Note: In this post, I discuss the contents of a collection of photographs shared with me by one of my fourth cousins, Tom Brook. They shed light on some of our mutual ancestors and give a unique glimpse into his father’s WWII deployments, primarily in Egypt, Libya, and India.
Periodically a relative or acquaintance will share with me their collection of family photos or memorabilia. Acknowledging that some readers will consider this akin to a friend inflicting their vacation photos on you, to me this is like a treasure hunt particularly when the pictures are unlabeled and I’m able to identify the subjects through logical deduction or by comparison to labeled images. Frequently, knowing the owner’s ancestral lineage helps; if they’re related to me, I’m often able to identify their ancestors because of my familiarity with our family tree.
On other occasions, the photo collections provide historic glimpses of well-known events or places or, alternatively, off-the-beat locations. It is worth remembering that World War II was a global conflict that took soldiers to often remote spots around the world. In the case of my own father’s surviving photos of his time in the French Foreign Legion while stationed in North Africa, mostly in Algeria, I’ve been told they’re unique. I would say the same regarding the collection I’m about to discuss.
My wife Ann and I recently traveled to New York to meet my fourth cousin Tom Brook and his husband Sam Wahl. (Figure 1) Beyond the fact we’d never previously met, and I was curious to make their acquaintance, Tom had mentioned his father Casper Bruck’s album of photos which he’d expressed an interest in showing me. This is an assemblage I was particularly intrigued to peruse given his family’s connection to Breslau, Germany [today: Wrocław, Poland] where multiple of my own ancestors also hail from. Some of our most accomplished mutual ancestors come from Breslau, several of whom are buried in the still-existing Old Jewish Cemetery [Polish: Stary Cmentarz Żydowski we Wrocławiu]. (Figure 2) Relevantly, both of our families changed their surname to “Brook” upon their arrival in Anglo-Saxon countries.
I previously introduced Tom Brook to readers in Post 143 when I discussed his role as one of the first reporters on the scene after John Lennon was shot in December 1980 outside The Dakota Building on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, an event he is invariably asked about on milestone anniversaries of this tragic event. Like then, Tom still works for the BBC as the host of a weekly show called “Talking Movies,” where he reviews new releases and interviews actors.
Like other cousins I’ve discovered around the world, Tom found me through my blog when he asked if we are related. As I happened to have him in my ancestral tree, though with no details, I explained we are fourth cousins. Serendipitously, I was more recently contacted by Tom’s second cousin from Wolverhampton, England, Helen Winter, née Renshaw (Figure 3), whom I’ve previously mentioned to readers as the source of lots of family ephemera. While Helen and Tom have never linked up, Helen’s older sister Anna Renshaw clearly recalls meeting him as a child in England where both grew up. As further evidence of my ancestral connection to Tom, my fourth cousin twins (Figure 4) from Sydney, Australia, also born in England, whom I mirthfully refer to as “my movie star cousins,” are Tom’s third cousins.
In any case, during our recent encounter in New York Tom showed me his father’s photo album along with an unusually decorated cigar box that belonged to one of his ancestors, likely his great-grandfather (Figure 5); a little more on this box below. Tom allowed me to borrow the album so I could duplicate the photographs for later study. This has been invaluable because with Helen Winter’s help, together we’ve managed to identify the subjects in a few images that Tom specifically wondered about. Also, photos detailing Casper Bruck’s deployment during the war capture rare images of a few places that are today household names.
In this post, I’ll discuss a few family photos but will mostly highlight places where Casper was deployed during the war; I think this will be of broader interest to my audience. These images provide an opportunity to discuss what was going on in the war and its immediate aftermath at the time Casper took his photographs.
Given that the album belonged to Tom’s father, not unexpectedly, most images show Casper and his immediate family at various stages of their lives. In terms of family photos, I’ll address mostly those whose subjects were unknown to Tom.
One of the oldest photos in Tom’s collection is an undated Daguerreotype-like image of a youngish man with three children (Figure 6); as readers can make out, the figures are darkly illuminated. Helen Winter and I were able to determine this is Tom’s great-grandfather, Felix Friedrich Bruck (1843-1911) and his three children, Eberhard Friedrich Bruck (1877-1960), Margot Giles, née Bruck (1879-1949), and Werner Friedrich August Bruck (1880-1945). Eberhard Bruck and Werner Bruck are, respectively, Helen Winter and Tom Brook’s grandfathers as young children. Margot, the only daughter, is distinguishable because she is holding a doll. A later photo dated 1930 shows Eberhard Bruck and his daughter, also named Margot (1917-1985), and Werner Bruck (Figure 7); Margot is Helen Winter’s mother.
The youngest of Felix Bruck’s children, Werner Bruck was born on the 23rd of August 1880, and his mother, Anna Elise Bruck, née Prausnitz (1853-1880) died a week later, perhaps a result of childbearing complications. Obviously, the Daguerreotype-like picture, when Werner appears to be only a year or two old, does not include his mother. The picture clearly captures the weight of her death on the family, where all look immeasurably sad. Elsewhere among Tom’s photos is a stand-alone picture of his great-grandmother. (Figure 8)
Felix Bruck never remarried. Elsewhere in Tom’s album are a few untitled pictures of him later in life where he is portlier and more difficult to recognize compared to when he was younger. (Figures 9-10) After studying the setting and comparing the photos to similar ones among Helen’s ephemera, there is no doubt the photos depict Felix. Margot Bruck was the first of his children to bear him a grandchild, Otto Giles (1904-1980), and a photo survives of Otto as a child seated on his grandfather’s lap in his study. (Figure 11)
The surviving photos taken in Felix’s study are particularly intriguing to me. Hanging on the wall above his desk are portraits of unidentified individuals I’m almost certain depict older Bruck ancestors, possibly Felix’s grandparents. (Figure 12) Unfortunately, I have no portraits to compare them against. Helen’s collection of photos includes a comparable one of Felix seated in his study with his daughter Margot standing aside him with those same portraits visible. (Figure 13)
Beyond the pictures of Tom’s great-grandparents, Tom’s album includes pictures of his grandparents (Figure 14), parents (Figure 15-16), aunt and uncle (Figure 17), and cousins. Apart from casual family acquaintances, Helen and I have been able to identify most of the subjects. A particularly endearing photo was taken in 1928 of Casper with his younger brother Peter. (Figure 18)
Let me shift now to Casper Bruck’s intriguing wartime images.
The individual pages in Casper photo album typically note the year(s) and place(s) the pictures were taken. Casper Bruck’s album includes a page of photos taken in El Alamein, Egypt, and in Benghazi and Tripoli, Libya in 1942-43. El Alamein is a town located on the Mediterranean Sea 66 miles west of Alexandria, Egypt, while Benghazi and Tripoli are in Libya further west but also along the Mediterranean. A little historic context is useful to understand Casper’s pictures.
The Second Battle of El Alamein was fought near the western frontier of Egypt between the 23rd of October and the 4th of November 1942. El Alamein was the climax and turning point of the North African campaign during WWII and the beginning of the end of the Western Desert Campaign. The Axis army of Germany and Italy suffered a decisive defeat at the hands of the British Eighth Army that prevented them from penetrating into Egypt. This kept the Suez Canal in Allied hands and prevented the full-scale invasion and seizure of the Middle Eastern and Persian oil fields.
In a 13-day battle the Axis Panzerarmee Afrika was crushed and forced to retreat from Egypt and Libya to the borders of Tunisia. The Axis fought a defensive campaign in Tunisia into 1943. Although they engaged in a tenacious rearguard action, the Axis forces were in an impossible position. In May 1943, they were forced to surrender, with the loss of around 240,000 prisoners.
Casper’s album separately includes a sequence of photos taken in Cairo; I can’t say for sure when they were taken because the last numeral on the date is hidden but I think they predate his pictures from El Alamein, meaning they were likely taken earlier in 1942 before the Second Battle of El Alamein. The images from Cairo are interesting more for what they don’t show, namely, the pyramids outside the city; curiously, several famous mosques are instead illustrated. (Figure 19)
Turning to Casper’s photos of El Alamein, one image stands out. In the foreground is a corrugated metal sign reading “El Alamein Salvage,” and in the near background is written “Springbok Road.” (Figure 20) I found an identical copy of this image that sold on eBay for £6.99. I imagine this was a popular photo spot, and that multiple examples of this picture survive in the decaying albums of former English soldiers involved in the Western Desert Campaign. Several of Casper’s photos appear to show German and Italian abandoned war materiels waiting to be broken up for scrap metal, ergo the salvage effort. (Figure 21)
Another intriguing photo in Casper’s album is simply labeled “ITIES.” (Figure 22) Having no idea what this signifies, I eventually discovered this is derogatory English slang for Italians. The photo clearly shows Italian prisoners of war. What I learned while researching this image is that unlike the Germans whose retreat from El Alamein was more orderly, thereby limiting the number of their surviving soldiers captured, their Italian allies lacked motor transport to evacuate their withdrawing units thus resulting in more Italians being swept up by the British. Regardless, by November 4 the motorized elements of the Axis were in full retreat, and because of the sluggish British follow-up they were allowed to escape virtually unscathed to Tunisia.
The page on which Casper’s pictures of Benghazi and Tripoli are found is labelled “MEF 1942-43,” which stands for “Middle East Forces 1942-43.” (Figure 23) It’s not clear that Casper was in one of vanguard British infantry divisions that participated in the Tunisian campaign that ultimately defeated the Axis forces there in 1943. Photos of Casper place him in Ismailia, Cairo, and Alexcandria, Egypt between 1942 and 1945. However, this overlaps with the period between 1942 and 1946 when he was assuredly in India and Pakistan. Possibly, Casper’s regiment was duty-based in Egypt but deployed elsewhere as needed? As we speak, I’m attempting to obtain Casper’s military dossier from the United Kingdom’s Military of Defence to better understand the sequence of his deployments.
My friend Brian Cooper, an amateur English military historian who has assisted me immeasurably in learning where my father’s first cousin, Heinz Loewenstein, was incarcerated during the war, recognized that in several of Casper’s photos where he is sporting a beret, he is wearing a badge of the Glider Pilot Regiment. (Figure 24) A 1946 group picture of Casper’s regiment labeled “Sergeant’s Mess. Glider Pilot Depot” shows the regimental badge. (Figure 25) Casper’s album includes photos of him piloting his glider (Figure 26) and flying over the Indus and elsewhere. It’s obvious Casper was a glider pilot, at least in India and Pakistan. (Figure 27)
Having never previously come across any of my distant ancestors who were glider pilots during WWII, nor photos of their activities, I did a little research. It’s quite engrossing. The most widely used glider during the war was the Waco CG-4A. Given that Casper adopted a mutt during his time in India which he named “Waco” (Figure 28) it is reasonable to assume he piloted one of these crafts.
Gliders from India supported military operations in Burma during WWII. Special operation units battled the Japanese army in Burma attempting to reopen the Burma Road linking India and China. Waco CG-4A gliders were used to land troops, ammunition, medical supplies, and even mules to carry supplies. Significantly, in a special operations battle using gliders to fight the Japanese army in Burma, more than 9,000 fighters were dropped 165 miles behind Japanese lines.
Fascinatingly, some gliders carried up to three mules; the pilots or handlers always had a pistol at the ready to shoot any mules that went berserk. While this may sound cruel, it is important to understand that a glider is built of steel tubing and doped fabric (i.e., a textile material that is impregnated with a chemical compound, known as “dope,” the primary purpose of which is to cause shrinkage of the fabric, thus making it taut and improving the flow of air over it during flight) so that it would take little for a mule to kick out the side of a glider endangering the crew and craft.
Gliders were advantageous because they could deploy large numbers of troops quickly and accurately. Also, they could land in small, inaccessible areas where a larger aircraft couldn’t land. They were also used to transport heavier equipment that was too large for parachutes or other transport aircraft. The India-Burma campaign involved difficult terrain that made it difficult to land gliders, so they were often treated as semi-expendable.
Allied forces retrieved gliders using twin-engine transports, such as a C-47 transport planes (Figure 29), through a technique referred to as “glider snatching.” The tactic involved having the transport plane fly low to the ground and quickly hooking onto a special attachment point on the glider, essentially “snatching” it into the air without needing to land. This allowed for the retrieval of troops or supplies from a combat zone where landing might be impossible; this was referred to as a “glider snatch pick-up.” This maneuver was considered risky due to the need for precise timing and low flying altitude. The Allies also used twin-engine transports to snatch up gliders filled with wounded soldiers and fly them to hospitals.
Returning briefly to the cigar box Tom Brook showed me. (see Figure 5) I shared pictures I’d taken of it with Helen, who in turn passed it along to one of our mutual German cousins. It appears that one of the captions is the beginning of Heinrich Heine’s lyrical love poem, “Die Lorelei.” According to modern scholars, Heine is now seen as a romantic poet, for his passion, his independence of mind, and his hatred of political repression. However, he was critical of German Romanticism, which he saw as idealizing the feudal past, being a deterrent to political progress, and encouraging xenophobia. For this reason, his books were later banned by the Nazis. The inclusion of Heine’s poem on Felix Bruck’s cigar box may have signified his attachment to liberal principles.
More could certainly be gleaned from Casper’s photos, but my intent has merely been to highlight a few unique images that provide a sense of the theaters in which Casper Bruck fought. For readers holding comparable collections of family photos, military or otherwise, scrutinizing them with a hand lens will no doubt yield some intriguing finds. Personally, I repeatedly find myself returning to my father’s pictures, continually discovering something I’d previously missed.
REFERENCES
Battles of El-Alamein. Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/event/battles-of-El-Alamein
India in World War II (2024, October 17). In Wikipedia. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/India_in_World_War_II
National WWII Glider Pilots Association. 1944, India/Burma was the glider snatching capital of the world. https://ww2gp.org/burma/buma_compulation.pdf
National WWII Glider Pilots Association. GliderPickup. https://www.ww2gp.org/gliderpickup/
Second Battle of El Alamein (2024, December 6). In Wikipedia. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Battle_of_El_Alamein
Tunisia 1942-1943. British Infantry Divisions. British Military History. Docs – Tunisia 1942 – 1943 – British Infantry Divisions – British Military History
Note: In this post, I discuss how I recently came into possession of images of ancestors from a branch of my family that originates mostly from Breslau [today:Wrocław, Poland], and learned about a memoir written by the grandfather of the English lawyer who shared these pictures.
A scant three months ago, on the 29th of September 2023 to be precise, I received an email from a lawyer living in Wolverhampton in the West Midlands of England, Helen Winter, née Renshaw. (Figure 1) I say “scant” because in the short period since we’ve been in touch, we’ve already exchanged several hundred emails.
In Helen’s initial missive, she explained that she is a descendant of the Bruck family and that her maternal grandfather was Professor Eberhard Friedrich Bruck (1877-1960). (Figure 2) He taught law at the University of Bonn until enactment of “The Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service” (German: Gesetz zur Wiederherstellung des Berufsbeamtentums, shortened to Berufsbeamtengesetz) by the Nazis on the 7th of April 1933. The primary objective of this law was to establish a “national” and “professional” civil service by dismissing certain groups of tenured civil servants, including individuals of Jewish descent and non-Aryan origins. Additionally, the law forbade Jews, non-Aryans, and political opponents from holding positions as teachers, professors, judges, or within the government. It also extended to other professions such as lawyers, doctors, tax consultants, musicians, and notaries.
Following Eberhard’s dismissal as university professor and confiscation of his home, he fled to the United States and wound-up teaching at Harvard University. As Helen further explained, her grandfather wrote a memoir for his daughter, Helen’s mother (Figure 3), relating the history of his branch of the Bruck family. As a Christmas gift to her nephews and nieces, Helen has slowly been translating the account. Her grandfather’s chronicle makes mention of the Bruck’s “Prinz von Preußen” Hotel, the family business in Ratibor [today: Racibórz, Poland] owned by three generations of my family. (Figure 4) While researching the history and fate of the hotel, Helen stumbled on multiple blog posts where I made mention of the establishment.
Helen has promised to share her grandfather’s translated story but has given me a preview of the brief entry her grandfather Eberhard Bruck wrote about his great-grandfather, Jacob Nathan Bruck, my great-great-great-grandfather from Ratibor. Since Jacob arguably died in 1832 or 1836 and Eberhard was born in 1877, he would not have known him personally. Eberhard’s written accounts of Jacob are likely stories he heard about him growing up and may have been clouded by the lens through which childhood memories are often remembered. In an upcoming post, I intend to discuss the meager details I’ve been able to uncover about my earliest known ancestor from Ratibor but suffice it for now to say the particulars caused me to more thoroughly investigate when the Bruck’s Hotel might have been built. These findings will be the basis for yet another post because they give insights on avenues others may want to follow in examining their own family histories.
On various occasions I’ve told readers that my ancestral tree has fewer than 1,500 names, which pales in comparison to multiple trees I’ve come across with more than 100,000 names. I use my tree mostly to orient myself to the people I write about on my blog. That said, I have people in my tree, living and deceased, whose names I’ve come across without knowing anything about them. This was the case with my fourth cousin Thomas “Tom” Friedrich Brook until he contacted me asking if we were related; I wrote about Tom in Post 143. (Figure 5) This was also true of Helen who previously existed only as a wraith. Coincidentally, Tom and Helen Winter are second cousins who’ve never met (i.e., Helen and Tom’s grandfathers were brothers), and like Tom, Helen is my fourth cousin.
In conjunction with translating her grandfather’s memoirs, Helen recently obtained family documents and pictures her older sister was curating. (Figure 6) Scrutinizing these items in combination has caused Helen to become obsessed with ancestral research. I can relate!
It is not my intention to further dwell on this branch of my family. However, as I just mentioned, I have numerous individuals in my tree I know nothing about and have no idea what they looked like. As names only, they are lifeless. Helen has been like the gift that keeps on giving because she has sent me pictures of many of my ancestors, including some of the earliest known ones from Breslau [today: Wrocław, Poland]. Acquiring these visuals for my ancestral tree is like filling in my Bingo card!
Among the most beguiling images Helen sent are ones of Jacob Bruck’s son and daughter-in-law, Dr. Jonas Julius Bruck (1813-1883) (Figures 7a & b-10) and Rosalie Bruck, née Marle (1817-1890) (Figures 11-12) and his famous grandson, Dr. Julius Bruck (1840-1902). (Figure 13) Julius is known for having designed in 1867 a water-cooled diaphanoscopic instrument for transillumination of the bladder via the rectum.
Jonas and Julius Bruck and their respective wives are interred in a mausoleum-like structure at the Old Jewish Cemetery in Wrocław, Poland (Figure 14), and are among my only Bruck ancestors whose burial location is known. Because I am friends with the Branch Manager of the Old Jewish Cemetery, Dr. Renata Wilkoszewska-Krakowska (Figure 15), I shared the pictures Helen sent with her and she was thrilled to receive them since some of the people are interred in “her” cemetery.
To close this post, I will share two other images (Figures 16-17) Helen has sent over the last several weeks, like the twelve daily gifts of Christmas! Suffice it to say, my Bingo card is becoming quite full!
Note: In this post, I discuss “stashes” of family photos I’ve uncovered, and the efforts I’ve undertaken with the help of near and distant relatives to identify people in some of those images even absent captions. In a few instances the photos are significant because they illustrate individuals renowned or notorious in history. In other cases, a good deal of sleuthing was required, including comparing the pictures of people in captioned versus uncaptioned images. On other occasions, I recognized portrayals of family members I knew growing up. And, in rare instances, I was able to determine a photographed person based on an educated guess.
The antisemitic and racist laws enacted by the Nazis short-circuited my father’s career as a dentist. Pursuant to his formal training at the University of Berlin, followed by an apprenticeship in Danzig (today: Gdansk, Poland), my father, Dr. Otto Bruck (Figure 1), opened his own dental practice in Tiegenhof in the Free City of Danzig (today: Nowy Dwór Gdański, Poland) in April 1932; by April 1937, my father was forced to flee Tiegenhof, and by March 1938 he had left Germany altogether, clearly seeing the handwriting on the wall. As an unmarried man with few family ties, this was an option open to him. My father would never again legally practice dentistry.
My father considered the five years he spent in Tiegenhof to be the halcyon days of his life. Judging from the numerous photos of his days spent there, including those illustrating his active social life, his professional acquaintances, and recreational pursuits, I would be hard-pressed to argue otherwise.
I originally intended in this post to briefly discuss with readers the history of Polish Mennonites because Tiegenhof, the town where my father had his dental practice, was largely Mennonite when my father lived there. The Mennonites arrived in the Żuławy Wiślane region (i.e. “the Vistula fens,” plural from “żuława”), the alluvial delta area of the Vistula in the northern part of Poland, in the 17th century. They came to escape religious persecution in the Netherlands and Flanders. I have instead decided to devote the subsequent Blog post to discussing the history of Polish Mennonites, and briefly explore how the Mennonites, who are committed to pacifism, inexplicably, became strong adherents of Hitler. I intend in the following post to use photos from my father’s collection to focus on one Mennonite family, the Epp family, with whom my father was acquainted and friends with. They have a dark history related to their connection to the Nazi regime.
Getting back on track. Curious whether the office building where my father had both his dental practice and residence still existed (Figure 2), in 2013 my wife Ann Finan and I visited Nowy Dwór Gdański. We quickly oriented ourselves to the layout of the town, and promptly determined that his office and residential building no longer stands. I would later learn that the structure had been destroyed by Russian bombers when Nazi partisans shot at them from this location.
During our initial visit to Nowy Dwór Gdański, we were directed to the local museum, the Muzeum Żuławskie. The museum docent the day we visited spoke English, so I was able to communicate to her that my Jewish father had once been a dentist in the town and had taken many pictures when living there of Tiegenhof and the Żuławy Wiślane region. I offered to make the photos available, which I in fact did upon my return to the States.
In 2014, my wife Ann and I were invited to Nowy Dwór Gdański for an in-depth tour and a translated talk. Naturally, during my presentation, I used many of my father’s photos. There was a question-and-answer period following my talk, and one Polish gentleman of Jewish descent commented on how fortunate I am to have so many photographs of my father, family, and friends. I agreed. In the case of this gentleman, he remarked he has only seven family pictures, which I think is often true for descendants of Holocaust survivors. In my instance, my father’s seven albums of surviving photos, covering from the 1910’s until 1948 when my father came to America, are the reason I started researching and writing about my family.
Given the importance pictures have played in the stories I research and write about, and the development of this Blog, I thought I would highlight a few of the more interesting and historically significant pictures in my father’s collection, as well as discuss other “stashes” of photos I’ve uncovered. Obviously, it’s impossible and would be of scant interest to readers to discuss all the photos.
My father was a witness to the rise of National Socialism from the window of his dental office in Tiegenhof. On May 1, 1933, my father photographed a regiment of “SA Sturmabteilung,” literally “Storm Detachment,” known also as “Brownshirts” or “Storm Troopers,” marching down the nearby Schlosserstrasse, carrying Nazi flags, framed by the “Kreishaus” (courthouse) on one side. (Figure 3)
Again, a year later to the day, on May 1, 1934, my father documented a parade of veterans and Brownshirts following the same path down Schlosserstrasse led by members of the Stahlhelm (“Steel Helmet”), a veterans’ organization that arose after the German defeat of WWI. (Figures 4a-b) In 1934, the Stahlhelme were incorporated into the SASturmabteilung, the original paramilitary wing of the Nazi Party.
Then again, the following year, on April 5, 1935, there was another Nazi parade. On this occasion Field Marshall Hermann Göring visited and participated in the march through Tiegenhof. The day prior, on April 4, 1935, Hermann Göring had visited the Free City of Danzig to influence the upcoming April 7th parliamentary elections in favor of Nazi candidates. The visit to Tiegenhof the next day was merely an extension of this campaign to influence the Free City’s parliamentary elections. In the photos that my father took on April 5th there can be seen a banner which in German reads “Danzig ist Deutsch wenn es nationalsozialistisch ist,” translated as “Danzig is German when it is National Socialist.” (Figures 5a-b) It appears that along with everyday citizens of Tiegenhof and surrounding communities, members of the Hitler Youth, known in German as Hitlerjugend, also lined the street in large number.
Students of history know about Hermann Göring but for those who are unfamiliar with him, let me say a few words. He would evolve to become the second-highest ranking Nazi after the Führer. Unlike many of Hitler’s sycophants and lieutenants, Göring was a veteran of WWI, having been an ace fighter pilot, a recipient of the prestigious Blue Max award, and a commander of the Jagdgeschwader a fighter group that had previously been led by the renowned Red Baron, Manfred von Richthofen. Göring was drawn to Hitler for his oratorical skills and became an early member of the Nazi Party. He participated with Hitler in the failed Beer Hall Putsch of 1923, during which he was wounded in the groin. During his recovery he was regularly given morphine to which he became addicted for the remainder of his life.
Göring oversaw the creation of the Gestapo, an organization he later let Heinrich Himmler run. He was best known as the commander-in-chief of the Luftwaffe, although after the Nazi victory over France, he was made Reichsmarschall, head of all the German armed forces. He amassed great wealth for himself by stealing paintings, sculptures, jewelry, cash, and valuable artifacts not only from Jews and people whom Nazis had murdered but also by looting museums of defeated nations.
Towards the end of the war, following an awkward attempt to have Hitler appoint him head of the Third Reich and thereby drawing Hitler’s ire, he turned himself in to the Americans rather than risk being captured by the Russians. He eventually was indicted and stood trial at Nuremberg. The once obese Göring, who’d once weighed more than three hundred pounds, was a shadow of his former self at his trial. Expectedly, he was convicted on all counts, and sentenced to death by hanging. His request to be executed by firing squad was denied, but he was able to avoid the hangman’s noose by committing suicide using a potassium cyanide pill that had inexplicably been smuggled to him by an American soldier.
My uncle, Dr. Fedor Bruck, has been the subject of multiple previous posts (i.e., Post 17, Post 31, Post 41). My uncle, like my father was a dentist. He was educated at the University of Breslau (today: Wrocław, Poland) and had his dental practice in Liegnitz, Germany (today: Legnica, Poland) until around 1933 when he was forced to give it up due to the “Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service” passed by the Nazi regime on the 7th April 1933, two months after Adolf Hitler had attained power. My uncle’s life is of interest because he miraculously survived the entire war hidden in Berlin by friends and non-Jewish family members. His story has also been of interest because he counted among his friends a woman named Käthe Heusermann-Reiss, who had been his dental assistant in Liegnitz.
Following the loss of his business my uncle relocated to Berlin hoping the anonymity of the larger city would afford him the possibility to continue working under the auspices of another dentist, which it did for a time. Käthe Heusermann also moved to Berlin and opportunistically landed herself a job as a dental assistant to Hitler’s American-trained dentist, Dr. Hugo Blaschke. In this capacity, she was always present when Dr. Blaschke treated Hitler. Following the end of the war, she was interrogated by the Russians and asked to identify dental remains which had been recovered in a burn pit outside the Reichstag. The bridgework performed by Dr. Blaschke on Hitler was outmoded so Käthe was easily able to recognize Blaschke’s work and Hitler’s teeth, a fact Stalin kept hidden from the world. Following Russia’s capture of Berlin at the end of the war, my uncle who’d temporarily been hiding in Käthe’s apartment learned from her that Hitler had committed suicide. This dangerous information resulted in Käthe being imprisoned in the USSR for many years, and my uncle barely escaping the same fate. Surviving among my father’s photographs is a noteworthy picture taken in Liegnitz of my uncle and Käthe Heusermann. Though uncaptioned, I have been able to compare it to known pictures of Käthe to confirm it is her. (Figure 6)
As I have told readers in multiple earlier posts my father was an active sportsman, and an excellent amateur tennis player. Among my father’s belongings I retain multiple of the prizes he was awarded for his achievements, including many newspaper clippings documenting his results. In August 1936, my father attended an International Tennis Tournament in Zoppot, Germany (today: Sopot, Poland), located a mere 32 miles from Tiegenhof. During his attendance there, he photographed the great German tennis player, Heinrich Ernst Otto “Henner” Henkel (Figure 7), whose biggest success was his singles title at the 1937 French Championships. Interestingly, Henkel learned to play tennis at the “Rot-Weiss” Tennis Club in Berlin. My father was a member of the “Schwarz-Weiss” Tennis Club in Berlin, so perhaps my father and Henner played one another and were acquainted. Henner Henkel was killed in action during WWII on the Eastern Front at Voronezh during the Battle of Stalingrad while serving in the Wehrmacht, the German Army.
As I mentioned above, my father left Germany for good in March 1938. He was headed to stay with his sister Susanne and brother-in-law, then living in Fiesole, a small Tuscan town outside Florence, Italy. During his sojourn in Italy, before eventually joining the French Foreign Legion later in 1938, my father visited some of the tourist attractions in Italy, including the Colosseum in Rome. One of the images that my father took there has always stood out to me because of the paucity of people around what is today a very crowded and visited venue. (Figure 8)
My father’s collection of photos number in the hundreds but I’ve chosen to highlight only certain ones because they illustrate a few personages or places that may be known to readers. My father’s collection is merely one among several caches of images I was able to track down through family and acquaintances. I want to call attention to a few pictures of family members that grabbed my attention from these other hoards.
In Post 33, I explained to readers how I tracked down the grandchildren of my grandfather’s brother, Wilhelm “Willy” Bruck (1872-1952). Based on family correspondence, I knew my great-uncle Willy wound up in Barcelona after escaping Germany in the 1930’s and theorized his children and grandchildren may have continued to live there. Official vital documents I procured during a visit there convinced me otherwise, that at least his son returned to Germany after WWII. I was eventually able to track down both of my great-uncle’s grandchildren, that’s to say my second cousins Margarita and Antonio Bruck, to outside of Munich, Germany. (Figure 9) I have met both, and they’ve shared their family pictures, which again number in the hundreds.
The cache included many images of family members, but there are two pictures I was particularly thrilled to obtain copies of. My uncle Dr. Fedor Bruck (1895-1982), previously discussed, fought in WWI on the Eastern Front. (Figure 10) Among the family memorabilia I retain is a postcard he sent to his aunt Franziska Bruck on the 3rd of September 1916 coincidentally from the Ukraine announcing his promotion to Sergeant. (Figures 11a-b) The ongoing conflict between the Ukraine and Russia makes me realize how long the Ukraine has been a staging area for wars.
Regular readers may recall that my father was born in Ratibor, Germany (today: Racibórz, Poland), in Upper Silesia. The family hotel there, owned through three generations between roughly 1850 and the early 1920’s, was known as the Bruck’s “Prinz von Preußen” Hotel. Among my second cousins’ photos is a rare image of the entrance to this hotel, which no longer stands. (Figure 12)
I introduced readers to two of my grandfather’s renowned sisters, my great-aunts Franziska and Elsbeth Bruck, way back in Post 15. Their surviving personal papers are archived at the Stadtmuseum in Spandau, the westernmost of the twelve boroughs of Berlin; these files have been another source of family photographs. Franziska Bruck was an eminent florist, and it is reputed that one of her clients was the last German Kaiser, Wilhelm II (1859-1941). One undated photograph taken in my great-aunt’s flower shop shows Duchess Cecilie Auguste Marie of Mecklenburg-Schwerin (1886-1954), the last Crown Princess of Germany and Prussia, who was married to Kaiser Wilhelm II’s son, Wilhelm, the German Crown Prince. (Figure 13)
My second cousins Margarita and Antonio Bruck introduced me to one of my third cousins, Andreas “Andi” Pauly, also living part-time in Munich, Germany. (Figure 14) The Pauly branch of my extended family, which originally hailed from Posen, Germany (today: Poznan, Poland) has been the subject of multiple blog posts, including Post 45 on Pauly family Holocaust victims and reflections in Post 56 by the paterfamilias, Dr. Josef Pauly (1843-1916), Andi Pauly’s great-grandfather. Josef Pauly and his wife Rosalie Pauly née Mockrauer (1844-1927) had eight daughters and one son born between 1870 and 1885; thanks to photos provided by Andi Pauly, not only was I able to obtain images of all nine children but also some of Pauly cousins I knew of by name.
Again, it is not my intention to boggle readers’ minds by showing all these photos but I want to focus on one particular picture I originally obtained from Andi Pauly that was the subject of Post 65. The photo was taken in Doorn, Netherlands on the 28th of May 1926, and shows a then-unknown Bruck family member standing amidst a group that includes the last German Kaiser, Wilhelm II, his second wife, Princess Hermine Reuss of Greiz (1887-1947), and her youngest daughter by her first marriage, Princess Henriette of Schönaich-Carolath (1918-1972), and the Royal Family’s entourage. (Figure 15) At the time I wrote Post 65, I was unable to determine who the Bruck family member was, nor whom the initials “W.B.” stood for.
Fast forward. In early 2021, I was astonished to receive an email from a Dr. Tilo Wahl, a doctor from Köpenick in Berlin, who stumbled upon my Blog and contacted me. He shared copies of the extensive collection of personal papers and photographs he had copied from the grandson of one of my esteemed ancestors, Dr. Walter Bruck (1872-1937), from Breslau, Germany (today: Wrocław, Poland) Again, this relative and my findings related to Dr. Walter Bruck have been chronicled in multiple earlier posts. The very same image discussed in the previous paragraph I had obtained from Andi Pauly was included among Dr. Bruck’s images. It was then I realized the unidentified Bruck family member standing with Kaiser Wilhelm II, his family, and his entourage was none other than Dr. Bruck’s second wife, Johanna Elisabeth Margarethe Gräbsch (1884-1963). (Figure 16) I discussed these findings in Post 100.
Dr. Walter Bruck’s collection of papers and photos yielded images of multiple family members about whom I was aware, including one of Dr. Walter Bruck’s three siblings. However, one that stands out amongst all these photos was the one of Dr. Walter Bruck’s grandfather Dr. Jonas Julius Bruck (1813-1883). (Figure 17) Dr. Jonas Bruck is buried along with his son, Dr. Julius Bruck, in the restored tombs at the Old Jewish Cemetery in Wrocław, Poland. (Figure 18) Dr. Jonas Bruck was a brother of my great-great-grandfather Samuel Bruck (1808-1863), the original owner of the Bruck’s “Prinz von Preußen” Hotel in Ratibor, Germany (today: Racibórz, Poland) I previously discussed.
In various places, I found fleeting references that Dr. Walter Bruck and Johanna Elisabeth Margarethe Gräbsch had both previously been married. I eventually found historic documents, my gold standard, confirming this. Using educating guesses based on incomplete captions and estimating the timeframe a few pictures in Dr. Walter Bruck’s collection were taken, that’s to say during WWI and before, I was even able to find pictures of both of their previous spouses among his photos.
Dr. Walter Bruck’s album also contain multiple pictures of his daughter, Renate Bruck (1926-2013). She was married three times, with images of two of her husbands included. Thanks to Post 99 Renate’s twin daughters, whom I knew about but had no expectation of ever finding since they’d left England years ago, instead found me. From this, I learned that Walter Bruck’s grandchildren and great-grandchildren live in Sydney, Australia.
I suspect the story I’m about to relate may resonate with some readers, the topic of missing or incomplete captions on pictures of one’s ancestors. Let me provide some context. During the time that my uncle Dr. Fedor Bruck was a dentist in Liegnitz, Germany he carried on an illicit affair with a married non-Jewish woman, Irmgard Lutze (Figure 19), with whom he had two children, my first cousins Wolfgang (Figure 20) and Wera Lutze. During the Nazi era time when it was prohibited and dangerous for an Aryan to have an affair with a Jew, the cuckolded husband nonetheless raised the children as his own. Therefore, they had the Lutze rather than the Bruck surname.
I knew both first cousins well, though both are now deceased. In any case, included among my cousin’s photographs was one that left me perplexed. It showed three generations, the eldest of whom was identified as “Tante Grete Brauer (mother’s sister).” (Figures 21a-b) The “Brauer” surname reverberated only because when perusing my great-aunt Elsbeth Bruck’s papers at the Stadtmuseum I discovered multiple letters written by Brauers. At the time I had no idea this represented another branch of my extended family.
As I discussed in Post 34, I would eventually work out that “Tante Grete Brauer” was my grandmother Else Bruck née Berliner’s sister, Margarethe Brauer née Berliner (1872-1942) who was murdered in the Holocaust. Prior to finding this isolated picture of my great-aunt, I was completely unaware of her existence. I’ve repeatedly told readers that my father had scant interest in family and rarely spoke of them to me growing up, so I was not surprised by this discovery.
I will give readers one last example of caches of family photos I’ve been able to recover by mentioning my third cousin once-removed, Larry Leyser (Figure 22), who very sadly passed away in 2021 due to complications from Covid. Over the years, Larry and I often shared family documents and photos. Several years ago, he borrowed and scanned a large collection of photos from one of his cousins named Michael Maleckar which he shared with me. As with any such trove, I found a few gems, including one of my own parents at a party they attended in Manhattan the early 1950’s. My father literally “robbed the cradle” when he married my mother as she was 22 years younger than him. This age difference is particularly pronounced in the one picture I show here. (Figure 23)
I will merely say, in closing, that I am aware of other caches of family photos that unfortunately I have been unable to lay my hands on. I completely understand that some of my cousins are busy leading their lives and don’t share my passion for family history, so they are excused. One other thought. The longer I work on my family’s history, the more I realize how much I regret not talking with my relatives when they were alive about some of our ancestors as my stories would be broader and would then be grounded in truths rather veiled in so much conjecture.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Sussman, Jeffrey. Holocaust Fighters: Boxers, Resisters, and Avengers. Roman & Littlefield, 2021.
Note: This is the first of a two-part story about the wartime “journal” or “diary” written by Johanna and Renate Bruck, the widow and daughter of my esteemed ancestor from Breslau, Germany [today: Wrocław, Poland], Dr. Walter Wolfgang Bruck (1872-1937), a second cousin twice removed. The German word “Tagebuch” strictly speaking translates as a diary or journal but in effect is more of a record or log of the extensive daily activities Johanna and Renate were engaged in between January 1940 and December 1944. What could have been an extremely absorbing account of the daily lives of an Aryan woman and her “mischling” daughter during WWII, within the context of global events and the impact of National Socialism on Jews, half-Jews, Germans, and others in Europe, instead turns into a mundane and drab account of their rather “ordinary” existences. The Tagebuch is often more remarkable for what it omits than what it says about the ongoing events of the tragic period in which it was written. It is difficult to make sense of many of the entries, which would in any case be of little or no interest to readers. For this reason I explain some of the war-related references and discuss a few specific people I’ve been able to identify.
Regular followers of my Blog are aware of the multiple posts I have recently written about Dr. Walter Wolfgang Bruck (1872-1937) and his extended family. This sequence of posts was prompted by a contact earlier this year from a Berlin doctor, Dr. Tilo Wahl, who in around 2013 purchased at auction the commemorative medals, personal effects, private papers, and photos that once belonged to Dr. Bruck. The seller of these items was Nicholas Newman, Dr. Bruck’s grandson, who sadly committed suicide in 2015 in London.
As Ms. Madeleine Isenberg, my friend affiliated with the Jewish Genealogical Society of Los Angeles, has been wont to tell me, there is no such thing as coincidence but rather as her uncle impressed upon her, its “beshert,” fate or predestination. Not only was it providential Dr. Wahl would stumble upon my Blog and contact me, but that he would also share copies of Dr. Bruck’s personal papers and photos. This was magnified when Nicholas Newman’s twin sisters from Sydney, Australia, similarly chanced upon my Blog while researching their deceased brother and contacted me.
Nicholas’s twin siblings, Francesca and Michele Newman (Figure 1), are the offspring of Renate Bruck’s third marriage. Since our initial encounter, we have developed a warm relationship and have had several Zoom calls. The twins have been able to fill in a few holes in my understanding of their mother and grandmother’s lives following their grandfather’s death in 1937, but most astoundingly, while examining their family memorabilia, they happened upon a so-called “Tagebuch,” written between January 1940 and December 1944 by their grandmother and mother, Johanna and Renate Bruck. (Figure 2) Technically a diary or journal, it can more accurately be characterized as a record or log of daily events the writers were engaged in.
Knowing the numerous questions I had about Dr. Bruck’s wife and daughter following his death, they offered to send me the original Tagebuch. While hesitant to risk losing this valuable document, I accepted their gracious offer and fortunately it arrived safely. The twins have since generously donated their mother and grandmother’s diary to the Museum of Cemetery Art (Old Jewish Cemetery), a Branch of the City Museum of Wroclaw, where their great-grandfather and great-great-grandfather are interred. Since Dr. Walter Bruck is well-known to staff of the museum, they were thrilled beyond measure to receive this donation.
Briefly, let me explain to readers how I was able to learn the contents of the Tagebuch. For much longer than I have been in contact with Francesca and Michele Newman, I have known one of their cousins from the Berlin neighborhood of Köpenick, Dr. Frank Thomas Koch (Figure 3); as another instance of serendipity, Dr. Tilo Wahl is a practicing dentist in this same district of Berlin. In any case, whereas Thomas and I are fourth cousins, Thomas and the twins are third cousins, so a generation more closely related. Over the years, Thomas and I have collaborated in tracking Johanna and Renate Bruck to England following their emigration from Germany, without specifically uncovering the intermediate steps that led to them arriving there.
Given Thomas’ interest in this branch of our family, upon learning of the existence of the Tagebuch, he offered to transcribe it. I sent Thomas a high-quality PDF of the journal, which he systematically transcribed over a roughly two-month period. Then, using the best of the known online translators, DeepL, he translated the log. But Thomas went beyond a cursory perusal of the “journal.” He provided some context for events taking place in Nazi Germany that ought to have been touched on by Johanna Bruck but were not. As one additional step, I put Thomas in touch with Renate Bruck’s lifelong still-living 95-year-old friend, Ina Schaesberg (Figure 4), who was able to recall specific people named in the Tagebuch and identify their role in Johanna and Renate’s lives. Since Ina speaks little English, Thomas was more effectively able to extract information about these people from her than I could. Finally, yet another source of information was Bettina Mehne (Figure 5), daughter of Renate Bruck’s first husband, Matthias Eugen Walter Mehne, by Matthias’ second wife; Bettina was able to recognize the diminutive names of some of her ancestors.
Briefly, let me give readers an impression of the Tagebuch. It is a five-year diary, of a type that still exists today, with some peculiarities. It covers the span from January 1, 1940, through December 24, 1944, although not chronologically. That’s to say, January 31, 1940, is not followed by February 1, 1940, but rather by January 1, 1941, then January 1, 1942, etc. While this may make sense, it prevents the reader from following the flow of events. Thus, Thomas, in transcribing and translating the diary, did so chronologically.
The diary has two authors, Dr. Walter Wolfgang Bruck’s widow, Johanna Bruck née Gräbsch, and his daughter, Renate Bruck. (Figure 6) Most of the entries are recorded by Johanna, whose writing is Old German Script in vogue around the 1900’s (known as “die Kurrentschrift” or “Kurrent”for short in German); Renate’s handwriting is more typical of today’s German cursive.
The Tagebuch is written in a telegraphic style, meaning in a clipped way of writing that abbreviates words and packs as much information into the fewest number of words or characters. At times, this means that certain terms or turns of phrases are not well understood or are indecipherable.
Rarely is the Tagebuch introspective or self-analyzing. Comparatively intimate, confidential, or personal messages are rarely recorded. The diary does not give us a sense of the broader events going on in the war during the Nazi era. For Johanna and Renate life seems to go on as normal, notwithstanding the fact that as a half-Jew Renate was considered a mischling of the first degree.
The war, the aftermath of its destruction, hunger, and repression are rarely mentioned. If Renate as a mischling or her mother were ever under observation by the Nazis and their informants is never made clear. However, as the author James F. Tent asserts in his seminal book about German mischlinge, “In the Shadow of the Holocaust: Persecution of Jewish-Christian Germans,” the intensity of persecution, discrimination, and harassment of mischlinge in the Third Reich varied greatly. Tent reports that in certain areas and regions, there was little distinction between “Jews” and “Mischlinge” in terms of persecution, while in other parts of the Reich virtually nothing happened to them, and they were not treated as outsiders.
There were at least two areas where Renate’s status as a mischling affected her life. Until 1938, Renate attended the “Oberlyzeum von Zawadzky,” the Upper Lyceum in the Zawadskie district of Breslau, which was a private school for daughters from upper class families. After 1938, all “non-Aryan” girls were forced to leave. Following her expulsion from the Lyceum, until Renate relocated with her mother to Berlin in February-March of 1942, she attended the “Kloster-Schule der Ursulinen,” the Ursuline Convent School. Then, beginning in 1942 upon her arrival in Berlin, she attended the “Kunstgewerbeschule,” the School of Arts and Crafts.
The second area where Renate’s life was affected by her status as a mischling of the first degree was in her desire to be a fully recognized member of the “deutschen Volksgemeinschaft,” wanting “to belong” and not be an outsider; the Volksgemeinschaft is a German expression meaning “people’s community” that originally became popular during WWI as Germans rallied in support of the war. It appealed to the idea of breaking down elitism, and uniting people across class divides to achieve a national purpose. During the Nazi era, the wanting “to belong” among children and young people was expressed, among other ways, in their membership in the Hitlerjugend (HJ), Hitler Youth, or the Bund Deutscher Mädel (BDM), League of German Girls or Band of German Maidens. However, anyone who was “non-Aryan” could not become a member of the Hitler Youth or BDM.
Ina Schaesberg, Renate’s lifelong friend, relates an uncomfortable situation Renate put her in on account of her desire to belong to the BDM. So the story goes that Renate forced Ina to get her a BDM uniform so they could play together as “German Maidens” privately at home wearing their outfits. Jumping ahead to January 1942 which will be discussed in Part 2 of this post, Renate was denounced for this act by an informer that required Johanna to report to the police, although the incident appears to have had no serious consequences.
Johanna resolved to address the matter of Renate’s exclusion from the BDM. She makes the following entry on January 29, 1941. “I received first a call from Norbert Pohl about BDM application to Hess.” Let me attempt to put this in context for readers and tell readers about the players, acknowledging that I do not have a copy of Renate’s BDM application so can only surmise what it may have included.
Johanna Bruck seemingly appealed the issue of Renate’s application to join the BDM to a high, if not the highest, authority, namely to Hitler’s deputy in the Nazi Party, Rudolf Hess (1874-1987). The quote above makes this evident. Hess had been the highest-ranking member after Hitler of the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (NSDAP), National Socialist German Workers’ Party, and Reich Minister without portfolio since 1933 when the Nazis seized power.
Johanna could have justified her request that Renate be accepted into the BDM in one of two ways. Purely hypothetically, Johanna could have argued that Dr. Walter Wolfgang Bruck was not the biological father of Renate and that she was the daughter of an affair Johanna had had with an “Aryan.” It’s conceivable Johanna was aware of a similar argument that had been made in the case of the German field marshal general Erhard Milch (Figure 7) by his mother, distant relatives of both Renate and me.
To remind readers, I wrote about Erhard Milch (1892-1972) in a post entitled “I Decide Who is a Jew” (Post 54), a saying widely attributed to Hermann Wilhelm Göring, one of the most powerful figures in the Nazi Party between 1933 to 1945. Erhard Milch was a German field marshal general (Generalfeldmarschall) who oversaw the development of the German air force (Luftwaffe) as part of the re-armament of Nazi Germany following WWI. He was State Secretary in the Reich Ministry of Aviation and Inspector General of the Air Force. During most of WWII, he oversaw all aircraft production and supply. In other words, Milch was important to the Nazis. Based on his mother’s disclosure that Erhard was not the son of her Jewish husband but supposedly born of an incestuous relationship with her uncle, an “Aryan,” he was declared a so-called “Honorary Aryan” (i.e., a person with Jewish roots who was appointed an honorary Aryan).
Thus, one way Johanna hypothetically could have argued that Renate be accepted into the BDM was by professing she was not the child of a Jew. Alternatively, Johanna could have argued that while Renate was regrettably a “mischling of the first degree,” her enthusiasm for the Nazis, their movement, and their ideals more than made up for this “flaw.” Which option Johanna chose is unknown to us. Probably her request was not supported by Hess or was delayed and put on the backburner. Regardless, several months after Johanna’s request, Hess flew to England in May 1941, ostensibly to make peace with the Allies. He was interned in England, and following Germany’s defeat, at Nuremberg he was sentenced to many years in prison as a Nazi and war criminal.
Who then was the Norbert Pohl who called Johanna Bruck on January 29, 1941? According to my cousin Thomas Koch, Norbert Pohl (1910-1968) was probably already a big shot in the SS (Schutzstaffel, or Protection Squads) at the time of Johanna’s BDM request. He was the chief judge of the SS at the Police Court VI in Krakow from July 1940 until March 1942. Johanna makes a remarkable entry on February 12, 1941, recording that she received a call from Frau Pohl, presumably the wife of the SS grandee Norbert Pohl, urging haste with the written request. On February 20th, Johanna delivered the application to the Obergau, a division of the National Socialist state, specifically to the “Obergau 4, Obergaubehörde Niederschlesien der Nazipartei NSDAP,” which was headquartered in Breslau. Pohl may subsequently have forwarded Johanna’s letter and documentation to Rudolf Hess and kept her informed about developments.
Because of the clipped style in which the Tagebuch is written, we are left to wonder about some of the brief entries recorded by Johanna that may have been related to the application submission. For example, on February 28, 1941, so eight days after submitting the petition to the NSDAP, Johanna writes that she sent a letter to Mackensen. This is undoubtedly Anton Ludwig Friedrich August Mackensen (1949-1945), Generalfeldmarschall, Field Marshall General, Dr. Walter Wolfgang Bruck’s military superior during WWI (Figure 8) and someone who stood up for him in 1933 after he was dismissed from his academic position. (Figure 9) Could the letter have had anything to do with Renate’s application to the NSDAP and a request for his support? It seems likely, but we may never know.
As it relates to the formal written request Johanna submitted for Renate to the Nazi authorities on February 20, 1941, Thomas figured out the German designation for this application was called “Gesuch über die Gleichstellung mit Deutschblütigen,” an “application for equality with German-blooded people.” The relevant literature indicates about 10,000 such applications were presented, but that only about 500 of them were ever approved. Of particular interest is that Hitler himself approved or denied these requests. Hitler’s allies were apparently more lenient in ratifying them.
What is clear from the journal and what we now know was an “application for equality with German-blooded people” submitted by Johanna is that she knew many people, including influential Nazis.
Unfortunately, the Tagebuch contains no mention as to what transpired after Renate’s application was submitted. However, based on an entry recorded on the 16th of September 1941, apparently Johanna suspects that her “request” for Renate to be treated “as an equal to German-blooded people” has been or will be rejected.
Let me turn now to log entries having to do with the Nazi regime and wartime events that may be of interest to readers.
On February 23, 1940, schools other than Renate’s were closed on account of a so-called “coal vacation,” days schools were closed during severe winters to save coal and heating oil to be used in support of the war effort.
On February 25, 1940, Johanna records that “Klaus,”one of Renate’s friends, had his National Socialist youth initiation ceremony as school graduation ceremonies and initiation rituals into the Hitler Youth and BDM were referred to at the time.
May 1st was a National Holiday, “Tag der Arbeit,” Labor Day, interestingly appropriating a tradition from the Labor movement.
On June 2nd, 1940, Johanna mentions listening to the radio, without specifically indicating that the broadcast presumably celebrated the Wehrmacht’s victory over France. Then, on June 25th, there was a school vacation because of “the acceptance of the peace terms imposed on the French.”
Interestingly, on November 23, 1940, the day of Hitler’s failed “Beer Hall Putsch” in 1923, in Munich, the Führer delivered a radio broadcast.
In several places, Johanna merely records “Führer speech,” so we are left to peruse the history books to identify what major speech Hitler delivered on these dates. The first instance is on February 24, 1941, which corresponds with a celebration at the Münchener Hofbräuhaus on the announcement of the NSDAP platform when Hitler declared an intensification of submarine warfare.
On April 9, 1941, Johanna remarks on the “great political events in the Balkans,” which coincided with the Wehrmacht’s campaign against then-Yugoslavia and Greece, resulting in Salonika’s capture on that date.
On May 4, 1941, Johanna again merely records, “Führer speech.” This coincides with an address Hitler made before the German Reichstag, in which he invoked the alleged desire for peace on the part of Nazi Germany, which had always been thwarted and now led once again to the defeat of then-Yugoslavia and Greece in the Balkans.
Relatedly, jumping ahead to January 3, 1942, Johanna makes another clipped entry that requires explanation: “. . .sweater and jacket donated for the soldiers.” Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion plan, called for the capture of Moscow within four months of the Axis forces invasion of the Soviet Union on the 22nd of June 1941. Hitler and his generals were convinced they would defeat the Soviet Union before the onset of winter 1941. Therefore, the German soldiers were ill-equipped for the severe winter when the Red Army counter-attacked during the Battle of Moscow, and they were largely without winter clothes. The donations of clothing from the German population were intended to compensate for this lack of winter equipment; Johanna was among the donors.
Let me turn now to some entries in the Tagebuch that give us insight into aspects of Johanna and Renate’s personal lives and their circle of friends and acquaintances. While of lesser interest than the terse war-related notes, they are still noteworthy.
According to a note recorded on the 24th of March 1940, Johanna and Renate were members of the “Christengemeinschaft.” The “Christengemeinschaft, Movement for Religious Renewal” is a Christian church that is close to anthroposophy but is regarded as an independent cult community. It was founded in Switzerland in 1922 following the suggestions of Rudolf Steiner and had followers in Breslau. Today, there are 140 congregations in Germany though the church exists worldwide. From the point of view of the mainstream churches, it represents, among other things, a different understanding of baptism.
It was through the Christengemeinschaft that Johanna sought to have Renate accepted for confirmation classes. Judging from the somewhat vague notes in the Tagebuch, there were discussions and a dispute with Church Pastor Müller about this, but Johanna eventually prevailed seemingly with the help of other members of the congregation. In any case, Renate was eventually confirmed on the 17th of March 1941.
Relatedly, on June 19, 1941, Johanna makes a point of mentioning the ban of eurythmy in schools, and the great joy it elicited; whether this was personal joy or more widespread elation is unclear. Eurythmy is an expressive movement art originated by Rudolf Steiner in conjunction with Marie von Sivers in the early 20th century. Primarily a performance art, it was also used in education, especially in Waldorf schools, and – as part of anthroposophic medicine – for claimed therapeutic purposes. The ban of eurythmy was probably connected with the flight of Rudolf Hess, Hitler’s Deputy, to England on May 10, 1941. With his departure, anthroposophy lost its most important promoter among the Nazi hierarchy. Ten days prior to the ban on eurythmy, the Christengemeinschaft to which Johanna and Renate belonged had been banned, and its priests and leading community members jailed. While Johanna makes mention of the eurythmy ban, she is silent on the ban of the church. What effect the ban had on Johanna and Renate is unknown, but, regardless, by this time Renate had already been confirmed.
A brief entry from July10, 1941, “letter to . . .Lettehaus” was explained to me by my cousin. “Letteverein” and “Lettehaus” were institutions founded in 1866 to “promote the gainful employment of women.” Johanna was faced with the problem that her daughter was basically barred from higher education and university studies in Nazi Germany for “racial” reasons. But even though higher education was not attainable for Renate, economic independence was a goal for Johanna, who had to remember she would not live forever and that her assets might not be transferable to Renate. Therefore, these institutions offered options. In clarifying this entry, Thomas explained that his mother, also a mischling of the first degree, availed herself of the Letteverein and Lettehaus.
As to Johanna and Renate’s financial situation, let me say a few words. As I have alluded to and discussed in earlier posts, Dr. Walter Wolfgang Bruck was an eminent dentist. He was the personal dentist to the last German Kaiser’s family and other members of the nobility. Judging from the lavish social events he hosted and the lifestyle he led, it can be assumed he was well-to-do.
According to Breslau address books of the time, during the late 1920’s and the early 1930’s Dr. Bruck and his family lived in a luxurious home at Reichspräsidentenplatz 17 (Figure 10), with the owner of record at the time being Walter Bruck. Following the death of Paul von Hindenburg, the German general and statesman who led the Imperial German Army during World War I and later became President of Germany from 1925 until his death in 1934, Reichspräsidentenplatz was renamed by the Nazis to Hindenburgplatz. The renaming of the square was reflected in Breslau address books only in 1935. By 1937, however, his wife Johanna Bruck was now shown as the owner of record even though Walter continued to live at Hindenburgplatz 17. The change in ownership from Walter to Johanna Bruck was a measure to avoid expropriation of the estate by the Nazis as Walter was considered “Jewish,” whereas his wife was deemed to be “Aryan.” We know from elsewhere that Walter converted from Judaism in about 1917, around the time his mother died, and that, unlike his accomplished father and grandfather, respectively Dr. Julius Bruck and Dr. Jonas Julius Bruck, he was not interred in Breslau’s Jewish Cemetery. Obviously, as far as the Nazis were concerned, Walter’s conversion from Judaism was of no consequence and he was still deemed Jewish. On multiple occasions, Johanna mentions that she and Renate visited her deceased husband’s grave, regrettably never mentioning which cemetery he was interred in. This is a mystery to be resolved.
Dr. Walter Bruck died in Breslau on the 31st of March 1937, whether by his own hand or not is unknown. Following Walter’s death, Johanna is presumed to have sold the house around that time because when in 1939, the “racial” census takes place (Figure 11), the widow Johanna Bruck and her daughter Renate Bruck are no longer living at Hindenburgplatz 17, but at Oranienstrasse 4. (Figure 12) The latter house does not belong to Johanna but to a retired banker by the name of “E. Bucher.” Johanna and Renate apparently lived there in a large stately apartment, from which they sublet rooms. Apart from the income this generated, Johanna undoubtedly received a significant sum of money from the sale of the house at Hindenburgplatz 17 as well as an inheritance from her husband. At various points in the Tagebuch, Johanna bemoans the expenditure of money on certain things, but rarely do we get the impression that she is lacking for money, nor does her active social life or the multiple activities she and Renate are enrolled in suggest otherwise.
There are scores upon scores of names mentioned in the journal. An unusually large number of them are referred to as “Tante,” aunt, or “Onkel,” uncle, with most presumed to be close friends rather than blood relatives. Several, however, “Tante Leni,” “Tante Irene” or “Tante I.,” and “Onkel Willy” are known to the writer and are unquestionably Johanna and Renate’s kin. In some instances mention is made of celebrating this or that person’s birthday on a particular day or week; given my familiarity with the dates of birth of family members, I was able to work out how some of the people were referred to. Thus “Tante I.” was Johanna’s sister-in-law, Irene Elisabeth Gräbsch née Klar who was married to Johanna’s brother, Paul Karl Hermann Gräbsch. Tante Irene was often accompanied by her son “Ebi,” a cousin and frequent playmate of Renate’s. (Figure 13) “Tante Leni” was Johanna’s sister, Helene Emma Clara Steinberg née Gräbsch. (Figure 14) “Onkel Willy” was Willy Gräbsch, a merchant from Breslau, probably unmarried or widowed, whose relationship to Johanna is unclear.
Personally intriguing is the mention made on March 30, 1940, that Renate went to visit “Tante Margarethe” to wish her a happy birthday. The quotation marks indicate that while she was not a relative, she was still referred to as an aunt. There is no doubt this is Dr. Walter Wolfgang Bruck’s first wife who was Jewish, Margarethe Bruck née Skutsch. (Figure 15) She was born on March 30, 1872, in Breslau [Wrocław, Poland], and murdered in the Theresienstadt Ghetto on the 22nd of September 1942. (Figure 16) It is surprising that Johanna and Renate were in touch with Walter’s first wife, although, as this was certainly the case, it’s astonishing that Johanna made no mention in the diary when Margarethe was deported. Perhaps Johanna had already distanced herself from this Jewish “aunt” by then?
Among the names mentioned are a coterie I surmise are people who provided professional services to Johanna, such as housecleaners, cooks, seamstresses, teachers, clergy, etc. This includes “Fräulein Anna,” Miss Anna. According to Ina Schaesberg, she was the cook in the Bruck household for many years, during Dr. Bruck’s lifetime and after his death. She was considered “Aryan.” According to the 1935 “Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor,” Jews were forbidden to employ “Aryan maids” under the age of 45. However, since Anna exceeded this age limit, she could remain employed in the house of Walter Bruck even after 1935. Following the death of Walter in 1937, she continued to work for Johanna and even followed her to Berlin (more on this in Part 2 of the post).
Johanna’s and Renate’s beloved long-haired dachshund, “Resi,” is often mentioned, though it took me some time to figure out that this was a dog and not a person. (Figure 17)
Because Renate was an exceptionally cute young girl who blossomed into a very attractive young woman, she had droves of admirers whom she frequently saw and skillfully manipulated. The fate of most are unknown, but in at least two instances Johanna tells us precisely the dates they were killed while serving in the Wehrmacht. The death of “Hans Roth,” often mentioned in the diary, is noted on October 26, 1941, though he was killed on the 21st of September 1941 on the Eastern Front as his death certificate confirms. (Figures 18a-b) Similarly, an even closer friend of Renate’s, “Christoph von Kospoth,” was killed-in-action on the 4th of April 1944 near Dresden, Germany. (Figures 19a-b)
Other names and deaths are recorded by Johanna, but I’ve been unable to match them with historic documents which might have been able to tell me more about them.
Many names in the Tagebuch include only forenames or surnames, so it’s impossible to precisely identify these individuals. However, in several instances, with surnames and professions given I was able with certainty to discover the identities or people. While these rarely add much to the narrative of Johanna’s and Renate’s lives, I will discuss a few only because I was able to learn something about them.
A name that frequently appears in Johanna’s entries is called “Hella Goossens.” She appears to have been a friend. This represents the sole instance where I was able to find a picture of someone named in Johanna’s and Renate’s diary who was not a family member. A vivacious looking woman born on the 21st of May 1884 in Hagen, North Rhine-Westphalia, a Rio de Janeiro Immigration Card shows she immigrated to Brazil in 1950 (Figure 20); she is identified as a domestic worker. Seemingly, she was joining her son, Herbert Goossens, who had immigrated there in 1939. (Figure 21)
As I alluded to earlier when talking about Johanna and Renate’s financial situation, both were involved in numerous extracurricular activities, particularly Renate. For her part, Johanna was taking Italian lessons with a Frau Koesel at the home of a Frau Conberti. Mrs. Conberti is listed in Breslau Address Books between 1934 and 1941 and shows she was an interpreter and language teacher. (Figures 22a-b) One is left to wonder whether Johanna was merely taking Italian for self-improvement, or envisioned emigrating to Italy? In the case of Renate, she was taking piano lessons, violin classes, tap classes, confirmation classes, and more. She would meet her future first husband, Matthias Mehne, in late 1941 in Breslau at his luthier shop, and immediately be “smitten” by him, but there is no indication they got involved romantically until they met again in Berlin in 1942.
Readers may wonder, as I did, whether any of Johanna’s and Renate’s acquaintances and friends are directly or indirectly acknowledged as Jewish. In one instance the name “Grete Stomberg or Sternberg” is noted, who can be presumed to have been Jewish because her apartment was confiscated by the Nazis. Another named individual was “Ferdinand Abramczyk,” later identified through a Breslau Address Book as a Justizrat, a member of the Judicial Council, who’d had “Israel” added as his middle name by the Nazis to mark him as Jewish.
Johanna frequently mentions bouts of “biliary pain,” most frequently caused by obstruction of the common bile duct or the cystic duct by a gallstone. This would eventually lead to hospitalization.
There is one final topic I want to discuss before ending the rather lengthy first part of Post 109. As previously mentioned, it appears that by September of 1941, Johanna is aware that Renate’s application for her to be treated “as an equal to German-blooded people” has been or will be rejected. This may have been the impetus for Johanna to relocate to Berlin. However, rather than simply move there, Johanna sought to swap apartments with someone from Berlin. She hosted a couple, the Günthers, with whom she would eventually exchange apartments. In February-March 1942, Johanna and Renate would move to Xantener Straße 24, in the Berlin district of Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf. More will be said on this in Part 2 of Post 109.
Among the more popular posts I have published in my Blog are veritable wartime diaries I have managed to get a hold of from various branches of my Jewish family. In all these instances, there is clearly an effort on the part of the author to write names in code or designate Jewish or “righteous” individuals by single letters or initials to conceal their identities. At no time do I detect a similar intent by Johanna or Renate.
Literally, with the hundreds of entries in Johanna’s and Renate’s Tagebuch, it is difficult to do justice to the diary. However, as I’ve indicated multiple times, the clipped style of writing associated with a telegraphic style makes it unlikely I would have been able to decipher the names of most of their acquaintances and friends nor the role they played in their lives. More importantly, it’s improbable this would have added much to the narrative since so many of the entries focused not on the political and current events of the time but rather on the social and amorous activities of the writers.
In closing I will quote from Ms. Renata Wilkoszewska-Krakowska’s observations of Johanna and Renate’s diary. Renate is my friend and Branch Manager, Museum of Cemetery Art (Old Jewish Cemetery) which is a Branch of the City Museum of Wroclaw, the institute where the Tagebuch was donated. Sadly, Renata’s thoughts mirror my own: “I am amazed that in the era of mass deportations of Breslau and Silesian Jews from 1941 to 1944, there is nothing in the diary on this subject. On November 21, 1941, over a thousand people were arrested, held for four days at the Odertorbahnhof train station, then deported to Kaunas, Lithuania, and shot on November 29th. Among them were many famous and influential inhabitants of Breslau, including Willy Cohn and his family, author of the famous diary/journal entitled “Kein Recht. Nirgends” (“No Law. Nowhere.”), published in German and Polish. In the context of the war, the everyday life of Johanna and Renate seems quite banal and normal. It’s hard for me to believe it, because as early as 1942, mischlinge were also deported to the occupied part of Poland and East.”
REFERENCES
Schwarzmüller, Theo. Zwischen Kaiser und Führer: Generalfeldmarschall August von Mackensen. Paderborn, Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh, 1995.
Tent, James F. In the Shadow of the Holocaust: Persecution of Jewish-Christian Germans. Lawrence, University Press of Kansas, 2003.
Note: In this post, I discuss the proof I have found for conversions from Judaism for German family members, some of which unavoidably consists of indirect evidence. This topic naturally involves touching on the political, economic, and social context under which such conversions took place.
There is a long history of Jewish conversion to Christianity, both voluntary and forced conversion. Forced conversions of Jews go back to Late Antiquity, the boundaries of which are a continuing matter of debate, but the period between roughly the 3rd and 8th centuries A.D. Royal persecutions of Jews from the 11th century onward typically took the form of expulsions with exceptions. Jews were forced to convert to Christianity before and during the First Crusade (1096-1099) including in parts of what are today France, Germany, and the Czech Republic.
The mass conversion event which took place on the Iberian Peninsula in A.D. 1391 when tens of thousands of Spain’s Jews converted to Christianity because of pogroms is the one readers will be most familiar with. Practicing Jews who refused to convert were expelled by the Catholic monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella in the Alhambra Decree of 1492, following the Christian Reconquest of Spain. The net effect of the Alhambra Decree and persecutions carried out in earlier periods is that over 200,000 Jews converted to Catholicism and between 40,000 and 100,000 were expelled. In adjoining Portugal, by contrast, where an edict for Jewish expulsions was also ordered four years later in A.D. 1496, most Jews were not allowed to leave but were forced to convert.
Though conversions continued over time across many other parts of Eastern, Central, and Western Europe, forced conversions were apparently less common in the 20th century and were later more often the result of Jews choosing to convert to integrate into secular society. In Germany, which is the focus of this Blog post as it relates to my family, conversions occurred in three main periods. The first began during the Mendelssohnian era, named after Moses Mendelssohn (1729-1786), the German Jewish philosopher to whose ideas the Haskalah, the “Jewish Enlightenment” of the 18th and 19th centuries, is attributed. A second wave occurred during the first half of the 19th century. And the third and longest period of conversions was a result of antisemitism and began roughly in 1880.
Conversion among German Jews was not an uncommon phenomenon in the 19th century owing to the myriad restrictions and myths that confronted them, and stymied their hopes, ambitions, dreams, and careers. In a sense, conversion to Christianity was the easy way out. Heinrich Heine (1797-1856), the noted German poet, writer, and literary critic, who himself converted, was reputed to have said conversion was his “ticket of admission into European culture.” Across most of the German states that united to create “modern” Germany in 1871, dominated by the state of Prussia, Jews were often rewarded for renouncing Judaism by being given influential positions and financial incentives. Whereas, during the 17th century, most converts were poor, by the middle of the 18th century, the converts were richer. The departure of the wealthier converts deprived the Jewish community of part of its operating budget. In any event, it is estimated that by the 20th century, close to one million Christians in Germany were of Jewish origin. According to Deborah Hertz’s book, “How Jews Became Germans: The History of Conversion and Assimilation in Berlin,” the majority of converts were infants whose parents wanted to spare them “conflicts” as adults. She notes that 60 percent of converts between 1800 and 1874 were under five years of age.
Adolf Hitler came to power in January 1933. The Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service (Gesetz zur Wiederherstellung des Berufsbeamtentums), which excluded Jews and other political opponents of the Nazis from all civil service positions, was one of the first anti-Semitic and racist laws to be passed by the Third Reich, enacted on the 7th of April 1933. The law initially exempted those who had worked in the civil service since August 1, 1914, those who were veterans of World War I, or those with a father or son killed in action in World War I. The Civil Service immediately impacted the education system because university professors, for example, were classified as civil servants.
With the seizure of power by the Nazis, the new government enacted laws that required all citizens to document their genealogy in full. The regime sought to identify Jews who had converted to Christianity over the preceding centuries. With the help of church officials, a vast system of conversion and intermarriage records was created in Berlin, the country’s foremost Jewish city. These records, the Judenkartei, the Jewish Register or File, begin in 1645. Work on creating this file had started before the Nazis even came to power under a private initiative which sought to uncover proof of the Jewish ancestry of university and college professors and judges. By 1932, this file had already collected 400,000 genealogical records of Jews in Germany. The constantly expanding file was taken over and expanded in 1933 by the Reichsstelle für Sippenforschung (RfS), renamed Reichssippenamt on the 12th of November 1940, the Reich Office for Clan Research.
Readers who have accessed ancestral records for their German Jewish relatives may have noticed notations in the upper left- or right-hand corners or along the margins of vital documents. Beginning August 17, 1938, Jews had to add “Israel” (males) (Figure 1) or “Sara” (females) (Figure 2) as their middle name. Similarly, on passports, which allowed German Jews to leave Germany, when they still could, but not return, a large “J” was imprinted. (Figure 3) These and other measures instituted by the Nazis were intended to officially separate Jews from the German populace. While German Jews still converted after the Nazis seized power, as I will illustrate in the case of my uncle Dr. Fedor Bruck, readers can easily surmise this was futile.
As I contemplated the question of conversion from Judaism among my immediate and extended ancestors, I began to wonder what evidence I could find in the ancestral records proving my relatives’ “alienation” from their Jewish roots. In my limited experience, finding such documents is not easy. In the case of some of my ancestors but not all of them, conversion was a “pragmatic” decision, as I’ve alluded to. Again, citing the poet Heinrich Heine, he declared that he was “merely baptized, not converted.” Quoting from a letter he once wrote:
“From my way of thinking you can well imagine that baptism is an indifferent affair. I do not regard it as important even symbolically, and I shall devote myself all the more to the emancipation of the unhappy members of our race. Still I hold it as a disgrace and a stain upon my honor that in order to obtain an office in Prussia—in beloved Prussia—I should allow myself to be baptized.”
In re-reading the memoirs of Dr. Josef Pauly (Figure 4), husband of my great-great-aunt, who had likely been baptized Catholic as a child and whose recollections I discussed in Post 56, I wonder whether he may not have been implying the same sentiment when he wrote:
“I believe in God as the creative force of the universe, to an immanent [NOTE: (of God) permanently pervading or sustaining the universe] consciousness, to a moral world order, to the invisible God of the world as the Jewish religion has revealed it first, whose goodness is identical with the eternal laws.”
As I began to search through my files and recollect what evidence for conversion I had found for my ancestors, I initially concluded that most of the “proof” was indirect, such as in the case of my father which I discussed in Post 38. However, upon further consideration, I realize I have found considerably more direct validation than I initially thought. Beyond the obvious instances where the graves or burial records of my forefathers interred in existing and destroyed Jewish cemeteries survive, proving they did not convert, I found corroboration for several ancestors confirming they were baptized.
The earliest instance is the case of my great-great-aunt Amalie Mockrauer (1834-1918). (Figure 5) On ancestry, I uncovered a record showing she was baptized in Dresden, Germany, 21 years after her birth, on the 13th of April 1855. (Figure 6) This was undoubtedly in anticipation of her marriage to Leopold Julius Wolf von Koschembahr (Figure 7) later that year on the 26th of September 1855 in Saint Clement Danes, Westminster, London, England, an Anglican church. (Figure 8)
Initially, I thought Leopold von Koschembahr was also of Jewish origin because his grandson, Gerhard Bruck von Koschembahr (i.e., Gerhard’s father, Wilhelm Bruck, took his baroness wife’s surname) (Figure 9), departed Germany for the United States via Switzerland in 1938 with his 12 children. However, I learned from a New York Times article dated the 2nd of October 1938 that Gerhard departed Germany NOT on account of his grandfather’s Jewish roots but because his great-grandmother, on his mother’s side, was non-Aryan. (Figure 10) This gives credence to the concern descendants of Jews whose ancestors had long ago converted or had never converted felt when the Nazis started tracing their ancestral origins. In the case of Leopold von Koschembahr, I found his baptismal record showing he was baptized on the 5th of December 1829 (Figures 11a-b), proving he was not Jewish at birth. As readers can discern from this example, confirming or refuting the Jewish origins of one’s ancestors can be like solving a complex puzzle.
Moving on to other family members, let me briefly discuss the evidence for conversion for my uncle by marriage Dr. Franz Müller, my uncle by blood Dr. Fedor Bruck, my father Dr. Otto Bruck, and Dr. Adalbert Bruck, the great-grandfather of a fourth cousin.
The Centrum Judaicum Foundation is housed in the New Synagogue Berlin which was consecrated on the Jewish New Year in 1866, at which time it became the largest Jewish house of worship with its 3,200 seats. While the synagogue was spared major damage on “Kristallnacht,” it was severely damaged by Allied bombing during WWII. In 1958, the main room of the synagogue was demolished, so that today only the parts of the building closest to the street remain structurally intact.
Documents addressing the history of Jews in and around Berlin are archived there, including surviving records on conversions that took place in the city. In the case of my uncle by marriage Dr. Franz Müller, married to my aunt Susanne Müller née Bruck murdered in Auschwitz, the Centrum Judaicum has an index card on file indicating he converted on the 25th of November 1901. This did not prevent him being dismissed from his position as Humboldt University professor when the Nazis came to power in 1933 in accordance with their Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service.
In the instance of my fourth cousin’s great-grandfather, Dr. Adalbert Bruck, the Centrum Judaicum could find nothing in their archives about him, so referred my cousin to the Evangelische Zentralarchiv in Berlin, the Protestant Central Archive in Berlin. In principle records of all Jewish conversions to Christianity in Berlin are kept here, though many did not survive WWII. According to a letter sent to my cousin, Dr. Adalabert Bruck’s record survives indicating he converted on the 27th of November 1890; however, his wife Anna Bruck née Flatow’s information survives only indirectly in the form of a 1930 document showing she supposedly converted on the 17th of February 1900. (Figures 12a-b)
The conversion of my uncle Dr. Fedor Bruck, who has been the subject of several Blog posts because of his incredible tale of survival in Berlin during the entirety of WWII thanks to family and “silent heroes,” adds another element to my uncle’s compelling story. The register documenting his conversion survives and indicates he was baptized in Berlin on the 11th of June 1939 at the Messias Kapelle, a Lutheran Church. (Figures 13a-b, 14) Two godparents are named in the register, a “Herr Engelbert Helwig” and a “Herr Roderich von Roy.” Ancestry shows Englebert Helwig to have been a Holocaust survivor, and Roderich von Roy to have been born on the 3rd of August 1895, exactly two weeks before my uncle. Did my uncle know these people beforehand, or were they just random parishioners who attended the Messias Kappelle selected to be his godparents? We may never know.
Lutheran is a denomination among the Protestant, in fact it is the oldest of the denominations to break away from Catholicism and is traced to the founder of the movement, Martin Luther of Germany. (Figure 15)
Hoping to find a picture of the Messias Kapelle, I did a Google query and stumbled upon a fascinating article written by Christiane Jurik, Editor-in-Chief of Ariel Ministries, discussing the origins of the Messias Kapelle and its role in German Jewish baptisms. I quote:
“Historically, most baptized Jews in Germany joined the Lutheran Church. There, even those who were true believers in Yeshua were mostly met with indifference; sometimes with suspicion; or worst, with anti-Semitism. In order to avoid this treatment, some Jewish believers started looking for places of worship where they could stay among themselves. In 1901, the Berlin Society purchased a property in one of the most urban boroughs of the city, called Prenzlauer Berg. The ministry not only moved its headquarters to the building but soon started construction work of what became known as the Messias Kapelle (‘Messiah Chapel’). Three days before Christmas of 1902, the chapel opened its doors to the Jewish believers of Berlin.
While the goal of the Berlin Society had been to offer a haven for Jewish believers, its work was closely affiliated with the Lutheran Church. In fact, the chapel officially belonged to the union of Protestant churches that also included the Confessing Church, whose most famous member was Dietrich Bonhoeffer. However, in 1930, the Lutheran Church revoked its support of the work of the Berlin Society and withdrew its pastors from the chapel. From then on, the Messias Kapelle was run by laymen.
In 1935, the Lutheran Synod forbade the baptizing of Jewish people. One of the pastors in Berlin expressed the general sentiment: ‘I am convinced that the family who told me it would be a horrible thought for them that the hand that baptized a Jew would touch their child is not alone.’
Yet not everyone obeyed the new directives of the Synod. The Messias Kapelle at this point separated itself completely from any state-run institution and in turn became the most important place of Messianic baptism in Berlin. According to the baptismal records of the time, over 700 German Jews got baptized there in the years between 1933 and 1940.
On November 11, 1938, during the Kristallnacht, the Messias Kapelle and the seat of the Berlin Society were trashed by the Nazis. Still, it would take until January of 1941 for the ministry and the chapel to be officially closed permanently. Ten months later, the first deportation of Jewish people began in Berlin. Records prove that of the 700 Jewish believers who had been baptized in the Messias Kapelle after 1933, 86 were hauled off to the ghettos of Lodz, Riga, Minsk, and Warsaw. Only two of them survived the Holocaust. It is unknown what happened to the rest of the congregation.”
A few observations. Among the survivors baptized in the Messias Kapelle was my uncle who lived until 1982. Beyond the obvious interest in self-preservation for the 700 or so Jews who got baptized in the Messias Kapelle during the Nazi era, the fact they could be baptized here as late as 1939, worship among other Jewish converts, and be told about the Jewish Messiah may have had appeal. While it’s unclear whether the chapel has been deconsecrated, the author of the above quote tells us that a marketing and public relations firm now owns it and that the worship hall, altar, and a marble relief resembling a Temple survive. It’s sad this is not a recognized historic monument.
Growing up my father never spoke about religion and religion was never part of my upbringing. In fact, I was baptized as a Catholic by my grandparents at six years of age in Lyon, France, at the request of my parents almost as an afterthought, hoping it might protect me in the event of another Holocaust. However, as most readers will surmise, as a half-Jew, I would have been considered a mischlinge of the first degree according to the Nuremberg Laws. Not good enough to survive being murdered.
Aware my father had attended dental school in Berlin, I checked with the Centrum Judaicum in Berlin to ascertain whether they might have a record of my father’s conversion, but they do not. Knowing my father’s penchant for procrastinating, I have always suspected my father never placed a high priority on getting baptized and converting until it became an absolute necessity. And, in my opinion, that only became necessary after he moved to the town of Tiegenhof [today: Nowy Dwór Gdański, Poland] in the Free State of Danzig where he opened his dental practice in 1932. As I discussed in Post 38, the evidence for my father’s conversion comes in the form of a receipt for payment of quarterly church taxes to the Evangelische Kirche in Tiegenhof. (Figure 16)
My second cousin twice-removed, Dr. Walter Wolfgang Bruck (1872-1937) (Figure 17), subject of several recent Blog posts is thought to have converted in Breslau [today: Wrocław, Poland]. Dr. Barbara Bruziewicz-Mikłaszewska, professor of dentistry at the University of Wrocław, who has written about Dr. Bruck, cites a file from the University’s archives saying he converted in 1916 (i.e., University file: sygn. S99, s. 62, nr sprawy AU – 481/46/2001). As we speak, I am working with one of Dr. Bruziewicz-Mikłaszewska’s colleagues to obtain verification of the date of Dr. Bruck’s baptism. Unlike his father and grandfather, who are buried in the Old Jewish Cemetery in Wrocław, Walter’s place of internment in Wrocław is unknown but was undoubtedly in a Christian cemetery that likely no longer exists.
As I mentioned above, in principle all surviving records of Jewish conversions to Christianity in Berlin are archived at the Evangelische Zentralarchiv. For conversions that took place outside of Berlin, however, there is no central repository of this information that I am aware of. Thus, the only possibility of tracking down comparable information for one’s Jewish ancestors is to know the town and parish church where the baptism occurred, and then hope the registers have survived.
REFERENCES
Bruziewicz Mikłaszewska, Barbara. Outline of the history of university dentistry in Breslau/Wrocław. [Polish: Zarys dziejów uniwersyteckiej stomatologii we Wrocławiu]. 2010, University of Wrocław, PhD.
Note: In this Blog post, I discuss Renate Bruck’s two prominent godmothers, images of whom exist among Dr. Walter Bruck’s surviving papers and photographs.
The Nuremberg Laws consisted of two race-based measures which deprived Jews of their rights. They were designed by Adolf Hitler and approved by the Nazi Party at a convention in Nuremberg on September 15, 1935. The first of these measures, termed the “Reichsbürgergesetz,” the “Reich Citizenship Law,” declared that only those of “German or kindred blood” were eligible to be Reich citizens; the remainder were designated as “subjects of the state” without any citizenship rights. The second provision, the “Gesetz zum Schutze des Deutschen Blutes und der Deutschen Ehre,” the “Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honour,” usually simply called the “Blutschutzgesetz” or “Blood Protection Law,” forbade marriage or extramarital intercourse between Jews and Germans. These measures were among the first of the racist Nazi laws that culminated in the Holocaust.
Under the Nuremberg laws, Jews could not fly the German flag and were forbidden to employ in domestic service female subjects of German or kindred blood who were under the age of 45 years.
The first supplementary decree elaborating upon the Nuremberg Laws was passed on November 14, 1935. It defined Jews as persons with at least one Jewish grandparent and explicitly declared they could not be citizens of the Reich; it further decreed that Jews could not exercise the right to vote nor occupy public office. This was ultimately one of 13 ordinances that completed the process of Jewish segregation.
One enactment, passed on November 26, 1935, expanded the provisions of the law to include Roma (Gypsies) and Black people. While exact figures cannot be ascertained, historians estimate that the Germans and their allies killed between 250,000 and 500,000 European Roma during World War II. Although the Nazis did not have an organized program to exterminate African Germans, many of them were persecuted, as were other people of African descent. Black people in Germany and German-occupied territories were often isolated, and an unknown number were sterilized, incarcerated, or murdered.
It is important to emphasize that the racial definition of Jews under the Nuremberg Laws meant that Jews were persecuted NOT for their religious beliefs but for their so-called racial identity that was irrevocably transmitted through the blood of their ancestors.
Because the Nuremberg Laws did not define a “Jew” nor the phrase “German or kindred blood,” the critical task of defining their meaning fell to bureaucrats because of the criminal provisions for noncompliance contained within the law. Two basic categories of Jews were recognized. A full Jew referred to anyone with three Jewish grandparents, a rather straight-forward definition. Defining part-Jews, who were referred to as “Mischlinge,” a pejorative term meaning “hybrids, mongrels, or half-breeds,” was more challenging. Eventually they were divided into two classes. First-degree Mischlinge were defined as people who had two Jewish grandparents but did not practice Judaism and did not have a Jewish spouse. Second-degree Mischlinge were those who had only one Jewish grandparent.
Students of history may find it interesting to learn that out of foreign policy concerns, persecutions under the Nuremberg Laws did not begin until after the conclusion of the 1936 Summer Olympics, held in Berlin that year.
Also worth noting is one of the effects of the Nuremberg Laws. It gave rise to a horde of purportedly “licensed family researchers” who offered their services to concerned Germans afraid the Nazis would discover Jewish relatives among their ancestors. The Health Ministry as well as church offices were involved in providing birth and baptismal certificates as proof of Aryan origin.
I introduce the Nuremberg Laws in the context of talking about Dr. Walter Wolfgang Bruck and his wife Johanna Bruck née Gräbsch’s daughter, Renate Bruck. (Figure 1) While Renate’s mother was Protestant, Dr. Bruck’s parents were Jewish, so according to the Nuremberg Laws, Renate was considered a first-degree Mischling. Evidence suggests Walter converted to Protestantism around 1917, confirmation of which I am still trying to track down. The timing of his conversion may have corresponded with the death of Walter’s mother, Bertha Bruck née Vogelsdorf (1843-1917), in 1917 (Figure 2); Walter may have been reluctant to convert from Judaism until his mother passed away. Unlike his parents and paternal grandparents who are buried in the Old Jewish Cemetery in Breslau [today: Wrocław, Poland], the place of Walter’s burial or cremation is unknown. (Figure 3) What is clear is that Walter was not interred in a Jewish cemetery.
As for Renate Bruck, there is no indication she ever set foot in a synagogue or was taught about the Jewish religion, which makes sense if her father converted from Judaism nine years before Renate was even born. On the contrary, a preliminary examination of the five-year Tagebuch, diary, belonging to Renate and her mother covering a critical period from January 1940 through December 1944, makes it clear Renate was attending Confirmation classes throughout 1940 and early 1941, and was confirmed at age 14 in Breslau on the 17th of March 1941. (Figure 4) As far as the Nazis were concerned, however, this would not have altered Renate’s status as a first-degree Mischling. And, in fact, Renate’s lifelong friend Ina Schaesberg (Figure 5) confirms that Renate and the other Jews and half-Jews were expelled from the private school they all attended in Breslau. More will be said in a future Blog post about the contents of Johanna and Renate Bruck’s diary including their attitude towards the Nazis.
Among the pictures in Walter Bruck’s photo album are two showing people Renate identified as her godmothers. I was curious that Renate had two godmothers but learned that traditionally Christian children can have three godparents in total, though they can have as many as the parents want. Usually, girls have two godmothers and one godfather while boys gave two godfathers and one godmother, although there is no hard and fast rule about this. Without access to Renate’s baptismal record, it is unclear whether both godmothers were listed on it at the time of her baptism. There is no indication as to who Renate’s godfather may have been.
Renate provided information on the captions about each of her godmothers which allowed me to make some interesting connections.
Renate’s first godmother was named “Tante ‘Steffa’ Stephanie” (Figure 6); as readers can make out from the caption, her father was identified as “Geheimrat Prof. Erhlich,” and her husband was the “Commerzienrat Schwerin.” There was also a cryptic parenthetical notation after Stephanie’s father’s name, “Salvasan,” the significance of which only become apparent to me later. (Figure 7)
A “Geheimrat” is a Privy Counselor, a member of the government or cabinet minister; in the current context, however, “Geheimrat” refers to an honorary title used in Prussia that was bestowed upon Dr. Erhlich as an accomplished doctor (see below). A “Kommerzienrat,” a Commercial Counselor, also called a commercial attaché, is a commercial expert on the diplomatic staff of a country´s embassy or large consulate.
Based on Renate’s captions, I correctly concluded that Tante Steffa was Stephanie Schwerin née Erhlich. I discovered a substantial amount of information about her on ancestry.com, including her birth certificate. Her birth name was August Josephine Stephanie Erhlich, and she was born on the 19th of October 1884 in Berlin. Her parents’ names are listed on her birth certificate as Paul Simon Erhlich and Hedwig Erhlich née Pinkus. (Figures 8a-b)
I very quickly realized that Tante Steffa’s father was none other than Dr. Paul Erhlich (1854-1915) (Figure 9), the Nobel Prize-winning German Jewish physician and scientist who worked in the fields of hematology, immunology, and antimicrobial chemotherapy. In 1908, Dr. Paul Erhlich was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his contributions to immunology. His foremost achievements were discovering a cure for syphilis in 1909 (The First Syphilis Cure Was the First ‘Magic Bullet’ | Smart News | Smithsonian Magazine) and inventing the precursor to Gram staining bacteria. The techniques Dr. Erhlich developed for staining tissues made it possible to distinguish between different types of blood cells, which in turn made it possible to diagnose various blood disorders.
Dr. Erhlich’s laboratory discovered Arsphenamine, the drug introduced in the early 1910s as the first effective treatment against syphilis and African sleeping sickness. Renate Bruck’s cryptic parenthetical reference to “Salvasan” was the mistakenly spelled name for “Salvarsan,” the name under which Arsphenamine was marketed, also known as “compound 606.”
A biographical sketch on Dr. Erhlich to which I link here (Paul Ehrlich – Biographical – NobelPrize.org) makes mention of his two daughters, including Stephanie (Mrs. Ernst Schwerin) and Marianne (Mrs. Edmund Landau). Both were the result of his marriage in 1883 to Hedwig Pinkus (1864-1948). According to their marriage certificate, Stephanie and Ernst Schwerin got married in Frankfurt, Germany on the 20th of February 1904.
Along with the picture of Stephanie Schwerin née Erhlich among Dr. Walter Bruck’s papers are two showing the elegant homes she and her husband, Ernst Schwerin, owned, a large estate in Breslau, as well as a mountain retreat probably located in the Riesengebirge [today: Krkonoše, Karkonosze, or Giant Mountains in northern Czech Republic and south-west Poland]. (see Figure 7) There can be little doubt Stephanie and Ernst were wealthy, and, likely, lost much of their fortune when they fled Germany after the ascendancy of the Nazis. Primary source documents prove that in accordance with the Nuremberg Laws, both Ernst and Stephanie Schwerin had their German nationalities annulled sometime between 1935 and 1944. (Figures 10-11) Other primary source documents show that Stephanie and her husband made their way to New York City via Switzerland. They emigrated from Switzerland in October 1938. (Figures 12-13)
The Social Security Death Index indicated Stephanie died in New York in June 1966 (Figure 14) and her husband Ernst passed away on the 25th of November 1946. (Figure 15) I asked a friend with a subscription to Newspapers.com and GenealogyBank if he could track down their obituaries, hoping I might find a living descendant. My friend was unable to locate an obituary for Ernst Schwerin, but his wife’s obituary shows she died a most gruesome death on the 7th of June 1966 at the age of 81 by plunging from her 10th floor apartment at the Hotel Croydon. (Figure 16) According to the obituary, she left two notes in German, confirming she committed suicide. Likely, these notes were intended for her two sons, Hans Wolfgang Schwerin (1906-1987) and Guenther Karl-Joseph Schwerin (1910-1997), neither of whom ever appears to have ever been married. Hans Schwerin, who was an author, lawyer, and psychoanalyst, was a regular fixture on the Society pages during the 1950s. (Figure 17)
The second of Renate Bruck’s godmothers, Elfriede Reichelt, turns out to have been another prominent personage. As readers can make out for themselves, Renate Bruck identified her second godmother as a photographer. (Figure 18) Operating under the assumption she was well-known, a Google query confirmed this. She was born Elfriede Klara Emma Reichelt on the 30th of January 1883 in Breslau, and died of bladder cancer on the 22nd of August 1953 in Grünwald , outside Munich. She was a German art photographer, who in her time was one of the best-known professional photographers in Germany.
The photograph of Elfriede Reichelt appears to have been taken in April 1927 in Brioni, Yugoslavia [today: Brijuni, Croatia], when Elfriede and her unidentified husband were vacationing there with Walter and Johanna Bruck. Her unnamed husband I was later able to determine was Hans Wieland, an industrialist from Ulm, Germany, whom Elfriede married in 1927 and separated from in 1936.
In the Deutsche Fotothek 743 of Elfriede Reichelt’s portrait photos are inventoried (Deutsche Fotothek), including multiple self-portraits. Because of copyright issues, I cannot illustrate these images here, but readers are encouraged to peruse them. Allow me to make a few observations about her photos. Reichelt had unprecedented access to Germany’s last Kaiser, Wilhelm II, and his family while they lived in exile in Doorn, Netherlands following WWI, and often photographed them. It is possible that Elfriede also photographed the Kaiser’s wife, Hermine Reuß, when she visited Dr. Walter Bruck in Breslau for dental treatments. It is even conceivable Dr. Bruck introduced the Kaiserin to Elfriede. Not surprisingly, given the friendship that existed between Walter Bruck and Elfriede Reichelt, her images include one of my renowned ancestor. Oddly, the photograph is incorrectly captioned. It is most curious that Walter Bruck’s picture is labeled as Dr. Fedor Bruck, which happens to have been my uncle’s name who was also a Breslau-trained dentist. Could Elfriede have known my uncle? The period my Uncle Fedor Bruck (1895-1982) spent in Breslau following WWI suggests this is possible. (Figure 19)
Regular readers may remember I have written multiple Blog posts about the Neisser branch of my extended family. Among Elfriede’s pictures are a few she took of Dr. Albert Neisser (1855-1916) (Figure 20) and his wife, Toni Neisser, a patron of the arts. Dr. Neisser was a German physician who discovered the pathogen that caused gonorrhea, a strain of bacteria that was named in his honor (Neisseria gonorrhoeae).
Part of the pleasure I derive in doing forensic genealogy are finding connections among the people I research and write about even when the people are not blood relatives. Often these connections are trivial but nonetheless interesting. Case in point. After elementary school, Dr. Paul Erhlich attended the secondary school Maria-Magdalenen-Gymnasium (high school) in Breslau where he became friends with Dr. Alfred Neisser, who would later become a professional colleague. Coincidentally, Dr. Albert Neisser is a remote “link” between both of Renate Bruck’s two godmothers, though there is no evidence to suggest either knew Dr. Neisser. Since Elfriede Reichelt and Stephanie Erhlich were born, respectively, in 1883 and 1884, and Renate’s mother was born in 1884, it seems more likely all were schoolmates and friends growing up.
Note: In this post, I explore and document the connection between my renowned ancestor, Dr. Walter Wolfgang Bruck, and Germany’s last imperial family, that of Kaiser Wilhelm II.
When formulating my Blog posts, I am acutely aware I am writing about people connected to or associated with members of my family to whom most readers are unrelated. For this reason, I try and frame the stories within a broader historical and cultural context which may be of greater interest to subscribers. Even though many of the events I write about involve people who lived during the Nazi era, which narrowly includes the period from 1933 to 1945, I hope followers will agree this tragic period in history is endlessly fascinating and obviously transcends my own family’s stories.
In perusing the photos of the personal effects belonging to Dr. Walter Wolfgang Bruck (Figure 1), my second cousin twice removed, given to me by Dr. Tilo Wahl, I came upon a surprising array of materials chronicling a friendship between Walter and the family of Kaiser Wilhelm II (1859-1941), Germany’s last emperor. I decided to investigate this connection by having the documentary evidence translated and researching when the bond may have begun and how long it continued. As readers will be able to judge for themselves, some of my findings are conjecture, others are more firmly grounded in the records I found.
Let me start by reviewing what I have been able to establish of Dr. Walter Wolfgang Bruck’s military service during WWI (Figure 2), at which time I surmise a relationship between Dr. Bruck and Kaiser Wilhelm II may have begun. According to contemporary newspaper accounts published in 1925 on Walter’s 25th year anniversary as dental lecturer at the University of Breslau, “During WWI, from October 1914 to August 1917, Walter headed a dental department at the fortress hospital in Breslau, and in 1917 went to Bucharest, where he worked as a consulting dentist for the Romanian military administration and later in the same capacity worked at the high command of the so-called von Mackensen Army Group.” Multiple photographs from Walter personal papers confirm his presence on the Eastern Front during WWI (Figures 3-4) and show him socializing with members of Germany’s high command.
There is a suggestive account in one of the articles I translated as to Walter’s administrative acumen and dental skills which may explain how he came to the attention of upper echelon German military officers and the German Kaiser, “If the suggestions made by Walter in his writings as early as 1900 had succeeded, things would have been better at the beginning of the war for the dental supply of our army. For three years in a large dental department in the Wroclaw hospital, Bruck was able to prove that dental care, as he always thought it should be provided, can be carried out very well.”
Another quote from a contemporary news account alludes to Walter’s cutting-edge dental practices, “He [the speaker] particularly emphasized his [Walter’s] contribution to the introduction of porcelain filling and mentioned that the book Bruck wrote about it had been translated into Russian and English. The speaker also remembered Bruck’s numerous efforts to introduce dental care in the army, including oral hygiene, and mentioned that one of his works had been translated into no less than eight languages. Prof. Euler also mentioned that Bruck had been active as a writer in other fields such as prosthetics and dentistry with success and announced that he intended to hold lectures in the future in the fields of social dentistry and the history of dentistry.” Sadly, I know, from having visited a museum exhibit in Essen, Germany, that the horrific injuries sustained by soldiers during WWI led to the development of advanced prosthetics and facial and maxillary reconstructions following the war.
Regardless of when Dr. Bruck’s dental skills came to the attention of the German government and military command, he would certainly have been known to them because he was at the forefront of his field and in demand.
Let me tell readers a little about Walter’s personal life. In researching when and where Walter’s older sister, Margarethe Prausnitz née Bruck (Figure 5), was born and died, I found an ancestral tree showing Walter had been married before he married Johanna Bruck née Gräbsch, the mother of his two children. This came as quite a surprise to me. According to this source, the name of Walter’s first wife was purportedly Margarethe STUTSCH.
I have repeatedly told readers that unless I can locate primary source documents, I am hesitant to believe what I find in other people’s trees. Case in point. While I was eventually able to confirm Walter had indeed previously been married, I learned his first wife’s maiden name was SKUTSCH not Stutsch, complicating my search. Sadly, I found that Margarethe Skutsch, born the same month and year as Walter, was murdered in Theresienstadt in 1942.
I unearthed two primary source documents confirming Margarethe’s connection to Walter Bruck. The first was her Theresienstadt death certificate (Figure 6), very rarely completed post-mortem for Jews who died there, giving her married name. The second was the 1907 death certificate for Margarethe’s mother, Berta Skutsch née Grosser, at which Walter was a witness. (Figure 7) A picture from around 1917 shows Margarethe and Walter seated at an outside picnic table with the Grand Duke of Oldenburg and his wife (Figure 8), indicating they were still married at the time. Walter’s biography which abruptly ends around 1894-94 gives no indication he was married before he left for America to attend the Baltimore College of Dental Surgery, so the duration of his first marriage is unknown.
Let me briefly digress and tell readers a few relevant facts about Kaiser Wilhelm II to provide context for some of the documents and photos found among Dr. Walter Bruck’s papers. Wilhelm II reigned as the German Emperor from the 15th of June 1888 until he was forced to abdicate on the 9th of November 1918, following some crushing defeats on the Western Front during WWI that led to the collapse of Germany’s war efforts. Following his abdication, on the 10th of November, Wilhelm went into exile in the Netherlands, which had remained neutral throughout WWI. He purchased a country house in the municipality of Doorn, known as Huis Doorn, and moved there in May 1920. This was to be his home for the remainder of his life.
Wilhelm was first married in February 1881 to Princess Augusta Victoria of Schleswig-Holstein, with whom he had seven children. She died in April 1921. The following year Wilhelm met Princess Hermine Reuß of Greiz. It happened when one of her sons sent birthday wishes in January of 1922 to the exiled German Emperor Wilhelm II, who then invited the boy and his mother to Huis Doorn. Wilhelm found Hermine extremely attractive, greatly enjoyed her company, and found they had much in common, both having been recently widowed. By November 1922, they got married in Doorn over the objections of Wilhelm’s monarchist supporters and children.
I will briefly return to Wilhelm and Hermine later. First, however, I want to mention a few vital events in the lives of Walter and his second wife, Johanna Bruck née Gräbsch. Then, I will discuss the documents and photos among Walter’s personal effects that establish there existed a bond between he and the last German monarch and his family.
Dr. Walter Bruck married his second wife, Johanna Bruck née Gräbsch, on the 22nd of December 1922. On the 18th of January 1924, Johanna gave birth to their first daughter who sadly passed away less than two months later, on the 10th of March. This daughter was named Hermine, and it is believed and reasonable to assume she was named after Kaiser Wilhelm II’s second wife.
Walter and Johanna’s second daughter, Renate Stephanie Gertrude Bruck (Figure 9), was born on the 16th of June 1926. Among the personnel effects belonging to Walter that Dr. Tilo Wahl acquired from Walter’s grandson is a children’s book, entitled “Alpenblumenmärchen” (Alpine Flower Fairy Tales) by Ernst Kreidolf. The book was given to Renate by Princess Hermine Reuß with the dedication: “Meinem lieben Renatchen/zu Weihnachten 1928/Hermine” (i.e., To my dear Renatchen/for Christmas 1928/Hermine). (Figures 10a-b)
Other documents and photos pre-dating 1928 prove an earlier connection between Wilhelm and Walter’s families. Dr. Wahl purchased two of Walter’s guest books where visitors signed, dated, and often left personal messages upon their departure from Walter’s stately home at Kaiser Wilhelm Platz 17 (later Reichpräsidentenplatz/Hindenburg Platz). (Figure 11) In carefully perusing these guest registers, I noticed that “Hermine Kaiserin (Empress) Wilhlem II” signed one of them on “23 IV 23” (23rd April 1923). (Figures 12a-b)
On Dr. Bruck’s 25th year anniversary as dental lecturer at the University of Breslau, the former Kaiser sent a personal congratulatory “Brieftelegramm” (i.e., mail telegram) on the 14th of February (Figures 13a-d), followed by a personal note from Empress Hermine on the actual date of the event, the 25th of February 1925. (Figures 14a-d) The latter message naturally acknowledged Walter Bruck’s lengthy tenure, but also indicated an intent to come to Silesia for dental treatment.
It is not clear whether Walter was also Wilhelm’s personal dentist though this is a reasonable assumption. An entire page of photos in Walter’s scrap book indicates Walter and Johanna visited the Emperor and Empress at Huis Doorn in September 1925 (Figure 15), possibly to attend to Wilhelm’s dental needs. During this visit Walter took a photo of his wife Johanna surrounded by Wilhelm, Hermine Reuß, two of Hermine’s daughters, Princess Henriette of Schönaich-Carolath and Princess Hermine Caroline of Schönaich-Carolath, Major General Konrad Wilhelm Gustav Hermann Graf Finck von Finckenstein (1862 – 1939), and others. (Figures 16a-b, 17)
Another brief digression. For regular readers, I owe you a huge “Mea Culpa!” In Post 65, I tried to work out who was the unnamed Bruck standing amidst the Kaiser, Hermine Reuß, and their entourage. Several years ago, I obtained the identical picture, captioned otherwise, from a different branch of my extended family so never worked out that the “W.B.” who initialed the photo was Walter Bruck and that his wife was in the photo. (Figures 18a-c) In this instance my powers of deduction abjectly failed me.
From a brief note dated the 4th of October 1925 sent from Huis Doorn, Walter had obviously sent a copy of the aforementioned photo to Wilhelm because his staff acknowledged receipt of the picture and said His Majesty had found the photo to be “excellent.” (Figures 19a-b) As an aside and as mentioned in Post 99, I have shared images of all of Dr. Bruck’s personal papers and photos with Ms. Renata Wilkoszewska-Krakowska, Branch Manager of the Old Jewish Cemetery in Breslau where Walter’s father and grandfather are interred. Renata noted the high quality of Walter’s photographs so checked a publication mentioning Walter Bruck written by professor of dentistry at the University of Wrocław, Prof. Barbara Bruziewicz-Mikłaszewska, and learned he had run the Photography Department at the University of Breslau. My esteemed ancestor was indeed a man of eclectic interests.
It is unclear from Walter’s surviving papers how long the personal friendship between Kaiser Wilhelm’s family lasted nor how long he continued as Empress Hermine’s dentist before the rise of the National Socialists would have made this impossible. There is no indication in Walter’s personal biographical account that he was raised in a Jewish home; on the contrary, several passages from Walter’s memoir state he attended or was taught in Catholic or nondenominational schools and I have long suspected he converted to Christianity like many German Jews at the time did. As students of history know all too well, this would not have afforded him any protection in the Nazi era.
There is direct evidence the Nazis tried to remove Walter Bruck from his teaching post at the University of Breslau following their ascension to power in 1933. This proof does not come from Walter’s papers but from another source. I remind readers that in Post 99 I included a photo taken on the Eastern Front during WWI of Walter Bruck riding in an open car with General Field Marshall August von Mackensen and their respective wives. (Figure 20)
Dr. Tilo Wahl found the following passage in Mackensen’s biography, entitled “Zwischen Kaiser und ‘Führer’: Generalfeldmarschall August von Mackensen,” written by Theo Schwarzmüller, specifically discussing Walter Bruck and Mackensen’s intervention on his behalf:
GERMAN
“. . . An Rust (Anmerkung: preußischer Kultusminister) wandte sich Mackensen auch im Fall von Professor Walther Bruck aus Breslau, eine internationale Kapazität der Zahnmedizin. Wegen jüdischer Abstammung wurde ihm die Lehrbefugnis entzogen, obwohl er sie seit Kaisers Zeiten besaß und schon sein Vater an der Universität Breslau gelehrt hatte. Bruck war evangelisch getauft, christlich erzogen, “immer national” und als Arzt am AOK [=Armeeoberkommando] Mackensen ausgezeichnet, wie er hilfesuchend versicherte. Zunächst lehnte Rust unter Hinweis auf die Gesetze ab, wonach Juden keine Beamten mehr sein dürften. Allerdings galten für Kriegsteilnehmer auf Wunsch Hindenburgs vorerst Ausnahmen. Nach “nochmaliger Prüfung” wurde nach mehreren Monaten Bruck die Lehrbefugnis wieder erteilt, was Mackensen ihm telegrafisch mitteilen konnte. Insgesamt verloren im Dritten Reich mehr als 1000 Hochschullehrer, vor allem Juden und Demokraten, ihre Stellung. Dadurch büßte Deutschland seine führende Position in den Naturwissenschaften ein. Auch der alte NS-Kämpfer Rust, von Hitler bald zum Reichsminister befördert, propagierte die arische Universität, was Gelehrte wie Albert Einstein und Fritz Haber vertrieb. Für Bruck engagierte sich Mackensen, weil dieser eine ihm nahe, deutschnationale Gesinnung vorweisen konnte.“
ENGLISH
“. . .Mackensen also turned to Rust [NOTE: Prussian Minister of Culture, Bernard Rust] in the case of Professor Walther Bruck from Breslau, an international authority in dentistry. Because of his Jewish descent, his teaching license was revoked, although he had held it since the time of the Kaiser and his father had already taught at the University of Breslau. Bruck had been baptized a Protestant, had been raised a Christian, had ‘always been national,’ and had distinguished himself as a physician at the AOK [NOTE: Army High Command] Mackensen, as he helpfully asserted. At first, Rust refused, citing the laws that Jews could no longer be civil servants. However, at Hindenburg’s [NOTE: German general and statesman Paul von Hindenburg] request, exceptions applied for the time being to war veterans. After ‘reconsideration,’ after several months, Bruck was again granted the teaching license, which Mackensen was able to inform him of by telegraph. In total, more than 1000 university professors, mainly Jews and democrats, lost their positions in the Third Reich. As a result, Germany forfeited its leading position in the natural sciences. Even the old Nazi fighter Rust, soon promoted to Reich Minister by Hitler, propagated the Aryan university, which drove away scholars such as Albert Einstein and Fritz Haber. Mackensen became involved with Bruck because the latter could demonstrate a German-national outlook close to his own.”
There is another astonishing document included among Walter’s personal papers that Dr. Tilo Wahl brought to my attention. It is a letter sent by the University of Breslau’s curator, “Der Kurator de Universität und der Technischen Hochschule” (the curator of the university and the technical college) to Walter, dated the 24th of April 1936. (Figures 21a-c) The curator revoked an earlier ruling declaring Walter was no longer a Professor which had effectively removed him from his teaching position. As Tilo aptly points out, humiliatingly, the letter is lacking any form of salutation.
Notwithstanding Walter’s ties to the former Kaiser, August von Mackensen, and other high-ranking German officials, there can be no doubt that Walter would have seen their interventions as anything other than a temporary reprieve from Nazi persecution. Given Kaiser Wilhelm and Kaiserin Hermine’s well-known anti-Semitic views, it is highly unlikely either would have interceded on Walter’s Bruck’s behalf had he lived beyond 1937 and been arrested or deported. Wilhelm held the Jews responsible for the two world wars. As to Wilhelm’s views on Nazism, he hoped the Nazis’ early successes would lead to the restoration of the Hohenzollern monarchy, with his eldest grandson as the fourth Kaiser. Hermine actively petitioned the Nazi government for this on her husband’s behalf. For his part Hitler felt nothing but contempt for Wilhelm, blaming him for Germany’s greatest defeat, and the petitions were ignored.
Notwithstanding his disdain for the Kaiser, Hitler was not averse to using the occasion of Wilhelm’s death on the 4th of June 1941 several weeks before the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union for political advantage. Hitler wanted to bring Wilhelm’s body back to Germany for burial to demonstrate to the Germans the direct descent of the Third Reich from the old German Empire. However, Wilhelm had made it clear that he did not want his body returned to Germany until the monarchy was restored, and his wishes were respected. However, Wilhelm’s request that the swastika and other Nazi regalia not be displayed at his funeral was ignored.
One final thought. Dr. Wahl purchased Walter’s appointment book from his grandson in 2013 and copied it for me. Walter’s calendar shows that in April 1937, the month following his death, Walter still had patients scheduled. (Figures 22a-b) Based on my own father’s experience in his dental practice in Tiegenhof [Nowy Dwór Gdański, Poland], also in 1937, as the Nazis ramped up their anti-Jewish measures, his clients disappeared. I have no doubt Walter saw his once amazing life rapidly slipping away. Barring an unknown medical condition, I am more convinced than ever that Walter took his own life on the 31st of March 1937 to protect his wife and half-Jewish daughter. (Figure 23)
Note: In this post, I discuss a recently obtained list of students who attended Ratibor’s Gymnasium, or high school, between its opening in 1819 and 1849, and facts I’ve gleaned from this registry. While I expected a linear unfolding of the ledger’s contents and information, in some ways it has turned into a game of three-dimensional chess, as I’ll explain. This post also provides an opportunity to lay out the exacting approach I try and take to make a case for ancestral connections relying on primary source documents.
One of the most exciting moments doing forensic genealogy occurs when you discover a copy or original historic document with the names of your ancestors, particularly when the names are those of your oldest known relatives. As a former archaeologist, this is analogous to unearthing an artifact that was last handled by a human hundreds if not thousands of years ago. The context in which an artifact or document is found is key to properly interpreting its significance.
Last year, Mr. Paul Newerla, my friend from Ratibor, retired lawyer and current writer of Silesian history, mentioned that 2019 marked the bicentennial of Ratibor’s Gymnasium, or high school, still used today as a commercial school. To remind readers, Ratibor is the town where my father, Dr. Otto Bruck, was born in 1907. In Post 60, using background information provided by Mr. Newerla, I discussed the high school’s history and a publication Paul found archived at the British Museum written by the school’s first director, Dr. Carl Linge, entitled “Denkschrift über die feierliche Eröffnung des Königl. Evangel. Gymnasium zu Ratibor am 2. Juni 1819. . .,” “Memorandum on the solemn opening of the Royal Evangelical High School in Ratibor on June 2, 1819. . .” (Figure 1) This publication, printed in 1820, included a list of names of all first-year attendees, including two members of my Bruck family with only the initials of their forenames written in elaborate Gothic script, read by Paul as “S. Bruck” and J. Bruck.” (Figure 2) Based on the intimate knowledge of my family tree, I concluded these stood for Samuel Bruck (1808-1863) and Jonas Bruck (1813-1883), brothers who are shown as the children of Jacob Bruck in an abridged typed family tree developed by my Uncle Dr. Fedor Bruck. (Figure 3)
Typically, attendance at Gymnasiums begins between the ages of 10 and 12, give or take a year, so Samuel’s attendance in 1819 when he would have been 11 years old makes sense. However, his brother Jonas’s attendance in 1819, when he was only six years old seems implausible, unless he was exceptionally precocious. Absent any other incontrovertible evidence, however, this is the preliminary conclusion I came to in Post 60, namely, that Jonas Bruck had attended the Ratibor Gymnasium at a very early age.
Naturally, I became curious whether the original ledger of student names upon which Dr. Linge’s publication was based still exists, whether it is in the Polish State Archives in Racibórz or possibly curated by the Muzeum Racibórzu. Paul explained that because an existing commercial school now occupies the buildings of the former high school (Figure 4), some of the original records are retained there. In the recent past, there had apparently been some discussion about transferring the remaining ledgers to the archive or museum but for unknown reasons these negotiations ended acrimoniously.
Paul offered to contact the commercial school and inquire about the student ledgers, which he knew to have existed at one time because a colleague had shared some pictures of the “Album,” as it is referred to. Paul was recently granted access to the Gymnasium’s records. This turned out to be a frustrating exercise because the school was unable to initially locate the Album of student names for the period 1819 to 1849, even presented with irrefutable evidence of its existence in the form of pictures; Paul even checked the school’s archives, to no avail. Dispiritedly, Paul left his name and number, and asked them to call him if the Album was ever found.
Paul was not optimistic the ledger would turn up. He’s related some horror stories how nearby Polish and Czech Republic parishes have on occasion burned Kirchenbücher, church books, Kirchenmatrikeln, the roll or register of parishioners, and Pfarrmatrikel, parish matriculations, related to former German occupants of the area simply because none of their descendants live locally anymore. To use another archaeological analogy, it’s like pillaging a cultural site, ripping a page from prehistory, so to speak. So, it came as a pleasant surprise when several weeks after Paul’s visit to the former Ratibor Gymnasium he received a call telling him they’d finally located the Album in question. Paul promptly visited the commercial school and took pictures of the entire ledger of students covering the period 1819 through 1849, roughly 90 pages worth of material, which he sent me. (Figure 5)
I’ve been a coin collector much of my life and going through all the pages of the Ratibor Gymnasium Album was comparable to sorting through a cache of pennies in search of pre-1959 wheat chaff coppers. While the names of family members I discovered were relatively few, the information corresponding to each ancestor has provided multiple avenues for further investigation. The challenge is making sense of ancestral connections for people who lived 170 to 200 years ago in the context of what was a very large Bruck family at the time. As I mentioned at the outset, it’s a bit like playing three-dimensional chess
In the table below, I summarize the family data I gleaned from the Ratibor student ledger. Then, I examine using available primary source documents how or whether these people are or may be related.
SUMMARY OF FAMILY NAMES FROM RATIBOR GYMNASIUM ALBUM, 1819-1849
Readers will note that Isaac and Samuel Bruck’s names are listed in succession and bracketed, and the profession of their father is identical, an “Arrendator,” a leaseholder (i.e., holding property by lease). Thus, I assume they were brothers, although I had no prior knowledge of Isaac. Samuel Bruck (1808-1863) (Figure 7) was my great-great-grandfather, and I have photos of both he and his wife, Charlotte Bruck née Marle (1809-1861), later in life. Samuel purchased the family hotel in Ratibor, the Bruck’s “Prinz von Preußen” Hotel, around the middle of the 19th Century, following a career as a wood merchant.
My uncle Dr. Fedor Bruck produced an abbreviated typed family tree (Figure 3) that includes the names of Samuel Bruck and his brother Jonas (more on him later), shown to be the sons of Jacob Bruck and his wife Maria Aufrecht. From primary source documents, Jacob (Jakob) Nathan Bruck, his complete name, and Maria Aufrecht are known to have had other children. LDS microfilm roll 1184449 for Ratibor documents the birth of a daughter named Rebecka on the 10th of January 1815. (Figure 8) The same microfilm roll also documents the marriages of three of Jacob’s daughters, Wilhelmina, Dorothea, and Fanny, respectively, in 1814, 1817, and 1822 (Figure 9); the mother is not identified but I presume is Maria Aufrecht. And, yet another primary source document identifies Jacob Nathan Bruck as the father of a son named Marcus Moritz Bruck who married Nanette von Aldersthal in 1836 in Berlin at the age of 36 (Figure 10); again the mother is not named but I presume is Maria. So, from various sources, I can reasonably document that Jacob Nathan Bruck likely had at least eight children (i.e., Wilhelmina, Dorothea, Fanny, Marcus Moritz, Isaac, Samuel, Jonas, and Rebecka).
Let’s move on to Isaac and consider what primary sources are available for him. With the original Ratibor Gymnasium Album for 1819-1849 in hand, and with Isaac Bruck’s full name written out, I am now certain the initial for Isaac’s forename in Dr. Carl Linge’s 1820 publication referenced above was mistakenly recorded as a “J.” rather than an “I.” This led me to initially conclude that Jonas had attended the high school at the precocious age of 6. Not the case.
Isaac’s age at the time he attended the Ratibor Gymnasium in 1819 is stated as 13. Given that the Gymnasium Ratibor Album records students’ names starting on the 11th of May 1819, I generally place Isaac’s birth in the early part of 1806, though it could certainly have been in the latter half of 1805. I discovered a family tree on MyHeritage that gives an Isaac Bruck’s exact date of birth as the 9th of November 1805 in Breslau. However, upon locating the original birth register listing for this individual in the LDS microfilm for Breslau (LDS Roll 1184380, page 34 of 594), I found the listing is for someone named ISAAC BRUG. (Figure 11) Conceivably, an alternate spelling for “Bruck” in the early 19th Century could have been “BRUG,” but because the father is identified as “abr. Meyer Brug,” I’m dubious this is the same Isaac. I’m convinced Isaac’s father was Jacob Nathan Bruck because of his association in the student ledger with the name “Samuel Bruck,” whose father was assuredly Jacob. This is another example of something I rail about, the need to be cautious about adopting and replicating information found in other family trees without confirming the source of the data.
Years ago when I did a basic Google query on Isaac Bruck, I stumbled upon an intriguing announcement in Volume 18 of the “Amtsblatt für den Regierungsbezirk Marienwerder (Official Gazette for the Marienwerder District),” dated the 26th of May 1828 about him. (Figures 12a-b) There is no question the announcement relates to my ancestor as he is said to have come from Ratibor, and his age of 22 in 1828 coincides with my estimate of how old he would have been then had he been born between 1805 and 1806. It seems, the Security Services from the West Prussian town of Graudenz issued a bulletin in May of 1828 alerting the police authorities to arrest Isaac Bruck after he had gone AWOL or escaped from the local penitentiary. He was described as Jewish, 22 years old with black and curly hair, a black beard, a normal sized mouth, having an oval chin and face, of average stature, 5 feet 2 inches, with a scar on his right forearm from a horse bite. Whether Isaac was ever brought to justice remains unknown.
Several other primary sources from Ratibor make mention of Isaac Bruck and his wife Caroline Bruck née Stolz, who is identified as the daughter of Joachim Meyer Stolz. The birth register for Ratibor records Isaac and Caroline gave birth to a daughter named Fany on the 28th of December 1833 (Figure 13), who according to one of my cousins supposedly died in 1834. Isaac and Caroline’s divorce is recorded on the 19th of July 1835, and gives the name of Caroline’s father as “Joachim Meyer Stolz.” (Figure 14) Yet a third primary source from 1835, claiming that Caroline and Isaac are then living separately, states Isaac remarried a woman named Charlotte Leopold; this same document gives the names and dates of birth of Isaac and Caroline’s two other children, Marie born on the 27th of June 1832, and Heinrich on the 6th of January 1835. (Figure 15) Caroline Bruck née Stolz’s death certificate records her death in Berlin on the 24th of January 1875, and claims she was born in 1803 in Rawitsch [today: Rawicz, Poland]. (Figures 16a-b)
The Ratibor Gymnasium Album records Heimann’s enrollment on the 4th of April 1823, when he was 11 years old, placing his birth around 1812. Some ancestral trees claim his full name was “Heinrich Hermann Heimann Bruck.”
The Ratibor Gymnasium Album states that Heimann’s father was a “Destillateur,” a distiller, unlike Isaac and Samuel’s father, who, as mentioned, was an “Arrendator,” a leaseholder. Given that Jacob Nathan Bruck had so many siblings, it’s possible some lived in Ratibor, and that Heimann was one of Jacob’s nephews rather than his son. There is insufficient data to conclusively determine Heimann’s relationship to Jacob Bruck.
A Jonas Bruck, whose father was also a “Destillateur,” a distiller, was enrolled in the Ratibor Gymnasium on the 21st of April 1824, when he was 10 ½ years of age. Once again, the question of whether this Jonas was the son of Jacob Bruck or the son of one of his brothers or cousins is subject to debate. Let me explain.
The Jonas Bruck who was the son of Jacob Nathan Bruck and the father of the famed dentist Dr. Julius Bruck, discussed in Post 68, is buried in the Jewish Cemetery in Breslau; his dates of birth and death are thus known (i.e., b. 5 March 1813-d. 5 April 1883). (Figure 19) In April 1824, when Jonas was enrolled, he would already have been 11 years of age, not 10 ½ as noted. This, and the fact that the father of the Jonas who was enrolled in the Ratibor Gymnasium in April 1824 was “Destillateur” would suggest this is possibly not Jacob’s son. No way to be sure.
Marcus (Markus) Braun was enrolled at the Ratibor Gymnasium on the 19th of May 1829 at the age of 12 ½. Marcus, my great-great-grandfather, a Brauereipachter, or tenant brewer, was the subject of Post 14. He is known to have been born in 1817, and his age in 1829 confirms this.
Oscar (Oskar) Bruck was registered as a student at the Ratibor Gymnasium on the 22nd of May 1845. By this year, the precise date of birth of students rather than their age was recorded, and Oscar’s birth is noted as the 8th of October 1832, which corresponds with data available to me elsewhere (i.e., the Pinkus Family Collection at the Leo Baeck Institute). Oscar Bruck was my great-great-uncle.
On the 3rd of January 1846, a Heimann Bruck from another generation is enrolled at the Ratibor Gymnasium, and his father was “Sattlermeister,” or saddler. His date of birth is noted as the 26th of December 1833. It’s not clear how he’s related to Jacob Nathan Bruck. Figure 15 indicates that Isaac Bruck and Caroline Bruck née Stolz had a son named Heimann, born on the 6th of January 1835, so presumably the parents of the Heimann born on the 26th of December 1833 were someone other.
My great-grandfather Fedor Bruck (Figure 24), brother of Oscar Bruck, was enrolled at the Ratibor Gymnasium on the 27th of April 1848. His date of birth is recorded as the 30th of September 1834, which again corresponds with data available in the Pinkus Family Collection at the Leo Baeck Institute.
In preparing this Blog post, I conferred with one of my fourth cousins. He has in his possession a memoir written by his great-aunt Bertha Jacobson née Bruck, great-granddaughter of Jacob Nathan Bruck, claiming he was one of 17 children and had 12 children of his own with Maria Aufrecht!! One family tree manager, now deceased, has precise vital data on Jacob’s dates and places of birth and death (b. 18 February 1770, Pschow-d. 29 June 1832, Ratibor), as well as the birth years of a few of his children, but cites no source. Given the very precise dates and places, I’m inclined to believe they’re authentic, but I can’t independently confirm this, so I reserve judgement as to their accuracy.
Given the large number of potential ancestors Jacob Bruck may have had and the likelihood that names repeated themselves within and across generations, it’s difficult to pinpoint the relationship among all the Bruck members who attended the Ratibor Gymnasium absent more primary source documents.
In closing, I cannot emphasize strongly enough that many of the family history stories I relate on my Blog would be impossible without the generous assistance of a cadre of researchers and genealogists who offer their help free-of-charge simply because they derive a vicarious “high” from doing so. Obtaining the help of local historians and researchers, particularly native speakers, is especially valuable as they often have knowledge of historic documents, not yet automated, that an outsider, like myself, would be unaware of. The mere existence of my Blog, albeit of limited interest to most of the world, attracts enough attention by people in a position to further my ancestral investigations and allows me to relate some of my tales. To these named and unnamed people I’m eternally grateful.
Note: In this post I describe the chain of events that led me to learn about a Dr. Erich Bruck, a man with whom I share a surname. His picture was given to me more than five years ago with the question of whether we’re related. I didn’t know then and still don’t, although I know much more about the doctor and his family today as I will relate.
In my previous post, I told readers about the very distinctive picture I was handed in 2014 by Ms. Renata Wilkoszewska-Krakowska, Branch Manager, Museum of Cemetery Art (Old Jewish Cemetery, Branch of the City Museum of Wrocław), of a man named Dr. Erich Bruck, telling me he is buried there and asking whether I know anything about him or am related to him. The picture is memorable because, as readers can see for themselves, he is dressed in his German military uniform and is wearing an Iron Cross. (Figure 1) This is not a picture one forgets.
Fast forward. Recently, my 92-year old third cousin, Agnes Stieda née Vogel, mentioned my name and Blog to her 95-year old German friend with whom she communicates by “snail” mail. This friend originally hails from Breslau, Germany [today: Wrocław, Poland] and mentioned in passing to Agnes, that as a child living there, she was friends with the daughter of her dentist, a Dr. Bruck as it happens; the daughter’s name was “Putzi.” This Dr. Bruck taught at the University of Breslau until he was summarily dismissed in 1933 by the Nazi Regime, and eventually committed suicide around 1938. Agnes’s friend wondered whether I might be related to this Dr. Bruck, no forename provided. Knowing that multiple of my Bruck ancestors were doctors or dentists in Breslau or had trained there, including my Uncle Dr. Fedor Bruck, I Googled and checked MyHeritage for any Bruck relatives who might have been in the medical profession there. Imagine my surprise when multiple images of the identical photo I’d been given five years ago of Dr. Erich Bruck popped up on MyHeritage.
From MyHeritage, I was able to determine some vital events in Dr. Erich Bruck’s life, recreate three generations of his family tree, learn the fate of some of Erich’s immediate family, and even uncover photographs of his parents (Figure 2), wife, and three children. (Figures 3-4) (Interested readers will find a table at the end of this post with vital statistics of Dr. Erich Bruck’s immediate family.) As too often happens with Jewish families, I also discovered Erich’s wife, Adelheid Bruck née Oppe (Figure 5), as well as his sister, Liesebeth “Lilly” Bruck née Goldschmidt were both murdered in the Shoah. As for Dr. Erich Bruck, he was born on the 5th of April 1880 in Waldenburg, Germany (Figure 6) [today: Wałbrzych, Poland], and died on the 28th of April 1915 in France during WWI.
Having found new information and documents I thought Renata Wilkoszewska-Krakowska might be unaware of, I contacted her. We’d lost touch in the intervening years, but Renata remembered me. A few of the documents I uncovered were new but because she regularly conducts walking tours of the Old Jewish Cemetery, Renata naturally has made it her mission to acquaint herself with the Jews interred there and search out historic documents; additionally, much as I’ve done in researching some of my father’s family, friends, and acquaintances, Renata has sought and in some cases met descendants of these people. While much of our recent communications have centered on Dr. Erich Bruck, as I explained to readers in Post 68, I’ve helped track down where Dr. Julius Bruck’s daughter-in-law, Johanna M.S. Bruck née Graebsch, and granddaughter, Renate Bruck, alit in England after WWII; prior to my recent forensic work, neither Renata nor I had known whether either survived the war. Given the murderous rampage of the Nazis, it provides some comfort to know that some family ancestors somehow managed to survive the onslaught.
Not only have I been able to provide some new documents to Renata on Dr. Erich Bruck, but she has reciprocated with finds of her own. From MyHeritage, I was able to unearth a German WWI Casualty list showing Dr. Erich Bruck perished on the 28th of April 1915 (Figure 7), as well as a death announcement from a Breslau newspaper confirming this. (Figure 8) Renata explained that Dr. Erich Bruck had been a member of the medical section of the “Schlesische Gesellschaft für Vaterländische Cultur.” In the membership’s journal, “Jahres-Bericht der Schlesischen Gesellschaft für Vaterländische Cultur, Bd. 93-94,” covering years 1915-1916, Renata was able to locate Erich’s obituary explaining the circumstances of the doctor’s death. (Figures 9a-c) Contrary to my assumption that Dr. Bruck had been killed in combat, such was not the case. Instead, while riding a horse, Erich got caught on a telegraph wire resulting in an open wound that became infected and ultimately resulted in his death. Renate tracked down and gave me a copy of Dr. Bruck’s death certificate showing he perished at Château Parcien in France. (Figure 10)
On her walking tours, Renata almost always stops by the tombstone of Dr. Erich Bruck (Figure 11), using this as an opportunity to talk about the role of Jewish soldiers in WWI. As an interesting aside, Renata mentioned in passing another Jewish WWI victim interred in the Old Jewish Cemetery, a Lieutenant Georg Sternberg (Figure 12), whose tombstone is topped with a helmet (Figures 13a-b); he was killed in the Battle of Lens in 1917. (Figure 14) Renata said she’d been unable to find a photo or learn much about him. Curious whether I might be able to contribute something, I searched in MyHeritage and ancestry.com.
While I was unable to find a photo of Lt. Sternberg, I was able to find his name on a German WWI Casualty list (Figure 15) as I’d done for Dr. Erich Bruck. He was born on the 26th of March 1889 in Ostrowo, Germany [today: Ostrów Wielkopolski, Poland], and died on the 27th of August 1917 in Nord-Pas-de-Calais, France. Curiously, I discovered two different places where he was supposedly interred, the Langemark German Military Cemetery in West Flanders, Belgium (Figure 16), approximately 68 miles north of where he was killed, and, as expected, in the Old Jewish Cemetery in Wrocław. (Figure 17) Uncertain what to make of this discrepancy, I asked Renata what she thought. She provided a very reasonable and simple explanation. Since Lieutenant Sternberg was only 28 years of age when he was killed and his parents were still living at the time, it’s likely they requested that his remains be returned to Breslau for internment in the Jewish Cemetery.
As mentioned above, Erich’s wife and sister were both killed in the Holocaust. Renata was able to establish that Erich’s wife, Adelheid “Ada” Bruck, was deported on the 13th of April 1942 to the Izbica Ghetto. In 2018, on the 76th anniversary of Jew deportations from Breslau and Silesia, the City Museum of Wrocław, in collaboration with the “Schlesisches Museum zu Görlitz” and the Jewish community in Wrocław, unveiled a plaque marking the event. In the presence of descendants of the deportees, the ceremony took place at the Odertor Bahnhof, the railway station in Breslau from which transports to the concentration and death camps departed.
Renate has been able to locate and establish contact with surviving friends of at least one of Dr. Erich Bruck’s daughters, Erika Bruck (Figure 18), who emigrated to America in 1939 and passed away in New Hampshire on October 13, 2011 at 103! Following Erika’s death, her friends and former colleagues wrote a booklet of remembrances; Renata was able to obtain a copy of this document, which she generously shared with me. Erika’s two younger sisters, Elisabeth (Figure 19) and Gertrude (Figure 20) also survived the Holocaust.
It is not my intention to discuss the very rich and fulfilling life Erika led, but I want to highlight a little known, often overlooked, chapter in Holocaust history. By 1933, when the Nazis ascended to power, it quickly became apparent to many Jews, including Erika’s parents, it would no longer be safe for Jews in Germany and elsewhere in Europe. Quoting from the booklet about Erika on what was happening then: “At the time, the government of Turkey under the visionary leadership of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk invited many German and Austrian Jews to come to Turkey to help build the scientific, medical, and intellectual infrastructure of the new Turkish Republic. With her family’s urgent encouragement, Erika left Germany and resettled in Turkey in 1933, along with about 1000 other Jews. Before leaving her homeland, she was forced by German authorities to sign a declaration that she would never practice medicine in Germany because her Jewish heritage was unacceptable to the Nazi regime. Erika finally received her medical degree in 1935 in Istanbul. While in Istanbul, she worked at the Haseki Hospital, a government-run hospital which was primitive in most respects when Erika arrived.” Slowly, Erika brought the Haseki Hospital into the modern era.
After immigrating to America, Erika eventually became a pediatrician. She retained a very warm place in her heart for Turkey. Quoting from the booklet about her life: “Erika made regular visits to Turkey to visit old friends. For years after she settled in the U.S., Erika sponsored and trained medical residents from Turkey to repay the good turns done to her by the Turkish government. She retained a love of Turkey and a resolute devotion to the memory of Atatürk throughout her life.”
There is one interesting convergence I want to touch on. As previously mentioned, multiple members of my Bruck family were either doctors or dentists in Breslau or trained there. It just so happens that the subject of Renata Wilkoszewska-Krakowska’s PhD. dissertation, which she is currently writing, will be about Jewish professors from the second half of the 19th Century and early 20th Century who contributed to the development of the renowned medical and dental disciplines in Breslau in those years. Naturally, some of my Bruck relatives will be discussed, notably, Dr. Julius Bruck, Dr. Jonas Bruck, and Dr. Walter Wolfgang Bruck.
Finally, while I’ve not yet been able to determine how or whether Dr. Erich Bruck and I are related, there are two possible lineages to examine, obviously the Bruck patronymic, but also the Berliner matronymic, the maiden name of my grandmother, which is also the maiden name of Dr. Bruck’s mother, Clara Berliner.
REFERENCE
Jablonski, Nina. “Remembering Erika Bruck: April 5, 1908-October 13, 2011.”
Note: In this post, I talk about Dr. Julius Bruck, my first cousin three times removed, who laid the technical foundations for the development of modern endoscopy through his inventions of the stomatoscope and urethroscope.
I first heard about my distant and renowned ancestor, the dentist Dr. Julius Bruck (1840-1902) (Figure 1), from one of my German first cousins, probably in the 1990’s, when we initially met. I also learned he was buried in the Old Jewish Cemetery in Breslau [today: Wrocław, Poland] (Figure 2), and that his grave still exists. At the time, I was unaware of any surviving tombs of Bruck ancestors, although in the years since I’ve discovered others. For reference, two quick points. First, Dr. Julius Bruck’s father was Dr. Jonas Bruck (Figure 3), himself a dentist, whom I introduced to readers in Post 60 as the precocious lad who attended Ratibor’s Gymnasium, high school, in 1819 in its inaugural year. Second, Dr. Julius Bruck was my first cousin thrice removed.
My wife Ann Finan can attest to the numerous cemeteries we’ve visited across Europe seeking discernible proof of my ancestors’ connections to different places. In 2014, during a lengthy 13-week trip exploring cities and towns between Poland and Spain associated with my family, we stopped in Wrocław, Poland and visited Dr. Julius Bruck’s tomb. A photo of the very distinguished dentist is featured on a panel at the entrance to the Old Jewish Cemetery, pinpointing his tomb, alongside other prominent Jews interred there. (Figures 4a-b) Upon touring Julius’ grave, my wife and I discovered he is interred alongside his father Dr. Jonas Bruck (1813-1883), and their respective wives, Rosalie Bruck née Marle (1817-1890) and Bertha Bruck née Vogelsdorff (1843-1917). (Figures 5a-b) At the time, the headstones had fallen into disrepair, although have subsequently been beautifully restored. As an aside, on ancestry.com, I even found Bertha Bruck’s death announcement. (Figure 6)
Seeking to learn more about Dr. Julius Bruck, beyond what is easily retrievable from a web search, I inquired with cemetery personnel and was introduced to the on-site Branch Manager, Museum of Cemetery Art (Old Jewish Museum), Ms. Renata Wilkoszewska-Krakowska. (Figure 7) I learned the Old Jewish Cemetery is a branch of the City Museum of Wrocław, and that Jews, obviously, are no longer interred there. Archivists and museum personnel are naturally curious and intrigued when some foreigner shows up asserting an ancestral connection to someone from their area, particularly when that individual was Jewish. Such was the case in this instance. While obtaining little new information about Dr. Julius Bruck, I’ve learned and explained to readers the value of developing local contacts, so I resolved to stay in touch with Renata. Before parting ways, Renata asked me whether I knew or was related to a Dr. Erich Bruck (Figure 8), also buried in the Old Jewish Cemetery, whose very distinctive picture she gave me a copy of. Beyond having a common surname, I conceded I had no knowledge of this individual. That was five years ago, but in the subsequent post, I will tell readers how I recently stumbled across information about this previously unknown Bruck.
Dr. Julius Bruck was born in Breslau on October 6, 1840 and died there on April 20, 1902. He studied dentistry and medicine at the universities of Breslau, Berlin, Bonn and Paris, and received his diploma as dentist from Berlin in 1858 and as Doctor of Medicine from Breslau University in 1866. In 1859, he became assistant to his father Dr. Jonas Bruck, and eventually succeeded him in his practice. In 1871 he was admitted to the faculty of Breslau University as privatdozent, university lecturer, receiving the honorary title of professor in 1891.
Not only was Dr. Julius Bruck one of the most famous dentists of his time, but he was also a fighter for dentists’ education and a very successful inventor. He gained prominence in the mid-1860’s for his inventions of the stomatoscope (i.e., an apparatus for illuminating the interior of the mouth to facilitate examination) (Figure 9) and the urethroscope (i.e., an instrument for viewing the interior of the urethra), both of which laid the technical foundations for the development of modern endoscopy. Through development of the stomatoscope, Julius applied the same successes that had been achieved for treatments of eye, ear, and larynx diseases to oral and dental diseases using better illumination. (Lutze 2017)
Julius Bruck produced light by using an exposed electrically heated platinum loop, which at the time was the most powerful light source known. He imagined the possibility of placing the source of light in the distal end of an instrument and invented a double glass tube with a water-cooling compartment. This water-cooled apparatus, or diaphanoscope (i.e., an instrument for illuminating the interior of a cavity to determine the translucency of its walls), could transilluminate the bladder by being inserted into the rectum or vagina. (Zajaczkowski & Zamann 2004)
Julius focused on the research of his father in the area of Galvanokaustik, electroplating. In layman’s terms, suffice it to say that, in medicine, electroplating is an operating method that uses galvanic current-generated annealing heat for surgical purposes which is particularly suited for operations in the mouth and rectum. For the first time, Julius used the platinum glow wire, 0.3 to 1 mm in thickness. Julius himself described this method as resulting in the teeth being full illuminated so they were almost translucent; this meant that dental decay and diseases of the mouth could be detected that were invisible to the naked eye. The urethroscope essentially allowed a similar method to be used to illuminate and detect diseases of the bladder.
As previously mentioned, following my and my wife’s visit to Wrocław in 2014, I stayed in periodic contact with Ms. Wilkoszewska-Krakowska. Then, in 2016, Renata sent several photos of the meticulous restoration the City Museum of Wrocław had recently completed of Dr. Julius Bruck and family’s headstones. (Figures 10a-b)
Renata and I have recently re-established contact following a lengthy hiatus. While the subject of our more recent communications has been mostly about Dr. Erich Bruck, who as mentioned will be the focus of the ensuing Blog post, we’ve also discussed the fate of Dr. Julius Bruck’s two granddaughters and daughter-in-law. Since Breslau’s Old Jewish Cemetery is a branch of Wrocław’s City Museum, Renata Wilkoszewska-Krakowska regularly conducts walking tours telling visitors what she’s learned about the Jews interred there and contacts she’s in some cases made with their descendants. (Figure 11)
Julius’s two granddaughters were named Hermine Bruck (1924-1924), who died in infancy, and Renate Bruck, born on the 16th of June 1926. A clue provided by one of my fourth cousins, more closely related to Julius and his son, Dr. Walter Wolfgang Bruck (1872-1937) (Figure 12), suggests Renate may have emigrated to England during or after WWII; I discovered a Renate Bruck listed in a Willesden, Middlesex, England marriage register, showing she had gotten married there to a man named Harry E. Graham in October, 1948. Uncertain whether this was Dr. Julius Bruck’s granddaughter, I ordered a copy of the marriage certificate from England’s General Register Office. It arrived only days ago, and the certificate confirms this is indeed the granddaughter of Dr. Julius Bruck and the surviving daughter of Dr. Walter Wolfgang Bruck. (Figure 13)
The marriage certificate provides additional names that has enabled me to partially work out vital events in Renate’s life. Renate’s full name was “Renate Stephanie Gertrude Bruck.” Not only is Renate’s husband’s full name shown, Henry Ernst Graham, but her future father-in-law’s name is also provided, Hermann Gradenwitz (1876-1940) (Figure 14); this confirms that Renate’s husband anglicized his name upon his arrival in England to “Graham.” Both Renate and her husband had previously been married, Renate to a man named Eugen Walter Mehne, and Harry to a woman named Ruth Philipsborn (1914-2003); Henry and his first wife Ruth, I later discovered, married in 1935 in London indicating Henry had already emigrated from Germany by this time. Renate and Henry were married in the presence of a Marie Luise Gradenwitz (1881-1955), whom I later confirmed was Henry’s mother, née Mugdan. Curiously, Hermann Gradenwitz is buried with a Leo Mugdan, possibly his brother-in-law, as readers may be able to detect from their headstone.
With new names in hand, I turned to ancestry.com and MyHeritage hoping to learn more about Renate and her family. Renate’s first husband, Eugen Walter Mehne, is initially listed in a 1908 Breslau Address Book showing he was an instrumentenmacher, an instrument maker (Figure 15); he is listed in a Breslau Address Book as late as 1939, and by then is a geigenbauer, violin maker. While I was unable to learn when or where Eugen was born or died, the fact that he was already in business in 1908, 18 years before Renate was even born, proves she married an older man. Similarly, her second husband, Harry Graham (aka Heinrich Gradenwitz), was significantly older when they married in 1948, he was 43 and she only 22. Harry, I discovered, was born on the 8th of November 1904 in Berlin, and died on the 7th of March 1959 in London.
I refer readers to Blog Post 101 in which I discuss in much more detail the Mehnes listed in the Breslau address books between 1908 and 1939. Suffice it to say, the Eugen Mehne listed as either an instrumentenmacher, an instrument maker, or geigenbauer, violin maker, between 1908 and 1934 is Albert Eugen Mehne, the father of Eugen Walter Mehne listed in 1935, 1936, and 1939 address books, identified as a geigenbauer or geigenbaumeister, master violin maker.
I found evidence of Renate’s third marriage in 1956 to a man named Gary Newman, thus before her second husband passed away in 1959. (Figure 16) A single reference indicates Renate died as Renate Newman on the 3rd of March 2013 in the United Kingdom.
To date, I’ve found no evidence that Renate ever had any children to continue Dr. Julius Bruck’s lineage. However, in the course of writing this Blog post, on MyHeritage, I just discovered that Renate’s mother, Johanna M. E. Bruck née Graebsch, whose fate was previously unknown to me, may also have emigrated to England. I last found evidence of her existence in a “1939 German Minority Census,” showing that she and Renate were registered as living in Breslau in May 1939 (Figure 17), a most dangerous time. I can find no indication she was murdered in the Holocaust, but the fleeting reference I just stumbled upon suggests she too emigrated to England and died there. As we speak, I’ve ordered the death certificate from the General Register Office for this Johanna Bruck to confirm my suspicion. Watch this space for an update.
REFERENCES
Lutze, Kay. “Und im Mund ward Licht!” Zahnärztliche Mitteilungen, Vol . 107, No. 18. 2017.
Zajaczkowski, Thaddaeus and Andreas Paul Zamann. “Julius Bruck (1840-1902) and his influence on the endoscopy of today.” World Journal of Urology, Vol. 22, Issue 4, August 2004: 293-303.
