of Andi Pauly)

Below, readers will find a table with the vital statistics of Josef and Rosalie Pauly’s nine children. This is followed by the sequence of photos I have for each of them showing how differently they looked at various stages of their lives. The second-born child, Paula Pincus née Pauly, died youngest at age 49, while the last born, Therese Sandler née Pauly, was the longest lived at age 84. Three of the daughters, Helene Guttentag née Pauly, Elisabeth Herrnstadt née Pauly, and Margarethe Neisser née Pauly, died during the Holocaust, two by their own hands.

VITAL STATISTICS FOR JOSEF & ROSALIE PAULY’S CHILDREN

NO.	NAME	EVENT	DATE	PLACE

1	Anna Rothholz née Pauly (Figures 6-7)	Birth	14 March 1871	Posen, Germany
		Marriage	20 May 1892	Berlin, Germany
		Death	21 June 1925	Stettin, Germany
2	Paula Pincus née Pauly (Figures 6, 8-9)	Birth	26 April 1872	Posen, Germany
		Marriage	16 November 1891	Berlin, Germany
		Death	31 March 1922	Magdeburg, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany
3	Helene Guttentag née Pauly (Figures 6, 10-14)	Birth	12 April 1873	Posen, Germany
		Marriage	5 February 1898	Berlin, Germany
		Death (suicide)	23 October 1942	Berlin, Germany
4	Elisabeth Herrnstadt née Pauly (Figures 6, 15-17)	Birth	2 July 1874	Posen, Germany
		Marriage	11 May 1895	Cunnersdorf, Germany
		Death (murdered)	27 May 1943	Theresienstadt, Czechoslovakia
5	Margarethe Neisser née Pauly (Figures 6, 17-22)	Birth	16 January 1876	Posen, Germany
		Marriage	5 September 1898	Stettin, Germany
		Death (suicide)	12 October 1941	Berlin, Germany
6	Maria Pohlmann née Pauly (Figures 6, 23-26)	Birth	21 July 1877	Posen, Germany
		Marriage	30 September 1901	Posen, Germany
		Death	18 July 1946	Freiburg, Germany
7	Edith Riezler née Pauly (Figures 17, 27-32)	Birth	4 January 1880	Posen, Germany
		Marriage	28 May 1923	Berlin, Germany
		Death	5 February 1961	Munich, Germany
8	Wilhelm Pauly (Figures 33-38)	Birth	24 September 1883	Posen, Germany
		Marriage	3 January 1914	Breslau, Germany
		Death	1961	Tsumeb, Namibia
9	Therese Sandler née Pauly (Figures 39-46)	Birth	21 August 1885	Posen, Germany
		Marriage	31 August 1912	Posen, Germany
		Death	25 November 1969	Buenos Aires, Argentina

Anna Rothholz née Pauly (1871-1925)

Paula Pincus née Pauly (1872-1922)

Figure 9. Paula Pincus née Pauly in the early- to mid-1890’s

Helene Guttentag née Pauly (1873-1942)

Figure 11. Helene Guttentag née Pauly in 1888

Figure 12. Helene Guttentag née Pauly in her 20’s

Figure 13. Helene Guttentag née Pauly in middle age (photo courtesy of Danny Sandler)

Figure 14. Helene Guttentag née Pauly in 1938 in Berlin, four years before she committed suicide after being told by the Nazis to report for deportation

Elisabeth Herrnstadt née Pauly (1874-1943)

Figure 16. Elisabeth Herrnstadt née Pauly in the early- to mid-1890’s

Figure 17. Elisabeth Herrnstadt née Pauly as a young adult (middle) with two of her younger sisters, Margarethe (left) and Edith (right) (photo courtesy of Agnes Stieda)

Margarethe Neisser née Pauly (1876-1941)

Figure 19. Margarethe Neisser née Pauly as a young girl (photo courtesy of Danny Sandler)

Figure 20. Margarethe Neisser née Pauly as a young adult (photo courtesy of Agnes Stieda)

Figure 21. Margarethe Neisser née Pauly in middle age (photo courtesy of Agnes Stieda)

Figure 22. Margarethe Neisser née Pauly later in life

Maria Pohlmann née Pauly (1877-1946)

Figure 24. Maria Pohlmann née Pauly in the early 1890’s

Figure 25. Maria Pohlmann née Pauly on her wedding day the 30th of September 1901

Figure 26. Maria Pohlmann née Pauly in 1906

Edith Riezler née Pauly (1880-1961)

Figure 28. Edith Riezler née Pauly as a young girl

Figure 29. Edith Riezler née Pauly as young adult (photo courtesy of Agnes Stieda)

Figure 30. Edith Riezler née Pauly as an adult (photo courtesy of Danny Sandler)

Figure 31. Edith Riezler née Pauly as an adult (photo courtesy of Agnes Stieda)

Figure 32. Edith Riezler née Pauly in 1936 (photo courtesy of Andi Pauly)

Wilhelm Pauly (1883-1961)

Figure 34. Wilhelm Pauly as a young boy (photo courtesy of Danny Sandler)

Figure 35. Wilhelm Pauly in 1901 at his sister Maria Pohlmann née Pauly’s wedding

Figure 36. Wilhelm Pauly in 1914 in his WWI uniform (photo courtesy of Andi Pauly)

Figure 37. Wilhelm Pauly with his wife Melanie Pauly née Schöneberg in the 1910’s (photo courtesy of Andi Pauly)

Figure 38. Wilhelm Pauly in 1952 (photo courtesy of Andi Pauly)

Therese Sandler née Pauly (1885-1969)

Figure 40. Therese Sandler née Pauly as a young girl (head leaning on her father) in a group photo with her parents, six older siblings, and an unidentified man (photo courtesy of Andi Pauly)

Figure 41. Therese Sandler née Pauly in 1901 at her older sister Maria Pohlmann née Pauly’s wedding

Figure 42. Therese Sandler née Pauly in a cabinet photo taken in Berlin (photo courtesy of Andi Pauly)

Figure 43. Therese Sandler née Pauly in a traditional Bavarian Oktoberfest Beer Dirndl dress (photo courtesy of Andi Pauly)

Figure 44. Therese Sandler née Pauly wearing an elaborate hat (photo courtesy of Andi Pauly)

Figure 45. Therese Sandler née Pauly photo from her 1938 “Reisepass,” or passport, that allowed her to leave Germany during the Nazi era (photo courtesy of Pedro Sandler)

Figure 46. Therese Sandler née Pauly after she immigrated to Argentina (photo courtesy of Danny Sandler)

POST 87: “COLORIZED” PHOTOS OF PAULY FAMILY MEMBERS

Note: This post is inspired by a Polish gentleman who sent me “colorized” photos of members of the Pauly branch of my extended family using an image I included in Post 45.

Given the emotionally taxing subject matter of some of my family history posts, occasionally I like to intersperse stories that are more whimsical or lighthearted in nature. The current post is one such example. It was inspired by a Mr. Marek Bieńkowski from Włocławek, Poland. This gentleman is not subscribed to my Blog, nor, to the best of my knowledge, are we in any way related. Taking a photo inserted in Post 45 showing multiple members of the Pauly branch of my family, Mr. Bieńkowski “colorized” images of 19 of the 31 people in this picture. I estimate the picture was taken in the early 1890’s in Posen, Prussia [Poznan, Poland], and, to date, I’ve been able to identify 23 of the 31 subjects using an incomplete caption on the back of the photo and comparing the individual images to others where the people are identified by name. The original photo with the heads of the figures circled and numbered is included here (Figure 1), and the table below summarizes the vital data of the known people.

Figure 1. Pauly family get-together, probably in the early 1890’s, with heads of the 31 attendees circled and numbered

NO.	NAME	EVENT	DATE	PLACE

1	Anna Rothholz née Pauly (Figures 2a-b)	Birth	14 March 1871	Posen, Germany
		Death	21 June 1925	Stettin, Germany
		Marriage	20 May 1892	Berlin, Germany
2	Josef Pauly (Figures 3a-b)	Birth	10 August 1843	Tost, Germany
		Death	7 November 1916	Posen, Germany
		Marriage	1869
3	Paula Pincus née Pauly (Figures 4a-b)	Birth	26 April 1872	Posen, Germany
		Death	31 March 1922	Magdeburg, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany
		Marriage	16 November 1891	Berlin, Germany
4	UNKNOWN WOMAN (Figures 5a-b)
5	Julie Neisser née Sabersky (Figures 6a-b)	Birth	26 February 1841	Wöllstein, Germany
5	Julie Neisser née Sabersky (Figures 6a-b)	Death	11 April 1927	Berlin, Germany
6	Ernst Neisser (Figures 7a-b)	Birth	16 May 1863	Liegnitz, Germany
		Death (Suicide)	4 October 1942	Berlin, Germany
		Marriage	5 September 1898	Stettin, Germany
7	Margarethe Neisser née Pauly (Figures 8a-b)	Birth	16 January 1876	Posen, Germany
		Death	10 December 1941	Berlin, Germany
		Marriage	5 September 1898	Stettin, Germany
8	Rosalie Pauly née Mockrauer	Birth	3 January 1844	Leschnitz, Germany
		Death	28 November 1927	Berlin, Germany
		Marriage	1869	Unknown
9	Rosalinde Kantorowicz née Pauly (Figures 9a-b)	Birth	22 January 1854	Tost, Germany
9	Rosalinde Kantorowicz née Pauly (Figures 9a-b)	Death	3 November 1916	Frankfurt am Main, Hessen, Germany
10	UNKNOWN MAN (Figures 10a-b)
11	Charlotte Mockrauer née Bruck (Figures 11a-b)	Birth	8 December 1865	Ratibor, Germany
		Death	10 January 1965	Stockholm, Sweden
		Marriage	18 March 1888	Ratibor, Germany
12	UNKNOWN WOMAN (Figures 12a-b)
13	UNKNOWN BOY
14	Therese Sandler née Pauly	Birth	21 August 1885	Posen, Germany
14	Therese Sandler née Pauly	Death	25 November 1969	Buenos Aires, Argentina
15	Gertrud Kantorowicz “Gertrude Pauly (Pseudonym)”	Birth	9 October 1876	Posen, Germany
15	Gertrud Kantorowicz “Gertrude Pauly (Pseudonym)”	Death (Murdered)	20 April 1945	Theresienstadt, Czechoslovakia
16	Maria Pohlmann née Pauly	Birth	21 July 1877	Posen, Germany
		Death	Unknown
		Marriage	30 September 1901	Posen, Germany
17	Gertrud Wachsmann née Pollack	Birth	10 July 1867	Görlitz, Saxony, Germany
		Death (Murdered)	22 October 1942	Theresienstadt, Czechoslovakia
		Married	17 October 1893	Görlitz, Saxony, Germany
18	Heinrich Sabersky (Figures 13a-b)	Birth	July 1845	Grünberg, Germany
18	Heinrich Sabersky (Figures 13a-b)	Death	January 1929	Berlin, Germany
19	Helene Guttentag née Pauly (Figures 14a-b)	Birth	12 April 1873	Posen, Germany
		Death (Suicide)	23 October 1942	Berlin, Germany
		Marriage	5 February 1898	Berlin, Germany
20	Adolf Guttentag (Figures 15a-b)	Birth	4 December 1868	Breslau, Germany
		Death (Suicide)	23 October 1942	Berlin, Germany
		Marriage	5 February 1898	Berlin, Germany
21	Wilhelm Pauly (Figures 16a-b)	Birth	24 September 1883	Posen, Germany
21	Wilhelm Pauly (Figures 16a-b)	Death	1961	Unknown
22	UNKNOWN MAN (Figures 17a-b)
23	Elly Landsberg née Mockrauer	Birth	14 August 1873	Berlin, Germany
		Death (Murdered)	15 May 1944	Auschwitz, Poland
		Marriage	1892	Posen, Germany
24	Edith Riezler née Pauly	Birth	4 January 1880	Posen, Germany
24	Edith Riezler née Pauly	Death	1963	Unknown
25	UNKNOWN MAN (Figures 18a-b)
26	UNKNOWN WOMAN
27	Elisabeth Herrnstadt née Pauly	Birth	2 July 1874	Posen, Germany
		Death (Murdered)	27 May 1943	Theresienstadt, Czechoslovakia
		Marriage	11 May 1895	Cunnersdorf, Germany
28	Arthur Herrnstadt	Birth	15 March 1865	Hirschberg, Germany
		Death	21 October 1912	Stettin, Germany
		Marriage	11 May 1895	Cunnersdorf, Germany
29	Adolf Wachsmann (Figures 19a-b)	Birth	3 January 1859	Ratibor, Germany
		Death	Unknown	Unknown
		Married	17 October 1893	Görlitz, Saxony, Germany
30	UNKNOWN MAN (Figures 20a-b)
31	UNKNOWN MAN

** Numbers in the left-hand column correspond with the numbered, circled heads in Figure 1. Names in red refer to people whose images have been colorized.

Mr. Bieńkowski seemingly used the automated feature of an image-editing program to smooth and sharpen the individual photos. All subjects have blue eyes but given that only 8 to 10 percent of the world’s population have eyes this color, clearly this is unrealistic. Some of the colorized images are remarkably real and look like their originals, others are eerie since the proportions are imprecise and imbue the subjects with a wax-museum quality.

Figure 2b. Anna Rothholz née Pauly (colorized)

Figure 4b. Paula Pincus née Pauly (colorized)

Figure 6b. Julie Neisser née Sabersky (colorized)

Figure 8b. Margarethe Neisser née Pauly (colorized)

Figure 9a. Rosalinde Kantorowicz née Pauly

Figure 9b. Rosalinde Kantorowicz née Pauly (colorized)

Figure 11a. Charlotte Mockrauer née Bruck

Figure 11b. Charlotte Mockrauer née Bruck (colorized)

Figure 13b. Heinrich Sabersky (colorized)

Figure 14b. Helene Guttentag née Pauly (colorized)

As mentioned, based on the estimated age of the younger subjects and their known dates of birth, I gauge the original picture was taken in the early 1890’s. While color photography is almost as old as black-and-white, the process did not become widely available until much later, certainly after the Lippmann color process was unveiled in 1891. The only color photo I have of any of the subjects is of my great-aunt Charlotte Mockrauer née Bruck when she turned 100 in 1965 and her eyes appear to be brown. (Figure 21) Additionally, I have color paintings of two of the 31 subjects in the original photograph, specifically, Julie Neisser née Sabersky (Figure 22) and Wilhelm Pauly (Figure 23). In these paintings, Julie Sabersky clearly has brown eyes, and a much older Wilhelm Pauly has blue eyes.

Figure 21. Color photo of my great-aunt Charlotte Mockrauer née Bruck (subject 11 in Figure 1) with my uncle Fedor Bruck when Charlotte turned 100 in 1965; her eyes appear brown

Figure 22. Color painting of Julie Neisser née Sabersky (subject 5 in Figure 1), where her eyes appear brown

Figure 23. Color painting of Wilhelm Pauly (subject 21 in Figure 1) showing his blue eyes

Figure 24. Liselotte “Lilo” Dieckmann née Neisser (1902-1994) who typed a biography in which she mentioned and described her grandmother, Julie Neisser née Sabersky

Regular readers know how I like making connections between seemingly unrelated things. In the previous post, Post 86, Suse Vogel née Neisser’s 1947 letter describing the last days of her father and aunt’s lives in October 1942 in Berlin was sent to her first cousin, Liselotte Dieckmann née Neisser in St. Louis. (Figure 24) Liselotte was an extremely accomplished woman and a Professor of German at St. Louis University. She wrote a short biography in English of her life, which I obtained a copy of from Nicki Stieda, Suse’s Vogel’s granddaughter. On the opening page, Liselotte discussed her grandmother without naming her. Being familiar with the Neisser family tree, I quickly ascertained she was discussing Julie Neisser née Sabersky, who is seated alongside one of her sons, Ernst Neisser, in Figure 1. Liselotte’s description of her grandmother, quoted below, comports with my preconceived notion of the strong matriarch I imagine she was:

“My Father Max Neisser, born in 1869, professor of bacteriology at the University of Frankfurt, came from Silesia which was then a Prussian province and is now part of Poland. By the time I was born in 1902, his mother [editor’s note: Julie Neisser née Sabersky], widowed for many years, lived with her brother [editor’s note: Heinrich Sabersky] whom she had well-tamed in Berlin where we visited her often. She was a fine lady, with beautiful blue eyes, who sat straight as a ruler at the edge of her chair. She was a woman of great vitality—no doubt, almost to her end in 1926, the ruling member of her family. My cousins and I owe to her a sense of family closeness rarely found among cousins. Her sons and one daughter had eight children together, with whom I am still in close touch, insofar as they are still alive.”

Julie’s regal bearing caught my attention well before I knew who she was. Interestingly, Julie’s brother, Heinrich Sabersky, mentioned in the paragraph above who is also in the group picture, similarly caught my attention because of his warm demeanor. Among my third cousin Agnes Stieda née Vogel’s personal photographs is a different one with Julie and Heinrich Sabersky seated amidst a group of ten people; this photo includes three Pauly sisters, Margarethe, Helene and Edith, all three of whom are in the larger group picture that is the subject of this post, two of whose photos are also colorized. (Figures 25-26)

Figure 25. Group photo of ten people including siblings Heinrich and Julie Sabersky (seated) and three Pauly sisters, Elisabeth Pauly (to left of Heinrich Sabersky), Margarethe Pauly (behind Heinrich Sabersky), and Edith Pauly (behind Julie Sabersky)

Figure 26. Three Pauly sisters from left to right: Margarethe Pauly, Elisabeth Pauly, and Edith Pauly

To my mind, the major take away of receiving the unsolicited colorized images of people from 130 years ago is that it personalizes them and makes them seem less abstract. This comports with one of the goals of my Blog to make my ancestors come to life in a tangible way, while conceding it may not be entirely realistic.

POST 57, POSTSCRIPT: DISAPPEARED WITHOUT A TRACE, MARIA POHLMANN NÉE PAULY—MYSTERY SOLVED!!

Note: In this post I describe how with the assistance of one of my Blog’s readers, I was able to determine when and where my first cousin twice-removed Maria Pohlmann née Pauly died. The place and time of her death was not as I imagined, and I offer a possible explanation as to how I miscalculated Maria’s fate.

Figure 1. Maria Ulrike Pauly, born the 21st of July 1877 in Posen, Germany [today: Poznan, Poland], as a young lady

Regular readers know I’m a retired archaeologist. I’ve previously told followers the enormous pleasure I derive from doing forensic genealogy as it draws upon the same skills I learned and applied in doing field archaeology. In a sense, I’m now digging through archives, documents and on-line databases whereas before I was digging through layers of dirt. It’s humbling when my scientific approach to doing ancestral research fails to yield a satisfactory result. Thus, it was a welcome relief when a German reader of my Blog offered his assistance in helping me determine what fate may have befallen my first cousin twice-removed, Maria Pohlmann née Pauly. (Figure 1) I viewed this offer for help not as a failure on my part, but rather as an opportunity to have a fresh set of eyes re-examine the same evidence I’d looked at.

Figure 2. Closeup of Axel Pohlmann on his wedding day, the 1st of October 1901

Figure 3. Closeup of Maria Pohlmann née Pauly on her wedding day, the 1st of October 1901

Figure 4. Alexander “Axel” Pohlmann and Maria Pauly on their wedding day, the 1st of October 1901 in Posen, Germany, with their guests

Figure 5. My third cousin, Andi Pauly, Maria Pohlmann née Pauly’s grandnephew, in Munich, 2016

Let me briefly review what I discussed in Post 57. Maria Pauly (Figure 2), born on the 21st of July in 1877, and her husband Alexander “Axel” Pohlmann (Figure 3) got married in Posen, Germany [today: Poznan, Poland] on the 1st of October 1901. (Figure 4) Maria’s grandnephew and my third cousin, Andi Pauly (Figure 5), who was the source of her and Axel’s wedding picture and has been the source of most images I have of his Pauly ancestors, was unable to tell me what might have happened to her; she was one of only two of Josef and Rosalie Pauly’s nine children whose fate he did not know. Doing a little research on German Wikipedia, I discovered Maria’s husband had been a very prominent figure, having been the Oberbürgermeister, the Lord Mayor of Kattowitz, Prussia [today: Katowice, Poland] between 1903 and 1920. Following his tenure as Lord Mayor of Kattowitz, until his retirement in 1930, Pohlmann was the Regierungspräsident des Regierungsbezirks Magdeburg, the President of the Government of Magdeburg in the German state of Saxony. Pohlmann passed away in 1952 in Freiburg im Breisgau (German state of Baden-Württemberg).

Given Alexander Pohlmann’s public standing, I was surprised I could learn nothing of his wife’s fate. Aware that Maria was deemed Jewish in the eyes of the Nazis and knowing some of her siblings, their husbands, and their children had been murdered in the Holocaust, naturally, I checked the Yad Vashem Victim’s Database, to no avail to my relief. Following publication of Post 57, I continued my investigations hoping to learn more about Alexander and Maria Pohlmann.

I decided to write to places in Poland, formerly Prussia, and Germany with which Alexander Pohlmann had been associated. First, I contacted the Muzeum Historii Katowic (Museum of History of Katowice, Poland), and received a very gracious reply informing me they had no information on what might have happened to Maria Pohlmann. Next I contacted the Generalagentur für Genealogie (General Agency for Genealogy) in Magdeburg, Germany, and again was told they had no information on Maria. Finally, my Polish friend Paul Newerla, the Silesian historian, suggested I contact the Archiwum Państwowe w Katowicach (State Archives in Katowice, Poland); it took more than a month to hear back from them, but their reply was also in the negative.

Before I could contemplate my next step, Peter Hanke, a German gentleman affiliated with the “forum.danzig.de,” contacted me offering his assistance in helping me find out what might have happened to Maria Pohlmann after reading Post 57. This Forum is a discussion group I stumbled upon in the course of researching Tiegenhof, the town in the Free State of Danzig where my father was a dentist for five years between 1932 and 1937; as discussed in earlier Blog posts related to Tiegenhof, Peter has been inordinately helpful in helping me track down information related to some of my father’s friends and acquaintances from his halcyon days there, and directing me to various on-line databases with information on the town’s former residents.

Given my lack of success finding out about Maria, I was more than happy to accept Peter’s offer of help, knowing that while I might eventually get to the same place without his assistance, his involvement would speed up the process. And, speed it up, it most certainly did. Peter contacted me on the August 26th of this year, and by September 7th he’d received a packet of information from the Kulturamt Stadtarchiv (Cultural Office City Archive), to whom he’d written, in Freiburg im Breisgau, the town in Baden-Württemberg, Germany where Alexander Pohlmann died in 1952.

In the packet of documents, the City Archive included Alexander Pohlmann’s death certificate (Figure 6a-b), confirming he’d died on the 5th of October 1952, as German Wikipedia had indicated. But, of more immediate interest was the inclusion of Maria Pohmann’s death certificate (Figures 7a-b) indicating she too had died in Freiburg, on the 18th of July 1946, pre-deceasing her husband by more than six years; Maria died of diabetes and heart failure. According to the Freiburg City Archive, Alexander and Maria had lived in Freiburg since at least the 1st of October 1936, and they had no offspring. After having hit several dead ends looking for Maria Pohlmann, it was very satisfying to finally determine when and where she died, and particularly gratifying to have one reader of my Blog help me work this out.

Figure 6a. Alexander Pohlmann’s death certificate showing he died on the 5th of October 1952 in Freiburg im Breisgau (page 1)

Figure 6b. Alexander Pohlmann’s death certificate showing he died on the 5th of October 1952 in Freiburg im Breisgau (page 2)

Figure 7a. Maria Pohlmann née Pauly’s death certificate showing she died on the 18th of July 1946 in Freiburg im Breisgau (page 1)

Figure 7b. Maria Pohlmann née Pauly’s death certificate showing she died on the 18th of July 1946 in Freiburg im Breisgau (page 2)

While I would eventually have written to Freiburg asking whether Maria Pohlmann had died there, to be honest, I’d convinced myself her anonymity was a function of dying young, like some of her older sisters had. In retrospect, the fact that she was Jewish may also have played a role in keeping a low profile, although we know from her father Josef Pauly’s memoirs, discussed in Post 56, that several of his daughters had to forego their personal ambitions for the sake of Josef’s only son. For this reason, it’s possible Maria sadly never had the opportunity to become more than a traditional housewife and was “unknown” outside her circle of family and friends.

The past few months have been extraordinarily productive ones in terms of either solving or beginning to unravel the fate of several of my distant relatives. Partially, this is attributable to my own dogged efforts but equally this is the result of contributions by what I’ve referred to as “my boots on the ground.” This may be analogous to good detective work which typically involves a team of people working together to solve knotty, intractable cases. In upcoming posts, I will detail some of these other successes.

POST 57: DISAPPEARED WITHOUT A TRACE, MARIA POHLMANN NÉE PAULY

REMARK: My apologies to readers who may have thought I too disappeared. I’ve spent the last few weeks updating my family tree on ancestry.com to better visualize my connection to people I’ve researched and written about. My tree is by no means comprehensive in terms of all the relatives I could conceivably include. The greatest pleasure I derive in having a tree, which numbers a modest 750 individuals, is attaching pictures or portraits of family, although it’s also a place where I can consolidate for easy retrieval all historic documents, information, stories and photographs related to those kinsmen. The tree also provides a visual cue on which branches of the family I’ve explored and where other intriguing stories may emanate from.

Note: This brief post is about Maria Pohlmann née Pauly, my great-great uncle and aunt Dr. Josef and Rosalie Pauly’s sixth-born daughter, and my frustration in being able to discover her fate even though she was married to a very public figure.

Figure 1. My great-great-uncle Dr. Josef Pauly (1843-1916)

Figure 2. My great-great-aunt and Dr. Josef Pauly ‘s wife, Rosalie Pauly née Mockrauer (1844-1927)

Regular readers are now reasonably well-versed in the fact that my great-great-uncle and aunt, Dr. Josef Pauly (Figure 1) and his wife Rosalie Pauly née Mockrauer (Figure 2), had nine children born between 1870 and 1885, eight of whom were daughters. I’ve systematically told their stories, sometimes in their own words, including relating the sad fate that befell some daughters, husbands and grandchildren at the hands of the National Socialists on account of their Jewish heritage. I’ve stressed the irony of this given that the paterfamilias Dr. Josef Pauly was brought up as a Protestant. Still, as students of history know only too well, Dr. Pauly’s surviving family members were deemed “racially Jewish” and targeted for extermination by the Nazis.

Figure 3. My third cousin, Andi Pauly, Josef and Rosalie Pauly’s great-grandson, in Munich, 2016

Figure 4. Maria Ulrike Pauly, born 21st July 1877 in Posen, Germany [today: Poznan, Poland], as a young girl (Photo courtesy of Daniel Alejandro Sandler)

With the grateful assistance of one of Dr. Pauly’s great-grandchildren, the oft-mentioned Andi Pauly (Figure 3), I’ve worked out the fate of eight of Josef’s children. The only daughter whose destiny remains unknown is that of his sixth-born daughter, Maria Ulrike Pauly, born in 1877. (Figure 4) In this post I will share with readers the little I’ve been able to uncover about her, although most of what I’ve learned relates to her husband, Alexander “Axel” Pohlmann, a very public figure. As followers will read in the next post regarding Josef and Rosalie’s youngest daughter, Therese “Tussy” Pauly, I hope publication of this current post may provoke a response from a casual visitor that may shed light on Maria’s fate.

Figure 5. Maria Pauly amidst a large Pauly family gathering estimated to have taken place ca. 1895

Figure 6. Maria Pauly with her parents, five siblings and two friends in a picture taken in the early 1890’s

Figure 7. Another image of Maria Pauly with her parents and five siblings, likely also taken in the early 1890’s

Among the family photos given to me by Andi Pauly are several of his great-aunt Maria where I judge she was between 17 and 24 years of age, pictured either at a large family gathering (Figure 5) or in the company of her parents and some of her siblings (Figures 6-7); from another source, I obtained the picture of Maria as a young girl. (Figure 4) Included among the pictures of Maria is one with her husband Alexander Pohlmann taken at their marriage, surrounded by the entire wedding party (Figure 8a-c); the marriage is incorrectly identified as having taken place in 1902, although I determined from the “Posen Einwohnermeldekarte,” Posen residential registration cards, they were actually wed on the 30th September 1901. (Figure 9) Along the margins of the wedding picture, many attendees were identified by name by Klaus Pauly, Andi Pauly’s father. The identifications, I later discovered, were provided by one of Maria Pohlmann née Pauly’s nieces, Susanne Vogel née Neisser. Given my intimate familiarity with the Pauly family tree, I was able to identify additional people by cross-referencing other photos given to me by Andi where some of the same people had been named.

Figure 8a. Alexander “Axel” Pohlmann and Maria Pauly on their wedding day, 30th September 1901 in Posen, Germany, with the name of some congregants identified in the margin of the photo

Figure 8b. Closeup of Axel Pohlmann on his wedding day, 30th September 1901

Figure 8c. Closeup of Maria Pohlmann née Pauly on her wedding day, 30th September 1901

Figure 9. “Posen Einwohnermeldekarte,” Posen residential registration card, showing Alexander Pohlmann and Maria Ulrike Pauly wed on 30th September 1901 (date circled in upper right)

In contrast to all of Josef and Rosalie Pauly’s other children, Andi was unable to provide any insights on what happened to his great-aunt Maria nor where she might have wound up. I was unable to discover a single reference to her on ancestry.com. I also checked the Yad Vashem Victims Database but, fortunately, there is no suggestion she was murdered in the Holocaust, unlike other members of her family.

Figure 10. Alexander Pohlmann listed in a 1930 Magdeburg (Saxony) Phone Directory, identifying him as a “Reg. Präsid. (= Regierungspräsident),” President of the Government

Figure 11. Alex. Pohlmann listed in a 1950 Freiburg im Breisgau (Baden-Württemberg) Address Book, identified as a “RegPräs aD (=Regierungspräsident),” retired President of the Government

Having failed to uncover direct evidence of Maria’s fate, I researched her husband. I knew his name from their wedding picture, as well as from information provided by Andi. I found German Address Book listings for Alexander Pohlmann when he lived both in Magdeburg (Figure 10) and Freiburg im Breisgau (Figure 11), and what I initially thought were listings for him in Berlin, but later discovered were a false trail. I did a Google query, and nothing materialized. In such instances, I often turn to Wikipedia.de, the German version, since many of the people I’m researching are of German origin. Information on Maria’s husband immediately surfaced.

Alexander Pohlmann, I learned had been a very public figure. He was born on the 10th September 1865 in the town of Graudenz, Prussia [today: Grudziądz, Poland], son of the Lord Mayor of that town. After graduating from school in Freiburg in Breisgau, he studied law and administrative sciences in Breslau, Leipzig, and Berlin. From 1896 until 1898 he worked in the city administration of Frankfurt on the Main, and then until 1903 as a full-time city councilman in Posen [today: Poznan, Poland], where he likely met Maria Pauly. Between 1903 and 1920, Alexander Pohlmann was the Oberbürgermeister, the Lord Mayor of Kattowitz, Prussia [today: Katowice, Poland], thus beginning shortly after his marriage to Maria in 1901.

From 1904 until about 1912, Pohlmann was a member of the Oberschlesischen Provinziallandtages, the Upper Silesian Provincial Assembly, then between 1912 and 1918, belonged to the Preußischen Abgeordnetenhaus, the Prussian Chamber of Deputies.

In November 1918, Alexander Pohlmann participated in the founding of the Deutsche Demokratische Partei (DDP) (Figures 12-13), the German Democratic Party, along with former leaders of the Progressive People’s Party to whom he’d belonged. The DDP was committed to maintaining a democratic republican form of government. Its base consisted of middle-class entrepreneurs, civil servants, teachers, scientists and craftsmen. It considered itself a decidedly nationalistic party that opposed the Treaty of Versailles, yet, understood the need for international collaboration and protection of ethnic minorities. The party was the one voted for by most Jews, and was, therefore, referred to as the “party of Jews and professors.”

Figure 12. Photo of Alexander Pohlmann (upper right) and other members of the “Deutsche Demokratische Partei (DDP)” he helped found in 1918

Figure 13. Another photo of Alexander Pohlmann (middle right) with members of the “Deutsche Demokratische Partei (DDP)”

In 1919-20, Pohlmann was a member of the Weimarer Nationalversammlung, the Weimar National Assembly, and from 1920 to 1922, a member of the Reichstagsabgeordneter, the Reichstag. After Upper Silesia was separated from Germany, Pohlmann lost his position in the Reichstag. Following his tenure as Lord Mayor of Kattowitz, until his retirement in 1930, Pohlmann was the Regierungspräsident des Regierungsbezirks Magdeburg, the President of the Government of Magdeburg in the German state of Saxony. Pohlmann passed away in 1952 in Freiburg im Breisgau (German state of Baden-Württemberg).

The only point in detailing Alexander Pohlmann’s governmental positions is to highlight the lengthy and very public nature of his career. For this reason, it seems odd no trace of his wife’s fate has so far come to light. Hoping to learn something about Maria via her husband, I contacted the Muzeum Historii Katowic, the Museum of History of Katowice, to inquire about her but the Museum could add nothing to what I already know. I await responses from both the State Archives in Katowice (Poland) and the State Archive Magdeburg (Germany) regarding any additional information they may have on Alexander Pohlmann, respectively his wife. Watch this space for future updates.