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POST 146: MY GRANDFATHER FELIX BRUCK’S (1864-1927) FINAL MONTHS OWNING THE BRUCK’S HOTEL IN RATIBOR, GERMANY

 

Note: In this post, I shift from discussing primary source documents related to my great-great-grandfather Samuel Bruck (1808-1863), thought to have been the original owner of the Bruck’s “Prinz von Preußen” Hotel in Ratibor, Prussia, to talking about my grandfather Felix Bruck (1864-1927), assuredly the last Bruck family owner of the hotel. I examine some records that shed light on the final months of my family’s connection to the establishment.

Related Posts:

POST 11: RATIBOR & BRUCK’S “PRINZ VON PREUßEN“ HOTEL

POST 11, POSTSCRIPT: RATIBOR & BRUCK’S “PRINZ VON PREUßEN” HOTEL

POST 11, POSTSCRIPT 2: RATIBOR & BRUCK’S “PRINZ VON PREUßEN” HOTEL

POST 135: PICTORIAL ESSAY OF THE VON PREUßEN CASTLE IN KAMENZ, GERMANY [TODAY: KAMIENIEC ZĄBKOWICKI, POLAND]

POST 145: PRIMARY SOURCE DOCUMENTS ABOUT MY GREAT-GREAT GRANDUNCLE, DR. JONAS BRUCK (1813-1883)

 

The inspiration for several recent posts comes from interested readers, ancestral researchers, family, and friends and acquaintances. These people have either sent me contemporary accounts or made me aware of primary source documents in various Polish State Archives related to some of my earliest Bruck relatives from Silesia. (Figure 1) These records, though not infallible, provide a framework for evaluating and assessing the accuracy of vital data obtained elsewhere, as well as placing my ancestors in their proper historic and cultural context. As mentioned elsewhere, primary source documents are my gold standard.

 

Figure 1. General map of Silesia when it was part of the state of Prussia

 

In May of this year, I was contacted by a gentleman, Mr. Kamil Kotas, formerly from the Powiat Raciborski, Racibórz District of Poland, now living in Münster in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. Having stumbled on my blog and seen the various posts about the former family-owned hotel in Ratibor, Germany [today: Racibórz, Poland], the Bruck’s “Prinz von Preußen” Hotel, Kamil told me he’d come across two files citing the Bruck’s Hotel from the interwar years during his online search of the Polish State Archives. (Figures 2-3) He realized my bibliography made no mention of either, so sent me links to the two files: 

https://www.szukajwarchiwach.gov.pl/jednostka/-/jednostka/39175529 

https://www.szukajwarchiwach.gov.pl/jednostka/-/jednostka/39176083

 

Figure 2. Citation to a 1926 file on the Bruck’s Hotel in the “State Archives in Wrocław Branch in Kamieniec Ząbkowicki”

 

Figure 3. Citation to a 1929-1930 file on the Bruck’s Hotel in the “State Archives in Wrocław Branch in Kamieniec Ząbkowicki”

 

Having nothing specifically to do with my family, what immediately caught my attention when I opened the links is that the files are archived at the Archiwum Państwowe we Wrocławiu Oddział w Kamieńcu Ząbkowickim, State Archives in Wrocław Branch in Kamieniec Ząbkowicki. Regular readers may recall that Kamieniec Ząbkowicki, Poland is the current name of the German Silesian town of Kamenz where my dear friend Peter Albrecht von Preußen’s family once owned the still-standing castle. I wrote about the castle in Post 135. Kamieniec Ząbkowicki and Racibórz are about 79 miles apart. (Figure 4) In any case, this puts an exclamation point on something I’ve repeatedly stressed, namely, that you should not confine your search for information about your ancestors to the town where they once lived.

 

Figure 4. Map showing the distance between Kamieniec Ząbkowicki and Racibórz

 

Because the online tags for the two files on the Bruck’s Hotel give no clue as to what they contain, I ordered both. After several weeks they arrived, and I turned to my friend Peter Hanke to help me make sense of the file from 1926. While the “Bruck’s Hotel” name was retained by future owners after it was sold by my grandfather Felix Bruck (Figure 5), I knew he had sold it before his death in June 1927. (Figure 6) Consequently, I’ve confined my examination to the earlier of the two files.

 

Figure 5. My grandfather Felix Bruck (1864-1927)

 

Figure 6. My grandfather’s death certificate showing he died on the 23rd of June 1927 in Berlin-Wilmersdorf where he lived with my grandmother at Düsseldorferstrasse 24

 

The 1926 file contains 6 unique pages, not including the cover page. Going page by page through the file:

Cover Page: (Figure 7a)

Information Office

W. Schimmelpfeng

Call Number 90917

EDITOR’S REMARK: “W. Schimmelpfeng’ was a credit agency.

 

Figure 7a. Cover page of the 1926 file on the Bruck’s Hotel from the “State Archives in Wrocław Branch in Kamieniec Ząbkowicki”

 

Page 1: (Figure 7b)

Hugo Eulenstein Bruck’s Hotel

Oberschlesien

            Ratibor

            Oderstrasse 16

Sole proprietor: Hugo Eulenstein

                           Not registered in the “Commercial Register”

The hotel “Prinz von Preußen” is owned by the hotel owner Felix Bruck and was managed alternately by the owner and tenants. Currently, the actual tenant of the hotel is the Peace Lodge e.V. in Ratibor, which handed over the management to Hugo Eulenstein in July 1926. Eulenstein, born in Hammestädt [= Hammerstedt] in Th[uringia] in 1869, moved from Barmen [now a district of Wuppertal] and formerly managed the Grand Hotel on Lake Geneva, then was reportedly general manager of both the Caux and Montreux hotels and then owner of the Continental Hotel in Montreux, which he lost because of the war. He is also said to have been a director at the Carlton Hotel in Frankfurt a.M. and the Bayerischer Hof in Munich.

Eulenstein is the concession holder and reportedly pays an annual rent of 12000 Reichsmark. The hotel was rebuilt and renovated in 1925. The staff consists of 1 chef de cuisine, 4 to 5 waiters, 1 valet and 5 to 6 girls for the kitchen and guest rooms. The value of the existing stock is estimated at about 5000 to 6000 Reichsmark.

The financial situation is not considered unfavorable, but in the opinion of our informants the development of the circumstances remains to be seen, especially since the former tenant Max Künzer managed the hotel without success. At present, a small loan is considered permissible and at the same time it is recommended that a certain degree of caution not be disregarded.

 

Figure 7b. Page 1 of the 1926 file on the Bruck’s Hotel from the “State Archives in Wrocław Branch in Kamieniec Ząbkowicki”

 

Page 2: (Figure 7c)

In the letter, the credit agency W. Schimmelpfeng asks the Friedensloge e.V. in Ratibor whether it “. . .would provide information about the personal and financial circumstances of Mr. Eulenstein.”

 

Figure 7c. Page 2 of the 1926 file on the Bruck’s Hotel from the “State Archives in Wrocław Branch in Kamieniec Ząbkowicki”

 

Page 3: (Figure 7d)

In a reply letter from my grandfather Felix Bruck dated the 22nd of November 1926 from Berlin he writes: “Mr. Eulenstein is not my tenant but that of the Friedensloge e.V. in Ratibor, to whom I have leased my hotel for several years. I do not know Mr. Eulenstein personally, nor am I aware of his circumstances. The Friedensloge should be able to give you the most information.”

 

Figure 7d. Page 3 of the 1926 file on the Bruck’s Hotel from the “State Archives in Wrocław Branch in Kamieniec Ząbkowicki”

 

Pages 4-5: (Figures 7e-f)

In a letter dated the 12th of November 1926, the following is written:


“Bruck’s Hotel is one of the oldest hotels in Ratibor. Since June 26, 1900, the hotel has been registered in the Commercial Register A under the name “Fedor Bruck Hotel Prinz von Preussen Ratibor” under No. 24. Over the years, the hotel was managed alternately by the owner (Bruck) and by tenants. The last tenant was Max Künzer. He went bankrupt on June 23, 1926. I have reported about it to you under 25 June 1926. Due to the lack of any bankruptcy estate, the bankruptcy proceedings were discontinued after some time. At present the actual tenant of this hotel is the Jewish Lodge in Ratibor. They pay an annual rent of 11000 Reichsmark to the owner Bruck. However, the Lodge leased the hotel to the hotelier Hugo Eulenstein and he has been running it since July 13, 1926. He has a good reputation as a professional. He managed the Grand Hotel on Lake Geneva, was general manager of the two hotels Caux above Montreux and then owner of the Hotel Continental in Montreux (Figure 8), which he lost because of the war. He is also said to have been director of Carlton Hotel in Frankfurt a.M. and of the Bayerischer Hof in Munich. In the innkeeper circles it is strange that Eulenstein comes to Ratibor after such a brilliant career.

Eulenstein was born on December 15, 1869 in Hammestädt [= Hammerstedt] in Th[uringia], married to Hertha née Voth from Cologne since August 7, 1919, and in Ratibor since August 7, 1926. He came from Barmen [now a district of Wuppertal]. He has one child aged 6 years. His deceased father was a landowner. No disadvantageous things have become known about him so far.

He is a concession holder, and the business is in his name. He is not yet registered under commercial law. The annual rent is reduced and is said to be 12,000 Reichsmark. Eulenstein claims to have invested a working capital of 15000 Reichsmark in the business. The hotel was rebuilt and renovated last year. It meets all the requirements of modern times. The staff consists of 1 chef de cuisine, 4-5 waiters, 1 valet and 5-6 girls for the kitchen and guest rooms. According to experience so far, it will have an annual turnover of about 160000 Reichsmark. His warehouse will have a value of 5000-6000 Reichsmark. House and land ownership is not available. His financial situation is still little known in Ratibor but is generally considered favorable. Complaints about his mode of payment have not yet become known. A loan of a few hundred Reichsmark does not seem questionable at present. Nevertheless, caution would be advisable. Without obligation.”

EDITOR’S REMARKS:

The letter is signed and dated the 14th of November 1926, perhaps by an officer of the credit agency who received the letter. Initially, I thought the letter was written by my grandfather, but I now think it was written by a representative from the tenant organization, the Friedensloge e.V.

This is the most informative of the documents contained in the file, providing the date when the Firm of “Fedor Bruck Hotel Prinz von Preussen Ratibor” was registered in the Handelsregister on the 26th of June 1900.

 

Figure 7e. Page 4 of the 1926 file on the Bruck’s Hotel from the “State Archives in Wrocław Branch in Kamieniec Ząbkowicki”

 

Figure 7f. Page 5 of the 1926 file on the Bruck’s Hotel from the “State Archives in Wrocław Branch in Kamieniec Ząbkowicki”

 

Figure 8. The Continental Hotel in Montreux, Switzerland that Hugo Eulenstein once owned that he lost following WWI

 

These pages confirm the Friedensloge e.V. was my grandfather’s tenant after Max Künzer went bankrupt and the Peace Lodge subleased the hotel to the experienced hotelier Hugo Eulenstein. Some vital statistics about Hugo and his family are also provided.

My historian friend from Racibórz sent me a series of undated Bruck’s Hotel advertisements from the time my grandfather owned the hotel to the period post-dating his ownership. (Figures 9a-b) One indicates that Max Künzer was the “inh. =inhaber,” owner, when it’s known that he was merely a tenant who went bankrupt. Another undated advertisement shows Hugo Eulenstein as the owner.

 

Figure 9a. Page 1 illustrating various Bruck’s Hotel advertisements from the time my grandfather owned the hotel until after he had sold it

 

Figure 9b. Page 2 showing the hotel and additional Bruck Hotel advertisements

 

Page 6: (Figure 7g) 

November 12, 1926: Felix Bruck, owner; Max Künzer, former tenant, bankrupt

November 18, 1926: Felix Bruck, Ratibor, “knows nothing”

November 25, 1926: Friedensloge e.V. Ratibor

May 21, 1927: Bruck’s Hotel Prinz von Preußen Hugo Eulenstein as the current owner

EDITOR’S REMARKS: 

From Pages 4-5, we know that the tenant Max Künzer filed for bankruptcy on the 23rd of June 1926. It appears the Friedensloge e.V. Ratibor subsequently leased the hotel from my grandfather, and in turn subleased it to the hotelier Hugo Eulenstein. No later than the 21st of May of 1927, Hugo had purchased the hotel from my grandfather, who died on the 23rd of June 1927 in Berlin.

As previously mentioned, the above 1926 file discussing my family’s hotel establishment in Ratibor interestingly originates from the State Archives in Wrocław Branch in Kamieniec Ząbkowicki.

 

Figure 7g. Page 6 of the 1926 file on the Bruck’s Hotel from the “State Archives in Wrocław Branch in Kamieniec Ząbkowicki”

 

Coincidentally, I have another relevant primary source document embedded in a file archived at the Branch State Archives in Katowice, Racibórz, copied for me by Ms. Magda Wawoczny, the Polish student acquaintance from Jagiellonian University. The information on this one page (Figure 10) coincides with the period when my grandfather’s tenant, Max Künzer, went bankrupt. Translated, the text reads:

(no. 37): On August 14, 1926, the Ratibor District Court determined that a debt of 600 Reichsmark exists for inventory taken over.

The creditor is Felix Bruck from Berlin (district W15), Düsseldorferstrasse 24I, who had registered this amount on July 14, 1926.

 

Figure 10. One page embedded in a file archived at the “Branch State Archives in Katowice, Racibórz” naming my grandfather Felix Bruck as a creditor owed 600 Reichsmark, possibly from his tenant Max Künzer’s 1926 bankruptcy

 

Given the timing of Max Künzer’s bankruptcy, I surmise the following may have happened. When Mr. Künzer leased the Bruck’s Hotel, which also gave him access to the restaurant and bar, my grandfather likely additionally transferred the inventory to Max. This would have included food pantry items for the kitchen, liquor for the bar, pots, pans, glasses, silverware, china, linen, cleaning supplies, etc., in other words any items required for the daily operation of the hotel. When Mr. Künzer went bankrupt, the bankruptcy court likely seized any remaining inventory, and sold them to repay creditors While the court determined my grandfather was owed 600 Reichsmark, it’s unclear from the register entry that any monies were ever disbursed to him as a creditor, likely one of many.

The documents discussed above relate to the final months of my grandfather’s ownership of the family hotel in Ratibor, from mid-to-late 1926. However, several years ago, another of my Polish acquaintances, Małgosia Płoszaj from Rybnik, Poland, copied and sent me an additional file related to the Bruck’s Hotel that is also archived at Branch State Archives in Katowice, Racibórz. I recently had my friend Peter Albrecht summarize the contents of this “Polizei Verwallung zu Ratibor,” Ratibor police station file. (Figure 11a-b)

 

Figure 11a. Cover page of the police file on the Bruck’s Hotel covering the period from June 1912 until August 1928

 

Figure 11b. Closeup of cover page of 1912-1928 police file on the Bruck’s Hotel

 

This police folder includes a collection of the Prinz von Preußen’s hotel and liquor licenses, violations to the stipulations of these permits, and compliance with fire safety and electrical requirements of the Prussian State. The records date from June 1912 until August 1928. The file documents the Ratibor Police Department’s enforcement of the 1808 Kingdom of Prussia’s liquor licensing requirements, including liquor production, wholesaling, and retail sales at the establishment. Over time, fire safety plans, related for example to gas lighting, also had to be submitted, as well as plans for addressing electrical requirements.

In conjunction with a new or renewed application for a liquor license and business permit, building drawings had to be submitted. The permit was granted on the 11th of June 1912 by the City Council (Der Stadtausschuss) following submission of the building drawings on the 20th of May 1912 and inspection by the city’s inspector. Several changes were requested by the inspector including that the curtains be impregnated with fire-retardant and that the locks between the ballroom (Saal) and the side room (Gesellschaftsraum) be removed since only the side room had an exit door to the outside of the building.

Many of the pages in the file involve applications by groups who wanted to hold an event in the ballroom and were requesting an extension of the curfew or “last call,” or the so-called “Sperrstunde,” beyond the normal 10pm hour.

My grandfather was only fined once for a violation, for the minor infraction of a patron not signing the guest book upon their departure.

In closing, I will concede that much of the information found in primary source documents mentioning my grandfather and the Bruck’s Hotel is rather mundane in nature, but I would again stress to ancestral researchers that the mere survival of similar records between 100 and 200 years of age help paint a portrait of a past very much different than the one we live in. And, often, buried within these documents are tidbits of chronological and contextual information that round out one’s understanding of our ancestors’ lives.

REFERENCE

Hyckel, Georg. Ein Führer durch die Stadt Ratibor und ihre Geschichte. Ratibor, ca. 1930.

EXPLANATION FOR REMOVAL OF POST 134

 

Readers may have noticed that Post 134 has been removed from my blog. An astute follower pointed out inconsistencies and inaccuracies in Suse Vogel’s account of her chance encounter with the son of the notorious Nazi architect of the Holocaust, Reinhard Heydrich, who was assassinated in Prague in 1942. Unless Suse Vogel was spoofed for reasons unknown by a vengeful pretender claiming to be Reinhard’s son, which I personally doubt, at its core I think Suse’s improbable run in with Heider Heydrich took place at some point and place in time, just not accurately recalled in all its details. Consequently, I cannot ignore all the mistakes in Suse’s recollection of the event. I should remind readers that Suse’s typed letter is undated providing no frame of reference for when it was written, making it impossible to know whether her imprecise memory of the event was captured shortly after it took place or years later. Thus, in the interest of accuracy, I’ve removed the post.

Among the inconsistencies noted are the following: 

  • Suse Vogel writes that Reinhard was murdered in 1941, when his actual assassination was in 1942.
  • Suse inaccurately refers to Reinhard’s son as “Reinhard.”
  • I have been unable to independently verify that Heider Heydrich ever set out to be a policeman or apprenticed as one in Hamburg. He received his engineering degree from the University of Hamburg and appears to have worked for the now insolvent aircraft manufacturer Fairchild Dornier in Oberpfaffenhofen near Munich, Germany in this capacity.
  • I can find no evidence that Heider ever lived in Wiesbaden as Suse’s letter indicates. I find Heider Heydrich listed in Munich Address Directories from 1960, 1966, and 1968 showing he was an engineer.
  • Heider is known to have been born in 1934, and according to Suse’s account, her encounter with him is purported to have taken place when he was 28, thus in 1962. However, the mention of the serial killer Jürgen Bartsch in 1962 cannot be accurate because Jürgen was not arrested until 1966.

Until or if I can reconcile the historical and temporal errors, I have withdrawn Post 134 from my blog.

POST 62, POSTSCRIPT: THE FAR-REACHING SEARCH FOR MY FATHER’S FIRST COUSIN, HEINZ LUDWIG BERLINER—FURTHER PROOF OF HEINZ’S EXISTENCE

Note: In this postscript, I discuss some intriguing new information that has come to light about Heinz Ludwig Berliner since publication of the original post, details of which bring me closer to determining his fate.

Related posts:

Post 18: Remembering My Great-Aunt Charlotte “Lotte” Berliner, née Rothe, Victim of The Holocaust

Post 62: The Far-Flung Search for My Father’s First Cousin, Heinz Ludwig Berliner

I can never predict when or from where further traces of ancestors I’ve written about in earlier posts may materialize. In my original publication, I explained to readers the challenges I encountered trying to uncover concrete evidence of Heinz Ludwig Berliner, one of my father’s first cousins. I first learned about him from a fleeting reference in a document written by my third cousin Larry Leyser’s grandmother detailing the fate of some of our family’s ancestors. His grandmother briefly remarked Heinz Berliner immigrated to some unspecified country in South America after WWII, where he purportedly committed suicide.

 

Figure 1. Cover of March 19, 1948 playbill from the “Teatro Municipal” showing Heinz Berliner’s stage name, “Enry Berloc,” along with the names of his co-performers, “Witha Herm” and “Maestro Kurt Kohn”

 

As discussed in the original post, I was able to confirm Heinz Ludwig Berliner’s appearance in South America through the cover of a playbill (Figure 1) sent to me by Tema Goetzel née Comac, the wife of Heinz’s nephew; the playbill showed that Heinz, using his stage name “Enry Berloc,” had performed at the “Teatro Municipal,” in an unspecified South American country, on the 19th of March 1948 in the accompaniment of a “Witha Herm” and the “Maestro Kurt Kohn.” More on this later.

For two reasons, I never imagined it would be so difficult to track Heinz’s movements and eventual destination. First, both of Heinz’ s siblings, Ilse (Figure 2) and Peter Berliner (Figure 3), wound up in New York and were known to me since childhood. And, second, as alluded to above, I’m in touch with descendants of Heinz’s siblings, and assumed they would have letters or documents showing where he’d wound up; initially, all they found was the playbill cover to the 1948 recital in which Enry Berloc performed.

Figure 2. Heinz Berliner’s older sister, Pauline Ilse Berliner (1911-1981), standing alongside my father, Dr. Otto Bruck
Figure 3. Heinz Berliner’s older brother, Peter Berliner (1910-1977)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Heinz’s siblings were born in the same town in Upper Silesia where my father had been born, Ratibor [today: Racibórz, Poland], and I was able to locate both of their birth certificates when I visited the “State Archives in Katowice Branch in Raciborz”; vexingly, on two separate visits I could never find Heinz’s birth record, though it was logical to assume he too had been born in Ratibor. I even asked my Polish historian friend in Racibórz, Mr. Paul Newerla, to confirm my negative findings, and his initial efforts were similarly fruitless. As previously discussed, I began to think Heinz may have been born earlier out-of-wedlock and/or born in the town where his parents had married, Meseritz [today: Międzyrzecz, Poland]. I even contacted the archives there but was told the on-line birth records would not be available until this current year; this is on account of Poland’s legal requirement prohibiting the release of birth certificates until 110 years after a person’s birth, so in the case of Heinz possibly soon after his parents married in 1909 in Meseritz.

 

Figure 4. 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 immigrated to Bolivia

 

As readers may recall, this search became moot when I recently discovered a document in MyHeritage entitled “German Minority Census, 1939,” listing a Heinz Ludwig Berliner born on the 24th of September 1916 in Ratibor, showing he lived in the Charlottenburg District of Berlin in 1939, and indicating he had immigrated to Bolivia. (Figure 4) I had some initial doubts this was my father’s first cousin, but after transmitting this new information to Mr. Newerla, Paul was able to finally locate Heinz’s birth certificate in the State Archives in Raciborz, misfiled as it happens, confirming his parents’ names.

Researching the names and information found on the cover of the 1948 playbill, I thought the “Teatro Municipal” was in Buenos Aires, Argentina, as I told readers in my original post. Hoping to locate Berliners who may have wound up there before or after WWII, I turned to family trees on JewishGen, and contacted a lady in Australia who put me in touch with a Ms. Marcia Ras from Buenos Aires with Berliners in her family tree, who turned out to be exceptionally helpful.

 

Figure 5. Cover of March 19, 1948 playbill from the “Teatro Municipal” with the circled name of the sponsoring organization, “Ministerio de Educacion y Bellas Artes”

 

Following publication of my original post, I sent Marcia a link to it, and she explained that Argentina’s Ministry of Education that had supposedly sponsored the 1948 recital at the Teatro Municipal had never borne the name “Ministerio de Educacion y Bellas Artes.” (Figure 5) Quick online searches showed that in both Venezuela and República Dominicana they were called that way. I sent an email to the Dominican Republic’s Ministry of Education but never received a response. Given Venezuela’s severely dysfunctional state, I never bothered to contact them. I searched for a similarly named entity in other South American countries to no avail.

Marcia could find no evidence Heinz was ever in Buenos Aires. She told me that if he was, he did not enter the country legally. Thousands of Jewish refugees entered Argentina and other South American countries illegally, especially between 1938 and 1949, so he may well have been among them. Marcia was unable to find his name mentioned anywhere. A Ms. Silvia Glocer, an expert in Jewish musicians seeking refuge in Argentina whom Marcia consulted, confirmed she’d also never heard Heinz’s or the maestro Kurt Kohn’s names. They stressed this did not mean they’d never been in Argentina, only that no evidence could be found they’d been there. 

Figure 6a. Picture of the chatelaine with an attached photo locket containing the image of Heinz’s father, Alfred Berliner (1875-1921) (photo courtesy of Tema Goetzel, Heinz Berliner’s niece by marriage)
Figure 6b. Photo locket with the image of Heinz Berliner’s father, Alfred Berliner (1875-1921) (photo courtesy of Tema Goetzel, Heinz Berliner’s niece by marriage)

 

My ongoing search might well have ended here. However, out of the blue, Tema Goetzel sent me a photo from a chatelaine (i.e., a clasp or hook for a watch, purse, or bunch of keys) (Figures 6a-b), asking if I recognized Alfred Berliner, Heinz Berliner’s father. While I know Alfred Berliner was once interred in the Jewish Cemetery in Ratibor and included a photo of his former headstone in the original post, I had no photos of him against which to compare; eventually, Tema sent two more photos, a second of Alfred Berliner (Figure 7), and a third of Alfred Berliner’s wife, Charlotte Berliner née Rothe, with their three children. (Figure 8) At long last, I’d tracked down a photo of the elusive Heinz Berliner, albeit as a young child! (Readers are reminded that in Post 18, I told the story of Heinz Berliner’s mother who perished in Auschwitz in 1943.)

Figure 7. Alfred Berliner, Heinz Berliner’s father (photo courtesy of Tema Goetzel, Heinz Berliner’s niece by marriage)
Figure 8. Heinz Berliner as a child with his two older siblings, Peter and Ilse, and his mother, Charlotte Berliner née Rothe (photo courtesy of Tema Goetzel, Heinz Berliner’s niece by marriage)

 

In the course of our recent conversations, I told Tema the Teatro Municipal I thought was in Buenos Aires was not in fact in Argentina; I related what Marcia Ras had explained to me. Tema, the source of the original playbill, thought it indicated the country. When I told her it didn’t, she again dug out the playbill and found three additional pages (Figures 9a-c) which she hadn’t previously sent, and these sheets specifically mentioned Bolivia, the country the “German Minority Census, 1939” document identified as Heinz’s destination. Armed with a country, I now quickly found a Teatro Municipal in La Paz. (Figure 10) Another puzzle solved.

 

Figure 9a. Second page of the March 19, 1948 playbill from the “Teatro Municipal” confirming the theater was in La Paz, Bolivia (courtesy of Tema Goetzel)

 

Figure 9b. Third page of the March 19, 1948 playbill from the “Teatro Municipal” with a summary of the critical reviews from different places where Witha Herm and Enry Berloc performed (courtesy of Tema Goetzel)
Figure 9c. Fourth page of the March 19, 1948 playbill from the “Teatro Municipal” with the list of musical numbers in each act and the names of the performers (courtesy of Tema Goetzel)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 10. Teatro Municipal de la Paz in Bolivia (Photo Credit: Gatol fotografia)

 

 

Having confirmed from two independent sources Heinz’s connection to Bolivia, I again contacted the Bolivian affiliate of the World Jewish Congress, Circulo Israelita De La Paz, asking if they could check on Jewish musicians who may have sought refuge in Bolivia between roughly 1938 and 1949. This office has been gracious and helpful beyond measure but, to date, they too have been unable to confirm Heinz’s presence there. I think what is true of Jewish refugees entering Argentina illegally is also true of Bolivia. It may well be I’m unable to ever confirm whether or when Heinz died in Bolivia.

 

Figure 11. The popular British-Austrian orchestra leader, Ray Martin, born Kurt Kohn (1918-1988), whose musical score may have been used in the 1948 recital Heinz Berliner performed in

Marcia Ras discovered one other final intriguing thing. In the original post, I told readers that the Witha Herm mentioned in the 1948 playbill was a stage name for a woman known as Herma Wittmann, who died in 1992 in Los Angeles and is interred there. Similarly, the other musician mentioned in the playbill, Kurt Kohn, used an artistic name, Ray Martin (Raymond Stuart Martin). (Figure 11) A quick online search revealed Ray was born Kurt Kohn in Vienna, Austria on the 11th of October 1918, and came to live and work in England in 1937. He was noted for his light music compositions, and created a legacy for himself in British popular music through his work with his orchestra in the 1950’s. I even located a descriptive catalog of his musical recordings, and tried to contact the compiler, Alan Bunting, but learned he’d died in 2016. Fortunately, the discography was created in collaboration with a Nigel Burlinson, whom I was able to reach. Mr. Burlinson sent a very gracious reply telling me he did not think the “Kurt Kohn” who performed at the Teatro Municipal in 1948 was the popular music conductor “Ray Martin” because at the time he was in England conducting orchestras. What to make of this is unclear? Possibly, the musical recital in which Witha Herm and Enry Berloc performed in 1948 in Bolivia merely used one or more of Kurt Kohn’s musical scores as accompaniment?

So, as often happens in my forensic investigations, I take two steps forward, one step back. I now know what Heinz Berliner looked like as a child, and confirmed he indeed immigrated to Bolivia after 1939, but am still left to ponder how and when exactly he died and whether he passed away in Bolivia.

 

HEINZ LUDWIG BERLINER & HIS IMMEDIATE FAMILY

 

Name (relationship) Vital Event Date Place
       
Heinz Ludwig Berliner (self) Birth 24 September 1916 Ratibor, Germany (Racibórz, Poland)
Death after 1948 possibly in Bolivia
Alfred Max Berliner (father) Birth 6 November 1875 Ratibor, Germany (Racibórz, Poland)
Marriage 17 January 1909 Meseritz, Germany (Międzyrzecz, Poland)
Death 19 February 1921 Ratibor, Germany (Racibórz, Poland)
Charlotte Henriette Rothe (mother) Birth 2 April 1886 Meseritz, Germany (Międzyrzecz, Poland)
Marriage 17 January 1909 Meseritz, Germany (Międzyrzecz, Poland)
Death January 1943 Auschwitz, Poland
Peter Hermann Berliner (brother) Birth 8 November 1910 Ratibor, Germany (Racibórz, Poland)
Marriage 24 December 1948 New York, N.Y., U.S.A.
Death 25 July 1977 New York, N.Y., U.S.A.
Pauline Ilse Berliner (sister) Birth 1 October 1911 Ratibor, Germany (Racibórz, Poland)
Marriage 2 April 1941 New York, N.Y., U.S.A.
Death January 1981 New York, N.Y., U.S.A.

 

 

 

POST 51: QUICK LINKS TO PREVIOUS BLOG POSTS

This post allows readers to quickly retrieve all previous Blog publications, and easily see which ones I’ve written postscripts to based on newly acquired information.

“Jetpack,” a plug-in for the WordPress software package I use for my website, tracks the number of “All-time views” and tells me which posts are the most popular. It is clear readers are most interested in first-hand accounts, letters, and diaries of the people and tragic historical events I write about. Equally compelling to readers seem to be stories where I’ve worked out the fate of people my father and ancestors were acquainted with, or managed to locate their descendants. As readers can imagine, first-hand accounts are hard to come by because few exist, or they were destroyed during the war. Regardless, because most are handwritten in hard-to-decipher German, which I don’t speak or read, I rely on a network of relatives and friends for translations and interpretations; I am most grateful for their generous assistance.

As previously explained to readers, my digital “footprint” is intentionally small, so the number of visits to my Blog is correspondingly bounded. However, given the great effort that’s gone into maintaining and expanding the website, I hope by consolidating links in one easy-to-access place, I might remind readers of the wide range of topics I’ve written about and increase the number of “clicks” on my posts.

POST 1: DR. OTTO BRUCK & TIEGENHOF: THE BEGINNING (July 2017)

POST 2: DR. OTTO BRUCK & TIEGENHOF: JUERGEN “PETER” LAU (August 2017)

POST 3: DR. OTTO BRUCK & TIEGENHOF: THE “SCHLUMMERMUTTER” (August 2017)

POST 3, POSTSCRIPT: DR. OTTO BRUCK & TIEGENHOF: THE “SCHLUMMERMUTTER” (May 2018)

POST 4: DR. OTTO BRUCK & TIEGENHOF: HANS “MOCHUM” WAGNER (August 2017)

POST 4, POSTSCRIPT: OTTO BRUCK & TIEGENHOF: HANS “MOCHUM” WAGNER (June 2018)

POST 5: DR. OTTO BRUCK & TIEGENHOF: “IDSCHI & SUSE” (August 2017)

POST 6: DR. OTTO BRUCK & TIEGENHOF: 1932 POCKET CALENDAR (August 2017)

POST 7: DR. OTTO BRUCK & TIEGENHOF: THE CLUB RUSCHAU (August 2017)

POST 8: DR. OTTO BRUCK & TIEGENHOF: NATIONAL SOCIALIST PARADES (August 2017)

POST 9: TIEGENHOF & RUDOLF DARGATZ (September 2017)

POST 10: TIEGENHOF & THE DIARY OF HEDWIG “HEDSCH” SCHLENGER (September 2017)

POST 11: RATIBOR & BRUCK’S “PRINZ VON PREUßEN“ HOTEL (October 2017)

POST 11, POSTSCRIPT: RATIBOR & BRUCK’S “PRINZ VON PREUßEN” HOTEL (March 2018)

POST 11, POSTSCRIPT 2: RATIBOR & BRUCK’S “PRINZ VON PREUßEN” HOTEL (July 2018)

POST 12: “STATE ARCHIVES IN KATOWICE BRANCH IN RACIBÓRZ (RATIBOR)” (October 2017)

POST 13: THE FORMER JEWISH CEMETERY IN RATIBOR (RACIBÓRZ) (October 2017)

POST 13, POSTSCRIPT: THE FORMER JEWISH CEMETERY IN RATIBOR (RACIBÓRZ) (July 2018)

POST 14: RATIBOR & THE BRAUER (BREWER) M. BRAUN “LINK” TO AMERICA (October 2017)

POST 14, POSTSCRIPT: RATIBOR & THE BRAUER (BREWER) M. BRAUN “LINK” TO AMERICA (March 2018)

POST 15: BERLIN & MY GREAT-AUNTS FRANZISKA & ELSBETH BRUCK (November 2017)

POST 16: TRACKING MY GREAT-AUNT HEDWIG LÖWENSTEIN, NÉE BRUCK, & HER FAMILY THROUGH FIVE COUNTRIES (December 2017)

POST 17: SURVIVING IN BERLIN IN THE TIME OF HITLER: MY UNCLE FEDOR’S STORY (January 2018)

POST 18: REMEMBERING MY GREAT-AUNT CHARLOTTE “LOTTE” BERLINER, NÉE ROTHE, VICTIM OF THE HOLOCAUST (January 2018)

POST 19: “GAME ON!” GERMANY’S 1929 DAVIS CUP TEAM VS. CZECHOSLOVAKIA (January 2018)

POST 20: MY AUNT SUSANNE, NÉE BRUCK, & HER HUSBAND DR. FRANZ MÜLLER, THE BERLIN YEARS (February 2018)

POST 21: MY AUNT SUSANNE, NÉE BRUCK, & HER HUSBAND DR. FRANZ MÜLLER, THE FIESOLE YEARS (February 2018)

POST 22: MY AUNT SUSANNE, NÉE BRUCK, & HER HUSBAND DR. FRANZ MÜLLER, THE FAYENCE YEARS (February 2018)

POST 23: MY AUNT SUSANNE’S FINAL JOURNEY (March 2018)

POST 24: A FEW WORDS WITH READERS (March 2018)

POST 25: DEATH IN THE SHANGHAI GHETTO (March 2018)

POST 26: “APATRIDE” (STATELESS) (March 2018)

POST 27: JEWISH DEPORTATIONS FROM GURS, FRANCE IN 1942 (April 2018)

POST 28: EMMY GOTZMANN, GERMAN POST-IMPRESSIONIST PAINTER (April 2018)

POST 29: TIEGENHOF: UNRAVELLING THE “MYSTERY” OF HEINRICH “HEINZ” REGEHR (April 2018)

POST 30: FAMILY ”PILGRIMAGE” 2018 (July 2018)

POST 31: WITNESS TO HISTORY, “PROOF” OF HITLER’S DEATH IN MY UNCLE FEDOR’S OWN WORDS (July 2018)

POST 32: FINDING GREAT-UNCLE “WILLY” (August 2018)

POST 33: FINDING GREAT-UNCLE WILLY’S GRANDCHILDREN (August 2018)

POST 34: MARGARETH BERLINER, WRAITH OR BEING? (September 2018)

POST 34, POSTSCRIPT: MARGARETH BERLINER, WRAITH OR BEING? DEATH IN THERESIENSTADT (November 2018)

POST 34, POSTSCRIPT 2: MARGARETH BERLINER, WRAITH OR BEING? MORE DISCOVERIES (December 2019)

POST 35: FATE OF SOME JEWISH GUESTS WHO STAYED AT THE VILLA PRIMAVERA (FIESOLE, ITALY), 1937-1938 (September 2018)

POST 36: THE WOINOWITZ ZUCKERFABRIK (SUGAR FACTORY) OUTSIDE RATIBOR (PART I-BACKGROUND) (October 2018)

POST 36, POSTSCRIPT: THE WOINOWITZ ZUCKERFABRIK (SUGAR FACTORY) OUTSIDE RATIBOR (PART I-MAPS) (October 2018)

POST 37: PETER & ILONA MULLER-MUNK’S GREEK SPONSOR CHILD (October 2018)

POST 38: THE EVIDENCE OF MY FATHER’S CONVERSION TO CHRISTIANITY (November 2018)

POST 39: AN IMPERFECT ANALOGY: FAMILY TREES AND DENDROCHRONOLOGY (November 2018)

POST 40: ELISABETH “LISA” PAULY NÉE KRÜGER, ONE OF MY UNCLE FEDOR’S “SILENT HEROES” (December 2018)

POST 41: DR. OTTO BERGER & OTHER “SILENT HEROES” WHO HELPED MY UNCLE DR. FEDOR BRUCK SURVIVE THE NAZI REGIME (December 2018)

POST 42: “DIE SCHLUMMERMUTTER’S” PARTING GIFT TO MY FATHER, A SIGNET RING (January 2019)

POST 43: HELPING A JEWISH FRIEND UNCOVER HIS GERMAN ROOTS (January 2019)

POST 44: A TROVE OF FAMILY HISTORY FROM THE “PINKUS COLLECTION” AT THE LEO BAECK INSTITUTE (January 2019)

POST 45: HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCE: RECALLING MY PAULY ANCESTORS (February 2019)

POST 46: WARTIME MEMORIES OF MY HALF-JEWISH COUSIN, AGNES STIEDA NÉE VOGEL (March 2019)

POST 47: WHALE-WATCHING IN BAJA CALIFORNIA (March 2019)

POST 48: DR. ERNST NEISSER’S FINAL DAYS IN 1942 IN THE WORDS OF HIS DAUGHTER (March 2019)

POST 49: GUIDE TO THE “LANDESARCHIV BERLIN” (BERLIN STATE ARCHIVE) CIVIL REGISTRY RECORDS (March 2019)

POST 49, POSTSCRIPT: GUIDE TO THE LANDESARCHIV BERLIN (BERLIN STATE ARCHIVE) CIVIL REGISTRY RECORDS: ANSWER TO “THE CHALLENGE” (April 2019)

POST 50: DR. ADOLF GUTTENTAG’S 1942 DIARY (April 2019)

POST 49: GUIDE TO THE “LANDESARCHIV BERLIN” (BERLIN STATE ARCHIVE) CIVIL REGISTRY RECORDS

Note: In this Blog post, I provide a brief guide on searching the on-line registry of vital records and statistics at the “Landesarchiv Berlin,” the Berlin State Archive.  This may be of interest to the small percentage of readers whose forebears are German and may once have lived in Berlin.

Civil registration is the system by which a government records the vital events (births, marriages and deaths) of its citizens and residents.  The resulting repository or database has different names in different countries and even in different states in America (e.g., civil registry, civil register, vital records, bureau of vital statistics, registrar, registry, register, registry office, population register). In Berlin, the records of births, marriages and deaths are stored at the “Landesarchiv Berlin,” the Berlin State Archive, and can be accessed on-line, specifically, in registers of births between roughly 1874 and 1907; in registers of marriages from about 1874 to 1935; and in registers of deaths from around 1874 to 1987.

It is quite challenging to use this on-line database, so in this Blog post I will share a few hints with interested readers on possibly finding their ancestors’ names. I need to alert readers that finding your ancestors in a registry does not immediately give you access to the underlying historic document; this entails sending an email to the Landesarchiv, and, at present, waiting up to four months to have the historic certificate mailed to you.  If you do all the research yourself, identifying the specific register, Berlin borough (see below), and document number, the Landesarchiv typically does not charge you for their services and copies of records.

At the end, for those who enjoy working through puzzles, using my own grandfather Felix Bruck, I will challenge readers to find the specific register in which his death was recorded.  In a week, I will tell and walk readers through the steps that I went through to find his name.  No doubt readers will be considerably more adept and quicker than I was at finding the proper register.

Before introducing readers to the civil registration database, let me provide some brief historic context.  According to the Landesarchiv’s website, the establishment of the archive in the modern sense of the term is 1808.  During WWII the collections of the archives were dispersed, to avoid destruction; following the war, during the 1950’s and 1960’s, the surviving collections were reunited.  In 1991 the Landesarchiv merged with Stadtarchiv in Berlin; the latter was the municipal archive and the place where the civil registration records were stored until the merger. In 2000, the Landesarchiv also integrated collections from the “Archivabeitlung der Landesbildstelle” and the “Archiv der Internationalen Bauausstellung,” including audio-visual archives.

The portal to access the civil registration records on file at the Landesarchiv Berlin can be found at the following URL:

http://www.content.landesarchiv-berlin.de/labsa/show/index.php

I can no longer recall how I became aware of this database, but given my family’s deep-seated connections to Berlin, it was only a matter of time before I would eventually learn of its existence.  Figure 1a is a screen-shot of the portal page, very simple in its presentation; Figure 1b is the same portal page translated, although the database cannot be queried from here (i.e., queries must be done from the German-language page).  There are three categories of records that can be searched in combination or individually (i.e., you can check one, two or all three boxes) for any area of Berlin: Sterberegister (Death Records); Heiratsregister (Marriage Register); and Geburtenregister (Birth Registers).

Figure 1a. “Landesarchiv Berlin Standesamtsabfrage” portal page (German)

 

 

 

 

Figure 1b. “Landesarchiv Berlin Standesamtsabfrage” portal page (English translation)

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 2. Map of Berlin’s 12 existing Boroughs and the neighborhoods in each

 

One of the keys to searching the civil registration records for Berlin is understanding Berlin’s system of boroughs.  The German capital Berlin is divided into 12 boroughs (German: Stadtteile/Bezirke), that have political rights like a town but are not legally cities. (Figure 2) On January 1, 2001, Berlin instituted a reform of its boroughs reducing their number from 23 to 12 to cut down on administrative costs.  Below is a table showing the old and new borough names, an understanding of which is critical to querying the civil registration records:

 

NUMBER NEW BOROUGH NAME OLD BOROUGH NAMES
I Mitte Mitte, Tiergarten, Wedding
II Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg Friedrichshain, Kreuzberg
III Pankow Prenzlauer Berg, Weißensee, Pankow
IV Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf Charlottenburg, Wilmersdorf
V Spandau Spandau (unchanged)
VI Steglitz-Zehlendorf Steglitz, Zehlendorf
VII Tempelhof-Schöenberg Tempelhof, Schöenberg
VIII Neukölln Neukölln (unchanged)
IX Treptow-Köpenick Treptow, Köpenick
X Marzahn-Hellersdorf Marzahn, Hellersdorf
XI Lichtenberg Lichtenberg, Hohenschönhausen
XII Reinickendorf Reinickendorf (unchanged)

 

Each borough is made up of several officially recognized subdistricts or neighborhoods (Ortsteile in German), that can be distinguished in Figure 2.  These neighborhoods typically have a historical identity as former independent cities, villages or rural municipalities that were united in 1920 as part of the “Greater Berlin Act,” which established the current configuration of Berlin; when first established in 1920, Berlin was organized into 20 boroughs, most often named after the largest component neighborhood, often a former city or municipality, sometimes named for geographic features (e.g., Kreuzberg, Prenzlauer Berg).  Today, Berlin is both a city and one of the 16 states of Germany and is referred to as a city-state (Stadtstaat in German).

On the portal page, in the box labelled “Standesamt,” one must enter the name of the borough one is seeking birth, marriage or death records from.  One begins by typing the first few letters of a borough, for example “Ch” for Charlottenburg, and, often, multiple listings for that borough will come up (e.g., Charlottenburg: Standesamt Charlottenburg; Standesamt Charlottenburg I; Standesamt Charlottenburg II; Standesamt Charlottenburg III; Standesamt Charlottenburg IV, etc.); select one, then select death, marriage, and/or death records you wish to see for that borough, then do a “Suchen” (i.e., search). A new page with the list of registers available for that borough or municipality will appear (e.g., Standesamt Charlottenburg IV) (Figure 3). Scrutinize the list until you find the register covering the year(s) you’re seeking; some years may have more than one register for them, while other registers may cover multiple years.

Figure 3. Portal page for “Standesamt Charlottenburg IV (Namensverzeichnis Sterberegister)” listing three death registers

 

 

A brief aside about “Standesamt” (German plural: Standesämter); this is a German civil registration office, which is responsible for recording births, marriages, and deaths.  Readers will recall my mentioning above that in 1991, the Landesarchiv merged with the Stadtarchiv in Berlin, the latter being where the civil registration records were kept until that time.  Soon after the German Empire was created in 1871 from the previous collection of German states (kingdoms, duchies, etc.), a universal system of Standesämter, register offices, was established, taking effect on January 1, 1876. The system had previously been introduced in Prussia on October 1, 1874, so it is no accident that the civil registration records at the Landesarchiv begin in this year. Today, those register offices (Standesämter) are still part of the administration of every German municipality (in small communities, they are often incorporated with other offices of the administration).  Since 1876, Germans can only enter a legal marriage in a Standesamt, and every marriage takes place before the local registrar (called Standesbeamter); similarly, every birth must be registered at a register office, as must every death.

I’ve gone into detail about the history on the establishment of Berlin following the Great Berlin Act of 1920, and the organization of the civil register offices, because it partially informs us of the extent of the historic documents they contain as well as the tedious steps that must be followed when querying the civil registration database.

In the time I’ve used the Landesarchiv Berlin database, I’ve only ever found seven documents I was researching. Virtually all my Jewish relatives lived in the well-heeled borough of Charlottenburg, so I ALWAYS begin my searches here, as I would suggest readers looking for their Jewish ancestors also do. Remember that today, the borough including Charlottenburg is named Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf, so the civil registers for “Wilmersdorf” should also be examined.

Regrettably, the empty box entitled “Standesamt” that you must complete does not provide a complete pull-down menu of all Berlin boroughs or neighborhoods when you start typing so I have no idea how many different boroughs, municipalities, and places are to be found in the civil register, likely dozens if not hundreds.

Figure 4. My uncle and aunt Dr. Franz Müller and Susanne Müller in Fiesole, Italy, 1938

 

Figure 5. Dr. Franz Müller & Susanne Bruck’s Marriage Certificate I (“Bescheinigung der Eheschließung” Nr. 263) showing they got married on 18th April 1931
Figure 6. Dr. Franz Müller & Susanne Bruck’s Marriage Certificate II (“Heiratsurkunde” Nr. 263) showing they got married on 18th April 1931

 

 

 

 

 

 

The first time I used the Landesarchiv database, I was searching for the register listing of my Aunt Susanne Bruck’s marriage to her husband, Dr. Franz Müller. (Figure 4) Because I have the original marriage certificate in my possession, two different ones, I knew they’d gotten married on April 18, 1931 in Berlin-Charlottenburg. (Figures 5-6) Obviously, I began searching the registers that cover this borough, and eventually found their marriage listed in “Standesamt-Charlottenburg III No. 605 (Namensverzeichnis Heiratregister 1924-1933) (name register to the marriage index 1924-1933).” (Figures 7a-b) If readers look carefully at the seal in the lower left corner of the two marriage certificates, you can see where it is stamped “Charlottenburg III.” The “Registernummer 263/1931” in the upper left-hand corner matches the number associated with my aunt and uncle’s names on the register page, so I knew I had located the correct certificate. Even though I have two marriage certificates for my aunt and uncle, I still requested a copy of the official document from the Landesarchiv, and much to my surprise it was different and included two pages, the second of which listed witnesses. (Figures 8a-b) For this reason, even if readers have originals of vital documents for your ancestors, I still recommend you request copies of any documents you may find in the Landesarchiv database; you never know what surprises may await you.

Figure 7a. Cover of Landesarchiv Berlin civil register book, “Standesamt-Charlottenburg III Nr. 605 (Namensverzeichnis Heiratsregister 1924-1933),” where my aunt and uncle’s 1931 marriage was recorded
Figure 7b. My uncle and aunt’s surnames, “Müller” and “Bruck,” recorded in Landesarchiv Berlin civil register book, “Standesamt-Charlottenburg III Nr. 605 (Namensverzeichnis Heiratsregister 1924-1933),” listing their marriage certificate number as 263

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 8a. Dr. Franz Müller & Susanne Bruck’s Marriage Certificate page 1, certificate number 263
Figure 8b. Dr. Franz Müller & Susanne Bruck’s Marriage Certificate page 2, certificate number 263, with the names of witnesses

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 9. My great-aunt Franziska Bruck (1866-1942)

The next person I researched in the Landesarchiv database was my great-aunt Franziska Bruck (Figure 9), who I knew had committed suicide on January 2, 1942; she too had lived and died in Charlottenburg, and I found her name listed in “Standesamt-Charlottenburg Nr. 713 (Namensverzeichnis Sterberegister 1942) (name register to the death index 1942).” (Figures 10a-b) I similarly requested a copy of my great-aunt’s death certificate and learned she had gruesomely committed suicide by hanging herself (Figure 11); obtaining poison to kill oneself may have been easier for Jews who were once in the medical profession, such as Dr. Ernst Neisser discussed in Post 48, unlike my great-aunt who was a renowned florist.

Figure 10a. Cover of Landesarchiv Berlin civil register book, “Standesamt-Charlottenburg Nr. 713 (Namensverzeichnis Sterberegister 1942),” with my great-aunt Franziska Bruck’s death recorded in January 1942
Figure 10b. My great-aunt Franziska Bruck’s name circled in the Landesarchiv Berlin civil register book, “Standesamt-Charlottenburg Nr. 713 (Namensverzeichnis Sterberegister 1942),” listing her death certificate number as 81

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 11. My great-aunt Franziska “Sara” Bruck’s death certificate, “Nr. 81,” stating she committed suicide by hanging herself on the 2nd of January 1942

 

Figure 12. Dr. Ernst Neisser with his future wife Margarethe Pauly ca. 1895 in Posen, Germany

I’ve recently returned my attention to the Landesarchiv database in connection with writing Post 48 dealing with Dr. Ernst Neisser, who was the husband of my first cousin twice-removed, Margarethe Neisser née Pauly. (Figure 12) To quickly review. According to Susanne Vogel née Neisser, Ernst and Margarethe Neisser’s daughter, Margarethe was institutionalized for the last three years of her life and committed suicide on October 12, 1941. Ernst lived with his first cousin Luise Neisser in Charlottenburg, and the two of them committed suicide the following year after they were ordered to present themselves for deportation to Theresienstadt. In the previous Blog post, I told readers both took poison on October 1, 1942; Luise died that day, but Ernst lingered for four days and succumbed on October 4, 1942.

I was able to locate in the Landesarchiv registers, the death listings for both Margarethe “Sara” Neisser and Luise “Sara” Neisser but, interestingly, for the longest time not for Dr. Ernst Neisser.  Margarethe, I found listed in “Standesamt-Charlottenburg Nr. 712 (Namensverzeichnis Sterberegister 1941)” (Figures 13a-b) and Luise in “Standesamt-Charlottenburg Nr. 713 (Namensverzeichnis Sterberegister 1942).” (Figures 14a-b) I’ve requested both of their death certificates from the Landesarchiv, and await their arrival.

Figure 13a. Cover of Landesarchiv Berlin civil register book, “Standesamt-Charlottenburg Nr. 712 (Namensverzeichnis Sterberegister 1941),” with Margarethe “Sara” Neisser née Pauly’s death recorded in October 1941
Figure 13b. Margarethe “Sara” Neisser née Pauly’s name circled in the Landesarchiv Berlin civil register book, “Standesamt-Charlottenburg Nr. 712 (Namensverzeichnis Sterberegister 1941),” listing her death in October and the death certificate number as 3159

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 14a. Cover of Landesarchiv Berlin civil register book, “Standesamt-Charlottenburg Nr. 713 (Namensverzeichnis Sterberegister 1942),” with Luise “Sara” Neisser’s death recorded in October 1942
Figure 14b. Luise “Sara” Neisser’s name circled in Landesarchiv Berlin civil register book, “Standesamt-Charlottenburg Nr. 713 (Namensverzeichnis Sterberegister 1942),” listing her death in October and the death certificate number as 4325

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finding Dr. Ernst Neisser’s listing in the Landesarchiv involved some serious forensic work and one I worked out literally as I was writing this post. I knew that Dr. Ernst Neisser lived with his first cousin Luise Neisser in Eichenallee in Charlottenburg; as mentioned above, both Ernst and Luise tried to commit suicide on October 1, 1942, and while Luise succeeded, Ernst lingered until October 4th. Even though they died four days apart, I assumed both their deaths had been registered in Charlottenburg where they lived, but I was unable to find Ernst’s death recorded in any registers for Charlottenburg nor Wilmersdorf.

According to his daughter’s written account of his final days, Ernst died at the Jüdische Krankenhaus Berlin, the Berlin Jewish Hospital, where he’d been taken following his attempted suicide. It occurred to me that Ernst may have had his death registered in the borough where the Jewish Hospital is located; I researched this and discovered the Jüdische Krankenhaus Berlin, which still exists today, is in the borough “Mitte.” To remind readers what I illustrated in the table above, today’s borough Mitte once consisted of three independent boroughs, Mitte, Tiergarten, and Wedding; the registers for “Mitte” and “Tiergarten” yielded nothing, but finally in the last possible register where I thought his name might be listed, in the borough “Wedding,” under October 1942, I found the name “Neißer, Richard Ernst Israel.” (Figures 15a-b) Success at last!

Figure 15a. Cover of Landesarchiv Berlin civil register book, “Standesamt-Wedding Nr. 5 (Namensverzeichnis Sterberegister 1942),” with Richard Ernst “Israel” Neißer’s death recorded in October 1942
Figure 15b. Richard Ernst “Israel” Neißer’s name circled in Landesarchiv Berlin civil register book, “Standesamt-Wedding Nr. 5 (Namensverzeichnis Sterberegister 1942),” listing his death in October and the death certificate number illegible

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 16. Page from Susanne Vogel’s letter to her cousin, Lieselotte Dieckmann, showing she got married to Hans Vogel on the 31st July 1926 in Berlin

 

In order to successfully navigate the Landesarchiv database, it is helpful to have at least the month and year when a vital event in an ancestor’s life may have taken place. Ernst and Margarethe Neisser’s daughter, Susanne Vogel née Neisser, noted the place and date of her own marriage to Hans Vogel in the preface to the memoir she wrote about her father’s final days; it took place on the 31st of July 1926 in Berlin. (Figure 16) Assuming, as I always do, the wedding took place in Charlottenburg, I successfully located the spouse and bride’s names in the “Standesamt-Charlottenburg I Nr. 467 (Namensverzeichnis Heiratregister 1921-1927).” (Figures 17a-b)

Figure 17a. Cover of Landesarchiv Berlin civil register book, “Standesamt-Charlottenburg I Nr. 467 (Namensverzeichnis Heiratsregister 1921-1927),” listing the surnames Vogel and Neißer and their marriage certificate as number 503
Figure 17b. The surnames “Vogel” and “Neißer” recorded in Landesarchiv Berlin civil register book, “Standesamt-Charlottenburg I Nr. 467 (Namensverzeichnis Heiratsregister 1921-1927),” listing their marriage certificate number as 503

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 18. Envelope containing letter mailed to my great-aunt Elsbeth Bruck showing she resided at Prenzlauer Allee 113, which was in the “Pankow” borough of Berlin

 

Figure 19. My great-aunt Elsbeth Bruck photographed in Berlin on 15th of March 1967; she died on the 20th of February 1970, but I could not find a record of her death in the Landesarchiv Berlin

There is one other great-aunt whose Berlin residence (i.e., “Prenzlauer Allee 113” in the neighborhood of “Prenzlauer Berg” in the Berlin borough of “Pankow”) (Figure 18) and date of death are known to me (i.e., 20th of February 1970), my renowned Socialist ancestor, Elsbeth Bruck (Figure 19); she died in East Berlin well before the fall of the German Democratic Republic in 1990.  Still, despite having very specific information for her, to date, I’ve not been able to locate her name in a Landesarchiv register. I assume East Germans were equally meticulous about recording vital statistics, so I conclude I’ve just not worked out the correct parameters as to where she died.  It’s possible that, like Dr. Neisser, she died in a hospital in a different borough of East Berlin and that her death was registered in that borough.  I simply don’t know.

So, to let me briefly recap some suggestions when searching through the Landesarchiv database. If you think you might have an ancestor or know of someone who was born in Berlin sometime after 1874 (but before 1905), got married there before 1935, and/or died there before 1987, it helps if you can narrow down at least one vital event to a specific year or actual date. Next, if you have any idea where your relative or acquaintance lived in Berlin, this may help you determine the borough where they resided. You may know the actual address where they lived without knowing which modern or historic Berlin neighborhood or borough the street was located, so Google the address and try and narrow it down to a borough; be aware that in Berlin there are multiple streets with the same name (e.g., Kastanienallee (=Chestnut Street)). You may be able to locate where your relative or acquaintance lived by using old Berlin Address Books available through ancestry.com.  If you think you’ve finally identified the borough, you can begin your search in the Landesarchiv. As I’ve illustrated through example, Berlin boroughs must be searched by their modern names, as well as by the historic municipalities or neighborhoods that comprised that borough.

I’d be very interested in hearing from any of you who are successful in finding the names of any ancestors or acquaintances in the on-line Berlin State Archive database and obtaining copies of historic documents. Active genealogists know how valuable original vital records can be in establishing precise dates for these events and possibly uncovering another generation of ancestors.

“The Challenge”

Figure 20. My grandfather Felix Bruck, who died on the 23rd of June 1927 in Berlin, whose Landesarchiv death register listing readers are “challenged” to find

Many readers will not have any relatives nor know of anyone who had any association with Berlin yet be interested in “testing” their skills using the Landesarchiv database to find an actual person connected to the city. For such “puzzle-masters,” I’ve created a challenge to find my grandfather Felix Bruck (Figure 20) in a Berlin register.  Figure 21 is a scan of his death certificate (the archaic German word “Todesschein” is used, but the modern German term is “Totenschein”).

 

Figure 21. My grandfather Felix Bruck’s death certificate, archaically entitled “Todesschein” (the modern term is “Totenschein”)

 

Below is a summary of the information on the Todesschein:

Death Register Nr. 971 of the year 1927

First name and surname: Felix Bruck

Husband of Else née Berliner from Berlin-Wilmersdorf at Düsseldorfer Straße 24

Profession: pensioner, 63 years old, born in Ratibor [today: Racibórz, Poland]

Died on the 23rd of June 1927 in Berlin IX

Recorded Berlin on 22nd of July 1927

The Registrar.

All the information readers need to know to locate my grandfather’s name in a Berlin civil register can easily be read on the scan. Good luck!

 

POST 14, POSTSCRIPT: RATIBOR & THE BRAUER (BREWER) M. BRAUN “LINK” TO AMERICA

Note:  Since publication of Post 14 in October 2017, three different readers sent me information related to the M. Braun Brauerei.  All three have graciously allowed me to update the original post using visuals they provided.

Figure 1-Postcard written in 1912 showing the M. Braun Brauerei

In the original Blog post, I included a postcard showing the M. Braun Brauerei in the early 20th Century. (Figure 1)  The postcard was written on July 28, 1912 from Ratibor, by my great-grandmother Olga Berliner, née Braun, and addressed to my great-aunt Franziska Bruck in Berlin.  Within the past week, my third cousin, once-removed, Larry Leyser, sent me a different postcard of the front of the same brewery. (Figure 2)  While this image is rather less clear, what makes it so informative is that it names the square on which the M. Braun Brauerei was located, namely, “Neu Markt.”

Figure 2-Undated postcard showing the same M. Braun Brauerei located on “Neu Markt” square
Figure 3-1891 plan map of Ratibor showing where “Neu Markt” and “M. Braun Brauerei” were located

Combined with an 1891 map of Ratibor (today: Racibórz, Poland) that a different reader, Mr. Paul Newerla, sent me, showing Neu Markt, I now know precisely where the M. Braun Brauerei was situated.  This 1891 map even pinpoints the location of the brewery on the square, while a 1927-28 plan map of Ratibor shows the square. (Figures 3 & 4)  Mr. Newerla, has written a book on Raciborz, entitled “Ratibor einst und jetzt,” translated roughly as “Ratibor, then and now.” (Figure 5).  In addition to the map from 1891, Paul also sent me a treasure trove of information on the Bruck family hotel in Ratibor, the Bruck’s “Prinz von Preußen” Hotel, which will be the subject of an upcoming postscript.

Figure 4-1927-28 plan map of Ratibor showing location of “Neu Markt” square
Figure 5-Cover of Paul Newerla’s book entitled “Ratibor einst und jetzt” (“Ratibor, then and now”)

 

A different Polish gentleman, Mr. Grzegorz Miczek, contacted me after seeing my original post.  He asked whether I had any additional documents related to the brewery as reference for a book he’s writing on the “Raciborskie Brewery.”  He mentioned he possesses a few bottles from the brewery, and graciously sent me images of them that he’s allowing me to share with readers.  These elegant old beer bottles speak for themselves.  (Figures 6-9)

Figure 6
Figure 7
Figure 8
Figure 9

 

My cousin Larry Leyser made another interesting discovery.  The brewer Markus Braun, after having a dozen children by his first wife, Caroline Spiegel, remarried a Johanna Goldstein and had two additional children, a daughter Wanda Eugenia Braun (Figure 10; Translation) born in 1869, followed a year later by a son Markus Braun. (Figure 11; Translation)  It appears the elder Markus passed away in 1870 at the age of 53 before his youngest son was born some months later.

Figure 10-Death certificate for Markus Braun’s daughter, Wanda Eugenia Braun, by his second wife
Figure 11-Marriage certificate for Markus Braun’s son, also named Markus, by his second wife

 

 

 

 

 

POST 26: “APATRIDE” (STATELESS)

Note:  This story relates to the brief time between 1946 and 1948 when my father, Dr. Otto Bruck, worked illegally as a dentist in Nice, France.

The Nazi’s “Reich Citizen Law,” one of two Nuremberg Laws passed by the Reichstag on September 15, 1935, declared that only those of German or related blood were eligible to be Reich citizens; the remainder were classed as state subjects, without citizenship rights.  From this point forward, my father was “stateless.”

Figure 1-Vieux Nice is the city’s old town, characterized by narrow cobblestone streets and pastel-hued buildings

For me, this story begins more than 60 years ago in Nice, France, along la Côte d’Azur, when as a young boy I was in the company of my maternal grandmother and we were walking through Vieux Nice. (Figure 1)  I’m unsure what tricks time plays with memories, but I clearly remember my grandmother stopping along a street I would recognize many years later as Boulevard Jean Jaurès (Figure 2), pointing to a building on the windward side, and telling me my father had had his dental office there.  My grandmother knew this because my father had done extensive work on her teeth.  This may also have been when I first learned my father was Jewish.  It would be many years, in all honesty, before I would absorb the full significance of these facts.

Figure 2-Light rail running along Boulevard Jean Jaurès, much changed from when I was a young boy

In previous posts, I’ve mentioned having visited on multiple occasions Ratibor (today: Racibórz, Poland), where my father was born in 1907.  On my second visit there, in 2012, I met a gentleman at the Tourist Bureau, who, like myself, is a retired archaeologist.  He currently edits a journal, entitled the Almanach Prowincjonalny, and upon learning of my family’s connection to Ratibor, wondered whether I’d be interested in writing an article for this periodical.  I eagerly agreed, and in April 2013, my article was published. 

Figure 3-My father, Dr. Otto Bruck, in 1946 along Nice’s Promenade des Anglais

In writing this essay, I’d learned from my mother that my father had worked for a woman dentist by the name of Mme. Lotter between 1946 and 1948 in Nice.  Recall, this is the city where my parents first met, and where my dad settled after his release from the English Army in June 1946 because he had an aunt and cousins living there. (Figure 3)  Because Mme. Lotter was entirely disinterested in dentistry, my father essentially managed her dental practice.  This was an illegal arrangement because he was stateless, in French, “apatride,” and therefore not authorized to work in France. (Figures 4a & 4b)  The authorities eventually caught him in flagrante in 1948 and charged him with practicing dentistry illegally.  By this time, my father had obtained a visa for the United States which was predicated on not having a criminal record.  Rather than risk being denied entry into the States, my father absconded before his trial.

Figure 4a-My father’s French “Titre D’identité et De Voyage”

 

Figure 4b-My father’s French “Titre D’identité et De Voyage,” identifying him as “apatride,” or stateless

 

Fast forward now to 2014 when my wife and I visited l’Hôtel de Ville in Nice in search of information on my father’s aunt and cousins.  This was discussed in Post 16.  While waiting for assistance, I was left alone for some moments and encouraged to peruse the books containing les certificats de décès, the death certificates, so took the opportunity to check for deceased Lotters.  Having only this surname to work with, I systematically set myself to looking through the death certificates for the years starting with 1948, the year my father left France and Mme. Lotter was assuredly still alive. 

Figure 5a-Henri Lotter’s name listed in the Nice death register, alongside that of his wife, Simone Lotter-Jaubert (registration date does not correspond with the death date)

In the spirit of Branch Rickey’s mantra that “luck is the residue of design,” I quickly discovered a gentleman by the name of HENRI LOTTER who died on May 28, 1970.  Fortunately, there were only a handful of deceased Lotters, all men, but this individual caught my attention because it gave his divorced wife’s name, SIMONE JAUBERT. (Figures 5a & 5b)  I discovered she died on November 1, 1964. (Figure 6)   I requested copies of both of their death certificates, uncertain whether this Mme. Lotter-Jaubert was even a dentist. 

Figure 5b-Simone Lotter, née Jaubert, death register listing

 

Figure 6-Simone Lotter, née Jaubert, death certificate

 

 

Armed with these death certificates, I asked where the various people were buried.  I was directed to a different nearby office of l’Hôtel de Ville in Nice, Service De L’administration Funéraire, essentially the “Bureau of Cemeteries.”  Here we would make the acquaintance of Mme. Joelle Saramito, who, like other French bureaucrats I’ve met, was intrigued by an American who speaks fluent French; Mme. Saramito has helped me multiple times over the years including on one of my most spectacular discoveries, which will be the subject of a future post.  As fortune would have it, Mme. Lotter-Jaubert is buried alongside her husband in Cimitiere De Caucade (Figure 7), the same cemetery where my Aunt Hedwig Loewenstein, née Bruck, and her son, Fedor Löwenstein’s headstones are located.  While our visit to Cimitiere De Caucade allowed us to view all the tombstones simultaneously, it did not conclusively answer the question of whether this was the correct Mme. Lotter.

Figure 7-The graves of Simone Lotter, née Jaubert, buried alongside her divorced husband, Henri Lotter in Cimetière De Caucade

To answer this question, I revisited Mme. Saramito, and asked her where I might find Yellow Pages for Nice for the late 1940’s.  She directed us to the “Archives municipales de Nice” (Figure 8), on the western outskirts of Nice.  So, on July 4, 2014, we presented ourselves there to the “Président de salle” (Figure 9), literally, “President of the Hall.”  Unquestionably, this must be one of the most highfalutin titles I’ve ever come across.  Regardless, upon our arrival, I explained what I was looking for, and “Le Président” brought out several annuaires téléphoniques, telephone directories, for the period in question.  Much to my delight, in the 1947-48 annuaire, under the listing for “Dentistes,” I found “Lotter-Jaubert, Simone, place Saint-Francois 2” (Figures 10a & 10b), confirming that Mme. Simone Lotter had indeed been a dentist.  Simone’s ex-husband, Henry Lotter, I discovered had been un pharmacien, a pharmacist.

Figure 8-Entrance to “Ville De Nice Archives Communales”

 

Figure 9-The highfalutin title of “Président de salle”

 

Figure 10a-Listing in 1947-48 Nice telephone directory for “Dentistes”

 

 

Figure 10b-Listing in 1947-48 Nice telephone directory for “Lotter-Jaubert, Simone, place Saint-Francois 2” under the category of “Dentistes”

 

Figure 11-Entrance sign to “Vieux Nice”

There remained but one final thing for me to confirm, whether in fact a distant memory that the office building my grandmother had pointed to was indeed located in Vieux Nice. (Figure 11)  And, in fact, I was able to locate the still standing building at Place Saint-Francois 2, in the old section of Nice (Figures 12, 13 & 14).  This story proves that occasionally with only scant information to begin with, in my case just a surname and a 60-year old childhood memory, one can sometimes make extraordinary discoveries about one’s family.

Figure 12-The office building at “Place Saint-Francois 2” where my father worked for Mme. Simone Lotter
Figure 13-Street sign for “Place Saint Francois”

 

 

Figure 14-Entrance to “Place Saint-Francois 2”

POST 25: DEATH IN THE SHANGHAI GHETTO

Note:  This tale is about another of my father’s first cousins, Mr. Fritz Goldenring.  This post provides an opportunity to explore the fate of a Jewish émigré, who, while he did not perish in a concentration camp or ghetto in Europe, is every bit as much a victim of Nazi persecution as those individuals who were murdered in these places.  How I learned about Fritz does not follow a linear path, although I’ll strive to relate my discoveries in a somewhat chronological fashion.  Like the stories of many of my relatives, there are glaring gaps in what I’ve pieced together.

Figure 1-My father, Dr. Otto Bruck, with two first cousins, Eva Bruck and Eva Goldenring and his sister (right), Susanne Müller, née Bruck, at the Villa Primavera in Fiesole on May 10, 1938

Two of my father’s photos taken in May 1938 in Fiesole, Italy, following his arrival there after fleeing Germany, show a woman identified as Eva Goldenring. (Figures 1 & 2)  I later learned she was another of my father’s first cousins.  Like most of his relatives, Eva and her mother Helene Goldenring, née Hirsch, were rarely mentioned when I was growing up, although I knew they’d survived the war and eventually immigrated to America.  Both daughter and mother stayed at the Pension “Villa Primavera” in Fiesole, Italy, co-managed by my Aunt Susanne Müller, Helene twice in 1937-38 (Figures 3 & 4) and Eva in 1938.

Figure 2-My father with one of his first cousins, Eva Goldenring, after their last tennis match together in Firenze (Florence)
Figure 3-Helene Goldenring’s “Soggiorno degli Stranieri in Italia” (Stay of Foreigners in Italy) form indicating her stay at the Villa Primavera between May 24, 1937 until June 29, 1937, when she left for Rome

 

Figure 4-Fiesole’s registration log showing Helene Goldenring’s second stay at the Villa Primavera between December 1937 and January 1938

 

Figure 5-Larry Leyser, my third cousin, once-removed

In Post 14, I discussed the Tenant Brewer, Markus Braun, from Ratibor, the town where my father was born.  Markus had a dozen children by his first wife, Caroline Spiegel, then two more by his second wife, Johanna Goldstein.  I’m distantly related to most of my American cousins through Markus Braun.  My third cousin, once-removed, Larry Leyser (Figure 5), is one such relative, and, like myself, an active genealogist.  Several years ago, Larry shared a two-page summary written by his grandmother, Katerina Leyser, née Rosenthal (Figure 6), detailing some of Larry’s ancestors.  This document provided the first mention of Fritz Goldenring and identified him as the brother of Eva Goldenring and son of Helene Goldenring; no other information was given.

Figure 6-Larry Leyser’s grandmother, Kate Leyser, née Rosenthal, whose family summary makes mention of Fritz Goldenring
Figure 7-The April 19, 1946 edition of the “Aufbau” newspaper showing Fritz Goldenring died in Shanghai on December 15, 1943

To try and learn more, I turned to ancestry.com, and happened on a tantalizing mention of Fritz Goldenring originating from Aufbau Newspaper, saying he had died in Shanghai; Fritz’s name was listed in the April 19, 1946 edition of Aufbau. (Figure 7)  Aufbau (German for “building up, construction”), I discovered, is a journal targeted at German-speaking Jews around the globe founded in 1934.  From September 1, 1944 through September 27, 1946, Aufbau printed numerous lists of Jewish Holocaust survivors located in Europe, as well as a few lists of victims.  These lists, which have been digitized, contain 33,557 names that are searchable via “JewishGen’s Holocaust Database,” “JewishGen Germany Database,” and the U. S. Holocaust Memorial Museum’s “Holocaust Survivors and Victims Database.”  According to JewishGen, the extent of the information available on any individual varies widely. 

For Fritz Goldenring, I learned he was born on September 11, 1902 and died on December 15, 1943; intriguingly, it gave his last residence simply as “Nizza.”  Coincidentally, Nizza is the Italian name for Nice, France, a place with which my family has connections, as readers may recall.  Mistakenly believing that Fritz may last have resided here before immigrating to Shanghai, I asked an acquaintance at Nice’s l’Hôtel de Ville whether she could find any trace of Fritz Goldenring there, to no avail.  Knowing of the Goldenring family’s travels to Genoa, Italy in July 1926, I looked for a “Nizza” nearby, and discovered a place named “Nizza Monferrato” only 65 miles away; I sent the Comune there an email, received a very gracious reply saying Fritz Goldenring similarly had no connection to this place.

Realizing I was grasping at straws, I resolved to renew my search for Fritz Goldenring from the place he’d assuredly lived, namely, Shanghai.  I turned to my friend, Ms. Madeleine Isenberg, from the Los Angeles Jewish Genealogical Society, who assists fellow “travelers.”  I asked whether she could refer me to someone in the Jewish community in Shanghai, and she suggested I contact “Chabad” centers in Shanghai; Chabad is one of the largest Hasidic groups and Jewish religious organizations in the world.  I emailed three such centers in Shanghai, asking who I should contact about obtaining a copy of Mr. Goldenring’s death certificate, and almost immediately received an email from Rabbi Shalom Greenberg.  He’d forwarded my request to Mr. Dvir Bar-Gal, who leads “Tours of Jewish Shanghai.”

Mr. Bar-Gal, it turns out, is an Israeli photojournalist whose mission of tracking down traces of Shanghai’s Jewish past began by accident, when he discovered a Hebrew tombstone in a Shanghai antique shop in 2001.  He’s become known as Shanghai’s “gravestone sleuth,” tracking down Jewish tombstones scattered around the city’s outlying villages, tombstones used for everything from building beams to washboards.  Between the mid-19th and mid-20th centuries, Shanghai transformed from a small fishing village to China’s largest city and become known as the “Pearl of the East.” 

The Jewish tombstones that Mr. Bar-Gal is racing the clock to save are remnants of Shanghai’s Jewish community that once numbered no fewer than 30,000 Jews.  Jews first arrived in Shanghai in 1845, built their fortunes, and quickly occupied key positions in the city, making significant social and economic contributions.  Russian Jews escaping the pogroms of the early 1900’s represented the next wave of immigrants.  They were followed by the last major group of Jewish immigrants, the most well-known of three waves, European refugees escaping Nazi terror.  At the time, China was the only country in the world where Jews did not require an entry visa, and this is certainly the reason my father’s cousin, Fritz Goldenring, sought refuge here.

Many of the Jewish refugees who arrived in Shanghai were penniless but were assisted by the wealthier and established Sephardic Jews.  After the Japanese occupied Shanghai in 1937, the Nazis applied pressure on them to deport or murder the city’s Jews, an order they refused.  Instead, they confined the roughly 20,000 stateless Jewish refugees to the Shanghai Ghetto, formally known as the “Restricted Sector for Stateless Refugees,” an area roughly one square mile in the Hongkou district.  About 23,000 of the city’s Jewish refugees were restricted or relocated to the area between 1941 and 1945 by the “Proclamation Concerning Restriction of Residence and Business of Stateless Refugees.”  The Shanghai Ghetto was never walled, and Jews were housed alongside local Chinese, who lived in equally deplorable conditions.

The first Jewish cemetery was established in 1862, and by the 1950’s four Jewish cemeteries existed in Shanghai containing 3,700 graves.  As the city expanded, in 1958, it was decided to systematically transfer the graves to a newly constructed international cemetery to the west of the city.  The few Jews who remained after the Communists came to power were supposed to assist in these transfers, but during Mao Zedong’s “Cultural Revolution,” the international cemetery was instead destroyed, and the gravestones scattered.  These uprooted tombstones are the traces of Shanghai’s Jewish past that Mr. Bar-Gal is striving to relocate and preserve.

So, as readers can clearly conclude, referral to Mr. Bar-Gal was fortuitous.  While unable to provide a death certificate for Mr. Goldenring, Mr. Bar-Gal provided two valuable clues.  He told me that before being expelled from Germany, Fritz had last worked in Darmstadt, Germany as a journalist.  He recommended I contact Darmstadt to obtain his death certificate, so I sent the Rathaus (City Hall) there an email.  My request was eventually forwarded to the Stadtarchiv, or City Archive, in Darmstadt, and finally, in October 2017, they responded.  They could find no evidence that Fritz Goldenring had lived in Darmstadt, but they did find a reference to him in on-line directory at the Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv, the Hesse Central State Archive, in Wiesbaden.  They added one additional clue, namely, that Fritz was born in Berlin.

Figure 8-A letter from the International Committee of the Red Cross, dated November 30, 1961, included in Helene Goldenring’s compensation file, confirming the date and cause of her son’s death in Shanghai

With this new information, I next contacted the Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv.  They eventually responded telling me there exists an Entschädigungsakte, a claim for compensation file, submitted by Helene Goldenring, née Hirsch, as the heir of her son Fritz Goldenring. (Figure 8)  After paying a fee, I was able to obtain a copy of this 160-page file, a document that ultimately filled in some holes.

This file includes typed and handwritten pages, all in German, so I convinced one of my cousins to review and summarize the highlights.  The compensation file, while leaving many facets of Fritz’s life in doubt, did answer some questions.  It confirmed Fritz had been born in Berlin; attended grammar and high school there; apprenticed as an office worker in Nordhausen; and worked in Hamburg for Schenker & Co., a transport and logistics company dealing with planes, ships and trucks.  He eventually became a journalist, as I’d learned from Shanghai.  As his situation in Germany became increasingly tenuous, he hoped to parlay his possession of perfect pitch and musical talents into a ticket elsewhere, so in 1938 he went to Berlin.  While there, he was apparently arrested for jay-walking and jailed for three days.  In a classic example of a “Catch-22,” upon his release, he was deemed to have been “previously convicted” and forced to leave Germany.

Knowing Fritz’s sister and mother had both stayed at the “Villa Primavera” in Fiesole, I re-examined the Pension’s guest logs, and discovered Fritz had also stayed there, registering for a month-long visit on May 16, 1938. (Figure 9)  I surmise after he was deported from Germany, Fritz first went to Fiesole before eventually making his way to Shanghai.  While in Fiesole, he even played in a men’s tennis tournament because, among my father’s personal papers, I discovered a newspaper clipping showing my father and Fritz’s results. (Figure 10)

Figure 9-Fiesole’s registration log showing Fritz Goldenring registered for a month-long stay at the Villa Primavera on May 16, 1938
Figure 10-My father and Fritz Goldenring’s tennis results at a tournament both played in Firenze

 

It’s not clear how long Fritz Goldenring stayed in Italy, but like my aunt and uncle, he likely left no later than September of 1938, probably from Genoa aboard a luxurious Italian or Japanese cruise ship headed to Shanghai.  I became curious whether Mr. Bar-Gal could tell me when Fritz arrived there, so I again contacted him.  There exists an Emigranten Adressbuch for Shanghai, dated November 1939, listing Fritz Goldenring, which Mr. Bar-Gal sent me a scan of, proving Fritz was there no later than late 1939. (Figures 11a & 11b)

Figure 11a-Shanghai’s November 1939 “Emigranten Adressbuch” (Emigrant Address Book) listing Fritz Goldenring’s name, occupation, place of origin in Germany and address in Shanghai

 

Figure 11b-Shanghai’s November 1939 “Emigranten Adressbuch” (Emigrant Address Book) listing Fritz Goldenring’s name, occupation, place of origin in Germany and address in Shanghai

 

The Japanese designated the Shanghai Ghetto on February 18, 1943 and compelled those who’d arrived after 1937 to move there by May 18, 1943; many relocated Jews lived in group homes called “Heime,” including Fritz, who lived at “Alcockheim 66,” along with 60 other men.  Helene Goldenring’s compensation file explained Fritz’s cause of death, namely, Sprue and Avitaminose.  Avitaminosis is a disease cause by a deficiency of vitamins, and is closely associated with sprue, a chiefly tropical disease characterized by diarrhea, emaciation, and anemia.  Fritz is recorded as having died on December 15, 1943 at the Ward Road Hospital in Shanghai; apparently, the winter of 1943 in Shanghai was severe, and hunger was widespread.

Figure 12-Passenger list from the S.S. Maipo showing Helene Goldenring sailed from Valparaiso, Chile on July 3, 1947

Fritz’s mother’s compensation file, together with immigration records available from ancestry.com for his family, illustrate how widely the Goldenring family was dispersed during WWII.  Fritz’s sister, Eva Goldenring, for reasons I’m striving to understand, survived incarceration in the notorious French detention center of Gurs at the base of the Pyrenees in southwestern France; Eva would eventually live in Madrid before immigrating to America in 1947.  Fritz’s mother, Helene, made her way to Valparaiso, Chile, where her brother, Robert Hirsch, an engineer, had immigrated in 1939 from Bilbao, Spain.  Robert died in 1943 in Chile, and on July 3, 1947, Helene immigrated to New York (Figure 12), where she was reunited with her daughter. (Figure 13)

Figure 13-Mother and daughter, Helene & Eva Goldenring, Easter 1960, after they reunited in America

 

 

 

POST 24: A FEW WORDS WITH READERS

Note:  Occasionally, I will take a brief pause in my story-telling to engage with readers.  These conversations may relate to the approach I take in writing my Blog; entail new discoveries that readers have brought to my attention; offer promising avenues for doing “forensic genealogy”; or discuss new features or elements I’ve added to my Blog.  Feedback is welcome.

I feel compelled to take hold of the narrative as it relates to the telling of my family’s stories.  Were better writers than me inclined to tell this tale, they could likely do it with greater pathos and originality but perhaps it would lack some of the authenticity I’m striving for.  Beyond this, I concede family histories are mostly of interest to blood relatives familiar with the individuals discussed, either personally known to them or to whom they can link to on a family tree.  For this reason, I consider it vitally important to couch as many of my family stories in a broader historic context that a larger audience can relate to and find interesting.  And, personally, researching the history in which some of the events played out has been endlessly fascinating.

Other than my family Blog, I have no direct footprint in social media, and this is a conscious decision.  During my second visit to Tiegenhof, the town in the Free State of Danzig where my father was once a dentist, I was interviewed by a reporter from a Pomeranian newspaper after my translated talk.  Some days later, I Googled the event.  The reporter had accurately portrayed the interview.   However, I was stunned by the vile and odious nature of some reader comments believing I’d only come to Poland for financial gain or to reclaim confiscated property.  Loathe as I am to say this, I attribute some of these attitudes to anti-Semitism.  For this reason, I intentionally opt to keep a low profile on the Internet even if it means that people who might be interested in my Blog only discover it by accident or never find it.

One of my stated goals when I launched my Blog was the hope some readers would provide additional information related to my posts, and in two instances I’m delighted to say this has happened.  Post 14 deals with the Braun & Berliner Brewery in Ratibor.  A Polish gentleman, Mr. Grzegorz Miczek, shared with me pictures of two historic bottles from this brewery which he graciously has allowed me to upload as a “Postscript” to this post.  Similarly, another Polish gentleman, Mr. Paul Newerla, shared with me some photos and advertisements of the hotel owned by my family in Ratibor through three generations, the Bruck’s “Prinz von Preußen” Hotel; these too will soon be added as a Postscript to Post 11.  In the case of these gentlemen and a few other individuals who’ve contacted me through my Blog, I’ve turned them on to resources they were previously unaware of, so the exchange has hopefully been mutually beneficial.

Figure 1-With Ms. Madeleine Isenberg, my friend at the Los Angeles Jewish Genealogical Society who assists members in their genealogical research

I’ve mentioned the Jewish diaspora in several Blog posts.  In working on my family history, I occasionally discover fleeting references to a few of my father’s cousins or relatives that dispersed to places in South America or even China in the era of the National Socialists.  Thereupon, I usually call upon a friend and long-standing affiliate of the Los Angeles Jewish Genealogical Society, of which I’m a member, to ask if she has any contacts in the Jewish community in those countries.  This friend has been beyond gracious and of enormous help. (Figure 1)  In an upcoming post, I will share the results of one such investigation instigated by information obtained from a man organizing tours of Jewish Shanghai.

Finally, I want to alert readers to two new pages I’ve added to my Blog in a section retitled “Resources.”  Readers will now find a “Glossary” of foreign words I’ve used in my posts, as well as a list of the “Archives and Databases” I’ve accessed and made use of in uncovering historic documents related to my posts.  For genealogists researching in some of the countries listed, I hope they may find these resources useful.

POST 22: MY AUNT SUSANNE, NÉE BRUCK, & HER HUSBAND DR. FRANZ MÜLLER, THE FAYENCE YEARS

Note:  This post is the next chapter in my Aunt Susanne and Uncle Franz’s story, following their departure from Fiesole, Italy around September 16, 1938. Their exodus came on the heels of enactment of racial laws by Fascist Italy beginning in 1938 enforcing discrimination mainly against Italian and foreign Jews.  The final destination, at least in the case of my Uncle Franz, was Fayence, France, 230 miles almost due west as the crow flies across the Ligurian Sea.  Why my aunt and uncle fled here was a decision shrouded in mystery, but one I eventually worked out with the assistance of an American researcher studying Dr. Franz Müller’s renowned son, Peter Müller-Munk.

Figure 1-View of the countryside surrounding Fayence across the tiled rooftops

Fayence is located in France’s Var region. (Figure 1)  It’s a charming small town of medieval origin that was once fortified and is considered one of a series of “perched villages” that overlooks the plain between the southern Alps and what’s called the Esterel massif, which borders the Mediterranean Sea between Cannes and Saint-Raphaël.  Fayence is slightly more than 40 miles west-southwest of the beautiful seaside town of Nice, along France’s Côte d’Azur.  Nice is where my parents met in 1946, and a place I spent some enjoyable summers with my maternal grandmother.  I’ve been told my grandmother even took me on an outing to Fayence as a child, though I have no recollection of this.  But, like Fiesole, Italy, Fayence is a place I associate with my aunt and uncle.

Following my aunt and uncle’s departure from Fiesole, likely in the company of my grandmother and my father, I presume they traveled by train through Nice on their way to Fayence.  Since my father had an aunt and cousins who lived in Nice, they may even have spent a few days there along the way.  Unlike Fiesole, La Mairie or L’Hôtel de Ville (City Hall) in Fayence does not appear to have maintained immigration or emigration logs during this period, so it’s impossible to pinpoint my relatives’ arrival there.  Suffice it to say, by early October 1938, they were likely in place.

Figure 2-Ms. Jewel Stern, art historian, who has spent many years researching Dr. Franz Müller’s son, Peter Müller-Munk

I learned why my aunt, uncle, and grandmother settled in Fayence because of my family tree on ancestry.com.  One day, I was contacted via my tree by a woman from Coral Gables, Florida, Ms. Jewel Stern (Figure 2), wanting to speak with me about my uncle.  Ms. Stern was trying to learn all she could about Dr. Franz Müller’s renowned son, Peter Müller-Munk.  She explained that not only did my uncle have a son by his first marriage, but he also had a daughter, Karin Margit Müller-Munk, a fact I was unaware of.  She was married to a man named Franz (“Francois” in France) Hermann Mombert, who with his brother Ernst owned the fruit farm in Fayence where my family sought refuge in 1938.  Margit’s brother came to America in 1926 and went on to become a world-renowned silversmith and industrial designer in Pittsburgh, thus, he was known to me unlike his sister, who died relatively young and anonymously in Fayence.   Ironically, through Ms. Stern I learned a lot about my own extended family.

Figure 3-My father, Dr. Otto Bruck, in his French Foreign Legion uniform in December 1941 in Constantine, Algeria

Among my father’s pictures are two sets of photographs from Fayence, the first taken between September and November of 1941, the second precisely on March 2, 1947.  Some context is necessary.  With few other options available to my father after leaving Fiesole, Italy, barely a month later, on October 21, 1938, he enlisted in the French Foreign Legion in Paris.  He was stationed in Saïda and Ouargla, Algeria (Figure 3), as a member of the “1ère Batterie Saharienne Porteé de Légion.”  Because of his Jewish origins, my father, like all other Jewish enlistees at the time, was given an alias; during his time as a legionnaire, he was known as “Marcel Berger.” (Figures 4a & 4b)  Because my father spoke fluent French he easily passed as a Frenchman.

Figure 4a-My father’s French Foreign Legion dog tag using his pseudonym,”Marcel Berger”
Figure 4b-Reverse of father’s French Foreign Legion dog tag showing “Marcel Berger” was born in Strasbourg, France on December 6, 1907

 

Figure 5-Taken in November 1941 in Fayence, one of my father’s last pictures of his sister Susanne

Between September and November of 1941, my father visited the south of France while on leave from the French Foreign Legion (FFL).  It was during this time that he last saw his sister Susanne (Figure 5) and took photos in Fayence. (Figures 6 & 7) What imbues this visit with historic interest is the fact that as a soldier in the FFL, he was able to travel, likely under his pseudonym, across “enemy” lines from Algeria to France.  One must assume such travel was possible only because the FFL was ostensibly allied with Vichy France—a regime that, until November 1942, was most powerful in the unoccupied, southern “free zone” centered on the commune of Vichy.  In theory, Vichy France also represented the French Colonial Empire, of which Algeria was a part, so this may explain how my father was able to travel between Africa and France in the middle of WWII.

Figure 6-My father’s October 1941 photograph showing Rue de la Bonnefont headed up to the left

 

Figure 7-My photograph taken at the same intersection in Fayence as Figure 6 in July 2014

 

Figure 8-My father’s French Foreign Legion regiment on deployment in Amguid, Algeria

As an aside, the Vichy Government, which had enacted anti-Semitic laws in the 1930’s and 1940’s, would occasionally send one of their envoys to liaise with FFL military units based in North Africa, ostensibly to root out Jews; during these visits some commanders, perhaps because of their antipathy and disdain for the Vichy Government, sent their foreign regiments on random deployments deep into the Sahara. (Figure 8) Regardless of the reason, this likely saved Jewish lives, including my father’s life.

The second set of pictures from Fayence was taken on March 2, 1947. (Figures 9 & 10)  My father and one of his first cousins visited the Mombert family with whom my grandmother was still living to celebrate her 74th birthday the next day.  At the time, my father worked as a dentist in Nice, an intriguing story that will be the subject of a future Blog post.  The two sets of pictures from Fayence, along with letters and documents I’ve located, indicate seven members of my family once lived there.  These included my Aunt Susanne, my Uncle Franz, my grandmother “Mummi,” as she was known, Francois and Margit Mombert, along with Francois’s brother Ernst and their mother, Nellie Mombert.  Their vital data is summarized in the table at the end of this post.

Figure 9-My grandmother and father in Fayence on March 2, 1947, a day before my grandmother’s 74th birthday
Figure 10-On March 2, 1947 in Fayence seated left to right: Cornelia “Nellie” Mombert, my grandmother, and Hansi Goff (Jeanne Loewenstein); Francois Mombert (standing)

 

Figure 11-Peter Müller-Munk’s iconic industrial design of the Texaco gas pump

Ms. Stern spent over 20 years studying and collecting the works of Peter Müller-Munk and learning about him and his family; her goal, which came to fruition in 2015, was to develop a special exhibit at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh on Peter’s amazing works. (Figure 11)  To learn about Peter’s father, Ms. Stern enlisted one of her Parisian friends to travel to Fayence, visit L’Hôtel de Ville, find Dr. Franz Müller’s final resting place and that of his daughter (Figures 12, 13 & 14), obtain copies of their death certificates, take pictures of the fruit farm where my aunt and uncle had lived, and more.  Ms. Stern graciously shared all this information with me, and, in turn, I rounded out my uncle and aunt’s story by providing pictures, documents, and history about their lives in Berlin and Fiesole.  It was mutually beneficial.

 

Figure 12-The Cimitiere Ancien where Dr. Franz Müller & his daughter Margit Mombert are buried

 

Figure 13-The eroding tombstone of Dr. Franz Müller & his daughter Margit Mombert

 

 

Figure 14-The barely legible names of Dr. Franz Müller & his daughter on their tombstone

 

Figure 15-Fayence’s L’Hôtel de Ville

 

In 2014, my wife and I retraced the steps taken by Ms. Stern’s friend and visited Fayence.  Additionally, Ms. Stern told us of an elderly local woman who had once worked for Francois Mombert beginning in 1941 when she was 15, so we planned through our contact at L’Hôtel de Ville (Figure 15), Mme. Claudine Clary (Figure 16), to interview this Mme. Marie-Rose Siri.  Immediately upon our arrival in Fayence, we spoke with Mme. Clary, who, among other things, explained where my uncle and his daughter are buried and told us their graves will soon be evacuated if their tombs are not restored and maintenance fees paid. (Figure 17)

Figure 16-Director of Fayence’s L’Hôtel de Ville, Mme. Claudine Clary
Figure 17-Posted sign on the tombstone of Dr. Franz Müller & his daughter saying their graves will be evacuated

 

Our visit with Mme. Siri and her daughter, Martine Siri (Figure 18), had been pre-arranged.  My fluency in French meant I could converse directly with Mme. Siri.  I was particularly curious about one picture taken in Fayence (Figure 19), showing my aunt and uncle eating lunch with his daughter and son-in-law, Margit and Francois Mombert.  A young lady is serving them, and I was curious whether Mme. Siri recognized herself, but unfortunately not.  As a young girl, Mme. Siri did household chores and helped harvest and package fruit for eventual sale in Cannes; the farm produced apricots, peaches, apples, and later artichokes and strawberries.  Mme. Siri recalled that Ernst Mombert, who had severe “strabisme,” or crossed eyes, was nonetheless able to work in the orchards.

Figure 18-Mme. Marie-Rose Siri, right, with her daughter Martine in 2014
Figure 19-Margit Mombert, Dr. Franz Müller, my Aunt Susanne & Francois Mombert being served lunch in Fayence

 

Mme. Siri fondly recalled Francois.  She remembered collecting mushrooms with my Aunt Susanne, and my aunt’s ability to discern edible fungi.  Poignantly, Mme. Siri told the story of when my Aunt Susanne was arrested by the Vichy in late August 1942; she was in hiding at the time, and the officials left word that if she did not present herself to the authorities, they would instead arrest one of the elderly members of the family.  This is not something my aunt would ever have countenanced so she turned herself in.

Mme. Siri mentioned something intriguing, specifically, that Francois Mombert and possibly also his wife were part of the French Resistance.  When the French collaborators came to the fruit farm along Chemin Banegon in late August 1942, they only arrested my Aunt Susanne and Ernst Mombert even though the three elderly members of the family were certainly present.  Why all the Jews at the farm were not seized then is unclear.

While Mme. Siri’s memories of my family’s years in Fayence are few, what she was able to recall brought them to life, if only dimly.

Figure 20-Street on which the Mombert house was located

Before leaving Mme. Siri, she and her daughter explained how to get to the nearby house once located along Chemin Banegon (Figure 20) where the former Mombert homestead is located.  I was very interested in seeing the place.  In doing family history, chutzpah is sometimes required.  Showing up unannounced on the doorsteps of a stranger’s house situated in a rural setting in a foreign country is an example.  To say we startled the current owner, Mme. Monique Graux, would be a mild understatement.  Fortunately, Mme. Graux was intrigued by the nature of our unplanned visit, and, entirely because of my wife’s warm and sympathetic countenance, invited us in and showed us around her home, inside and out. (Figures 21 & 22)

Figure 21-Me kneeling by Mme. Graux, current owner of the house where my family once lived in Fayence
Figure 22-The former Mombert farmhouse located on a renamed street called Chemin du Fraisse

 

 

Mme. Graux claimed she and her husband purchased the house along Chemin Banegon around 1960 from a gentleman named M. Lebreton, who’d owned it for only two-and-a-half years and bought it from Francois Mombert.  Mme. Graux never met Francois Mombert nor his wife, so could tell us nothing about them.  She explained the house dates from 1740 and was historically used to tan animal hides.  Given that Margit Mombert died in Fayence on March 22, 1959, sale of the house before her death strikes me as a bit improbable.  Curious as to when Mme. Graux and her husband purchased the farmhouse, I asked Mme. Clary about obtaining a copy of l’acte de propriété, the deed of ownership; the notary company informed her I could not get it because I am not related to the current owner.

Figure 23-M. Alain Rebuffel (left) standing alongside me in his winery

Near our hotel was a winery where we wanted to do a tasting.  As Americans traveling abroad, we typically stand out, so it intrigues the French when they hear someone obviously American speak their language with only a hint of an accent.  Such was the case when we visited this winery, and the owner engaged me in conversation.  The reason for our visit to Fayence came out, and the owner, M. Alain Rebuffel (Figure 23), remembered his grandfather talking about knowing my family; he recalled his grandfather was more kindly disposed towards Jews than his grandmother, who wanted nothing to do with them.  Interestingly, Mme. Clary told us her father similarly remembered my family.

Figure 24-M. Roger Faye (left), custodian of the Cimitiere Ancien

M. Rebuffel suggested we speak with his uncle, M. Roger Faye (Figure 24), who is the custodian at the cemetery where Dr. Franz Müller and his daughter are interred and lives in the adjacent house. Upon our visit to the cemetery, we examined and photographed the now crumbling tomb of my uncle and his daughter. Then, we called on M. Faye, who mentioned that several years earlier he had evacuated a tomb belonging to a member of the Mombert family, whose name he could not remember.  I ultimately worked this out when I discovered an on-line biography about Francois and Ernst’s father, Paul Karl Mombert.  He was a professor at the University of Giessen in Germany, who like my Uncle Franz, was fired in 1933.  He was imprisoned by the Nazis, but eventually released; he died from cancer shortly thereafter, on December 1, 1938, in Stuttgart, Germany, and his ashes were sent to Fayence.  There is no doubt that the Mombert tomb evacuated in Fayence was that of Paul Mombert.

Figure 25-Real estate register page showing Ernst Mombert purchased property in Fayence in December 1933 & that land was transferred to his surviving brother in 1947

Following my return to the States in 2014, I contacted the Archives Départementales du Var in Draguignan, France to inquire about Fayence real estate records and determine precisely when Ernst and Francois Mombert purchased the property along Chemin Banegon.  Fortunately, the historic records have survived and place acquisition of the farm in December 1933. (Figure 25)

Figure 26-Real estate register page for Francois Mombert

As mentioned above, Ernst Mombert was arrested along with my Aunt Susanne by the Vichy collaborators in August 1942, and neither survived.  The real estate records reveal a minor, but interesting historical fact.  They indicate that on September 6, 1947, exclusive ownership of the farm was transferred to Francois Mombert (compare Figure 26 to Figure 25), that’s to say, almost five years to the day after Ernst Mombert was deported to Auschwitz.  In the case of my Aunt Susanne, deported to Auschwitz the same day as Ernst, it took the Comune de Fayence seven years, until 1949, to officially declare her dead. (Figure 27)  The wheels of bureaucracy grind slow.

 

Figure 27-My Aunt Susanne’s Declaration of Death issued by the Comune de Fayence in 1949
Figure 28-Francois Mombert & Karin Margit Müller-Munk’s Marriage Certificate dated December 4, 1934

 

Ms. Stern learned much about Peter Müller-Munk from the personal papers of his aunt, Marie Munk, one of the first female lawyers in Germany.  Marie became a judge in 1930, but, like many Jews, was dismissed from her judicial position in 1933. She eventually came to the United States, obtained her law degree here, and had a notable career as a women’s rights activist.  Marie Munk’s papers are archived at Smith College, and in one letter, the date of her niece’s marriage to Francois Mombert on December 4, 1934 is mentioned.  Unknown initially when and where they’d been married, it took Ms. Stern and me a long time to track this down.  On a second visit to Fayence in 2015, in passing, I mentioned this date to Mme. Clary who immediately checked her office records and located Francois and Margit’s marriage certificate. (Figure 28)  Interestingly, after Margit’s death in 1959, Francois Mombert continued to correspond with Marie.

The next Blog post will be the final chapter about my Aunt Susanne’s abbreviated life.

Below readers will find the vital events of the seven family members I’ve determined lived in Fayence.

 

NAME EVENT DATE PLACE
       
Else Bruck, née Berliner

 

 Birth March 3, 1873 Ratibor, Germany (today: Racibórz, Poland)
  Death February 16, 1957 Manhattan, New York
Cornelia “Nellie” Mombert, née Gieser Birth 1880  
  Death 1963 Freiburg, Germany
Ernst Mombert Birth July 9, 1911 Freiburg, Germany
  Death ~ September 1942 Auschwitz-Birkenau, Extermination Camp, Poland
Franz (“Francois”) Hermann Mombert Birth February 21, 1909 Freiburg, Germany
  Marriage December 4, 1934 Fayence, France
  Death January 29, 1988 Locarno, Switzerland
Karin Margit Mombert, née Müller-Munk Birth September 23, 1908 Berlin, Germany
  Death March 22, 1959 Fayence, France
Franz Robert Müller Birth December 31, 1871 Berlin, Germany
  Marriage April 18, 1931 Berlin, Germany
  Death October 1, 1945 Fayence, France
Susanne Müller, née Bruck Birth April 20, 1904 Ratibor, Germany (today: Racibórz, Poland)
  Death ~ September 1942 Auschwitz-Birkenau, Extermination Camp, Poland