Ratibor, Germany Archives - Page 2 of 3

POST 104: THE WOINOWITZ ZUCKERFABRIK (SUGAR FACTORY) OUTSIDE RATIBOR (PART VI-COMPENSATION DENIED)

Note: In what I anticipate will be the last installment about the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik (Sugar Factory) located outside Ratibor, Germany, the town where my father Dr. Otto Bruck was born in 1907, I review the background and explore the German law that resulted in compensation being denied to descendants of the original co-owners of the factory. Readers will be disappointed because I am unable to clearly explain this. I will end this sequence of articles about the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik with a series of questions that remain unanswered. This post allows readers to understand the twisted path sometimes involved in retrieving and reconstructing ancestral information for one’s family, resulting in both satisfactory and unsatisfactory outcomes.

Post 36: The Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik (Sugar Factory) Outside Ratibor (Part I-Background)

Post 36, Postscript: The Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik (Sugar Factory) Outside Ratibor (Part I-Maps)

Post 55: The Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik (Sugar Factory) Outside Ratibor (Part II-Restitution for Forced Sale by The Nazis)

Post 59: The Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik (Sugar Factory) Outside Ratibor (Part III—Heirs)

Post 61: The Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik (Sugar Factory) Outside Ratibor (Part IV-Grundbuch (Land Register))

Post 98, Part 1 (Stories): The Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik (Sugar Factory) Outside Ratibor (Part V-Chilean Descendants)

Post 98, Part 2 (Documents): The Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik (Sugar Factory) Outside Ratibor (Part V-Chilean Descendants)

At the outset, I need to apologize to readers for the exhaustive background of how the heirs of Adolph Schück (1840-1916) (Figure 1) and his brother-in-law Sigmund Hirsch (1848-1920) (Figure 2), the original co-owners of the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik (Figure 3), attempted to obtain compensation from the German government for the forced sale of the plant by the Nazis in 1936. Regular readers know I am not only a stickler for accuracy but also for sourcing my information. Unfortunately, this sometimes leads to tedious detail.

Figure 1. Adolph Schück (1840-1916), co-owner of the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik

Figure 2. Sigmund Hirsch, Adolph Schück’s brother-in-law and partner in the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik

Figure 3. A postcard of the Woinowitz sugar factory as it looked in the early 1900’s

In Post 25, I discussed the fate of one of my father’s first cousins, Fritz Goldenring, who perished in the Shanghai Ghetto on the 15^th of December 1943. As I explained to readers at the time, I contacted one of the Chabad centers in Shanghai hoping to obtain a copy of Mr. Goldenring’s death certificate; Chabad is one of the largest Hasidic groups and Jewish religious organizations in the world promoting Judaism and providing daily Torah lectures and Jewish insights. Almost immediately after sending emails to three centers, I received a reply from Rabbi Shalom Greenberg. He had forwarded my request to Mr. Dvir Bar-Gal, who leads “Tours of Jewish Shanghai” and has become known as Shanghai’s “gravestone sleuth” because of his tireless work tracking down Jewish tombstones scattered around the city’s outlying villages following the demolition of the Jewish cemeteries there.

While unable to provide a death certificate for Mr. Goldenring, Mr. Bar-Gal offered useful information. He told me that before being expelled from Germany, Fritz had last worked in Darmstadt, Germany as a journalist. He suggested I contact the Rathaus (City Hall) there by email. My question to them about Fritz Goldenring was forwarded to the Stadtarchiv, or City Archive, in Darmstadt, and in October 2017 they responded. They too could not find his death certificate nor evidence Fritz Goldenring had lived in Darmstadt, but they did provide a valuable clue to an on-line directory mentioning him kept at the Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv, the Hesse Central State Archive, in Wiesbaden. They also told me Fritz had been born in Berlin, and I was subsequently able to locate his birth certificate showing he was born there on the 11^th of September 1902. (Figure 4)

Figure 4. Fritz Hermann Goldenring’s birth certificate showing he was born in the Berlin borough of Wilmersdorf on the 11th of September 1902

Based on what the Stadtarchiv in Darmstadt told me, I next contacted the Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv, hoping to finally obtain Mr. Goldenring’s death certificate there. While they too were unable to track it down, the archivist told me about an Entschädigungsakte, a claim for compensation file, submitted by his mother Helene Goldenring née Hirsch (Figure 5), as the heir of her son’s estate. Presumably, this was the document the Stadtarchiv in Darmstadt found mention of. After paying a fee, I was able to obtain a copy of this 160-page file, a document that ultimately filled in some holes.

Figure 5. Helene “Lene” Goldenring née Hirsch (1880-1968), in New York at Christmas 1950

The review above provides the necessary context for where this led me in March of this year. While working on a Blog post unrelated to the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik, I took the opportunity to reexamine the 160-page file the Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv had sent me in December 2017. Something I had previously deemed inconsequential caught my attention this time, namely, a reference to a file about the sugar factory numbered “Reg. Nr. 40 672.” (Figure 6)

Figure 6. Page from Helene Goldenring née Hirsch’s compensation file mentioning case number “Reg. Nr. 40 672” dealing with the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik that I eventually obtained from the “Landesamt für Bürger- und Organisationsangelegenheiten (LABO)” in Berlin

Having no idea what this might contain or where to obtain a copy, I asked Mr. Achim Stavenhagen-Bucher, a Swiss acquaintance with greater familiarity deciphering German documents, if he could help. He suggested I contact the “Bezirksregierung Düsseldorf.” Achim explained this office was responsible for handling claims from Nazi victims of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia as well as those regions that belonged to Germany until the 31^st of December 1937, based on the Bundesentschädigungsgesetz (BEG), the Federal Compensation Act; this Act encompasses three separate German laws that were adopted in 1953, 1956, and 1965. I will return to these later as it gets to the heart of why the lineal heirs of the owners of the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik were denied compensation for the forced sale by the Nazis of the sugar factory in 1936.

As the source of Helene Goldenring née Hirsch’s original 160-page compensation package, I again contacted the Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv asking them how I might obtain the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik file. They referred me to the Landesarchiv Berlin, though the response from the Bezirksregierung Düsseldorf is ultimately how I tracked down and obtained the document. They told me to contact the Landesamt für Bürger- und Organisationsangelegenheiten (LABO) in Berlin, specifically their Compensation Office, the Entschädigungsbehörde. Their website describes their function:

“The compensation authority in the State Office for Citizens’ and Regulatory Affairs implements the Federal Law on Compensation for Victims of National Socialist Persecution (BEG), the Law on Compensation for Victims of National Socialism (BerlEG), the Law on the Recognition and Provision for Victims of Political, Racial or Religious Persecution under National Socialism (PrVG) as part of its responsibility for the State of Berlin.

According to the will of the federal legislature, initial applications under the BEG for recognition and provision of National Socialist injustice have not been admissible since 1969. Persons recognized as victims of persecution generally receive monthly pension benefits and ongoing, case-by-case health care benefits (curative proceedings) for established health damage because of National Socialist injustice. Each western federal state has its own compensation authority. Section 185 of the Federal Compensation Act regulates which of the compensation authorities is responsible in each individual case.

All benefits are granted only upon application. The exclusion of compensation benefits to former members of the NSDAP [National Socialist German Workers’ Party] or one of its branches goes without saying.”

I contacted LABO and had the good fortune to land upon a very helpful lady, Ms. Angela Sponholz, who sent me “Reg. Nr. 40 672” related to the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik at no charge. I will get into some of the contents of this file below.

At this point, let me briefly digress and identify Adolph Schück’s and Sigmund Hirsch’s heirs and provide some observations as to their rights to shares of the sugar factory. Except as noted below, the following analysis assumes that, upon the death of an individual, his or her share goes to the individual’s spouse; if there is no spouse upon death, it would be divided among the individual’s children; and if there is no spouse and there are no children, it would be divided among the individual’s siblings. The analysis assumes this order of distribution either under applicable intestacy laws or under the provisions of any applicable wills or trusts.

ADOLPH SCHÜCK AND SIGMUND HIRSCH’S HEIRS

POST-1920 OWNERS	FIRST TIER HEIRS	SECOND TIER HEIRS	THIRD TIER HEIRS **

Auguste Leyser née Schück (1872-1943) (1/6^th) (Adolph Schück’s daughter)	Friedrich Leyser (1898-1959) (1/12^th) (Auguste Schück’s son)	Katerina Leyser née Rosenthal (1903-1992) (Friedrich Leyser’s wife)
	Margot Leyser née Leyser (1893-1982) (1/12^th) (Auguste Schück’s daughter)
Elly Kayser née Schück (1874-1911) (1/6^th) (Adolph Schück’s daughter)	Franz Kayser (1897-1983) (1/6th) (Elly Schück’s son)
Erich Schück (1878-1938) (1/6^th) (Adolph Schück’s son)	Hedwig Schück née Jendricke (1/6^th) (1890-1960) (Erich Schück’s wife)	Anna Johannsen née Brügge (1897-?) (half-sister of Hedwig Schück née Jendricke) Sophia Dalstrand née Brügge (1900-1980) (half-sister of Hedwig Schück née Jendricke) Christian Brügge II (1902-?) (half-brother of Hedwig Schück née Jendricke)
Erich Schück (1878-1938) (1/6^th) (Adolph Schück’s son)			Christian Brügge III (~1927-?) (son of Christian Brügge II) Helmuth Brügge (~1930-?) (son of Christian Brügge II)
Helene Goldenring née Hirsch (1880-1968) (1/6^th) (Sigmund Hirsch’s daughter) ##	Eva Zernick née Goldenring (1/6^th) (1906-1969) (Helene Goldenring née Hirsch’s daughter)
Robert Hirsch (1881-1943) (1/6^th) (Sigmund Hirsch’s son)	Helene Goldenring née Hirsch (1/12^th) (1880-1968) (Robert Hirsch’s sister) ## Frieda Mamlok née Hirsch (1883-1955) (1/12^th) (Robert Hirsch’s sister)
Frieda Mamlok née Hirsch (1883-1955) (1/6^th) (Sigmund Hirsch’s daughter)	Alfred Mamlok (1874-~1960) (1/12^th) (Frieda Mamlok née Hirsch’s husband) Hans Walter Mamlok (1908-1956) (1/24^th) (Frieda Mamlok née Hirsch’s son) ++ Erich Mamlok (1913-1991) (1/24^th) (Frieda Mamlok née Hirsch’s son)
		Erich Mamlok (1913-1991) (1/48^th) (Hans Mamlok’s brother) Helene Goldenring née Hirsch (1880-1968) (1/72^nd) (Hans Mamlok’s aunt) ## Alfred Mamlok (1874-~1960) (1/144^th) Hans Mamlok’s father)

** Only those third-tier heirs who are known to have received “damages” from the German government in connection with the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik are shown.

++ When Hans Mamlok died in 1956, he left ½ of his shares to his brother Erich Mamlok, 1/3^rd to his aunt Helene Goldenring née Hirsch, and 1/6^th to his father Alfred Mamlok

## Helene Goldenring née Hirsch was an owner in her own right, as well as a first-tier heir as inheritor of a one-half interest in her brother’s 1/6^th share in the sugar factory, as well as a second-tier heir of 1/3^rd of her nephew Hans Mamlok’s 1/24^th share

A few observations.

Adolph Schück (Figure 7) and Sigmund Hirsch (Figures 8-9) each had three children, each of whom was a shareholder with a 1/6^th share of the sugar factory. Assuming the German government paid compensation or damages, each owner would have been eligible for 1/6^th of the amount paid out.

Figure 7. Screen shot from my family tree showing Adolph Schück and his heirs

Figure 8. Screen shot from my family tree showing Sigmund Hirsch and his heirs

Figure 9. Co-owner of the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik Sigmund Hirsch with his wife Selma Hirsch née Braun and their three children, Frieda, Robert, and Helene

In the case of Frieda Mamlok née Hirsch who pre-deceased her husband Dr. Alfred Mamlok, I would later learn ½ of her 1/6^th share went to her husband while each of her two sons, Hans and Erich, received one-quarter of her 1/6^th share. Hans pre-deceased both his brother and his father, and he divided what amounted to his 1/24^th share among his brother (one-half), his aunt (one-third), and his father (one-sixth). My apologies if I’ve confused readers.

Figure 10 is a screen shot from my family tree on ancestry.com with Erich and Hedwig Schück née Jendricke and their heirs.

Figure 10. Screen shot from my family tree showing Dr. Erich Schück and his wife’s heirs

Readers can see on Figure 6 there is another file at LABO with a different number, namely, “Reg. Nr. 160 800,” for Robert Hirsch (Figure 11), one of the six heirs of the sugar factory. I would later learn there exist multiple files with unique identifiers for the various claimants.

Figure 11. Robert Hirsch (1881-1943) in Chile in 1942 with his cousin’s daughter-in-law, Margarete Hirsch née Janzen (1914-1992), and her daughter (photo courtesy of Roberto Hirsch)

In Post 55, I discussed at length the documentation I received from Mr. Allan Grutt Hansen, a gentleman from Denmark related to the wife of Dr. Erich Schück (1878-1938) (Figure 12), Hedwig Schück née Jendricke. (Figure 13) I refer readers to that post for details. Suffice it to say that according to the documentation I received from Mr. Hansen, several of Hedwig’s relatives in fact received some monies from the German government in connection with sale of the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik in 1966. Figure 14 gives their names and their presumed inherited ownership shares of the sugar factory.

Figure 12. Dr. Erich Schück (1878-1938), an heir of the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik, who supposedly committed suicide in Berlin after the forced sale of the sugar plant

Figure 13. May 1930 stage photograph of Hedwig Schück née Jendricke, an aspiring actress

Anna Johannsen née Brügge and Sophia Dalstrand née Brügge were Hedwig Schück’s half-sisters, Christian Brügge II was her half-brother, and Christian Brügge III and Helmuth Brügge were his sons. None of the documents I’ve obtained show Hedwig’s half-brother receiving any monies in connection with the sale of the sugar factory, so he may have been deceased by 1966. The names in red text in the table above are the four heirs who each were awarded damages through their kinship to Hedwig Schück. In the aggregate, Hedwig Schück’s heirs should have inherited her 1/6^th share in the sugar factory but according to the figures shown in Figure 14, the amounts total 1/4^th(i.e., 1/12^th + 1/12^th + 1/24^th +1/24^th=6/24^th), so something is amiss.

Figure 14. Page from 1966 West German compensation agreement for the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik listing Erich and Hedwig Schück’s four heirs, and the fraction they owned of the sugar factory

I naturally assumed that if Hedwig Schück’s heirs had received damages for the forced sale of the sugar factory, so too had heirs of the other shareholders. To date, I have not been able to confirm from third- or fourth-tier heirs that this ever occurred.

Readers will note in the table above that one of Sigmund Hirsch’s daughters is Helene Goldenring née Hirsch, the very same person who did receive compensation from the German government because of her son’s premature death in the Shanghai Ghetto. This was indirectly a result of Nazi pressure on the Japanese to eliminate Jews living in this occupied part of China. Rather than exterminate them, however, the Japanese incarcerated them in a ghetto under deplorable living conditions causing many to die.

Hoping to round out my understanding of how the reparations claims were handled by the then West German government, I contacted Dr. Robert Mamlok (Figure 15), the grandson of Dr. Alfred Mamlok (1874-~1960) (Figure 16), the spouse of one of the six original shareholders. Robert generously shared copies of numerous letters penned by his grandfather, the other heirs, and the multiple attorneys involved in the compensation case. Most usefully, Robert sent me a summary in English of the contents of the various documents, which precluded my having to tediously retype and translate the original German documents. With this synopsis, I came away with a much more in-depth and nuanced understanding of the years-long effort undertaken by the various claimants to obtain compensation for the forced sale of the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik.

Figure 15. Dr. Alfred Mamlok’s grandson, Dr. Robert Mamlok

Figure 16. Dr. Alfred Mamlok, born 1874 in Breslau, Germany [today: Wrocław, Poland]

I cannot do justice to all that is contained in the correspondence Robert Mamlok shared, but I want to highlight a few things. There were some administrative challenges faced by the claimants. As alluded to above, the Berlin Compensation Office, the Entschädigungsamt Berlin, assigned unique case numbers to each claim. Each claimant had their own attorney, at times interfering or working at cross-purposes to one another. Several attorneys died over the course of the multi-year effort requiring aging and ailing litigants to begin anew with different lawyers. The claimants themselves could not agree on the amount of lost income they’d incurred because of the forced sale of the sugar factory; widely divergent estimates of annual proceeds were proffered by the shareholders (i.e., ranging between 20,000 Reichmark (RM) and 100,000 RM annually with a RM having an estimated nominal exchange rate during WWII of $2.50). Without surviving documents to bolster claims of lost income, including the sales documents of the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik, lawyers repeatedly questioned the estimates and asked for less inflated figures. This further delayed the adjudication process and allowed claimants to be played off against each another. There were seemingly endless requests for supporting evidence such as powers of attorney, proof of Jewish origins, proof of residency, attestations of one’s professional practice, estimates on the value of the business and the annual profits, etc., some of which could only be recreated from fading memories.

From a cursory examination of the summary papers forwarded by Robert Mamlok, the requests for compensation were based on several considerations, namely, forced sale of the sugar factory at less than fair market value (taking into account “goodwill”); loss of professional wages; and loss of income based on the boycotting of the Jewish-owned Zuckerfabrik. (Goodwill is a marketplace advantage of customer patronage and loyalty developed with continuous business under the same name over a period. It may be bought and sold in connection with a business, and the valuation is a subjective one.) Interestingly, yet another recompense that could be claimed was the travel costs of being forced to flee Germany.

At some point, it appears lawyers representing some of the claimants made the decision it would be easier to argue loss of income due to the boycott of the Jewish-owned sugar factory by Aryan-owned businesses rather than the losses due to forced sale of the business at a discounted price. Possibly, the lawyers felt it would be easier to compare the decline in the estimated annual profits from before to after the boycott was implemented than estimate the fair market value of the business in 1936.

While the compensation claim based on the forced sale of the sugar factory continued, this was never successfully adjudicated by any of Adolph Schück or Sigmund Hirsch’s heirs. Dr. Alfred Mamlok eventually did receive some recompense for professional damages in connection with the loss of his medical practice in Gleiwitz, Germany [today: Gliwice, Poland], including possibly for the loss of goodwill, as well as payment for his costs to flee Germany. However, Dr. Mamlok did not receive payments for the loss of goodwill in connection with the sugar factory. Additionally, Dr. Mamlok, his son Erich Mamlok, and his sister-in-law Helene Goldenring received monies in 1957 but the basis for these payments is also unclear.

The summary sent to me by Robert Mamlok provided further background on the sale of the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik. Following Hitler’s attainment of power in March 1933, the responsibility for oversight of businesses like the sugar factory was transferred from the Reich Ministry of Economics to the auspices of the more stringent Reich Ministry of Food and Agriculture, making ownership and management of exclusively Jewish-owned enterprises more difficult.

Additionally, according to Dr. Alfred Mamlok’s correspondence, Upper Silesia, where the factory, was located was deemed to be an “animal welfare area.” This is a particularly interesting provision I needed to ask one of my German cousins about since I could not understand how animal welfare related to the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik. On page 256 of the 1997 German edition of the book entitled “German-Jewish History in Modern Times, vol. 4: Renewal and Destruction, 1918-1945,” my cousin found the following explanation:

“Only in Upper Silesia, on the basis of a German-Polish agreement of 1922, did the approximately 10,000 Jews living there succeed in securing special status of a protected religious and ‘racial’ minority under the protection of the League of Nations Commission until July 1937. This was the only case in which a Jewish representative body, the Upper Silesian Synagogue Association, concluded agreements with the German government in open negotiations and before an international body. As a result, discriminatory measures against Jewish gainful employment or against kosher slaughter were not implemented here until July 14, 1937.”

Thus, ostensibly under the guise of safeguarding animal welfare, the Nazis were really targeting kosher slaughter of farm animals, and limiting, where possible, Jewish economic activities including at the sugar factory. Not only did the Nazis strive to expel Jews and deprive them of their economic existence, but according to their twisted logic expropriation of Jewish businesses served animal welfare. However, it is not apparent to this author the connection between animal welfare and the manufacture and sale of sugar.

As to the sale of the sugar factory, the owners eventually found a buyer in the form of an East German sugar company which obtained the necessary approvals clandestinely. The sale papers were presented to the Reich Ministry of Agriculture when key officials there attended a congress in Nuremberg in 1936, making it easier for the buyers to obtain approval. According to one letter found among Dr. Alfred Mamlok’s papers, the sugar factory was sold for approximately 800,000 RM though the writer estimates the fair market value of the business was several million RM. As a quick aside, this figure does not comport with the number I found in the papers sent to me by Allan Hansen which based damages on a sales price of 450,000 RM.

Let me turn now to a discussion of the act which guided the compensation claims for the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik. Compensation for the victims of National Socialist injustice was governed in principle by the Federal Act for the Compensation of the Victims of National Socialist Persecution (Bundesentschädigungsgesetz or BEG) as amended by the Final Federal Compensation Act of the 14^th of September 1965.

Below is a succinct description of this act from the Wollheim Memorial (www.wollheim-memorial.de/de/bundesentschaedigungsgesetz_1956):

“In July 1953, using the term Bundesergänzungsgesetz (Federal Supplementary Law), the German Bundestag passed the first national-level compensation law for people who were forced to undergo expropriation, forced labor, deportation, and imprisonment in camps during the Nazi era. In 1956, it was amended and renamed the Bundesentschädigungsgesetz (BEG, Federal Compensation Law), owing to numerous interventions by the Western Allies and the Claims Conference, which were directed primarily at the meagerness of the benefits intended for victims of the Nazis and at the exclusion of foreign victims of Nazi persecution. But the BEG held fast to the so-called subjective and personal territoriality principle, according to which benefits could be claimed only by victims of the Nazis who were residents of the FRG [Federal Republic of Germany] or West Berlin on the effective date of December 31, 1952 (originally, January 1, 1947), or had lived within the 1937 borders of the German Reich and taken up residence in the FRG or West Berlin by the effective date. From the outset, therefore, the provisions excluded from compensation all those people in the countries occupied by Germany during World War II who had been hunted by the death squads of the Wehrmacht and the SS and had not left their home countries.”

The Claims Conference refers to the Conference of Jewish Material Claims Against Germany founded in 1951 as a coalition of several Jewish organizations to represent the compensation claims of Jewish victims of National Socialism and Holocaust survivors.

A 2009 paper prepared by Germany’s Federal Ministry of Finance, entitled “Compensation for National Socialist Injustice,” provides more detail:

“The first compensation act covering the entire [German] Federation was the Additional Federal Compensation Act which was adopted on 18 September 1953 (Federal Law Gazette I p. 1,387) and entered into force on 1 October 1953. Although this was much more than an addition to the Act on the Treatment of the Victims of National Socialist Persecution in the Area of Social Security and in particular created legal equality and security on federal territory, its provisions also proved inadequate. Following very detailed and careful preparation, the Federal Compensation Act (Federal Law Gazette I p. 562) was adopted on 29 June 1956 and entered into force with retroactive effect from 1 October 1953. This Act fundamentally changed compensation for the victims of National Socialism and introduced a number of amendments improving their situation. At the outset, the Federal Compensation Act only provided for applications to be submitted until 1 April 1958.”

The Act on the Treatment of the Victims of National Socialist Persecution in the Area of Social Security was an act adopted by the Southern German Länder Council for all Allied occupation zones. This was promulgated by Land laws in Bavaria, Bremen, Baden-Württemberg, and Hesse in August 1949.

The Federal Compensation Act was amended in 1965. Quoting again from the paper by the Ministry of Finance:

“In applying the Federal Compensation Act, further need for amendment became clear. There was an awareness that the new piece of legislation would not be able to take account of all the demands of those eligible for compensation and that, given the high number of settled cases, these could not be re-opened. The amendment was thus to constitute the final piece of legislation in this field. After four years of intense negotiations in the competent committees of the German Bundestag and Bundesrat, the Final Federal Compensation Act was adopted on 14 September 1965 (Federal Law Gazette I p. 1,315), its very name emphasizing that it was to be the last.”

A few comments.

The Final Federal Compensation Act extended the original deadline of the 1^st of April 1958, though no claims could be filed after the 31^st of December 1969.

Numerous provisions of the Federal Compensation Act were complicated. One decisive criterion was the residence requirement. Those eligible to apply were persecutees of the Nazi regime who had resided in the Federal Republic of Germany or West Berlin by December 31, 1952 (previously January 1, 1947), or who had lived there prior to their deaths or emigrations. Except for Dr. Alfred Mamlok, who was a doctor in Gleiwitz in Upper Silesia, all the other heirs had lived in Berlin or what became the Federal Republic of Germany prior to emigrating or being murdered, so this would not seem to have been an exclusionary criterion for receiving compensation.

As an aside, for people persecuted because of so-called “antisocial” behavior, including the Sinti and Roma, “. . .the latter, the Federal Supreme Court (BGH) claimed in a decision in principle on January 7, 1956, had been persecuted not for ‘reasons of race, religious belief, or worldview’ (§ 1 BEG) but for their ‘antisocial traits.’ The BEG believed race-based persecution occurred only from 1943 on, when the Sinti and Roma began to be sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp.”

Communists also could not receive compensation because they were perceived as alleged enemies of the “liberal-democratic basic order.” Homosexuality was a criminal offense in the Federal Republic of Germany until 1973 so for this reason persecuted homosexuals similarly were ineligible to receive payments.

After the enormity of the crimes the National Socialists had perpetrated against humanity came into the public eye and shocked the world, the willingness of Germans to accept political and moral responsibility waned. Over time, and against the backdrop of post-war reconstruction, the Cold War, and the suffering the Germans had also experienced during and after the war, many began to see themselves as the victims. Feeling they had been manipulated and terrorized by the Nazis and Adolf Hitler allowed many Germans to displace any complicity in Nazi crimes. Consequently, as German Wikiwand notes: “People began to offset their own suffering against the persecution of Nazi victims—the cliché of well-off Nazi victims became a kind of political myth—and along with the integration of former Nazi officials into postwar German society, it was not the perpetrators but the victims who were perceived as a burden on the new society.” How rich.

Given the complexity of the Federal Compensation Law, it is not clear that if the compensation cases were being adjudicated today the decisions would be rendered any differently. But readers should know that many claims were being handled by former Nazi officials, such as judges and district attorneys, who had been integrated back into German society following WWII, officials who seemingly had little interest in compensating Jews they had once so avidly been an integral part of persecuting.

File Reg. Nr. 40 672 obtained from LABO was the restitution claim refiled for the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik by Dr. Alfred Mamlok’s lawyers, Dr. Hans Zilesch and Ms. Gisela Maresch-Zilesch, for him as an individual. Contained within this file is a decision letter dated the 30^th of January 1962 to his lawyers, ostensibly from the Berlin Compensation Office, laying out the reason his compensation claim vis a vis the sugar factory was denied. Followers can read the original and translated versions of this 1962 letter below. (Figures 17a-b)

Figure 17a. Letter from the Berlin Restitution Office dated the 30th of January 1962 to Dr. Alfred Mamlok’s lawyers rendering their decision on his Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik compensation claim

Figure 17b. Translation of letter from the Berlin Restitution Office to Dr. Alfred Mamlok’s lawyers rendering their decision on his Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik compensation claim

In citing § 143 and § 146 of the BEG, the Berlin Compensation Office makes it abundantly clear that the claims were rejected because the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik had its registered office in Woinowitz in Upper Silesia in an area they declared was decidedly outside the scope of the BEG. I include the language of both subsections below:

§ 143

(1) The right to compensation exists only if the legal person, establishment, or association of persons

1. on 31 December 1952 had its seat within the scope of this Act or the place of its administration was situated there,

2.before 31 December 1952, for the reasons of persecution under § 1, had transferred its seat or its administration from the territory of the Reich to a foreign country in accordance with the state of 31 December 1937 or the territory of the Free City of Gdansk.

(2) If a legal person, institution or association of persons no longer exists, the claim for compensation shall only exist if it had its registered office or the place of its administration in the territory of the Reich in accordance with the status on 31 December 1937 or in the territory of the Free City of Gdansk and if the registered office or the place of administration of a legal successor or successor to a purpose was in the area of application of this Act on 31 December 1952.

§ 146

(1) The right to compensation exists only for damage to property and for damage to property and only to the extent that the damage occurred within the scope of this Act. In the case of non-legally capable commercial companies whose all partners were natural persons at the time of the persecution, the claim for compensation also exists if the damage to property or assets in the Reich territory occurred as of 31 December 1937 or in the territory of the Free City of Gdansk.

(2) Communities which are institutions of or recognized by religious communities and whose members have undertaken to acquire through their work not for themselves but for the community may also claim as damage to property the damage caused to the community by the loss of the working activities of their members. A Community national shall not be entitled to compensation for loss of professional progress in respect of any work carried out by him on behalf of the Community if the Community has received compensation in accordance with the first sentence.

(3) No compensation shall be paid for losses of contributions, donations, and similar income.

Woinowitz was part of the German Reich in 1937. In a referendum held in Upper Silesia on the 20^th of March 1921, people there voted to remain part of the German Reich. On this basis, I would have assumed that Woinowitz met the seat requirements under BEG as of 31 December 1937. Whether its location inside Poland by 31 December 1952 is relevant is not clear. Regardless of my understanding of the provisions and exclusions of the complicated Federal Compensation Law, the Berlin Compensation Office determined the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik was outside the seat requirements of the act and for this reason denied compensation to heirs of the shareholders.

A separate page in File Reg. Nr. 40 672, dated the 27^th of January 1964, gives the Berlin Compensation Office claim number, “Reg. Nr. 21 879,” for Erich and Hedwig Schück’s heirs, identifying them by name. (Figure 18) Attached to this cover page is the decision letter rendered by this office. Like the one sent to Dr. Alfred Mamlok’s attorneys it comes to the same conclusion, namely, that the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik is outside the seat requirements of the Federal Compensation Law. This letter came as a surprise to me. Whereas I had assumed the monies Hedwig Schück’s heirs had received were the result of a different decision rendered by the Berlin Compensation Office under the authority of the Federal Compensation Law, this letter made clear this was not so.

Figure 18. Cover page of decision letter from the Berlin Restitution Office dated 27th of January 1964 addressed to Hedwig Schück’s half-sister, Ms. Anna Johannsen née Brügge, rejecting her and her relatives’ claim for compensation. Case number is circled along with the names of Erich and Hedwig’s heirs

With this new information in hand, I returned to the eight pages sent to me by Mr. Hansen for his ancestors discussing monies paid out to them in 1966. After translating these documents, I realized there was no mention of the Federal Compensation Law and instead payments made in 1966 to Hedwig Schück’s heirs were for “damages” paid out under what I eventually learned was the “Equalisation of Burdens Act (Lastenausgleichsgesetz)” of 1952 and decided by an order from a Federal Administrative Court. Suffice it to say, at the risk of further overwhelming readers with more detail, that the difference between what Dr. Erich Schück received from the September 1936 forced sale of the sugar factory, estimated to be 75,000 RM (i.e., calculated by the Ratibor Tax Office for each 100 RM of share capital at 190 RM, thus totaling 140,000 RM), and what he should have received (i.e., 142,500 RM), his wife’s heirs were in aggregate eligible for only 2,500 RM or whatever the 1966 equivalent was in German Marks. (Figures 19a-b)

Figure 19a. Page from 1966 West German compensation agreement for the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik indicating how individual shares of 75,000 RM were “adjusted” by the Ratibor Tax Office to 142,500 RM but showing only 2,500 RM was disbursed in 1966 to Hedwig Schück’s heirs

Figure 19b. Rough translation of Figure 19a

At long last, I conclude my series on the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik saga with some questions or issues still unresolved:

1). While I assume ALL six shareholders received equal portions of the 450,000 RM (i.e., 75,000 RM each) for which the sugar factory sold for in 1936, no documentation survives to know whether this was the case.

2). While we know that Hedwig Schück’s four heirs in the aggregate divided 2,500 RM in damages in 1966, we don’t know whether the heirs of the other shareholders received equal amounts. The office in Lübeck, Germany that handled the case has no documentation on file to answer this question.

3) And, finally, given that Woinowitz was part of the German Reich in 1937, why was it deemed that it was outside the scope of the Federal Compensation Act?

REFERENCES

Barkai, Avahram, Paul Mendes-Flohr, and Steven M. Lowenstein. German-Jewish History in Modern Times. Vierter Band 1918-1945. Munich, 1997.

Federal Ministry of Finance (Germany), Public Relations Division. Compensation for National Socialist Injustice. 2009, canada.diplo.de/blob/1106528/becf2995e860c6348a1efe7b3367ce51/information-on-compensation-federalministryoffinance-download-data.pdf

POST 98, PART 2 (DOCUMENTS): THE WOINOWITZ ZUCKERFABRIK (SUGAR FACTORY) OUTSIDE RATIBOR (PART V-CHILEAN DESCENDANTS)

Note: In the second installment of Post 98, I will briefly tell readers about some of the historic vital event documents I found related to Roberto Hirsch’s ancestors, focusing on ones from the mid-to-early 19th century that allowed me to trace Roberto’s ancestry seven generations back to the mid 18th century. As readers will see, some of these records are challenging to decipher.

Figure 1. Roberto Hirsch with his father Fritz Hirsch (1908-2006) in Santiago, Chile in 1998 (photo courtesy of Roberto Hirsch)

Roberto Hirsch (Figure 1), to remind readers, is the great grandnephew of Sigmund Hirsch (Figure 2), former co-owner of the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik. As I discussed in part 1 of this post, Roberto contacted me through Webmail and filled in details on a few of his ancestors I have previously written about. He gave me enough details to uncover vital event documents on some, which I supplemented by finding records on others Roberto did not know about.

As discussed in part 1, Roberto’s grandparents, Hermann Hirsch (1876-1943) and Ida Hirsch née Sollinger (1874-1944) (Figure 3), were murdered in Theresienstadt during the Holocaust. Roberto thought his grandfather had only two siblings, Sofie Hirsch (b. 1875) (Figure 4) and Karl Hirsch (b. 1879) (Figure 5) and knew Karl like his parents had been murdered in the Shoah; according to Yad Vashem, tragically, Sofie was also killed during the Holocaust. (Figure 6) Additionally, it turns out Hermann Hirsch had yet another sibling Roberto was unaware of, Bernhard Hirsch (b. 1877). (Figure 7) I suspect this sibling may have died at a young age but have not found proof of this.

Figure 3. Roberto’s grandparents, Hermann Hirsch (1876-1943) and Ida Hirsch née Sollinger (1874-1944) in 1935 in Bonn, Germany; both later died in Theresienstadt (photo courtesy of Roberto Hirsch)

Figure 4. Roberto’s great aunt Sophie Hirsch (1875~1944) in 1918 in Bonn (photo courtesy of Roberto Hirsch)

Figure 5. Roberto’s great uncle Karl Hirsch (1879-1944) in Colmar, Alsace in 1906 when Colmar was still a part of Germany

Figure 6. “Page of Testimony” about Sophie Hirsch from Yad Vashem Victims’ Database

Figure 7. Screenshot with birth information on Bernhard Hirsch, born to Jakob & Auguste Hirsch on the 7th of December 1877 in Karlsruhe, the great uncle Roberto was unaware of; his fate remains unknown

Roberto obviously knew of his great-grandfather Jakob Hirsch (1842-1905) (Figure 8) and great granduncle Sigmund Hirsch (1848-1920). Again, Jakob and Sigmund had a third sibling Roberto did not know of, also named Bernhard Hirsch (1836-1888). (Figure 9)

Figure 8. Jakob Hirsch (1842-1905) (photo courtesy of Roberto Hirsch)

Figure 9. Screenshot with death information on an earlier generation Bernhard Hirsch, born to Emanuel & Henriette Hirsch in Karlsruhe 1836 who died there in 1888; this is another ancestor Roberto was unaware of

I was able to establish a connection between Roberto’s ancestors and the city of Karlsruhe in the German state of Baden-Württemberg through records I initially found for Ratibor, Germany [today: Racibórz, Poland] rather than for Karlsruhe. Let me explain.

Prior to being contacted by Roberto Hirsch, I knew when Sigmund Hirsch had died and even have a picture of his headstone from the former Jewish Cemetery in Ratibor. (Figure 10) One of the Ratibor microfilms available through familysearch.org, the Mormon Library’s online database, Family History Library (FHL) microfilm 1184448 records his date of death as the 15^th of October 1920. (Figure 11) It took me a while to realize the death register is organized according to the Hebrew calendar. Thus, the page with Sigmund Hirsch’s name is entitled “Marcheschwan,” which is “Heshvan,” covering the months of October-November. This comports with Sigmund’s known death inscribed on his headstone as the 14^th of October 1920. Similarly, for Sigmund’s wife, Selma Hirsch née Braun, who I knew from the same headstone died on the 11^th of July 1916, I found her name under the Jewish month of “Tamus” or “Tammuz” (Figure 12), encompassing the months of June-July. Below, I discuss another surprising discovery I made on FHL microfilm 1184448.

Figure 10. Selma & Sigmund Hirsch’s headstone from the former Jewish Cemetery in Ratibor

Figure 11. Sigmund Hirsch’s death register listing from Ratibor FHL microfilm 1184448 under the Jewish month of “Marcheschwan” (October-November) showing he died on the 15th of October 1920

Figure 12. Selma Hirsch née Braun’s death register listing from Ratibor FHL microfilm 1184448 under the Jewish month of “Tamus” (June-July) showing she died on the 11th of July 1916

The key to unraveling Roberto Hirsch’s lineage was discovering his great-grandparents’ marriage certificate on ancestry.com. Jakob Hirsch (Sigmund’s brother) and his wife, Auguste Hirsch née Hirsch from a different branch of the Hirsch family, were married in Karlsruhe, Baden-Württemberg, Germany on the 30^th of July 1874. (Figure 13) German marriage certificates typically provide a wealth of information, including the age and the date and place of birth of the espoused, along with the names of the parents, including the maiden names of the mothers. While I cannot read or speak German, the handwriting is crisp enough that I could make out the key vital information.

Figure 13. Jakob Hirsch & Auguste Hirsch’s 1874 marriage certificate that was the key to unraveling Roberto Hirsch’s ancestry; though written in German most of the vital data is decipherable

Jakob Hirsch, I learned, was 31 years of age at the time of his marriage, was born in Carlsruhe (former spelling of Karlsruhe), and his parents were Emanuel Hirsch and Jette (short for Henriette) née Ettlinger. Jakob’s wife, Auguste, was 25 when she married, was born in Ilvesheim, Baden-Württemberg, Germany, and her parents were Löb Hirsch II and Johanna née Herz. Armed with this new information, I quickly found Emanuel Hirsch’s death certificate showing he died on the 25^th of March 1880 in Karlsruhe.

Jakob’s 1874 marriage certificate was the first solid evidence I found for his father’s full name, Emanuel Hirsch. As a related aside, Roberto shared an 1879 letter written in the old German script “Sütterlin,” signed by “E. Hirsch,” with separate sections addressed to his other son Sigmund and daughter-in-law Selma Hirsch née Braun. What makes this letter so quaint is that Sigmund married Selma without introducing her to his parents. This meant he did not have permission to marry her, in those days a big affront in Jewish families. Regardless, Emanuel Hirsch’s 1879 letter graciously welcomed Selma to the family.

Initially uncertain what might have happened to Sigmund and Jakob’s parents, Emanuel Hirsch and Henriette Hirsch née Ettlinger, I re-examined FHL microfilm 1184448, thinking they might have died in Ratibor. What I discovered surprised me. Under the Jewish month of “Nissan” or “Nisan,” covering March-April, I found both their names in Ratibor’s death register. (Figure 14) Under the column titled “Beerdigungsort,” or burial place, they are both shown however to have been buried in Karlsruhe. In Emanuel’s case, his listing under March comports with the month of his death; however, in the case of Emanuel’s wife Henriette, from her death certificate which I also found, she is known to have died in August. Why both names are listed in the Ratibor death register when they are known to have died in Karlsruhe is a bit of a mystery; I assume it is because their son Sigmund was connected to Ratibor. These towns are more than 575 miles apart.

Figure 14. Emanuel and Henriette Hirsch’s death register listings from Ratibor FHL microfilm 1184448 under the Jewish month of “Nissan” (March-April), showing they were buried in Karlsruhe, Baden-Württemberg; Emanuel died in March, making his listing accurate, but his wife died in August making her listing here puzzling

Regardless, the findings discussed firmly established a link to Karlsruhe and Ilvesheim in Baden-Württemberg, Germany for Roberto Hirsch’s family. I returned to familysearch.org, hoping to find Jewish microfilm for one town or the other, and was rewarded in both instances. Finding these records was the ultimate step to documenting Roberto’s lineage.

As previously mentioned, Emanuel and Henriette Hirsch’s three sons, Bernhard, Jakob, and Sigmund were born, respectively, in 1836, 1842, and 1848. These dates narrowed the “window” to search for birth records in Karlsruhe. From their death records, I knew Bernhard and Jakob were born in Karlsruhe, and assumed Sigmund had also been born there.

Bernhard (Figures 15a-b), Jakob (Figures 16a-b), and Sigmund’s (Figures 17a-b) birth register listings are all found on FHL microfilm 1256447 for Karlsruhe. Without knowing beforehand their actual or approximate years of birth, it is quite unlikely I would have located their listings. Given how indecipherable the text is, as readers can see for themselves, knowing what to search for was the key to finding the listings. At a minimum, birth registers give the name and date of birth of the newborn and the names of the parents.

Figure 15a. Bernhard Hirsch’s (1836-1888) birth register listing from Karlsruhe FHL microfilm 1256447 showing he was born on the 26th of August 1836

Figure 15b. Transcription & translation of Bernhard Hirsch’s birth register listing

Figure 16a. Jakob Hirsch’s (1842-1905) birth register listing from Karlsruhe FHL microfilm 1256447 showing he was born on the 8th of November 1842

Figure 16b. Transcription & translation of Jakob Hirsch’s birth register listing

Figure 17a. Sigmund Hirsch’s (1848-1920) birth register listing from Karlsruhe FHL microfilm 1256447 showing he was born on the 18th of November 1848

Figure 17b. Transcription & translation of Sigmund Hirsch’s birth register listing

The most challenging listing to read was that of Bernhard Hirsch. Literally, I thought I could read four words out of five lines, namely, “Mutter Jette geb. Ettlinger” (circled) translated as “Mother Jette née Ettlinger.” The surname “Hirsch” written in the margin (circled), though now recognizable to me, was initially indiscernible. My go-to German friend, Peter Hanke, transcribed and translated all three birth register listings for me, along with the other documents illustrated and discussed below.

Having confirmed Bernhard was born in 1836, I turned my attention to finding his parents’ marriage register listing in Karlsruhe. While they might possibly have gotten married after Bernhard’s birth, I assumed they would have married before 1836. Again, after much hunting, I eventually found Emanuel Hirsch and Jette Ettlinger got married on the 27^th of May 1834. (Figures 18a-b) Both Emanuel and Jette’s parents were named on this document, information that allowed me to track Roberto’s maternal ancestors yet another two generations as the table below illustrates.

Figure 18a. Emanuel Hirsch and Jette Ettlinger’s marriage register listing from Karlsruhe FHL microfilm 1256447 showing they married on the 27th of May 1834

Figure 18b. Transcription & translation of Emanuel Hirsch and Jette Ettlinger’s marriage register listing

Having gleaned what I could from the birth and marriage register listings for Karlsruhe, I next turned my attention to FHL microfilm 1271220 containing Jewish records for Ilvesheim, in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. Located approximately 39 miles north of Karlsruhe, this is where Roberto’s great-grandmother Auguste Hirsch née Hirsch was born around 1849 according to her 1874 marriage certificate (discussed above). Again, after much scrutiny, I found her birth register listing showing “Gustel,” short form for Auguste, was born on the 14^th of January 1849. (Figures 19a-b) As readers can see from the translation, Auguste’s parents are identified, Löw Hirsch and Jeannette née Herz, which gave me further names to check out.

Figure 19a. Auguste “Gustel” Hirsch’s birth register listing from Ilvesheim FHL microfilm 1271220 showing she was born on the 14th of January 1849

Figure 19b. Transcription & translation of Auguste “Gustel” Hirsch’s birth register listing

As mentioned in the first installment of Post 98, Roberto Hirsch, while born in 1944 in Santiago, Chile has lived in Bonn, Germany for the last 50 years. Prior to WWII, his grandfather Hermann Hirsch owned a well-known department store in Bonn shown in part 1 of this post. When Roberto reached out to me, he told me he thought Hermann had been born in Freiburg im Breisgau, Baden-Württemberg, Germany, about 85 miles south-southeast of Karlsruhe. From Hermann’s birth certificate, I ascertained he was actually born in Karlsruhe. (Figure 20)

Figure 20. Screenshot with birth information on Hermann Hirsch (1876-1943), Roberto’s grandfather who committed suicide in Theresienstadt, showing he was born in Karlsruhe rather than Freiburg im Breisgau

Roberto confirmed his family’s association with both cities. He accessed and sent me address books for Karlsruhe from 1840 (Figure 21), 1855 (Figure 22), and 1874 (Figure 23), and one from Freiburg from 1887 (Figure 24) with listings for his family. The 1840 and 1855 Karlsruhe address books identify his great-great-grandfather Emanuel Hirsch as a “schneider,” a tailor. The 1874 Karlsruhe address book by then lists Emanuel as a “partikulier,” a ship owner who works for larger shipping companies, and his son Sigmund as a “kaufman,” a tradesman; clearly, at some point, Sigmund Hirsch moved to Ratibor and became co-owner of the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik there. The 1887 Freiburg address book lists Roberto’s great-grandfather Jakob Hirsch also as a “kaufman.”

Figure 21. Page from 1840 Karlsruhe Address Book listing Roberto’s great-great-grandfather Emanuel Hirsch as a “schneider,” a tailor

Figure 22. Page from 1855 Karlsruhe Address Book again listing Emanuel Hirsch as a “schneider,” a tailor

Figure 23. Page from 1874 Karlsruhe Address Book now listing Emanuel Hirsch as a “partikulier,” a ship owner who works for larger shipping companies, and his son Sigmund as a “kaufman,” a tradesman

Figure 24. Page from 1887 Freiburg Address Book listing Roberto’s great-grandfather Jakob Hirsch as a “kaufman,” a tradesman

As regular readers may have noticed, I have started including a table of vital statistics for the people discussed in my posts sourcing the vital data. This may seem unimportant, but I consider it relevant given all the erroneous data found on ancestral trees. As an example, in the case of Roberto Hirsch’s great-grandfather, I found a family tree stating Jakob Hirsch was born around 1843. I located the birth register listing for this Jakob, and it is clear to me this was a different person with the same name. While generally dismissive of trees with basic errors, after studying the inscrutable vital records for Karlsruhe and Ilvesheim, I can easily understand how genealogists might make honest mistakes. Naturally, this assumes researchers have tried to track down primary source documents, my benchmark for accuracy.

ROBERTO HIRSCH’S SIMPLIFIED FAMILY “TREE” BACK SEVEN GENERATIONS

GENERATION	PATERNAL LINE	PATERNAL LINE SPOUSE	MATERNAL LINE	MATERNAL LINE SPOUSE
GEN. 0	Roberto Hirsch (self) (b. 1944)
GEN. 1	Fritz Hirsch (father) (1908-2006)		Margarete Janzen (mother) (1914-1992)
GEN. 2	Hermann Hirsch (grandfather) (1876-1943)		Ida Sollinger (grandmother) (1874-1944)
GEN. 3	Jakob Hirsch (g-grandfather) (1842-1905)		Auguste Hirsch (g-grandmother) (1849-1935)
GEN. 4	Emanuel “Nathan” Hirsch g-g-grandfather) (1805-1880)		Henriette “Jette” Ettlinger (g-g-grandmother) (1808-1882)
GEN. 5	Nathan Hirsch (g-g-g-grandfather)	Sara Mandel (g-g-g-grandmother) (1763-1839)	Bernard Ettlinger (g-g-g-grandfather) (1777-1847)	Therese Levi (g-g-g-grandmother)
GEN. 6			Seligmann Ettlinger (g-g-g-g-grandfather) (unk.-1805)	Rachel Weinheimer (g-g-g-g-grandmother) (1739-1817)
GEN. 7			UNKNOWN ETTLINGER	Malka (unk. maiden name) (g-g-g-g-g-grandmother (unk.-1770)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

6) Next select “Matrikel, 1814-1940”;

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

POST 74: DRAWING A CONNECTION TO TWO LIVING BRUCKS: “WHERE’S THE SMOKING GUN?”

Note: In this post, I discuss how I’m related to two living Brucks I’ve known for half-a-dozen years, and how I inadvertently stumbled on the answer and responded to their question, “Where’s the smoking gun?”

Post 33: Finding Great-Uncle Willy’s Grandchildren

Post 73: Ratibor Gymnasium (High School) Student Register, 1819-1849—More Clues About My Bruck Family

Figure 1. My great-uncle Wilhelm “Willy” Bruck, Guillermo as he was known in Spain, in May 1950 in Barcelona

This story begins in 1951. Soon after I was born, my parents received a congratulatory note from my father’s uncle, Wilhelm “Willy” Bruck, then living in Barcelona, Spain. (Figure 1) As a boy, I would later meet my great-uncle’s daughter Eva in New York when she came to visit the family but never realized who she was. (Figure 2) Though I met her only once, I remember her fondly because she gave me an old silver coin I still cherish (i.e., readers will recall I’ve been a lifelong coin collector). Because of my father’s rather dismissive attitude towards family, except for his beloved sister Susanne murdered in Auschwitz, naturally he lost contact with most of his relatives. Thus, when I began my forensic investigations into my family, I was left to reconstruct and find family descendants on my own, years after my father was gone and might have helped.

Figure 2. My great-uncle Willy’s daughter, Eva Bruck, second from the left, with my aunt on the left, and my parents on the right, when she came to visit the family in New York in 1967

Aware some family members had wound up in Barcelona, I began my search there vaguely cognizant my great-uncle Willy may have had grandchildren. To remind readers, I discussed the search for my great-uncle and his descendants in Posts 32 and 33. Since this remains one of my all-time favorite family quests, I will briefly remind readers how I met the two Brucks, first cousins to one another, as what can only be characterized as serendipity. I thought perhaps my great-uncle’s grandchildren, my second cousins that’s to say, might live in Barcelona. I started by checking the White Pages for Barcelona and found nary any Brucks there. I expanded my search to all of Spain and discovered 14 listings. I immediately did the calculus, and said to myself, “No problem, I’ll write to all of them!” And, this is in fact what I did in late 2013.

Many weeks passed with no responses. Then, early one Saturday morning, I received a call from a gentleman in Haifa, Israel by the name of “Michael Bruck.” I had no known relatives there so was intrigued why this namesake was calling. He quickly explained I’d written to his first cousin Ronny Bruck in Alicante, Spain inquiring about my great-uncle Willy. Aha! Michael is the family genealogist, so Ronny forwarded him my letter, ergo his call. I must share one other alluring aspect of this story that corroborates what Branch Rickey, the brainy former General Manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers, once said: “Luck is the residue of design.” That’s to say, luck doesn’t just happen, you create the circumstances to get lucky. For those who may be familiar with the postal service in Spain, they’ll know it’s notoriously unreliable. The letter I sent to Ronny inquiring about my great-uncle Willy not only arrived safely, but it arrived in his mailbox on his 65^th birthday, making him believe some unknown cousin from America was sending him well-wishes! The stars were obviously properly aligned.

Figure 3. The photo of my great-uncle Wilhelm Bruck (1872-1952) included in the 14 letters I wrote to Brucks in Spain in 2013

All my letters to the Brucks residing in Spain had included a photo of my great-uncle, and Michael immediately noted the family resemblance (Figure 3), even though he’d never come across Wilhelm Bruck’s name in connection with his own research. In 2014, my wife and I had already planned to spend 13 weeks in Europe visiting places associated with my family from northeastern Poland to southern Spain, so I suggested we all meet in Spain. Meeting there was not possible, so Ronny suggested Germany instead, and Michael and his wife joined us from Israel. Thus, in 2014, we met in person at the home of my first cousin. (Figures 4-5) Despite our in-depth respective knowledge of our family trees, over the years, Michael and I could never pinpoint how closely or distantly we are related.

Figure 4. My fourth cousins once removed, Ronny and Michael Bruck, in August 2014 in Hilden, Germany

Figure 5. From left to right: my first cousin, Wolfgang Lutze, myself, and Ronny and Michael Bruck in August 2014 in Hilden, Germany

Fast forward to the present. My previous post told the story about obtaining the complete roster of students who were enrolled in the Ratibor Gymnasium, high school, between its opening in 1819 and 1849; Ratibor is the town in Upper Silesia where my father was born in 1907, and where many Brucks hail from. Among the first-year students who attended the Ratibor Gymnasium upon its opening were two brothers, Isaac and Samuel Bruck. (Figures 6a-b) As I told readers in Post 73, Samuel Bruck is my great-great-grandfather, and is known to me. (Figure 7) His brother Isaac was completely unfamiliar to me, so I casually checked on ancestry.com and MyHeritage, to no avail. Not expecting to find anything through a Google search, I nonetheless checked Isaac’s name there. Imagine my surprise, then, when I was “kicked” into a query that had been posted by Michael Bruck in 2012 on Genealogy.com inquiring about him. (Figure 8)

Figure 6a. Page from the Ratibor Gymnasium “Album” 1819-1849 listing Isaac Bruck and Samuel Bruck’s names, in succession, “bracketed” together, with the profession of their dad, “arrendator,” leaseholder, noted

Figure 6b. Page from the Ratibor Gymnasium “Album” 1819-1849 showing Isaac Bruck and Samuel Bruck’s ages at the time they were enrolled in the Ratibor Gymnasium in 1819

Figure 7. My great-great-grandfather Samuel Bruck (1808-1863)

Figure 8. Question Michael Bruck posted on Genealogy.com on the 6th of December 2012 inquiring about Isaac Bruck

As followers can read, Michael asked the genealogical community for information on Isaac Bruck and his wife Caroline Stolz from Ratibor; he went on to say that their daughter Marie Friederike Bruck married David Isaac there on the 29^th of June 1857, and that Friederike was Michael’s great-great-grandmother. Upon seeing Michael’s message, it immediately became clear how we’re likely related. While I qualify the previous statement, there is absolutely no question in my mind how Michael, Ronny, and I are related. We are fourth cousins once removed. Let me briefly review the evidence, again by reference to primary source documents as in the previous post.

To remind readers what I said in Post 73, in the Ratibor Gymnasium Album, the names “Isaac Bruck and Samuel Bruck” occur in succession and are “bracketed” together with their unnamed father’s profession identically described as “Arrendator,” leaseholder. (Figures 6a-b) From a condensed family tree developed by my uncle Dr. Fedor Bruck reproduced here (Figure 9), I know that Samuel’s father was Jacob Nathan Bruck and that by association, so too is Isaac’s father. To me, the names in association with one another and their father’s profession being the same is “the smoking gun,” the answer to the question Michael and Ronny once posed.

Figure 9. Copy of a condensed family tree developed by my uncle Dr. Fedor Bruck showing Samuel and Jonas Bruck as the sons of Jacob Bruck and Marianne Aufrecht

The marriage register listing of Michael’s great-great-grandmother Marie Friederike Bruck to David Isaak dated the 19^th of June 1857 survives and can be found on LDS Microfilm Roll 1184449. (Figure 10)

Figure 10. The marriage register listing for Isaac(k) Bruck and Caroline Stolz’s daughter, Marie Friederike Bruck, when she wed David Isaak on the 29th of June 1857, drawn from LDS Microfilm Roll 1184449

Below is a transcription and a translation of the marriage register listing for Isaac(k) Bruck’s daughter and her husband.

*Register No.*	*Datum* *1857*	*Vor & Zuname* *Bräutigam*	*Gewerbe* *Wohnhaft*	*Name der Braut*	*& ihrer Eltern* *Gewerbe* *Wohnhaft*
(Register Number)	(Date 1857)	(First & last name of the groom)	(Occupation, Residence)	(Name of the bride)	(& her parents’ occupation & residence)
GERMAN
*113*	*29.6*	*David ISAAK, 32 Jahre, Sohn d[es] zu Wrirtzen verstorb[enen] Handelsmanns Hirsch ISAAK & der dort lebenden Ehefrau Cheinchen geb. CASPER*	*Handlungskommis, Berlin*	*Marie Friederike BRUCK, Ratibor, 24 Jahre*	*zu Altendorf verstorb[ener] Sattlermeister / p. Kaufm[ann] Isaak BRUCK & Ehefrau Caroline geb. STOLZ, Ratibor*

ENGLISH
113	29 June	David ISAAK, 32 years old, son of the merchant Hirsch ISAAK, who died in Wrietzen, and his wife Cheinchen née CASPER, who lives there	Clerk, assistant or commercial employee, Berlin	Marie Friederike BRUCK, Ratibor, 24 years old	Died in Altendorf, master saddler / p. businessman Isaak BRUCK & wife Caroline née STOLZ, Ratibor

As readers can see, in the far-right column, Marie Friederike’s parents are identified, Isaak (spelled with a “k”) Bruck and Caroline Stolz, with a notation that Isaak died in Altendorf, a suburb of Ratibor (Figure 11), obviously before his daughter got married in 1857.

Figure 11. 1893 map of Ratibor showing the proximity of Altendorf where Isaak Bruck is reputed to have died

The town where the groom comes from is incorrectly spelled “Wrietzen,” when it should have read “Wriezen.” It’s a town in the district Märkisch-Oderland, in Brandenburg, Germany.

Figure 12. Schematic “tree” showing where the “Isaak” surname was changed to “Bruck” and how Michael Bruck is related to Isaak Bruck

One final point. Some may wonder, as I did, why Michael and Ronny’s surnames are Bruck when this originates in their matrilineal line. (Figure 12) Michael explained that some of David and Marie Friederike Isaac’s children were in the clothing business in Berlin and owned several shops there in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries; on account of persistent anti-Semitism, they started to use their mother’s maiden name. One of David and Marie Friederike’s sons, Max Isaac and his wife, formally applied to the Berlin authorities to use the Bruck name permanently on the 3^rd of November 1919, evidence of which survives. (Figure 13)

Figure 13. Untranslated copy of a primary source document chronicling the surname change from “Isaac” to “Bruck” in 1919

It’s satisfying to have figured out how Michael, Ronny, and I are related, albeit in the scheme of things, it’s not seemingly a near ancestral link. That said, I maintain close ties with Michael and Ronny, and we regularly communicate. Furthermore, Ronny, by dint of his familiarity with Sütterlin, the German saw-toothed script briefly taught in schools there, has translated numerous family documents penned in this writing. This has enormously furthered my family research.

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

Note: In this Blog post, I discuss a few Bruck family Cabinet cards, photographic prints mounted on card stock, originating from several photo studios once located in Ratibor, Prussia, and Berlin.

The inspiration for this post came in part from a reader who inquired about the Helios photo studio in Ratibor [today: Racibórz, Poland] where her mother had worked during the 1930’s, and partially from some family photographs mounted on card stock with the names and locations of Ratibor and Berlin photo studios imprinted on the front or back.

Figure 1. Cabinet card from the former Józef Axmann photo studio in Ratibor

In time, I would learn these photographs are referred to as Cabinet cards (Figure 1), which got their name from their suitability for display in parlors—especially in cabinets. This was a style of photograph first introduced in 1863 by Windsor & Bridge in London, that was a popular medium for family portraits. The Cabinet card, 108 mm by 165 mm (4 ¼” by 6 ½”) in size, gradually superseded the smaller carte-de-visite, 64 mm by 100 mm (2 ½” by 4”), which was introduced in the 1850s. The popularity of the Cabinet card waned around the turn of the century, particularly after the introduction of the photographic postcard (Figures 2a-b), but they were still being produced right until the First World War.

Figure 2a. Front of a photographic postcard, showing my father Otto and his older sister Suzanne as children, that replaced Cabinet cards

Figure 2b. Back of photographic postcard, depicting my father Otto and Aunt Suzanne, sent by my great-aunt Franziska Bruck to her mother Olga Berliner on the 28th of April 1911

The name of the photographic studio is often imprinted on Cabinet cards under the photograph; typically a lithographic design covers most of the photo backing. Many designs incorporate attractive graphics, including medals or awards the studio supposedly won at some exposition or competition, or perhaps a medal of merit or excellence that was awarded by a European monarch. Sometimes, there is even an indication that the photographer or studio was the “official” photographer of a named monarch.

I always try to assist readers if possible, particularly if our respective ancestors originate from the same town; this sometimes presents an opportunity to learn more about the town’s history and its people, possibly obtain an alternative perspective, and often provides ideas for future Blog stories. Answering readers typically involves my consulting with more knowledgeable individuals. So, having never heard of the Helios photo studio the reader had asked about, I turned to my friend Mr. Paul Newerla, retired lawyer and current Silesian historian from Racibórz, for help. Paul sent a postcard of Langestraße, the street in Ratibor along which the Helios studio had once been located with the studio name circled (Figures 3a-b); he also included a page from a 1936 Ratibor Address Book listing existing photo studios with a larger advertisement for the “Photo-Helios.” (Figure 4) And, finally, in responding to the reader, I attached a section of a 1927 Ratibor map circling the approximate location of the studio.

Figure 3a. Postcard of Ratibor’s “Langestraße” along which “Helios” or “Photo-Helios” photo studio was located

Figure 3b. Pixilated closeup of the “Fotografie Helios” store sign

Figure 4. 1936 Ratibor Address Book listing existing photo studios & photographers, including “Photo-Helios”

More recently, I’ve turned my attention to the few Cabinet cards in my collection with the names and addresses of Ratibor and Berlin photo studios. These are often the most endearing and charming photos of my nearest relatives, specifically, my grandfather (Figure 5), along with my father (Figure 6) and his two siblings. (Figures 7-9) My ancestors literally seem to leap out from the picture and come to life.

Figure 5. “Carte-de-Visite” from the “J.D.P. Platz” photo studio in Ratibor of my grandfather Felix Bruck (1864-1927) as a child

Figure 6. Cabinet card from the “Oskar Krispien” photo studio in Ratibor of my grandfather Felix Bruck holding my father as a baby

Figure 7. Cabinet card of my Aunt Suzanne (1904-1942) as a toddler

Figure 8. Cabinet card from the “Oskar Krispien” photo studio in Ratibor of my Aunt Suzanne, my father Otto, and his older brother Fedor as children

Figure 9. Cabinet card from “Alfred Schiersch” photo studio in Ratibor of my Aunt Suzanne and my father Otto as children

The Cabinet cards depicting my family originate from three Ratibor studios, “J.D.P. Platz Kunst-Institut (Art Institute)” (Figure 10); “Oskar Krispien” at Oberwallstraße 10 (Figure 11); and “Alfred Schiersch” at Wilhelmstraße 12 (Figure 12); and two Berlin studios, “W. Höffert” with two locations, Leipziger Platz 12 and Unter der Linden 24 (Figure 13); and “V. Scheurich” at Friedrichstrasse 2017 in Berlin S.W. (Figure 14)

Figure 10. Backside of “Carte-de-Visite” from the “J.D.P. Platz” photo studio in Ratibor

Figure 11. Backside of a Cabinet card from the “Oskar Krispien” photo studio in Ratibor

Figure 12. Front side of a Cabinet card from the “Alfred Schiersch” photo studio in Ratibor

Figure 13. Backside of a Cabinet card from “W. Höffert” listing two Berlin locations, Leipziger Platz 12 and Unter der Linden 24, and six other city locations

Figure 14. Backside of a Cabinet card from “V. Scheurich” photo studio in Berlin

Curious whether I could learn more about these studios, I again turned to Mr. Newerla for help on the ones in Ratibor. In response to my query, Paul sent the list of existing photo studios from Ratibor Address Books for three years, 1889 (Figures 15a-b), 1923 (Figures 16a-b), and 1938. (Figures 17a-b) The 1889 directory showed J.D.P. Platz was located at Oberwallstraße 8, while the 1923 and 1938 directories indicated “Helios” or “Photo-Helios,” owned by Hans Ogermann, the studio the reader had asked me about, at Lange Straße 10. Alfred Schiersch was also listed in the 1923 and 1938 directories but shown to be at two different addresses, Oberzborstraße 8, then Eisenbahnstraße 3. None of the directories listed Oskar Krispien.

Figure 15a. Cover of 1889 Ratibor Address Book listing existing photographic studios

Figure 15b. 1889 list of existing Ratibor photo studios

Figure 16a. Cover of 1923 Ratibor Address Book listing existing photographic studios

Figure 16b. 1923 list of existing Ratibor photo studios

Figure 17a. Cover of 1938 Ratibor Address Book listing existing photographic studios

Figure 17b. 1938 list of existing Ratibor photo studios

In addition to pages from various Ratibor Address Books, Paul sent me a link to “The Museum of Family History, Education and Research Center,” a virtual (Internet-only), multimedia, and interactive creation designed to help people learn more about modern Jewish history. Within this virtual museum is a link at “www.fotorevers.eu” to The Museum of Family History’s collection of over 3500 photos. This Polish and German language website documents by city the activities of photographers and their studios in the years 1850-1914; for Ratibor, it includes Jozef Axmann, Atelier Helios, and Platz Ph. (Figure 18), while for Berlin, W. Höffert is shown to be in multiple cities.

Figure 18. Page from “www.fotorevers.eu” website listing three Ratibor photos studios from which “The Museum of Family History, Education and Research Center” has pictures

The Cabinet card depicting my grandparents around the time they got married in 1894 was taken at the W. Höffert studio (Figure 19), which on the reverse side of the card lists locations in seven German cities though more are known. (Figure 13) A different Cabinet card picturing only my grandfather at about the same age was taken at the “V.Scheurich” studio in Berlin. (Figure 20) Possibly, both photos were made in Berlin, although the wedding picture could certainly have been taken in Breslau, closer to Ratibor. However, the fact that neither picture was taken in Ratibor made me wonder where my grandparents married. Both were born in Ratibor and owned the Bruck’s family hotel there; additionally, I have a poem written by my grandfather’s brother, Wilhelm “Willy” Bruck, in honor of his brother’s wedding on the 11^th of February 1894 that was printed in Ratibor, strongly suggesting my grandparents were married there. Yet, I had not previously found their wedding certificate at the Polish State Archives in Racibórz on two previous visits.

Figure 19. Cabinet card from “W. Höffert” in Berlin of my grandparents, Felix & Else Bruck, when they got married in 1894

Figure 20. Cabinet card from “V. Scheurich” in Berlin of my grandfather from around the same time as he got married in 1894

Knowing exactly the day my grandparents got married, I scoured the Landesarchiv Berlin database for their names but came up empty. Once again, I asked Paul Newerla whether he could check at the Polish State Archives in Racibórz for their wedding certificate on the off-chance I missed it, and sure enough he found it with ease. Possibly, my grandparents honeymooned in Berlin, and had their wedding photos taken there.

The reverse side of the Cabinet card from W. Höffert states: “Königlich Sächs., Königlich Preuss., Hof Photograph Sr. Königlich Hoh., Hof Photograph des Prinzen von Wales.” (i.e., Royal Saxon., Royal Preuss., Court Photographer Sr. Royal Dynasty Hohenzollern, Court Photographer of the Prince of Wales) In addition, there are three medals of merit or excellence illustrated on the Cabinet card. (Figure 13)

In the case of the Cabinet cards picturing my grandparents and their three children, since I know their vital statistics, they do not add to my knowledge of when specific events may have taken place or when they were born. However, for readers who may not have this information for their ancestors, knowing that Cabinet cards were in vogue between roughly 1866 and ca. 1914 may help narrow the window of time for which ancestral information is sought.

POST 67: THE SUSPICIOUSLY BRUTAL DEATHS OF MY FATHER’S PROTESTANT FRIENDS FROM DANZIG, GERHARD & ILSE HOPPE (PART I)

Note: This post is about two of my father’s former friends, non-Jews, from his time living in the Free State of Danzig in the 1930’s, and information I recently uncovered about their peculiar deaths.

Figure 1. My father, Dr. Otto Bruck, in Winter 1930-1931 in Danzig

Figure 2. My father, Dr. Otto Bruck, as a young dentist in Tiegenhof

My father, Dr, Otto Bruck, received his dental accreditation from the University of Berlin’s Zahnheilkunde Institut, Dentistry Institute, on the 31st of May 1930. This was followed by two brief dental apprenticeships, first in Königsbrück, in the Free State of Saxony, Germany, then in Allenstein, Germany [today: Olsztyn, Poland]. These lasted until about mid-August 1930 according to letters of recommendation written by the two respective dentists. My father did not open his own dental practice in Tiegenhof, Free State of Danzig [today: Nowy Dwór Gdański, Poland] until April 1932, so inasmuch as I can surmise from surviving letters and photos, my father spent the intervening period apprenticing in the Free City of Danzig. (Figures 1-2) He may have been mentored by a Dr. Fritz Bertram, a dentist whom he took pictures of (Figure 3) and who is identified by name in his surviving pocket calendar (Figure 4), the subject of Post 6.

Figure 3. Zahnarzt (dentist) Dr. Fritz Bertram sailing in the Bay of Danzig with friends on the 18th of April 1931; Dr. Bertram may have mentored my father

Figure 4. Page from my father’s 1932 Pocket Calendar listing a few names and phone numbers of business associates, notably, Dr. Fritz Bertram and Dr. Gerhard Hoppe

As a brief aside, my father’s decision to relocate to Danzig from Berlin may have been prompted by the fact he had an aunt and uncle who lived there, and that he was close to at least two of their three children (Figures 5-6), who interestingly I met when I was a young boy.

Figure 5. One of my father’s first cousins, Jeanne “Hansi” Goff née Loewenstein (1902-1986), on the 8th of March 1929 in Danzig, a cousin he may temporarily have stayed with while he was apprenticing there

Figure 6. Another of my father’s first cousins from Danzig, Heinz Loewenstein (1905-1979), brother of Hansi Goff

In any case, a gentleman whom my father befriended in Danzig was named Gerhard Hoppe. (Figure 7) As I discussed in Post 6, I learned from a 1934 Danzig Address Book that, like my father, he too was a dentist, in the adjacent town of Neuteich, Free State of Danzig [today: Nowy Staw, Poland] (Figure 8), 8.8 miles southwest of Tiegenhof. Possibly, Gerhard, who appears from pictures to have been about the same age as my father, may also have been a dental apprentice when he and my father became friends. (Figure 9)

Figure 7. The earliest of my father’s pictures of his former friend from Danzig, Dr. Gerhard Hoppe, with whom he may have apprenticed

Figure 8. Page from the 1934 Danzig Address Book listing dentists in the Free State of Danzig with both my father and Dr. Gerhard Hoppe from Neuteich listed; my father’s first name is erroneously listed as “Heinz” when his actual first name was “Otto” although the address of his dental practice, Markstrasse 8, is correct

Figure 9. Dr. Gerhard Hoppe as a young man

Figure 10. My father with Gerhard & Ilse Hoppe walking along Wollwebergasse in Danzig during the Winter of 1931-1932

Gerhard and his girlfriend Ilse (Figure 10) are among a group of my father’s former friends whose fates I’ve so far been unable to determine; pictures exist of all of them in my father’s surviving photo albums. These friends were non-Jewish, and I refer to them as “former” friends since during the Nazi era they would have been under enormous pressure to disassociate themselves from any Jews and any businesses they might have run. So, in the case of my father, I know that while he still had a few non-Jewish friends who whom he socialized, he no longer had any dental clients by the time he shuttered his practice and left Tiegenhof for good in 1937. The relationship he had with these erstwhile friends may have been more nuanced, but I don’t know this for a fact. Judging from the dates on my father’s pictures, after mid-1936, his circle of friends had narrowed considerably.

I’ve told readers that I periodically recheck these one-time friends’ names in ancestry.com and other ancestral databases. I recently did this again with Gerhard and Ilse, and, astoundingly, uncovered historic documents related to both. I tell myself I should perhaps be less surprised I discover new documents, and more bewildered I did not find them during earlier searches. Regardless, my recent finds have allowed me to sadly put to rest the fate of Gerhard and Ilse Hoppe. But, like most of the mysteries I seemingly resolve, they are like the mythological hydra, lop off one head and two grow in its place.

The search parameters I entered in ancestry.com were simply Gerhard’s first and last name, a place he might have lived, Danzig in this case, and the year I estimated he was born, so 1907, the same year my father was born. I immediately discovered his marriage certificate (Figures 11a-c), and the marriage register with he and his wife’s names, and their respective parents’ names. (Figure 12a-b)

Figure 11a. Ancestry.com cover page of Gerhard Hoppe & Ilse Hoppe née Grabowsky’s marriage certificate showing they were married on the 30th of July 1932 in Marienburg

Figure 11b. Page 1 of Gerhard Hoppe & Ilse Hoppe née Grabowsky’s marriage certificate

Figure 11c. Page 2 of Gerhard Hoppe & Ilse Hoppe née Grabowsky’s marriage certificate with the names of witnesses

Figure 12a. Ancestry.com cover page of marriage register listing for Gerhard Hoppe & Ilse Hoppe née Grabowsky

Figure 12b. Marriage register listing for Gerhard Hoppe & Ilse Hoppe née Grabowsky

The two-page marriage certificate, among other things, provides Gerhard’s complete name: “Gerhard Ludwig Rudolf Otto Hoppe”; his date of birth: 18th of February 1908; the date and place he was married: 30th of July 1932, Marienburg [today: Malbork, Poland] (Figure 13); his wife’s complete birth name: “Frida Charlotte Ilse Grabowsky” (also ending in “i” in some documents); his wife’s date of birth: 3rd of August 1907; and Gerhard’s profession: “Zahnarzt,” dentist. Three things instantly confirmed I had found the “right” Gerhard Hoppe: his date of birth off by one day from the date listed in my father’s pocket calendar (Figure 14), his wife’s name, Ilse, and his profession, dentist. Very likely, my father would have attended Gerhard and Ilse’s 1932 wedding. The second page of German marriage certificates typically list witnesses, but unfortunately my father’s name is not among them.

Figure 13. Photo taken by my father of the Castle of the Teutonic Order in Marienburg, today Malbork, the town where Gerhard & Ilse Hoppe were married in 1932

Figure 14. Page from my father’s 1932 Pocket Calendar showing Gerhard’s Hoppe birthday was on the 17th of February when in fact it was on the 18th of February

I would eventually locate documents for three generations of Gerhard and Ilse’s ancestors.

Now, here’s where things began to seriously stray from my preconceived notion of Gerhard and Ilse’s fates. With Ilse’s maiden name in hand, “Grabowsky,” I was now able to search entries for her. The first document I found for her was her death certificate showing she’d died on the 15th of April 1940 in the Langfuhr borough of Danzig (Figures 15a-b), known today as Gdansk-Wrzeszcz, the most upscale of Danzig’s boroughs, then and now. This document shows she died at less than 33 years of age, somewhat surprising but perhaps not so unusual given wartime realities. Shortly after discovering Ilse’s death certificate, I found Gerhard’s death record, showing he’d died on the 27th of July 1941 (Figures 16a-b), a little more than a year after his wife, also in Danzig-Langfuhr; at the time of his death he was 33, only slightly older than his wife had been. To say I was stupefied learning Ilse and Gerhard Hoppe had died so young, so soon after one another, and outside the theater of war would be an understatement.

Figure 15a. Ancestry.com cover page of Ilse Hoppe née Grabowsky’s death certificate identifying her parents, whom she pre-deceased, as Richard Grabowky(i) & Else Grabowsky(i) née Ehmer

Figure 15b. Ilse Hoppe née Grabowsky’s death certificate showing she supposedly committed suicide on the 15th of April 1940 in Danzig (her cause of death is circled)

Figure 16a. Ancestry.com cover page of Gerhard Hoppe’s death certificate, listing his parents, whom he pre-deceased, as Otto Hoppe & Anna Hoppe née Birkholz

Figure 16b. Gerhard Hoppe’s death certificate showing he died on the 27th of July 1941 in Danzig (his cause of death is circled)

Immediately curious as to whether the death certificates listed their causes of death, I turned to Mr. Peter Hanke. He is a German gentleman from “forum.danzig.de” with whom I’m in touch and who’d recently offered to ask the Polish archive in Malbork, Poland for death certificates for some of my father’s former friends, including Gerhard and Ilse Hoppe. I wanted to let him know I’d found their death certificates and ask if the records stated how they died. The answer left both of us horrified and saddened.

Ilse Hoppe’s cause of death was listed as:

“Todesursache: Durchschneiden der Halsschlagader (Selbstmord)” (Figure 15b)

Cause of death: cutting through the carotid artery (suicide)

And, Gerhard Hoppe’s death was caused by:

“Todesursache: Schädelbruch und komplizierter Oberschenkelbruch links- und rechtsseitig” (Figure 16b)

Cause of death: skull fracture and complicated thigh fracture on the left and right sides

Gerhard and Ilse Hoppe’s deaths leave us with more questions than answers given their extreme violence; they seem more like murders than suicides or health-related deaths.

According to Peter Hanke, an implausible but not impossible explanation as to the cause of Gerhard’s death may relate to the location of his apartment. I mentioned above that a 1934 Danzig Address Book indicates Gerhard was a dentist in Neuteich, Free State of Danzig, although by 1940-1941, a Danzig Address Book shows he’d relocated to Danzig proper and lived at Karrenwall 5 (Figure 17); he is not listed in the 1939 Address Book (Figure 18), suggesting he moved to Danzig in 1940 before Ilse’s death (i.e., Ilse commits suicide in Danzig, not Neuteich). Old German Address Books list people alphabetically as well as by street address and occupation, and, interestingly, in 1940-1941, Karrenwall 5 shows that not only did Gerhard Hoppe reside there but so too did numerous bureaus of the Nazi Party, the NSDAP (Figure 19), a trend that continues into 1942. (Figure 20) Could it be that the Nazi Party wanted Gerhard’s apartment, and was not squeamish about asserting its interests? We may never know. Unfortunately, contemporary Danzig newspapers have not yet been digitized, although by 1941 the news outlets were most assuredly controlled by the Nazis and are not likely to provide an accurate portrayal of what might have happened to Gerhard.

Figure 17. Page from 1940-1941 Danzig Address Book showing Dr. Gerhard Hoppe’s dental office was located at “Theaterplace 30” while his apartment was at “Karrenwall 5”

Figure 18. Page from 1939 Danzig Address Book listing tenants at Karrenwall 5 that year

Figure 19. Page from 1940-1941 Danzig Address Book listing tenants at Karrenwall 5 that year, including Dr. Gerhard Hoppe and various bureaus of the Nazi Party, the NSDAP

Figure 20. Page from 1942 Danzig Address Book, the year following Dr. Gerhard Hoppe’s death, showing Karrenwall 5 still housed various bureaus of the Nazi Party, the NSDAP

There exists a database of displaced Germans refugees from the former province of Danzig-Westpreußen, Germany, now Gdańsk and Bydgoszcz provinces in Poland, referred to as “Heimatortskartei, (HOK)” that include images of a civil register (handwritten and printed works); more than 20 million persons are included in these card files arranged by the town of origin. I discussed this database in Post 38. Peter Hanke checked the name “Hoppe” for Danzig, and, incredibly found HOK cards for Gerhard and Ilse’s daughter, Gisela Hoppe, born on the 24th of November 1939 in Danzig (Figure 21), and for Gerhard Hoppe’s parents, Otto Hoppe and Anna Hoppe née Birkholz (Figures 22a-b), who raised Gisela after her parents’ deaths. The timing of Ilse Hoppe’s supposed suicide less than a year after her daughter’s birth makes the cause of her death even more suspicious.

Figure 21. “Heimatortskartei, (HOK)” (File of Displaced Germans) card for Gerhard & Ilse Hoppe’s daughter, Gisela Hoppe, born on the 24th of November 1939, showing that in 1958 she lived in Bad Harzburg, Germany

Figure 22a. Front side of “Heimatortskartei, (HOK)” (File of Displaced Germans) card for Gerhard’s father, Otto Hoppe, showing his granddaughter Gisela Hoppe’s address in 1958

Figure 22b. Back side of “Heimatortskartei, (HOK)” (File of Displaced Germans) card for Otto Hoppe listing his wife, Anna Hoppe née Birkholz, and granddaughter, Gisela Hoppe

Gisela is shown living in Bad Harzburg, Germany in May 1958. As I prepare to publish this post, just this morning I learned that Gisela, who is about to turn 80 years of age towards the end of November, is still alive. As we speak, I’m trying to establish contact with her and share the multiple images I have of her parents. (Figures 23-24) Watch this space for Part II of the story!

Figure 23. Gerhard & Ilse Hoppe on the beach in Zoppot, Germany [today: Sopot, Poland]

POST 62: THE FAR-FLUNG SEARCH FOR MY FATHER’S FIRST COUSIN, HEINZ LUDWIG BERLINER

Note: In this Blog post I detail the extensive efforts I’ve undertaken trying to uncover information on one of my father’s first cousins, a man named Heinz Berliner. In connection with this quest, I’ve communicated with individuals or accessed documents and databases in Poland, Germany, Argentina, Bolivia and Australia, as well as domestically in California, New York and Ohio.

Figure 1. My grandmother Else Bruck née Berliner (1873-1957) in 1925

Berliner was the maiden name of my father’s mother, that’s to say my grandmother, Else Bruck née Berliner (1873-1957). (Figure 1) She had a younger brother, Alfred Max Berliner (1875-1921), who had three children, Peter Hermann Berliner (1910-1977) (Figure 2), Pauline Ilse Berliner (1911-1981) (Figure 3), and another son named Heinz Berliner whose existence I learned about only in 2011. His name was mentioned in a document given to me by my third cousin once-removed, Larry Leyser, written by his grandmother, Kate Leyser née Rosenthal (1903-1992) (Figure 4), discussing various family members; with respect to Heinz, Kate only recorded he’d committed suicide in South America, no year nor place specified.

Figure 2. Peter Hermann Berliner (1910-1977)

Figure 3. My father, Dr. Otto Bruck, with his first cousin, Pauline Ilse Berliner (1911-1981)

Figure 4. Kate Leyser née Rosenthal (1903-1992), my cousin Larry Leyser’s grandmother, the source of the information on Heinz Berliner’s existence

Heinz’s siblings, Peter and Ilse, I’d known about since I was a child, as my parents had infrequent contact with them in New York where they lived; I was easily able to find information on both in ancestry.com, and eventually even located some of their descendants. Regarding Heinz I found nothing, although, in retrospect, knowing he’d wound up in South America, I’m not entirely surprised. I’d hoped that if he’d made his way to the southern hemisphere via New York, there would be some record of this, but such was not the case. To cover myself, I checked the Yad Vashem Victims’ Database, but fortunately there was no indication he’d perished in the Holocaust.

Having established contact with Peter and Ilse Berliner’s offspring, naturally, I asked them if they had any letters, pictures, family lore, etc. that might suggest where Heinz Berliner wound up in South America. The only piece of physical evidence the family ultimately found in February 2018 was a playbill or theatre program with Heinz Berliner handwritten above the stage name he’d apparently used, “Enry Berloc,” showing he performed as a dancer at the “Teatro Municipal” on the 19th of March 1948 (Figure 5); the Teatro Municipal is located in Buenos Aires, Argentina, as it turns out. I’ll return to this later.

Figure 5. March 19, 1948 playbill from the Teatro Municipal in Buenos Aires showing Heinz Berliner’s stage name, Enry Berloc

Knowing Heinz Berliner had a connection to Argentina, I turned my attention to try and find someone in the Jewish community there who might be able to track down evidence of his immigration or death in that country. I started by contacting the Argentine Consulate, then two governmental entities to whom they’d referred me, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs & Worship of the Argentine Republic (http://mrecic.gov.ar/en), and the Dirección Nacional de Migraciones (Immigration Office in Argentina) (https://Argentina.gob.ar). Next, I emailed Jewish Buenos Aires (contact@JewishBuenosAires.com), who referred me to AMIA (www.amia.org.ar), which is the main institution of the Jewish community in Argentina. Beyond learning from the Immigration Office in Argentina that records through 1953 show no evidence Heinz Berliner ever registered there, the other contacts bore no fruit.

Aware Heinz Berliner, or at least his alter-ego Enry Berloc, had been involved in the arts, I stumbled upon a website developed by Argentina’s Ministry of Culture of the Nation called “El Sur del Sur: Argentina el Pais su Cultura y su Gente,” “The Southernmost South: Argentina, the country, its culture and its people” (https://surdelsur.com/en/sections/people/). I was hoping the staff might point me to a cultural organization that maintains records of past cultural events. While the staff there proved to be exceptionally helpful, going so far as to check the database of the “Centro de Estudios Migratorios Latinoamericanos” (http://cemla.com.buscador) for any Berliners who’d immigrated to Argentina, ultimately this too proved futile. Thus, ended with no positive results around March 2018 my initial flurry of activity trying to track down Heinz Berliner in Argentina.

I resumed my quest again in October 2018 by asking Madeleine Isenberg, my contact at the Los Angeles Jewish Genealogical Society (LAJGS), of which I’m a member, for suggestions on how to proceed. Madeleine suggested I post a message to the Latin-American SIG, https://www.jewishgen.org/InfoFiles/LatAmSIG.html, which is precisely what I did. JewishGen hosts web pages for several “Special Interest Groups” (SIGs), whose interest is a geographic region of origin, or special topic. While Latin-American SIG was able to refer me to a few Berliners living in Buenos Aires, none of them had any known relationship to Heinz Berliner.

In addition to JewishGen hosting Special Interest Groups, they also have the “Family Tree of the Jewish People (FJTP),” where they centralize the collection of Jewish family trees. As of March 2017, they had collected 7,310,620 records from 6,266 family trees. I was able to locate a Berliner family tree, and contacted the family tree manager, who happens to live in Australia. After explaining what I was looking for, the tree manager put me in touch with yet another Berliner living in Buenos Aires, but, again, to no avail.

Let me switch gears for a moment. As readers can ascertain, the discussion above has been focused on my efforts to ascertain where Heinz Berliner emigrated in South America during or following WWII and when he might have died or killed himself. As frustrating as that search turns out to have been, trying to learn when and where Heinz Berliner was born, has been equally challenging.

Figure 6. Alfred Max Berliner’s (1875-1921) headstone from the former Jewish Cemetery in Ratibor

As mentioned above, Peter, Ilse and Heinz Berliner’s father was Alfred Max Berliner, who died in 1921 in Ratibor and was interred in the former Jewish Cemetery there (Figure 6); Alfred’s wife, Charlotte Berliner née Rothe, was murdered in the Holocaust in 1943. I talked about her in Post 18. On ancestry.com, I found Alfred and Charlotte Berliner’s marriage certificate (Figures 7a-c) and discovered they were married the 17th of January 1909, not in Ratibor, Germany, where they lived, but rather in a place called Meseritz, Germany [today: Międzyrzecz, Poland]. In 2015, I found the birth certificates for Alfred and Charlotte’s two eldest children, Peter (Figure 8) and Ilse (Figure 9), among the vital records at the Archiwum Państwowe W Katowicach Oddzial W Raciborzu (“State Archives in Katowice Branch in Racibórz”); these certificates show Peter was born in Ratibor on the 8th of November 1910, and Ilse on the 1st of October 1911, thus about eleven months apart. Oddly, I was never able to locate Heinz’s birth certificate, though I assumed he too had been born in Ratibor.

Figure 7a. Copy of page 1 of Alfred and Charlotte Berliner’s 1909 marriage certificate (downloaded from ancestry.com, duplicate originating from the court in Berlin-Köpenick)

Figure 7b. Copy of page 2 of Alfred and Charlotte Berliner’s 1909 marriage certificate (downloaded from ancestry.com, duplicate originating from the court in Berlin-Köpenick)

Figure 7c. Translation of Alfred and Charlotte Berliner’s marriage certificate

Figure 8. Peter Hermann Berliner’s birth certificate showing he was born in Ratibor on the 8th of November 1910

Figure 9. Pauline Ilse Berliner’s birth certificate showing she was born in Ratibor on the 1st of October 1911

Fast forward. I revisited the State Archives in Racibórz in 2018, and double-checked for Heinz’s birth certificate, with equally disappointing results. Following my visit, Paul Newerla, the Silesian historian from Racibórz who occasionally helps me out, also systematically re-examined the birth records for Ratibor from 1897 through 1918 and likewise came up empty-handed. It became evident Heinz may have been born elsewhere, perhaps in the town of Meseritz where his parents were married in January 1909. Aware this might have happened, I sent an email to Międzyrzecz, Poland, formerly Meseritz, asking whether they could search their archives for Heinz’s birth certificate. They responded telling me their vital records are archived in Gorzów Wielkoplski, Poland [German: Landsberg an der Warthe], and are accessible on-line. Paul and I immediately checked the database and again could not locate any record of Heinz’s birth.

To remind readers, birth records in Poland and Germany are not generally available until approximately 110 years after a person’s birth; at present, birth records for Meseritz are only available through 1907. Even if Heinz was born in 1908 before his parents married, his birth record will not be on-line until 2020. At the time, other possibilities came to mind. Perhaps, Heinz’s father was not Alfred, in which case he would have his mother’s maiden name, Rothe, or alternatively he was born in a place other than Meseritz or Ratibor. Paul and I decided then to wait until 2020 to again check the on-line vital records for Meseritz.

In the course of scrolling through the vital records for Meseritz, I made a mildly interesting discovery. As previously mentioned, I originally found Alfred and Charlotte Berliner’s marriage record in ancestry.com. (Figures 7a-b) Knowing when they got married, I searched for this exact record to test my ability to use the Gorzów database and had no trouble finding it. (Figures 10a-b) However, in comparing the two hand-written versions of the marriage record, I discovered they are slightly different though written by the same hand. I asked Paul Newerla about this. He explained the registration office, Meseritz in the case of the marriage between Alfred Berliner and Charlotte Rothe, kept the original certificate. As a precaution, the registration office was compelled to create a duplicate, which was submitted at the end of the year to the court, likely one in the Berlin borough of Köpenick with jurisdiction over Meseritz. The same thing was true of Ratibor; often original certificates in the registration offices have been destroyed and only copies survive, upon which a note is made to this effect.

Figure 10a. Copy of page 1 of Alfred and Charlotte Berliner’s original marriage certificate from the Gorzów, Poland on-line database

Figure 10b. Copy of page 2 of Alfred and Charlotte Berliner’s original marriage certificate from the Gorzów, Poland on-line database

Hal Bookbinder, former President of JGSLA, recently emailed members reminding them they have free access to MyHeritage, explaining they’ve recently strengthened ship manifest searches to allow queries not only for the names of passengers but for where they were headed. I’ve rarely accessed this database, erroneously assuming it replicates information found in ancestry.com, but decided to run a test using Heinz Berliner’s name. I was utterly astonished, when after all this time searching for him, a page entitled “German Minority Census, 1939” listed a man by the name of Heinz Ludwig Berliner born on the 24th of September 1916 in Ratibor. (Figure 11) While this Heinz was born where I would have expected, two things gave me pause. First, Berliner was not an uncommon surname in Silesia, and, second, neither Paul Newerla nor I had previously found Heinz Berliner’s birth record in the State Archives in Racibórz. Nonetheless, I relayed this information to Paul and armed with a precise date of birth for this Heinz Ludwig Berliner, he offered to reexamine the Ratibor birth records. Yet again, Paul could not initially find Heinz’s name in the register of births, but suspecting something might be amiss, he requested the book with the actual birth certificates. And, there it was, Heinz’s birth certificate confirming his parents were Alfred and Charlotte Berliner and that he’d indeed been born in the same town as his two siblings. (Figure 12)

Figure 11. Page from MyHeritage ancestral database entitled “German Minority Census, 1939,” showing a Heinz Ludwig Berliner born in Ratibor on the 24th of September 1916, living in Berlin-Charlottenburg at the time, having emigrated to Bolivia

Figure 12. Heinz Ludwig Berliner’s birth certificate confirming he was born on the 24th of September 1916 to Alfred and Charlotte Berliner

This has been a long exhaustive search that has not ended with the discovery of Heinz Ludwig Berliner’s birth certificate. Besides providing Heinz’s date and place of birth, the German Minority Census, 1939 report included his middle name and two other previously unknown bits of information; it shows that in 1939 Heinz was living in the Charlottenburg Borough of Berlin and that he emigrated to Bolivia. Thus, began my most recent flurry of activity trying to track down when and where Heinz might have died.

First, I checked the 1939 Berlin Address Book for Heinz Berliner, as well as for his mother and two siblings, operating under the assumption they may all have been forced to live together in this increasingly risky period. Nothing showed up.

Next, I again turned to Ms. Madeline Isenberg, my contact at JGSLA, asking if she could refer me to anyone in the Jewish community in Bolivia, a South American country where I’ve never previously sought any relatives. She suggested I contact the Bolivian affiliate of the World Jewish Congress, Circulo Israelita De La Paz (https://www.worldjewishcongress.org/en/about/communities/BO), which I promptly did. The latter bureau sent a very gracious reply unfortunately informing me that Bolivia does not maintain any immigration records, suggesting I contact AMIA in Argentina, which readers will recall I had previously done. Circulo Israelita also checked Jewish death records for La Paz and Cochabamba, Bolivia, but nothing showed up.

When I again contacted AMIA, they referred me to Agrupación de Genealogía Judeo-Argentina (AGJA), which among other things, “facilitates the linking of the genealogical and historical roots of the Argentine Jewish Community with the global community, facilitating the reunification of disconnected families.” AGJA referred me to multiple websites and organizations, many of which I’d previously checked and reexamined, once more with negative results.

As readers can attest, with the information currently in hand, I’ve taken the search in South America for the fate of my father’s first cousin as far as I can.

I mentioned above the August 1948 dance recital in Buenos Aires in which Heinz Berliner, using the stage name Enry Berloc, performed. I searched for his co-performers, actress and dancer Witha Herm and pianist Kurt Kohn, hoping Heinz might have participated in other recitals with them. I was unable to locate any information on Kurt Kohn. However, Witha Herm (Figures 13-14), also a stage name, died and is interred in North Hollywood, California as Herma Wittmann (1907-1992). Her small claim to fame may be that in 1919, she acted in a German movie, Im Schatten des Glücks, which also starred Marlene Dietrich.

Figure 13. Information from “Find-A-Grave” on Witha Herm, Heinz Berliner’s 1948 co-performer, indicating she was born in 1907, died in in 1992, and is buried in North Hollywood, California

Figure 14. Witha Herm (left) with a friend

There are several take-aways for me from this exhaustive search for Heinz Ludwig Berliner. Because information is constantly being added to the ancestral databases, it is worth checking back every few months or once a year to see whether anything new shows up. Don’t assume, as I mistakenly did, that MyHeritage and ancestry.com replicate information. Searching for one’s Jewish ancestors who wound up in South America will be challenging, time-consuming, and often unproductive. And, the biggest admonition to myself, using a German word Mr. Paul Newerla, my Polish friend, taught me, “don’t act like a ‘besserwisser,’ a know-it-all,” just because you’ve been doing ancestral research for years!

POST 61: THE WOINOWITZ ZUCKERFABRIK (SUGAR FACTORY) OUTSIDE RATIBOR (PART IV-GRUNDBUCH (LAND REGISTER))

Note: In this post, I explore some of the information Mr. Paul Newerla, the Racibórz historian, was able to find related to the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik (Sugar Factory) in what is called the “Grundbuch,” or land register, discuss where this information currently resides, and how it rounds out my understanding of the history and ownership of the sugar plant over the years. I also explain to readers that even had I been able to access the land register and backup files on my own, I would have been hard-pressed to make much sense of the materials without the intercession of a lawyer familiar with German real estate law. Mr. Newerla happens to be a retired Polish lawyer who, by virtue of his profession and current study of Silesian history, is well versed in such matters.

Mr. Paul Newerla, my friend from Racibórz, Poland, is a retired lawyer who now specializes in studying and writing about the history of Silesia. Regular readers will recognize his name as I’ve mentioned him in numerous posts related to Ratibor, Germany, the town in Upper Silesia where my father was born in 1907. Perhaps, one of the biggest unintended benefits of having a family history Blog is that Paul stumbled upon it in the course of doing research and reached out to me through Webmail to offer supplementary historical information on the Bruck’s “Prinz von Preußen” Hotel which I’d written about. This family establishment was owned through what I’ve determined to be three generations, from roughly the mid-19th Century through the early 1920’s. Our initial exchanges involved the Bruck’s Hotel but have far transcended this subject.

Figure 1. Silesian historian, Paul Newerla, and me in 2018 standing by the historic statue of John of Nepomuk, located in the middle of a parking lot in Racibórz

I had the pleasure of personally meeting Paul in 2018 on a visit to Racibórz. (Figure 1) As an aside, I realize many fellow genealogists may never have the opportunity nor resources to visit the places one’s ancestors hail from, but I can’t emphasize enough the value of “having boots on the ground,” so to speak, to further one’s ancestral investigations, as this post will illustrate. It’s worth mentioning that Paul does not speak English, nor do I speak German, so we are compelled to use a few on-line translators to communicate, which presents its own challenges but is far better than nothing.

Figure 2. The Woinowitz sugar factory as it looked in the early 1900’s

As I began to research the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik (Figure 2), I naturally turned to Paul to ask him about the sugar plant’s history. He sent me numerous maps and visuals and provided valuable context for understanding the extent of the sugar industry in Silesia and its influence on the development of railroads; I’ve discussed these topics in earlier posts on the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik. I was specifically interested in what Paul might be able to tell me about the sale by or confiscation of the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik from its Jewish owners, the timing, the names of the sellers, and the price for which the business was sold. While he knew little about these matters, coincidentally, during his lawyering days, Paul had handled the legal sale of the former Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik between Polish parties. For this reason, he knew that while the sale of the sugar plant may well have been compelled by the Nazis, the later Polish owners had valid legal rights. Likely, the Nazi overlords wanted to handle the forced sale with a veneer of “legality” by paying the Jewish owners something for their business, even if that payment was vastly below fair market value.

Figure 3. Entrance to the “Archiwum Państwowe w Katowicach Oddział w Raciborzu”

By virtue of Paul’s previous involvement with the sale of the former Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik, he knew that the “Grundbuch,” that is the land register, is archived in the Archiwum Państwowe W Katowicach Oddzial W Raciborzu (“State Archives in Katowice Branch in Racibórz”). (Figure 3) The Grundbuch in Germany, including former parts of Germany that are now within Poland, shows the names of the current and previous owners, third party rights in rem (e.g., mortgages), and the description of the property. Land registers were kept for real estate or land, and included, as will be discussed below, the buildings and structures found on the land.

The land registry is a special division of the local German district court (i.e., Grundbuchamt beim Amtsgericht), and land registers are kept in Poland’s counterpart courts even today. Changes of rights to land do not go into effect until they have been recorded in the land register, although some exceptions apply (e.g. an heir becomes owner of a property even if he or she is not registered in the land register). Unless proven otherwise, the correctness of all titles recorded in the Grundbuch is assumed and a buyer can rely on its accuracy.

The old German land registers have been continued by the Polish court, naturally in Polish, and slightly modified in concept. The basic German land register was a thick book with sections for: I. Directory of Properties, II. Owner(s), III. Rights of other persons (e.g., rights of use, real burdens), and IV. Mortgages. The land registers were kept in court in case they were needed there. The documents justifying the individual entries in the land register were in the so-called “files to the land register,” and were held in the archives of the court; notes were made in the files but in the event of a discrepancy between the land register and the files, the former took precedence. In the 1960’s, Polish land registers were introduced that were organized differently; sections I-IV above were retained except they were kept in individual volumes, and in the back of each volume, the documents justifying the entries were maintained. As a result, files to the land registers in the court archives were no longer needed there so were turned over to the State Archives after several years.

There is one other distinction Paul brought to my attention I need to mention. There is also a “Handelregister,” or commercial register, that is maintained by what are called “Registergerichten,” Commercial Register Courts, that’s to say, regional courts above district courts. The Handelregister records “legal persons” of a company, including Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung (GmbH), a limited liability company, or LLC. The name of the GmbH emphasizes the fact that the owners (Gesellschafter, also known as members) of the entity are not personally liable or responsible for the company’s debts. GmbHs are considered legal persons. The Handelregister for the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik is not available today for reasons that are unclear.

All the above is just background information that will understandably be of scant interest to most readers. Let me continue.

Prior to my queries, Paul had tried for some time to access the land register for the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik. He was aware that German land registers, Grundbucher, are archived at the State Archives in Racibórz. The status of these registers is they have not yet been catalogued and therefore are not available to researchers. My interest in the sugar plant renewed Paul’s attempt to gain access to the plant’s Grundbuch, and, as Paul characterizes it, he finally “was allowed into the camp” to search for it; this was only possible because of his longstanding relationship with the State Archives in Racibórz. Paul found it under the number “Woinowitz Sheet 161.” (Figure 4) Fortunately, the land register includes the supporting files or documentation turned over by the Polish court.

Figure 4. Cover of the Woinowitz Grundbuch Paul Newerla found at the State Archives in Racibórz

Paul photographed and sent me copies of the documents he deemed of greatest value and spent a good deal of time explaining their content and significance. I want to believe that in describing some of what Paul found in the Grundbuch and the auxiliary files, I’ve mostly done justice conveying this to readers, although I welcome readers’ input if I’ve failed in this regard.

Figure 5 shows the size of the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik under the column “Größe.” It was 5.44.10 hectares in size, or 13.44 acres.

Figure 5. The size of the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik shown under the column “Größe, as 5.44.10 hectares, or 13.44 acres

As alluded to earlier, a Grundbuch is kept for land and shows the structural components located on the property. In the case of the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik, the extent of the property and the current value of the structural components is shown on Figure 6. The left-hand column of the table below is a German transcription of the structures listed and the right-hand column provides a rough translation and in a few instances some explanation in brackets:

Figure 6. Page from the Woinowitz Grundbuch listing the structural components of the sugar plant corresponding to the table below

GERMAN	ENGLISH
1. Acker, Weide, Graben, Weg, sowie Hofraum“ – was vom Grundbuch “Polnisch Woinowitz” [der früher Ortsnamen] Blatt 60 abgezweigt wurde. Dieses Blatt 60 umfasste Grundstücke des “Dominiums Woinowitz.”	1. Field, willow, ditch, path/way, courtyard space—which were diverted from the land register “Polish Woinowitz” [the former place name] Sheet 60. [Sheet 60 included plots of land of the “Dominium Woinowitz”]
a. Zuckerfabrik mit Maschinen und Kesselhaus	a. Sugar factory with machine and boiler house
b. Gasanstalt	b. Gasworks
c. Eisenbahnwaagehaus	c. Railway scale house
d. Comptoir (Büro) mit Waagehaus	d. Office with scale house [another scale house where incoming sugar beets and outgoing processed sugar were weighed]
e. Rohproduktionshaus mit Wohnung	e. Raw production house with apartment
f. Rohproduktionshaus	f. Raw production house
g. Stall mit Remise und Werkstätten	g. Stable with drawer and workshops

The table below corresponds to the text on Figure 7, and shows the various names for the sugar factory over time, the owners, and the reason for the acquisition or name change:

Figure 7. Page from the Woinowitz Grundbuch showing the name changes of the sugar plant over time corresponding to the table below

GERMAN	ENGLISH
1. Woinowitz’er Zuckerfabrik Adolph Schück & Comp. zu Woinowitz — Auf Grund der Auflassung vom 24-ten eingetragen am 30-ten Mai 1881 Der Name der Firma ist geändert und lautet jetzt „Woinowitz’er Zuckerfabrik Adolf Schück & Co. Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung zu Woinowitz bei Ratibor O/S.“ [O/S = Oberschlesien] — Eingetragen am 21. Oktober 1910 Nr. 2 statt Nr. 1 nach dem Rezess vom 29. Dezember 1923 eingetragen am 20. Februar 1925. Weihendorfer Zuckerfabrik, Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung Weihendorf Kreis Ratibor — Auf Grund der Firmenänderung eingetragen am 13. August 1938.	1.Woinowitz’er Sugar Factory Adolph Schück & Comp. to Woinowitz — On the basis of the 24th injunction on 30th May 1881 The name of the company has been changed and is now “Woinowitz’er Zuckerfabrik Adolf Schück & Co. Gesellschaft with limited liability to Woinowitz near Ratibor O/S.” [O/S = Upper Silesia] — Registered on 21st October 1910 [FIGURE 8] No. 2 instead of No. 1 registered on 20th February 1925 after the recess of 29th December 1923. Weihendorfer Zuckerfabrik, limited liability company Weihendorf district Ratibor — Due to the change in the company registered on 13th August 1938.
2. Die Ratiborer Zuckerfabrik, Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung in Ratibor — Aufgelassen am 26. Februar 1942 und eingetragen am 25. Februar 1943.	2.The Ratibor Sugar Factory, limited liability company in Ratibor — Abandoned on 26th February 1942 and registered on 25th February 1943.
3. Die Landwirtschaftliche Warenzentrale Oberschlesien /Raiffeisen) eGmbH in Oppeln — Aufgelassen am 11 Dezember 1942 und eingetragen am 25. Februar 1943.	3. The Agricultural Goods Centre Upper Silesia /Raiffeisen) eGmbH in Opole — Abandoned on 11th December 1942 and registered on 25th February 1943.

Figure 8. Letterhead from the time the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik was known as the “Woinowitz’er Zuckerfabrik Adolf Schück & Co. GmbH”

Paul provided some additional explanation about the land register and the auxiliary files. He’d hoped to find documents there about the possible expropriation of the sugar plant from the Schück family. However, Paul discovered the files relate only to the actual entries in the land register, and because no mention of the forced sale of the plant by the Nazis is found in the original land register, therefore, no documentation exists in the land register’s backup files.

The land register recorded changes of ownership; in the case of private sales, the purchase contract would be found in the files of the land register. However, because the Zuckerfabrik was a GmbH or an LLC, changes in ownership were recorded in the Handelregister, the commercial register, and the courts notified of such changes via a letter. The change in the name of the LLC could result from new ownership or possibly new shareholders that came into a company. Regardless, a change in the company’s name in the commercial register of the GmbH (LLC) also caused a change in the name of the company in the land register.

Let me provide an example as this may be confusing to readers. If Adolph Schück individually owned a plot of land, it was recorded in the land register under his name. If, on the other hand, Mr. Schück formed a GmbH, which he eventually did and could do even as a single person, he could transfer that property as a non-cash deposit into the GmbH which would then be recorded in the Handelregister. Adolph Schück’s name was also then deleted from the Grundbuch and the GmbH registered in place of his name as the owner of the property. The obvious advantage, as previously mentioned, was that Mr. Schück was no longer personally liable or responsible for the company’s debts.

From earlier posts on the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik, readers may recall that Sigmund Hirsch was Adolph Schück’s partner in the sugar plant. I was even able to read his name on several pages Paul sent from the State Archives in Racibórz, so asked whether he was an equal partner. Paul reminded me this information and the size of Sigmund’s investment would be found in the commercial register, which we don’t have access to. However, Paul drew my attention to a four-page document he found at the State Archives, dated the 15th of January 1908, which indirectly answers my question. (Figures 9a-d) Initially, the capital shares owned by Schück and Hirsch were unequal. According to this document, Sigmund Hirsch was obliged to use his annual dividends, which exceeded 27,000 Reichmarks (RM), to increase his capital share of the business until they were equal partners. Additionally, because there was such a large difference in the number of shares owned by the two men, Sigmund Hirsch obtained a security mortgage in the amount of 400,000 RM payable to Adolph Schück.

Figure 9a. First page of four-page document last dated January 15, 1908 spelling out the terms of payments to bring Sigmund Hirsch’s shares in the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik equal to those of Adolph Schück

Figure 9b. Second page of four-page document last dated January 15, 1908 spelling out the terms of payments to bring Sigmund Hirsch’s shares in the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik equal to those of Adolph Schück

Figure 9c. Third page of four-page document last dated January 15, 1908 spelling out the terms of payments to bring Sigmund Hirsch’s shares in the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik equal to those of Adolph Schück

Figure 9d. Last page of four-page document last dated January 15, 1908 spelling out the terms of payments to bring Sigmund Hirsch’s shares in the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik equal to those of Adolph Schück

In addition to official partners, Paul explained there were also “silent” partners. They invested their money, presumably reaped a portion of the sugar plant’s profits, but were not recorded in the commercial register. Often, these silent partners were members of the Board of Directors or agents of the company.

Naturally, I was curious whether the land register and/or the backup files indicated in which year the Nazis forced the sale of the Zuckerfabrik and was reminded this information would also be found in the Handelregister. Yet again, however, one document from the State Archives gives an indirect clue; it shows that on the 26th of September 1938, the company name changed to “Weihendorfer Zuckerfabrik GmbH” without “Adolf Schück & Co.” (Figure 10), likely corresponding to the end of the Schück family’s stake in the sugar plant. To remind readers, less than three months later December 18, 1938, Erich Schück, Adolph’s son and probable managing director of the sugar plant, killed himself in Berlin. I don’t think the timing is coincidental.

Figure 10. Letterhead from the time the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik was known as the “Weihendorfer Zuckerfabrik GmbH” without the name “Adolf Schück & Co.”

As to the value of the sugar plant in 1938, I remarked to Paul that its value of 189,800 RM seemed low. (Figure 11) He pointed out that while a 1943 letter from the tax office used roughly this same value for that plot of land, it also showed “assets and working capital” of 2,269,351 RM minus unspecified “deductions” of 1,247,223 RM. (Figures 12a-b) To remind readers, in January 2017, a 1937 Reichsmark would have been worth approximately $4.30. Clearly, the income generated by the Zuckerfabrik was significant, and it’s very likely the Jewish owners sold at a significant loss and the heirs never adequately compensated.

Figure 11. Letter dated 30th of August 1938 indicating the “unit value” of the then-named “Weihendorfer Zuckerfabrik” as 189,800 Reichmarks

Figure 12a. First page of letter from the “Finanzamt Ratibor,” Ratibor Tax Office, dated the 22nd of January 1943

Figure 12b. Second page of letter from the “Finanzamt Ratibor,” Ratibor Tax Office, dated the 22nd of January 1943, showing the value of the sugar factory, as well as its “assets and working capital” (i.e., 2,269,351 RM) minus unspecified “deductions” (i.e., 1,247,223 RM)

Suffice it to say, at the risk of presenting information that would be of no interest to most readers, there are many more documents in the files to the land register that seemingly relate to contracts and financial matters.

I’ve previously alluded to the fact that knowing someone who is familiar with the “landscape” of archival and documentary resources available for an area one’s ancestors originated from can significantly expand one’s understanding of things. I erroneously assumed the land register for the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik from the State Archives in Racibórz was the extent of documentary information available; what I initially failed to comprehend is that the original land register for the sugar plant still exists and is retained by the local district court in Poland.

Paul accessed the original Grundbuch and was able to glean additional information not available from the copy of the land register and files in the State Archives. He confirmed that Adolph Schück originally purchased in 1881 only arable land and meadows where the sugar plant, gas station, etc. would eventually be built. (Figure 13) The ownership titled was recorded in the land register on the 27th of March 1881 as “Woinowitzer Zuckerfabrik Adolph Schück & Comp. in Woinowitz.” (Figure 14) At the time, the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik was not yet a GmbH or LLC. On the 21st of October 1910, the name of the company changed to “Woinowitzer Zuckerfabrik Adolph Schück & Co. Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung [Gmbh] zu Woinowitz” (Figure 14), at which time the company became an LLC. Then, on the 13th of August 1938, the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik underwent an ownership change becoming the “Weihendorfer Zuckerfabrik, Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung Weihendorf Kreis Ratibor.” (Figure 14) Presumably, this corresponded to the time the Schück and Hirsch heirs were forced to sell the sugar plant.

Figure 13. Page from the original land register at the District court confirming that Adolph Schück originally purchased arable land and meadows where the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik would eventually be built

Figure 14. Page from the original land register at the District court showing the ownership title was recorded on the 27th of May 1881 as the “Woinowitzer Zuckerfabrik Adolph Schück & Comp. in Woinowitz”; subsequent name changes are also shown

Subsequent changes are also noted in the Grundbuch. On the 26th of February 1942, the factory was taken over by the “Ratiborer Zuckerfabrik GmbH in Ratibor,” and later that year, on the 11th of December 1942, the factory named changed to “Raiffeisen.” (Figure 14)

Thus, the original land register for the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik clarifies a few things: we learn the year Adolph Schück purchased the land (1881); the fact that he purchased land and meadows with no structures on them; the year the firm became a GmbH or LLC (1910); and the date the Schück family ceased to be owners (1938).

Paul was unable to find the Grundbuch for the Woinowitz estate (i.e., “Polnisch Woinowitz“) from which Adolph Schück purchased the land in 1881, so no conclusions can be drawn about the previous property owners. Just to be crystal clear about this, Figure 6 above, the page from the files of the Woinowitz Grundbuch, indicates that Adolph Schück purchased a “field, willow, ditch, path/way, courtyard space” which was “detached” from what was referred to as the Polnisch Woinowitz and this sale was noted in the land register for that estate. Paul was unable to find the Grundbuch for this estate at the District court, although possibly it may eventually turn up at the State Archives in Racibórz.

Let me apologize to readers for the ponderous nature of this post. I’ve gone to such lengths to understand and explain the source of the data related to the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik and the timeline for the benefit of a select audience. As explained, because the Grundbuch’s auxiliary files are not catalogued, they are basically inaccessible to the average individual. However, even if they were generally available, it would still require comprehension of German and an understanding of German land law to make sense of their contents and its significance. This said, for the few readers whose Jewish ancestors may have held property in Germany they were compelled to sell during the Nazi era, there may be a few tendrils of useful information in this post.

POST 60: 200 YEARS OF THE ROYAL EVANGELICAL HIGH SCHOOL IN RATIBOR & A CLUE TO THE BRUCK FAMILY

Note: In this post, I talk about the Royal Evangelical Gymnasium (High School) in Ratibor, celebrating its 200th anniversary in 2019, and briefly discuss a contemporary publication from 1820 confirming my family’s connection to the city at that time.

Figure 1. Cover of the 1820 publication entitled “Denkschrift über die feierliche Eröffnung des Königl. Evangel. Gymnasium zu Ratibor am 2. Juni 1819” written by Dr. Carl Linge, first director of Ratibor’s Gymnasium

This year Racibórz, Poland celebrates “200 Jahre der Königlichen Evangelischen Gymnasium zu Ratibor,” 200 Years of the Royal Evangelical Gymnasium (High School) in Ratibor. Around Easter, my friend Mr. Paul Newerla, retired lawyer and current Silesian historian, presented a lecture at the Muzeum w Raciborzu on this subject. In researching the school’s history, Paul discovered an old book published in Ratibor in 1820 upon the school’s opening, archived at the British Museum, entitled “Denkschrift über die feierliche Eröffnung des Königl. Evangel. Gymnasium zu Ratibor am 2. Juni 1819. . .,” “Memorandum on the solemn opening of the Royal Evangelical High School in Ratibor on June 2, 1819. . .” (Figure 1) Prior to Paul’s discovery, this publication was unknown to local historians.

This 1820 book contains an alphabetical listing of the students enrolled at the time the Gymnasium was opened, that, interestingly, includes two of my earliest ancestors (Figure 2):

“J. Bruck, aus Ratibor”
“S. Bruck, aus Ratibor”

(J. Bruck and S. Bruck from Ratibor)

Figure 2. Page from Dr. Linge’s 1820 publication with the names of my ancestors “J. Bruck” and S. Bruck” shown as enrolled in Ratibor’s Gymnasium when the school first opened in 1819

Figure 3. A photo believed to be of my great-great-granduncle, Jonas Bruck (1813-1883)

Figure 4. My great-great-grandfather Samuel Bruck (1808-1863), original owner of the Bruck’s “Prinz von Preußen” Hotel

These ancestors were brothers Jonas Bruck (1813-1883) (Figure 3) and Samuel Bruck (1808-1863) (Figure 4), sons of Jacob Nathan Bruck (1770-1832). In Post 11, I told readers the original owner of the family hotel in Ratibor, the Bruck’s “Prinz von Preußen” Hotel, had been my great-great-grandfather, the Samuel Bruck who attended the Ratibor Gymnasium. Previously, I’d known my family’s connection to Ratibor extended back to at least 1850, which corresponded to the approximate time when Samuel Bruck purchased the family hotel. However, Mr. Newerla brought to my attention information proving the Bruck family’s association with Ratibor in fact extended back at least one more generation to Samuel’s father. In Post 11, I reported that according to land registers from the city of Ratibor from the time of Jacob Bruck, he had been an arrendator, a leaseholder, on two properties within Ratibor. These were located, respectively, on Jungfrauenstraße and Stockhaus-Gasse, shown on an 1812 city map sent to me by Mr. Newerla. (Figure 5) How much earlier my Bruck family may have arrived in Ratibor, and from which Silesian town, remains unknown. Regardless, the list of the students enrolled at the Royal Evangelical Gymnasium in 1819 confirms an early 19th century connection to Ratibor by my ancestors.

Figure 5. 1812 map of Ratibor showing location of parcels owned by Jacob Bruck along Jungfrauenstraße & Stockhaus-Gasse, and location of “Odertor,” the city gate atop which the Bruck’s Hotel was built after the city walls were demolished

Let me provide some brief historical background on the Royal Evangelical Gymnasium in Ratibor to help readers better understand the origins of the school, its locations, the age of the students, and their religious makeup.

Following a decision by the Royal Prussian Government on the 1st of October 1817, Ratibor became the seat of the Higher Regional Court of the Province of Upper Silesia. This coincided with the arrival of about twenty lawyers who discovered that Ratibor, then the largest city in Upper Silesia, had no grammar school for their children. Notably, those high schools that existed elsewhere at the time in Upper Silesia were all run by Catholic institutions or were in monasteries and were Catholic. The judges of the Higher Regional Court, as well as many other representatives of the intelligentsia, however, were Protestant. Thus, the President of the Regional Court of the Province of Upper Silesia appealed for the establishment of an Evangelical grammar school in Ratibor, which the King of Prussia granted on the 5th of June 1818. He appropriated 2,500 Reichtalers from the treasury for the maintenance of the new school and gave it the very spacious monastery of the Holy Ghost Dominican Church (Figure 6), which had been secularized in 1811. The monastery was located adjacent old city walls at the end of Jungfrauenstraße, coincidentally along the very street where Jacob Bruck leased property. Because the monastery buildings had to be renovated for school purposes, the Gymnasium was housed for a time in the former Franciscan monastery along Brunken (Figure 7), then located outside the city walls. Ratibor’s city walls, towers and gates, surrounding the town, were only demolished in 1828, after which the Prinz von Preußen was constructed at the corner of Oderstraße and Bollwerkstraße, eventually becoming the Bruck’s Hotel in the mid-19th Century.

Figure 6. A line drawing of Ratibor’s Gymnasium as it looked in 1820 with the adjacent tower of the former Holy Ghost Dominican Church; at the time, the entrance to the school was located on its south side

Figure 7. 1933 plan map of Ratibor showing Brunken, the Gymnasium’s location between 1819-1827; the Gymnasium’s current location; and the location of the Protestant church after 1909

When the Ratibor Gymnasium first opened its doors in the former Franciscan monastery, 114 students had passed an entrance examination and been admitted. Even though the high school was Protestant, paying students from all religious denominations could attend. The first class consisted of 40% Protestants, 50% Catholics, and 10% Jews. After only a few years the percent of Jewish students was at 20%, and never dropped much below this level, even though Ratibor’s Jewish population never exceeded 10%. This attests to the importance Jews attached to education.

The renovation of the grammar school on Jungfrauenstraße was not completed until 1827; the renovation included demolition of the east and north wings of the monastery, along with the removal of the city wall near the west wing, as it darkened the school rooms in this wing. Between 1819, when the grammar school opened, and 1827, when renovations were completed, the King of Prussia had issued an edict on January 16, 1821, giving the monastery church adjacent the Gymnasium to the Protestant parish (Figure 8) because their church located elsewhere in Ratibor was in danger of collapse on account of an unstable foundation.

Figure 8. On the right the tower of the Protestant Church located adjacent Ratibor’s Gymnasium between 1821 and 1909

By 1904, the Protestant parish had purchased a plot of land elsewhere in Ratibor on which to erect a new church. The plan had been to sell the former monastery church next to the Gymnasium to the Prussian State, dismantle the church, and use the parcel for the expansion of the grammar school. Even though essential components of the monastery dated to the 14th Century, the Conservator of the Provincial Burgermeister, essentially the Province of Silesia’s executive council, deemed the monastery to be of “insignificant monumental value.” This decision highlighted the power of Ratibor’s Protestants even over the General Conservator of the Province. It was only the refusal by the Prussian State to purchase the monastery that prevented its destruction and allows the facility to exist today as part of the Muzeum w Raciborzu. As a historic preservationist, I find it fascinating how serendipitous the survival of this noteworthy structure is.

Figure 9. View of the north side of Ratibor’s Gymnasium after a western extension was added

By the 1870’s Ratibor’s Gymnasium numbered in excess of 700 students, so an approval and allocation of funds for an extension was obtained that was completed by 1881. (Figure 9) A third floor was eventually added to the high school. (Figure 10)

Figure 10. 1925 view of Ratibor’s Gymnasium after a third level was added and the entrance moved to the western side of the school

Attendance in kindergarten was optional. At the age of six one was admitted to elementary school. Schools were denominational until 1873, after which such religious schools were abolished. Compulsory education existed in Prussia since 1765, although unconditional compulsory education for boys and girls was not introduced until 1907. The school year started on the 1st of April, effectively after Easter. Following the fourth grade of elementary school, one could be admitted to high school with passage of an entrance exam, thus around the age of ten.

In the case of Samuel and Jonas Bruck who show up in 1819 as enrolled students in Ratibor’s Gymnasium, their attendance was no doubt due to passage of the entrance exam. Still, Jonas’ attendance at the precocious age of only six, he was born in 1813, seems early. There is no doubt, however, as to the year Jonas was born because he is buried along with one of his renowned sons and their respective wives in the Old Jewish Cemetery in Breslau [today: Wrocław, Poland], and his headstone provides his date of birth. (Figures 11a-b) Paul Newerla sent me one page of the register of students admitted to Ratibor’s Gymnasium along with their ages, and most were between 9 and 13 years of age. (Figure 12) This log still exists today, and, as we speak, Paul is working on having it donated to the Archiwum Państwowe W Katowicach Oddzial W Raciborzu (“State Archives in Katowice Branch in Racibórz”). Regardless of whether Paul is successful in this endeavor, he is working to access the log to check for other Bruck relatives who may have attended Ratibor’s Gymnasium over the years.

Figure 11a. The large, stately Bruck Family tomb at the Old Jewish Cemetery in Wrocław, Poland where Jonas Bruck, his renowned son Julius Bruck, and their respective wives are all interred

Figure 11b. A closeup of Jonas Bruck’s headstone showing his birth and death dates

Figure 12. One page from the log of students admitted to Ratibor’s Gymnasium

The names of the classes in the 9-year high school were taken from Latin. The lowest class was labeled “Sexta” (sixth), the next “Quinta” (fifth), then “Quarta.” The next three classes, “Tertia” (third), “Sekunda” (second), and “Prima” (first), each consisted of lower and upper grades, for example, “Untertertia” or “Obersekunda” (“unter” means lower, “ober” means upper). After completing the “Oberprima,” you could take the matriculation exam, the “Abitur,” that if passed allowed you to attend a university.

One other thing of passing interest regarding the Ratibor Gymnasium were its collections. In 1938, these consisted of a teacher’s library with 17,000 books, a student library with more than 2,000 volumes, as well as more than 200 books printed before 1600, and 28 incunabula, that is, books printed before 1501. The Ratibor Gymnasium also preserved collections considered useful such as minerals, plant specimens, seeds, mollusks and birds, as well as valuable numismatic collections. (Figures 13-14) When the Museum Raciborzu was founded in 1927, these collections were handed over to the museum. Unfortunately, the museum’s natural science collection, which was in the former Protestant rectory, burnt down in 1945 and has been completely lost.

Figure 13. Collections of the Gymnasium in their museum (1936)

Figure 14. More collections of the Gymnasium in their museum (1936)

Figure 15. Baron Anselm von Rothschild (1803-1874) who donated the Egyptian mummy to the Ratibor Gymnasium in 1864

One unusual exhibit, given to the Royal Evangelical Church in 1864 by the wealthy Jewish banker baron Anselm von Rothschild (Figure 15), lord of Chałupki and Szilerzowice, survives today in the Muzeum Raciborzu. As an archaeologist, I find this story fascinating. Around 1860, Anselm von Rothschild went on a journey to Egypt and brought back numerous souvenirs, among them a complete burial of an Egyptian woman which he intended as a wedding gift for his fiancée. The peculiar gift was rejected. Oddly, in Rothschild’s palace in Szilerzowice, in the presence of invited dinner guests, the two sarcophagi were opened, the cartonnage undone, and the embalmed corpse unwrapped from its bandages.

In 1864, the baron decided to rid himself of the mummy and donated it to the Antiquity Department of the Royal Evangelical Gymnasium. Along with the other collections preserved by the Gymnasium, the mummy was formally taken over by the Muzuem w Raciborzu when it was founded in 1927. The half-bandaged mummy, sarcophagi, and richly ornamented cartonnage as well as three canopic jars to keep the viscera of corpses, purchased from the Museum of Antiquity in Berlin before the war, today are the greatest attraction of the Muzeum w Raciborzu. (Figure 16) Scientific analysis on the mummy revealed it was an Egyptian woman who lived during the 12th Dynasty (946-722 B.C.) named Dzed-Amonet-ius-anch, meaning “goddess Amonet said she would live.” She was a wealthy married woman, probably the daughter of a priest and barber from Thebes, who apparently died of complications from pregnancy.

Figure 16. The mummy of Dzed-Amonet-ius-anch from Egypt’s 12th Dynasty (946-722 B.C.) on display at the Muzeum w Raciborzu

The Ratibor Gymnasium is still standing today and is currently used as an economic middle school. (Figure 17) According to Paul Newerla, this middle school is where the volume with the names of students enrolled in the former Gymnasium was once kept, along with portfolios of graduation certificates. As we speak, Paul is trying to track down the current provenience of these materials to access their contents and see what more they can tell us about my Bruck relatives.

Figure 17. The Ratibor Gymnasium as it currently looks, now an economic middle school

REFERENCE

Linge, Dr. Carl

1820 Denkschrift ueber die feierliche Eroeffnung des Koenigl. Evangel. Gymnasium zu Ratibor am 2. Juni 1819 nebst den dabei gehaltenen Reden des Consistorialrath Dr. Wachler und des Dr. Linge und anderen Beilagen, Ratibor.

POST 59: THE WOINOWITZ ZUCKERFABRIK (SUGAR FACTORY) OUTSIDE RATIBOR (PART III—HEIRS)

Figure 1. The Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik as it looked in the early 1900’s

Figure 2. The Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik in 2014, seen from roughly the same angle as Figure 1

Remark: I’ve relabeled the titles of the two previous posts dealing with the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik (Sugar Factory) (Figures 1-2), Posts 36 and 55, to make clear to readers this post is merely another part of a story that continues to evolve and grow. Woinowitz [today: Wojnowice, Poland], is located outside Ratibor [today: Racibórz, Poland], the town in Upper Silesia where my father, Dr. Otto Bruck, was born in 1907. Lately, I’ve acquired multiple new documents and photographs from family, friends, and archives about the factory and its heirs, and anticipate receiving more in coming weeks, possibly enough materials to expand the story to five or six separate posts.

In Post 36, including the Postscript, I provided some historical background and maps, including information on the original family owners of the sugar plant. I fully anticipated the original post, now Part I, would be a “one-and-done” publication. This unexpectedly changed when I was contacted earlier this year through my Blog by a Danish gentleman, Allan Grutt Hansen, with documentation on the compensation paid by the then-West German government in 1966 to his ancestors for the forced sale of the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik by the Nazis around 1937. I detailed this surprising development in Post 55, now Part II of the tale. Suspecting the German government has indemnified what amounts to only one-sixth of the heirs propelled further forensic investigations and resulted in findings that provide the basis for this Blog post.

One additional point I want to emphasize to readers. I have “no skin in this game,” that’s to say, I am not entitled to any compensation that may eventually be meted out for the forced sale of the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik. While I hope the rightful heirs eventually receive reparations for harm done to their ancestors and will strive to facilitate this outcome, this post is primarily a story describing the scientific technique I applied to uncover relevant ancestral evidence that may buttress the family’s claims.

Note: In this post, I identify the first-generation heirs of the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik, and briefly return to the topic of compensation for the forced sale of the sugar plant. I also discuss the historic documents obtained since publication of Post 55, alluded to in that post, that lead to some unexpected discoveries.

Following publication of Post 55, now Part II of the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik saga, I pursued other avenues of investigation to identify the first-generation heirs of the sugar factory and learn who, if any, among them was indemnified for the forced sale of the plant. With the help of living next-of-kin, I’ve compiled the following table of the two original owners and their immediate descendants, along with their vital statistics:

Figure 3. Adolph Schück (1840-1916), co-owner of the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik

Figure 4. Sigmund Hirsch (1848-1920), Adolph Schück’s brother-in-law and partner in the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik

Figure 5. Dr. Erich Schück (1878-1938), an heir of the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik, who supposedly committed suicide after the forced sale of the sugar plant

ORIGINAL OWNER	FIRST-GENERATION HEIR	RELATIONSHIP TO OWNER	EVENT	DATE & PLACE
ADOLPH SCHÜCK (Figure 3)			Birth	5 Jul 1840 Ratibor, Germany
			Death	3 Nov 1916 Ratibor, Germany
	Auguste Leyser née Schück	Daughter	Birth	26 Jan 1872 Ratibor, Germany
			Death	28 May 1943 Theresienstadt
	Elly Kayser née Schück	Daughter	Birth	7 Sep 1874 Ratibor, Germany
			Death	28 Apr 1911 Berlin, Germany
	Erich Schück (Figure 5)	Son	Birth	13 Apr 1878 Ratibor, Germany
			Death	18 Dec 1938 Berlin, Germany

SIGMUND HIRSCH (Figure 4)			Birth	18 Nov 1848
			Death	14 Oct 1920 Ratibor, Germany
	Helene Goldenring née Hirsch	Daughter	Birth	25 Mar 1880 Ratibor, Germany
			Death	12 Jan 1968 Newark, NJ
	Robert Hirsch	Son	Birth	31 Oct 1881 Ratibor, Germany
			Death	7 Oct 1943 Valparaiso, Chile
	Frieda Mamlok née Hirsch	Daughter	Birth	8 Feb 1883 Ratibor, Germany
			Death	29 Jul 1955 Montevideo, Uruguay

Figure 6. Allan Grutt Hansen (b. 1962) from Denmark, grandnephew of Erich and Hedwig Schück

Figure 7a. Front page of the 1966 restitution agreement for the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik showing the estimated value; the number of “shares”; the date of Hedwig Schück’s death; and the “Landkreis” where the case was administered

Figure 7b. Page from 1966 West German compensation agreement for the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik indicating how individual shares of 75,000 RM were “adjusted” to 142,500 RM and showing only 2,500 RM was disbursed to Hedwig Schück’s heirs

Several things are worth noting. First, I presume from the Woinowitz compensation package provided to me by Allan Grutt Hansen (Figure 6) that when the West German government indemnified Allan’s ancestors in 1966 they were aware of six possible heirs. This presumption is based on the total compensation calculated at the time, 450,000 Reichmark (RM), which was divided by six, with each “share” worth 75,000 RM. (Figure 7a) For reasons possibly having to do with how much was paid out in the 1930’s by the Nazi overlords to the factory’s owners, this 75,000 RM was multiplied by a factor of 1.9 theoretically entitling each heir to 142,500 RM (Figure 7b) (i.e., in January 2017, a 1937 Reichsmark would have been worth approximately $4.30). Second, the six first-generation heirs likely correspond to those identified in the table above. The original owners of the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik, along with their wives, died well before the Nazis came to power and the sugar plant’s sale was forced. Third, we can see that apart from first-generation heir Helene Goldenring née Hirsch, all other first-generation heirs were deceased by 1966 when some compensation was paid out. Fourth, we know that Hedwig Schück née Jendricke’s descendants, as a result of her marriage to Dr. Erich Schück, received some minimal compensation, 2,500 RM split unequally four ways (Figure 7c); Hedwig’s relatives would have been second- and third-generation heirs. And, finally, based on conversations I’ve had with third- and fourth-generation heirs of the factory’s original owners, Adolph Schück and Sigmund Hirsch, it appears that five-sixth of the compensation was never meted out, despite concerted efforts by several of the descendants.

Figure 7c. Page from 1966 West German compensation agreement for the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik listing Erich and Hedwig Schück’s four heirs, and the fraction they each received of the 2,500 RM compensation doled out

Figure 7d. Page from 1966 West German compensation agreement showing that the case was adjudicated by the “Kreis Oldenburg (Holstein) Der Landrat,” the District Administrator for Oldenburg in the German State of Holstein

The package provided to me by Allan Grutt Hansen identifies the German office that handled the compensation case, namely, the “Kreis Oldenburg (Holstein) Der Landrat,” the District Administrator for Oldenburg in the German State of Holstein. (Figure 7d) After a few failed attempts to establish contact with the administrative office in Holstein that may have handled the proceedings, I was directed to the Bundesarchiv in Beyreuth, Germany, the Federal State Archives in the city of Beyreuth, in northern Bavaria. I’ve provided them with the list of all the possible heirs to the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik, requested they tell me about indemnification they may have received, and now await a reply; oddly, the archive can only research by individual names, not by the name of the Woinowitz factory, so it’s unclear what, if any, documentation I may eventually obtain.

Towards the end of Post 55, I told readers about having found the death register listings for Dr. Erich Schück and his wife Hedwig Schück née Jendricke in the online Landesarchiv Berlin database, the latter of which was the subject of Post 49. To remind readers, I found Hedwig’s date and place of death in the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik compensation package given to me by Allan Hurst Hansen; it showed she died on the 9th of June 1960 (Figure 7a) in the Wilmersdorf Borough of Berlin, making locating her in the Landesarchiv Berlin database relatively straight-forward. Finding her husband Dr. Erich Schück in the database was slightly more involved. I’d been told growing up he’d committed suicide sometime after the forced sale of the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik. Operating under the assumption he’d moved to Berlin after selling the sugar plant, further assuming he’d lived in Berlin-Wilmersdorf, where his wife died in 1960, and finally theorizing he’d died in the late 1930’s or early 1940’s, I scoured the death register for Wilmersdorf and eventually discovered his name listed under the year 1938.

As explained in Post 49, finding names in the death register listing does not give you immediate access to the underlying death certificates; these must be ordered from the Landesarchiv Berlin, and since publication of the Post 55, I’ve received these documents.

Figure 8. Dr. Erich Schück’s death certificate highlighting his dates and places of birth and death, his cause of death, the attending physician, his birth certificate number, and his marriage date

Figure 9. Hedwig Schück née Jendricke’s death certificate highlighting her dates and places of birth and death, her birth certificate number, and her marriage date

The death certificates for Erich and Hedwig, as readers can observe for themselves, are typed, thus easily decipherable even though written in German. (Figures 8-9) I learned several interesting things from these certificates. In the case of Dr. Erich Schück, his death certificate identified his cause of death, “todesursache,” as “Kranzaderverkalkung, Zuckerkrankheit, Herzschlag,” that’s to say, as arteriosclerosis, diabetes and heart disease. As mentioned above, Dr. Schück’s relatives had always maintained he committed suicide. Notwithstanding the stated causes of death, I still believe his death was self-inflicted. Let me explain why. The attending doctor who signed his name to the death certificate was a Dr. Alfred Mamlok, who it so happens was Dr. Schück’s first cousin. Perhaps mindful of the need for decorum or financial necessity, Dr. Mamlok opted to state natural causes as the reason for his cousin’s death. We may never know.

Figure 10. Co-owner of the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik Sigmund Hirsch with his wife Selma Hirsch née Braun with their three children, Frieda, Robert and Helene

I’d been aware for some time that Sigmund Hirsch, co-owner of the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik, had three children with his wife Selma Hirsch née Braun, two daughters, Helene and Frieda, and one son, Robert. (Figure 10) I knew both daughters had been born in Ratibor but had never found any concrete evidence of when and where the son had been born, though I’d known for some time he’d died in Valparaiso, Chile in 1943. Then, recently, I again searched Robert Hirsch in ancestry.com, and came upon a promising lead for a person by that name who once lived in an unexpected place at some remove from Ratibor called Mittweida, Germany, promising only because it showed this person was born in Ratibor on the 31st of October 1881. (Figures 11a-b) The year comported with the timeframe his two siblings had been born, respectively, in 1880 and 1883. Still, uncertain what to make of this, I asked Mr. Paul Newerla, my historian friend from Ratibor, whether he could check in the civil register in Racibórz for the Robert Hirsch born in 1881, which he graciously agreed to do. Paul located this person’s birth certificate and confirmed that he was indeed Sigmund and Selma’s son, born, like his sisters, in Ratibor. (Figure 12) Another mystery solved. A side benefit of this request to my friend Paul is that he also found and sent me the birth certificate for Erich Schück, who it turns out was born in 1878 in Ratibor only three years before Robert Hirsch. (Figure 13)

Figure 11a. Mittweida, Germany (State of Saxony) 1904 Residence Register listing a Robert Hirsch born on the 31st of October 1881 in Ratibor (cover)

Figure 11b. Mittweida, Germany (State of Saxony) 1904 Residence Register highlighting the Robert Hirsch born on the 31st of October 1881 in Ratibor (register)

Figure 12. Robert Hirsch’s Ratibor 1881 birth certificate highlighting his parents’ names, Sigmund and Selma Hirsch née Braun (partners Sigmund and Adolph’s wives were sisters)

Figure 13. Erich Schück’s Ratibor 1878 birth certificate highlighting his parents’ names, Adolph and Alma Schück née Braun (partners Adolph and Sigmund’s wives were sisters)

Erich and Hedwig’s respective death certificates indicated their date and place of birth, but more importantly provided the certificate numbers of their birth certificates. (Figures 8-9) Erich was born on the 13th of April 1878 in Ratibor, Germany, while his future wife Hedwig Jendricke was born on the 6th of December 1890 in a place called Gollantsch, Germany [today: Gołańcz, Poland]; On the off chance that familysearch.org might have the birth records automated for Gollantsch, I checked their online catalog, and, amazingly, found Hedwig’s birth certificate matching the number shown on her death certificate. (Figures 14a-b)

Figure 14a. Hedwig Schück née Jendricke’s 1890 birth certificate from Gollantsch, Germany, matching Certificate Number 129 found on her 1935 Berlin marriage certificate

Figure 14b. Translation of Hedwig Schück née Jendricke’s 1890 birth certificate

Both Erich and Hedwig Schück’s death certificates indicate they were married on the 25th of June 1935 in Berlin-Charlottenburg. (Figures 8-9) This was a source of potential new information, so naturally I ordered their marriage certificate from the Landesarchiv Berlin; it arrived several weeks later, but unlike Erich and Hedwig’s death certificates, it was handwritten. (Figures 15a-c) I asked one of my German cousins for a translation, which he happily provided. The marriage certificate included one new piece of information whose significance I had no reason to fully appreciate at the time, namely, Hedwig’s “middle” name, “Lange.” Often, in the Landesarchiv Berlin marriage registers, a widowed or divorced spouse who remarries has her first husband’s surname recorded. Such was the case with Erich and Hedwig’s 1935 marriage certificate, which showed Hedwig’s first husband had been someone with the surname Lange (i.e, Hedwig Lange née Jendricke).

Figure 15a. Erich Schück and Hedwig Lange née Jendricke’s 1935 Marriage Certificate 622 (page 1)

Figure 15b. Erich Schück and Hedwig Lange née Jendricke’s 1935 Marriage Certificate 622 (page 2)

Figure 15c. Translation of Erich Schück and Hedwig Lange née Jendricke’s 1935 Marriage Certificate 622

Figure 16. My third cousin once-removed, Larry Leyser

It took my third cousin once-removed, Larry Leyser (Figure 16), to fully unravel the significance of this new piece of information. Briefly, some background. In recent years, Larry has had the opportunity to scan a large collection of family photos and documents from his deceased great-aunt now in the possession of his second cousin. As occasionally also happens with me, even with labeled photos, neither of us is immediately able to recognize all the names nor ascertain a possible family connection; the photos go into what I term my “back-burner” file for future contemplation. Once I shared the translation of Erich and Hedwig Schück’s marriage certificate with Larry, it triggered an “aha!” moment to the previously unknown “Lange” name. In Larry’s own back-burner file, he discovered four labeled photos of Hedwig Lange from 1930, including one of Larry’s father, Kurt Leyser, with two of Kurt’s first cousins. (Figures 17-18) Beyond now knowing what Hedwig Schück looked like, it confirms that Hedwig was known to her future second husband Erich while she was either still married to, divorced or widowed from her first husband. Also, it was known that Hedwig was an aspiring actress or singer, and two of the photos do indeed appear to have been professionally staged. (Figures 19-20) It is beyond amazing that Larry was able to relate photos of a previously unfamiliar Hedwig Lange to the broader story of the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik.

Figure 17. Hedwig Lange née Jendricke on the 20th of September 1930

Figure 18. Hedwig Lange née Jendricke with three children, Larry Leyser’s father, Kurt Leyser, and two of Kurt’s cousins

Figure 19. May 1930 stage photograph of Hedwig Lange née Jendricke, an aspiring actress

Figure 20. May 1930 stage photograph of Hedwig Lange née Jendricke

Figure 21. Franz Kayser, one witness at Erich and Hedwig Schück’s 1935 marriage, in 1945 atop Rockefeller Center in New York City

Figure 22. Franz Kayser’s son, John Kayser, in 2014, in front of the apartment building in Berlin near where his parents lived at the time they fled to America in 1938, shown in Erich and Hedwig Schück’s marriage certificate as Kaiserdammstrasse 82 (not 22)

One final thing I found on Erich and Hedwig Schück’s marriage certificate of great personal interest were the names and addresses of two witnesses, specifically, “Franz Kayser” and “Fritz Leyser.” (Figure 15b) Readers should refer to the table at the outset of this post to see that Adolph Schück’s two daughters’ married names were, respectively, Leyser and Kayser. Franz Kayser (Figure 21), whom I met once as an adolescent in New York, was the father of my third cousin John Kayser (Figure 22), while Fritz Leyser (Figure 23) was Larry Leyser’s grandfather. It was astounding to find the surnames on one historic document from Berlin of three families, Schück, Leyser and Kayser (Figure 24), all connected to the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik outside Ratibor.

Figure 23. Larry Leyser’s grandfather, Friedrich “Fritz” Leyser, the second witness at Erich and Hedwig Schück’s 1935 marriage

Figure 24. Franz Kayser and Fritz Leyser, the two witnesses at Erich and Hedwig Schück’s 1935 marriage, as adolescents on horseback in the Tiergarten in Berlin

The point of telling readers about these discoveries is not to bore you senseless, but rather to emphasize that reconstructing one’s own family tree and finding relevant certificates and clues can be a painstaking process that sometimes requires taking baby steps to make progress. Occasionally, a single name or document can open a plethora of opportunities.

Figure 25. Dr. Alfred Mamlok with his wife Frieda “Henrietta” Mamlok née Hirsch

Figure 26. Dr. Alfred Mamlok’s grandson, Dr. Robert Mamlok

Figure 27. Dr. Alfred Mamlok’s son, Dr. Erich Mamlok (1913-1991), who attempted to obtain compensation on behalf of his family during the 1950’s for the forced sale of the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik around 1937

Regular readers know how much I like uncovering “connections” in my forensic investigations, so beyond finding photos of Hedwig Lange-Schück, I discovered one other serendipitous association. I previously mentioned the physician who signed Dr. Erich Schück’s death certificate was his first cousin, Dr. Alfred Mamlok. (Figure 8) It so happens that Alfred Mamlok (Figure 25) was the son-in-law of Sigmund Hirsch, co-owner of the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik. After publishing Post 55, Part II, of the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik story, Larry Leyser put me in touch with Alfred Mamlok’s grandson, Dr. Robert Mamlok (Figure 26), living in Texas. I alluded to this at the outset. It turns out that Dr. Erich Mamlok (Figure 27), Dr. Alfred Mamlok’s son, coordinated with two other second- generation heirs of the sugar plant and corresponded extensively with the German government on the issue of the Woinowitz Zuckerfabrik compensation in the 1950’s but, apparently, they were never successful in being indemnified. The correspondence is in German, Polish, and Spanish, and eventually I hope to obtain a copy of the complete file from Robert Mamlok and translate it to learn why compensation was never meted out to his family. It’s odd that some of the sugar plant owners’ heirs failed in their efforts to be compensated during the 1950’s but that some heirs were eventually indemnified in 1966. I hope to eventually learn why.