Vichy France Archives - bruckfamilyblog.com

POST 130: NAZI-CONFISCATED BOOKS STORED IN RATIBOR (RACIBÓRZ, POLAND), MY FATHER’S BIRTH PLACE

Note: This post tiers off an earlier one where I discussed my failed attempt to obtain compensation for my family from the French Ministry of Culture for artworks confiscated from my father’s first cousin by Nazi authorities at the port of Bordeaux in December 1940. As I explained in Post 105, I’m my father’s cousin’s closest surviving blood relative. The Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg (ERR), the Nazi’s primary agency of plunder, spearheaded the seizure of artworks in Bordeaux but was also heavily involved in the plunder of libraries and archives throughout the areas the Nazis occupied. Surprisingly, many of the books wound up in Ratibor [today: Racibórz, Poland], the town in Silesia where my father was born.

POST 126: MY GREAT-AUNT FRANZISKA BRUCK, FLORIST TO THE LAST GERMAN KAISER

POST 127: MY GREAT-AUNT ELSBETH BRUCK, “LA COMMUNISTE,” A DDR APPARATCHIK

This story begins in 2014 when I spent 13 weeks in Europe traveling from Poland to Spain exploring places associated with my Jewish family’s diaspora. This included visiting the Stadtmuseum in Spandau, Berlin’s westernmost borough, where the surviving papers of two of my renowned great-aunts, Franziska Bruck (1866-1942) and Elsbeth Bruck (1874-1970), are archived; both have been the subject of recent posts. I photographed all the documents, pictures, and personal effects in the files for later study.

Upon my return to the states, I tried to make sense of what I’d obtained. Obviously, the letters were most useful though some were handwritten in Sütterlinschrift or Kurrentschrift, historical forms of German handwriting that are indecipherable to me as well as most contemporary Germans; fortunately, I know a few older German friends and relatives who learned Sütterlin in school who were able to translate these letters for me.

The most informative letter, however, was a typed one, composed by one of my father’s first cousins, Jeanne “Hansi” Goff née Löwenstein, to her aunt, my great-aunt, Elsbeth Bruck in East Berlin. In this letter written in 1946, Hansi explained that a painting by her recently deceased brother Fédor Löwenstein had posthumously sold for 90,000 French Francs. (Figure 1) Realizing this represented a significant amount of money at the time, I began to suspect Fédor was an accomplished artist. I already knew of his existence from photographs and other letters found among my great-aunt’s papers. (Figure 2) Additionally, knowing Fédor had died in 1946 in Nice, France, I’d previously obtained his certificat de décès, death certificate, when I visited L’Hôtel de Ville in Nice, Nice’s City Hall.

Figure 1. The section of Jeanne Löwenstein’s 1946 letter to her aunt Elsbeth Bruck telling her of the posthumous sale of one of her brother Fédor Löwenstein’s paintings for 90,000 French Francs

Figure 2. Fédor Löwenstein (middle) and his brother Heinz with their mother Hedwig Löwenstein née Bruck in Nice, France

I began my investigation in Nice by contacting the lady I know at L’Hôtel de Ville asking if she could find and send me Fédor’s obituary. This acquaintance did one better and sent me several web links with information about Fédor Löwenstein. Unbeknownst to me during my 13 weeks in Europe the Musée des Beaux-arts in Bordeaux, France had featured three of Fédor’s oil paintings on display between May 15^th and August 24th. Naturally, had I known about this special exhibit, I would have detoured there to see the artworks.

The exhibit catalog (livret_lowenstein.pdf (musba-bordeaux.fr) included a lot of detail on Fédor and his paintings, and their history. (Figure 3) The exhibit and the new information confirmed what I already suspected, namely, that Löwenstein had not been an ordinary painter. He was born on the 13^th of April 1901 in Munich. He studied at the School of Decorative Arts in Berlin, then at the Academy of Fine Arts in Dresden. In 1923, he moved to Paris, France, attracted by the artistic influence of the capital. Between the two world wars, an artistic movement dominated there referred to as École de Paris, the School of Paris, which was not an actual school. It was in this rich artistic context that Löwenstein painted and drew. His early works reflected the influence of cubism, and his subsequent creations evolved towards abstraction, although his personal style was on the border between the two. In 1936, Fédor joined the Salon des Surindépendants, an association of artists who no longer wanted an admission jury and questioned the restrictions imposed by the new regulations of the Salon des Indépendants of 1924.

Figure 3. The cover of the catalog from the 2014 exhibit at the Musée des Beaux-arts that displayed Fédor Löwenstein’s three “martyred” paintings

Fédor Löwenstein is often referred to as a Czechoslovakian painter because his father’s family was from there. The Munich Agreement concluded on the 30^th of September 1938, provided for the German annexation of land on the border between Czechoslovakia and Germany called the Sudetenland, where more than three million, mainly ethnic Germans, lived. Undoubtedly the signing of this agreement in the city where Fédor was born and involving the country where his father’s family originated inspired him to paint one of his iconic works, “La Chute,” “The Fall.” As the Bordeaux exhibit catalog notes, “The composition and iconographic vocabulary of the work are reminiscent of the convulsed and screaming silhouettes of Picasso’s Guernica. . .”

When France entered the war on the 3^rd of September 1939, Löwenstein, like many artists, left Paris. As a foreigner, he had to hide to escape the exclusion laws. Briefly, some background on this. During the interwar period, France was one of the more liberal countries in welcoming Jews, many of them from eastern Europe. However, in the wake of a significant influx of refugees fleeing Nazi Germany and the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s, the French government began to reassess their “open-door” policy. By 1939 the authorities had imposed strict limitations on immigration and set up several internment and detention camps for refugees, such as Gurs and Rivesaltes, in southern France. Various of my German ancestors got caught up in these detentions.

In the case of Fédor, however, he went to Mirmande in the Drôme Valley, more than 400 miles south of Paris, on the advice of a fellow artist, a place he’d previously stayed in 1935 and 1938. At the time, Miramande was a village in ruins that became a refuge for many Parisian artists of foreign origin. All seemed to lead a peaceful existence there except for the difficulties obtaining art supplies. In any case, sometime in May 1940, Fédor left Miramande for Paris to select works of art to be shipped to a gallery in New York City via the port of Bordeaux. These works would eventually be seized there in December 1940 by the Nazi authorities.

Bordeaux is located in Aquitaine, a historical region in southwestern France. Quoting from the exhibit catalog: “Considered a sensitive and strategic coastal area, the Atlantic coastline was governed in a special way by the army, and access to it was forbidden. Very quickly, the military authorities blocked the shipment of all goods then leaving the port of Bordeaux. December 5 [1940] seems to have been the date of an important seizure operation by the ERR (Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg), two sets of goods on their way out were confiscated.” This included Fédor Löwenstein’s consignment of works destined for America.

A little more history. German forces invaded France on May 10, 1940, and by June 22, 1940, France signed an armistice with Germany that went into effect on June 25, 1940. Under the terms of the armistice, Germany annexed the provinces of Alsace and Lorraine, and occupied the remainder of northern and western France. However, southern and eastern France remained unoccupied until November 1942. There a French collaborationist government, referred to as the Vichy Regime, governed. However, the suppression of the demarcation line in November 1942 caused the artist colony gathered in Miramande to break up. From then on, it was the French Resistance network that protected the refugees of Miramande, allowing many Jewish painters to escape.

By the fall of 1943, Fédor was already ill and traveled to Paris under a false identity to consult a specialist at the Curie Institute, though his disease was not diagnosed. His mastery of the French language, his support network, and his discretion about his religion were undoubtedly responsible for his survival during the Nazi occupation. Shortly after the war on the 4^th of August 1946 he was hospitalized and died a few days later of Hodgkin Lymphoma in Nice.

The 2014 exhibit at the Musée des Beaux-arts de Bordeaux (livret_lowenstein.pdf (musba-bordeaux.fr) was prompted by the rediscovery of three looted works of art, entitled “Landscape (Composition (Paysage)) (Figure 4),” “The Poplars (Les Peupliers),” and “The Trees (Arbres)” painted by Fédor Löwenstein that had been confiscated by the Nazis. As previously mentioned, the three works displayed were part of a consignment that F. Loevenstein, as Fédor signed his works, tried to send to an American gallery in New York. Seized at the port of Bordeaux in December 1940, they were sent to the Jeu de Paume in Paris, to be stored in the so-called “Salle des Martyrs,” “Martyrs Room” (Figure 5), a chamber to which works in a style repudiated by the aesthetics of the Third Reich, were relegated. It was only at the end of 2010 that the connection between these works that were held at the Musée National d’Art Moderne housed at the Centre Pompidou and the Löwenstein seizure at Hanger H in the port of Bordeaux was made.

Figure 4. Fédor Löwenstein’s painting entitled “Landscape (Composition)”

Figure 5. The so-called “Salle des Martyrs,” “Martyrs Room,” at the Jeu de Paume in Paris; Löwenstein’s painting “Landscape” is circled (Anonymous 1940. Archive from the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs)

Researchers Alain Prévet, Thierry Bajou, Edouard Vasseur, along with the curator of the Bordeaux exhibit Mme. Florence Saragoza, about whom more will be said below, identified the paintings. They accomplished this using two negatives preserved in the Archives of the National Museums that showed views of the Salle des Martyrs of the Jeu de Paume. The researchers undertook detailed digitization of these negatives, painting by painting, and reconciled this with data that had been recorded by Rose Valland, then curatorial attaché at the Jeu de Paume. (Figure 6) In the list that Rose Valland had drawn up in March 1942, she listed eleven works—six watercolors being grouped together in one lot—that had been stolen from Fédor Löwenstein. At least two of the artist’s paintings are visible in one of the photographs taken of the Salle des Martyrs.

Figure 6. Rose Valland, curatorial attaché at the Jeu de Paume, in the Martyrs Room

The Salle des Martyrs of the Jeu de Paume became the central repository of the works of art confiscated in France by the Nazi services, the contents of which were made available to the ERR, the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg (the Reichsleiter Rosenberg Taskforce). The ERR was one of the primary Nazi Party organizations dedicated to appropriating cultural property during WWII. It was led by the ideological henchman of the Nazi Party Alfred Rosenberg, from within the NSDAP Office of Foreign Affairs. Between 1940 and 1945, the ERR operated in France, Netherlands, Belgium, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Greece, Italy, and on the territory of the Soviet Union.

The Löwenstein works mentioned by Rose Valland and rediscovered in 2010 had also been catalogued by the ERR agents. They were listed under ERR file numbers Löwenstein 4 (Landscape), Löwenstein 15 (The Poplars), and Löwenstein 19 (The Trees). Following the war, the works were kept at the Musée National d’Art Moderne. The researcher Alain Prévet previously mentioned involved in the identification of the Löwenstein works has shown that the works were inventoried in 1973 as coming from an anonymous donation. The Bordeaux catalog notes the following:

“According to the minutes of the session of the Commission des Musées Nationaux of December 6, 1973, this ‘donation’ was in fact a regularization of artistic goods that had been ‘lying around’ in the Louvre; works that had ‘remained unclaimed, some of them for forty years,’ in a storeroom of the national museum. Because of the lack of knowledge of the real provenance of these works, it was decided to register them as ‘anonymous gifts’. . . works that had been deposited in the Louvre during the Occupation, following the Nazi spoliations, were . . . part of this collection. . .”

As the Bordeaux exhibit catalog notes, Löwenstein’s works, which are conserved to this day at the Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Pompidou “. . .bear the stigma of their aesthetic condemnation: a large red cross indicating that they were among others destined to be discarded. The files drawn up by the ERR bear the mention vernichtet, ‘destroyed’. . .The curator at the Jeu de Paume, Rose Valland, confirms this fatal destiny on July 20, 1943: ‘Scholz and his team continue to choose from among the paintings in the Louvre’s escrow and stab the paintings they do not want to keep. This is how they destroyed almost all of Masson’s works, all of Dali’s. The paintings in the Löwenstein, Esmont (sic), M[ichel]-G[eorges] Michel collections are almost all shredded (…)’’. . . On July 23, she added: ‘The paintings massacred in the Louvre’s sequestration were brought back to the Jeu de Paume. Five or six hundred were burned under German surveillance in the museum garden from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.. . .’” That Löwenstein’s three paintings escaped destruction is astonishing and is probably due to the fact they were classified as “paintings of lesser importance.”

Contained within the materials on the Löwenstein exhibit was the name of the curator who organized the show, Mme. Florence Saragoza, previously mentioned as one of the people involved in identifying Fédor’s works from the negatives of the Salle des Martyrs.

Intriguingly, also included within the Bordeaux museum’s promotional materials was the following statement in French:

“Si près de soixante-dix ans après la fin du conflit, de nombreux cas de restitution d’objets d’art restent en attente, trois d’entre eux sont désormais sortis de l’ombre et attendant maintenant l’identification des ayants droit de Wilhelm Fédor Löwenstein (1901-1946) pour être remis à leurs propriétaires légitimes.”

Translated :

“While nearly seventy years after the end of the conflict, many cases of art object restitution remain pending, three have now emerged from the shadows and are now awaiting the identification of the rightful owners of Wilhelm Fédor Löwenstein (1901-1946) to be returned to their rightful owners.”

This is a significant “concession.” Oftentimes, heirs of Jews whose works were either confiscated by the Nazis or whose sale was forced at a deeply discounted price and/or that eventually and illicitly wound up in museums spend years litigating their cases against these museums or private owners. The fact that the France Government’s Premier Ministre’s Commission for the Compensation of Victims of Spoliation or “CIVS” acknowledged that it was looking for the rightful heirs of goods taken illegally by the Nazis suggested the process of receiving compensation or acquiring possession could theoretically be short-circuited.

As I explained in detail in Post 105, I was able to establish contact with Mme. Florence Saragoza (Figure 7) who was literally brought to tears to learn that someone from Fédor Löwenstein’s family still exists. Florence, who I hold in the very, very highest esteem helped me file a claim in 2014 with the CIVS for compensation on behalf of my family; this involved requesting compensation for 25 pieces of art seized and/or destroyed.

For orientation, my father and Fédor were first cousins (Figure 8), so I would be Fédor’s first cousin once removed. Being intimately acquainted with my family tree and knowing that neither Fédor nor his two siblings ever had any children, I quickly realized I’m his closest surviving blood relative. Notwithstanding this fact, as I deeply lamented in Post 105, when the CIVS finally rendered their decision in June 2021, they refused to acknowledge I had any rights to compensation for the destruction and confiscation of Fédor’s artworks. Suffice it to say, because France is ruled by the principles of civil law rather than common law, my rights have been supplanted by Fédor’s siblings, who are obviously no longer alive, or by the heirs named in his sibling’s wills. The living heirs are referred to as “universal legatees,” and their rights according to French law supersede my own. That said, there is still some gray area based on which a French lawyer I’ve hired is contesting the decision. Stay tuned for further updates.

Figure 8. Heinz Löwenstein (middle) with my parents in Israel in 1973

Following their determination in 2021, the CIVS notified me that one of Fédor Löwenstein’s painting entitled “Composition” had been shipped to the Jewish Museum of New York for an exhibit entitled “Afterlives: Recovering the Lost Stories of Looted Art,” scheduled to run between August 20, 2021, and January 9, 2022. This was one of the paintings I had filed a claim for with the CIVS. Even though I’d been denied restitution by the French Minister of Culture, I took an avid interest in how the CIVS would handle the process going forward. For this reason, I ordered the exhibition catalog which, during Covid, took many months to arrive.

Tucked into the book was a surprising picture labeled as having been taken in Ratibor [today: Racibórz, Poland]. This is the town where my father and many of his immediate family were born and where the family business, the Bruck’s “Prinz von Preußen” Hotel, operated through three generations. The photo shows crates containing thousands of books. According to the caption, in 1943 the Nazis established a research and sorting operation for plundered libraries in Ratibor. Eventually more than two million books were transported there. The photograph was included in the photo records of the Offenbach Archival Depot. (Figure 9) The Depot was a central collecting point in the American Sector of Germany for books, manuscripts and archival materials looted, confiscated, or taken by the German army or Nazi government from the occupied countries during World War II.

Figure 9. Post-WWII photo showing crates of books looted by the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg and shipped to Ratibor for sorting (photo from the National Archives Catalog “Photographs of the Operations of the Offenbach Archival Depot”)

The relocation of the ERR’s Book Control Center (Buchleitstelle) from Berlin to Ratibor in mid-1943 was prompted by the increased Allied bombing of Berlin, and a desire by the Nazis to save the books, at least until they’d had time to sort and save those they could use for propaganda. More on this below.

While I’d previously been unaware how my father’s hometown had been used during the war, Patricia Kennedy Grimstead, an academic from the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute, has written extensively on the subject. In a seminal paper entitled “Roads to Ratibor: Library and Archival Plunder by the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg” she goes into great detail on her findings. According to Grimstead, the ERR Silesian research center in Ratibor “. . .was the recipient of archives and books the Nazis plundered as part of a vast ideological, political, and cultural policy. Unlike art, archival and library seizures were not for display, prestige, or profit. If they bolstered Hitler’s imperial pretensions or exposed the evils of ‘Bolshevism,’ then by all means they should be sought. . .Specialists catalogued, analyzed, and preserved the materials, treating them not only as the heritage of ‘enemies of the Reich’ but as raw material for propaganda for ‘operational’ use’” Books that did not meet these criteria were burned in spectacular bonfires or sent to pulping factories. (p. 391)

According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s website, in a section on “Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg: A Policy of Plunder,” in January 1940 Hitler informed all offices of the Nazi Part that Alfred Rosenberg, head of the ERR, “. . .should be assisted in assembling a library for the planned new educational and research institute of the Party, the Hohe School, to be located at the Chiemsee in Bavaria. The library would contain 500,000 volumes. . .Preparations for the Hohe School also included other branches within the Reich, such as a ‘Center for Research on the Jewish Question’ in Frankfurt.”

The Jewish Museum exhibit catalog emphasizes this same point: “The segregation of Jews was enforced in a variety of ways. One distinctive strategy was to treat Jewish culture as the subject of historical inquiry, much as one might study a rare but obsolete specimen. Hitler called this an ‘anti-Semitism of reason,’ or ‘scientific anti-Semitism,’ which explicitly identified Jews in racial terms, rather than by religious affiliation. By the late 1930s research centers, institutes, and university departments had been founded throughout Germany and Austria to accommodate this burgeoning field and to inspire looting of works that were to be ‘saved’ expressly for the purpose of spurious academic research. Prominent among these was Alfred Rosenberg’s Institute for the Study of the Jewish Question (IEJ). It housed an estimated five hundred thousand books and manuscripts stolen from synagogues, Masonic temples, and private collections. Key to his mission was to set up a great Nazi university on the Chiemsee, in Bavaria, from the spoils of his plunder, including masterworks of both art and literature that would be instrumental in forming the curriculum.” (p. 54)

In this lengthy post, I reviewed and augmented what I had previously discussed in Post 105 regarding my failed attempt to obtain restitution on behalf of my family for paintings seized by the Nazi’s Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg (ERR) from my father’s first cousin. In the process, I learned more about this agency’s role in plundering books that wound up in Ratibor where my father was born. Following the capitulation of Ratibor at the end of WWII, many of the books confiscated by the Nazis in Western Europe were later moved by the Soviets to Minsk, capital of Soviet Belorussia. To this day, an estimated half a million of these books have not been returned to their countries of origin and are referred to as “twice plundered” books.

REFERENCES

Afterlives: Recovering the Lost Stories of Looted Art. 20 Aug. 2021-9 Jan. 2022, Jewish Museum, New York.

Alexander, Darsie & Sam Sackeroff. Afterlives: Recovering the Lost Stories of Looted Art. Yale University Press, 2021.

“Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg: A Policy of Plunder.” United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, https://www.ushmm.org/information/exhibitions/online-exhibitions/special-focus/offenbach-archival-depot/einsatzstab-reichsleiter-rosenberg-a-policy-of-plunder

Fédor Löwenstein (1901-1946), trois œuvres martyres. 15 May-24 Aug. 2014, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Bordeaux, Bordeaux.

“France.” United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/france

Grimstead, Patricia Kennedy. “Roads to Ratibor: Library and Archival Plunder by the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg.” Holocaust and Genocide Studies, vol. 19, no. 3, Winter 2005, pp. 390-458.

Musée des Beaux-arts de Bordeaux. Fédor Löwenstein, destin tragique d’un élève d’André Lhote.

Photographs of the Operations of the Offenbach Archival Depot. United States National Archive, 541611, https://catalog.archives.gov/search-within/541611?availableOnline=true&typeOfMaterials=Photographs%20and%20other%20Graphic%20Materials

“Reichsleiter Rosenberg Taskforce.” Wikipedia, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichsleiter_Rosenberg_Taskforce

POST 81: PHOTO ESSAY OF DR. OTTO BRUCK’S TIME IN THE FRENCH FOREIGN LEGION

Note: In this post, I talk briefly about the origins of the French Foreign Legion’s romanticized reputation and its depiction in popular culture, followed by a presentation of a few of my father’s photos showing his time in the Legion in Algeria between November 1938 and November 1943.

Post 80: Dr. Otto Bruck in the French Foreign Legion

Figure 1. Cover page of the book “Memento du Soldat de la Légion Etrangère” my father was given upon his enlistment in Paris on November 9, 1938

My father, Dr. Otto Bruck, signed up for the French Foreign Legion on the 9^th of November 1938 in Paris (Figure 1), and reported for duty in Sidi Bel Abbès, Algeria (Figure 2) on the 18^th of November 1938. As discussed in the previous post, as a Jewish refugee in the lead-up to WWII without a visa to a safe haven, his options were limited, so he heeded the advice of one of his first cousins and enlisted in the Legion.

Figure 2. Political map of Algeria with the names of towns and cities mentioned in the text and photos circled

Before embarking on a presentation of some of my father’s visual images of his time in la Légion, I want to tell readers a little more about the Legion’s history to supplement what I discussed in the previous post, focusing primarily on the origins of the Legion’s romanticized reputation and its depiction in popular culture. There is no intent on my part to be comprehensive, so interested readers are encouraged to research the Legion’s history to obtain a more broad-based understanding.

The Legion was established on March 9, 1831 by King Louis-Philippe as a military unit to support France’s conquest of Algeria, which they had invaded the previous year. The Legion’s debut was inauspicious because of mismanagement in Algeria, nationally homogeneous battalions, resistance to military discipline among recruits, widespread desertion, and an unqualified officer corps. In 1835, the Legion was transferred into Spanish service to help Queen Regent María Cristina de Borbón put down a Carlist rebellion, though was resurrected in December 1835 by Louis-Philippe once he realized the continuing need for legionnaires in Algeria. The latter became known as the nouvelle légion (“new legion”), which staked out a reputation for military valor during the 1837 storming of Constantine, Algeria.

At the time, legionnaires were often used for labor rather than combat, a situation which began to change only with the arrival in 1840 of Thomas-Robert Bugeaud as commander in chief in Algeria. Recognizing the vulnerability of static legionnaire units in isolated locations that could be overwhelmed by Algerian resisters, Bugeaud instituted a counterinsurgency strategy that took the battle to the enemy and demanded incessant marching; the campaigns, while grueling, improved the Legion’s morale and performance. The Legion’s officers also then began to understand “. . .that leadership of foreign mercenaries requires finesse, appeals to the men’s sense of honor, and nonjudgmental, non-xenophobic attitudes.” Around this time, the Legion began to be more accepted as a full-fledged branch of the French army. The prior practice of nationally homogeneous military units was abandoned, discipline improved, and an ameliorated esprit de corps began to develop.

While historically the Legion had many cutthroats, political refugees, outlaws and others who required strict, often merciless, discipline, by the mid-19^th century the Legion had established its reputation as a formidable fighting unit. French imperial expansion that took place between 1871 and 1914 corresponded with the Legion’s “golden age.” The corps, which numbered about 10,000 legionnaires at the time, participated in campaigns in southeastern Algeria and in the conquest of Morocco. The campaigns were then spear-headed by mule-mounted units, the old Montées, as I explained to readers in the previous post. These units became a permanent fixture of Legion operations in North Africa into the 1930’s. The “Batterie Saharienne Portée de Légion,” of which my father was a member, originated as a mule-mounted unit, though by the time he joined it was a motorized infantry company.

The Legion’s reputation as a band of romantic misfits began to capture the public’s imagination during the Legion’s golden age, augmented by what is referred to as the anonymat, the requirement to enlist under an assumed name. This anonymity allowed legionnaires to invent fabulist pasts, unconstrained by reality. What also appealed to many recruits was the possibility of starting life anew with a clean slate, in an environment of macho hardships and challenges.

Readers will recall from my previous post that the Legion had always had a large complement of Germans in its rank. Ironically, German propaganda contributed to the allure of the Legion by depicting it as a band of criminals commanded by sadistic NCOs which, counter-intuitively, seduced the naïve and innocent. Literary works, such as Ouida’s Under Two Flags (1867) and Percival Christopher Wren’s well-known Beau Geste (1924), further kindled the public’s idealized view of the Legion.

By 1933 the Legion numbered more than 30,000 soldiers that were based in Sidi Bel Abbès under the oversight of an inspector general. The Legion’s first inspector general was Paul Rollet who was responsible for creating many of the Legion’s current traditions. Among other things, he sought to secure the Legion’s place in the public’s imagination by reviving the uniform legionnaires had worn during the 19^th century consisting of white uniforms and white kepis, and commissioning a glamorized history of the legion, Le Livre d’or de la Légion étrangère (“The Golden Book of the Foreign Legion”); he even had artistic battle scenes painted showing legionnaires in white kepis to reinforce his belief that they were members of an elite and exclusive military unit.

Rollet’s efforts were partly intended to counter what he perceived as an orchestrated attempt to vilify the Legion and thinly veiled attacks on France. Hollywood productions of novels about the Legion, including Under Two Flags (1936) and Beau Geste (1939), as well as the French film Le Grand Jeu (1934; “The Full Deck”) were also responsible for promoting the romanticism, adventure, and the opportunity for atonement through hardship; these possibilities were at the heart of the Legion’s appeal.

In the case of my father, the Legion offered a much simpler option, a lifeline. Still, there is a paradoxical intersection between the draw the Legion’s idealized view in popular culture may have had upon my father and the name he assumed upon his arrival in America in 1948, “Gary Otto Brook.” Recently, I asked my still-living mother why he adopted the name “Gary,” and she thought it was because he liked the actor Gary Cooper. This seems like a reasonable proposition, and the fact that Gary Cooper was one of the featured actors in Beau Geste, the 1939 movie about the French Foreign Legion, is not lost on me and does not seem coincidental.

With this rather lengthy prologue, let me turn now to a presentation and brief discussion of a few of my father’s photos of his time in the Legion.

Figure 3. Camel from a méhariste camel company (Compagnies Méharistes Sahariennes) France created as part of the Armée d’Afrique in the Sahara in 1902. Méhariste is a French word that roughly translates to camel cavalry

Figure 4. My barely visible father, marked by the “X,” marching with his company in Ouargla, Algeria on Bastille Day, July 14, 1939

Figure 5. General Maxime Weygand conducting a troop review of French Foreign Legion soldiers on Bastille Day, July 14, 1939, in Ouargla, Algeria

Maxime Weygand (Figure 5) was a French military commander in World War I and World War II. Weygand initially fought against the Germans during the invasion of France in 1940, but then signed the armistice with and partially collaborated with the Germans as part of the Vichy France regime before being arrested by the Germans for not fully collaborating with them.

Figure 6. Butcher at the market in Ouargla, Algeria, March 1941

Figure 8. Palm grove in Ouargla, Algeria

Figure 9. Blindfolded donkey drawing water from a well

Figure 10. My father playing cards with two compatriots. Circled is my father’s cigarette case, given to him by his own father, and passed down to me

Figure 11. The cigarette case depicted in Figure 10

Figure 12. The dormitory of the “Batterie Saharienne Portée de Légion,” of which my father was a member, in Ouargla, 1942

Figure 13. My father at a bar in Ouargla, Algeria, summer 1942

Figure 14. Two convoy trucks in Amguid, Algeria

Figure 15a. Truck accident in Djebel Djerrine, located between In-Salah and Amguid

Figure 15b. Truck accident in Djebel Djerrine, located between In-Salah and Amguid

Figure 16. Legionnaires gathered for a group photo after a successful gazelle hunt

Figure 17. Indigenous Algerian man from Ouargla

Figure 18. Legionnaire in Fort Miribel, located between In-Salah and El Goléa

Figure 19. Two members of the Italian Armistice Commission in Ouargla

The Commissione Italiana d’Armistizio con la Francia (“Italian Armistice Commission with France”) or CIAF (Figure 19) was a temporary civil and military body charged with implementing the Franco-Italian armistice of 24^th June 1940 and coordinating it with the Franco-German armistice of 22^nd June. It had broad authority over the military, economic, diplomatic and financial relations between France and Italy until the Italo-German occupation of France on the 11^th November 1942. It liaised with the German Armistice Commission, which I discussed in Post 80, which likely accounts for their presence in Ouargla, Algeria.

Figure 20. Constantine, Algeria in December 1941

Figure 21. My father’s French Foreign Legion “Certificat de Bonne Conduite” (Certificate of Good Conduct), dated the 12th of August 1944, issued nine months after his deployment in the Legion ended

POST 80: DR. OTTO BRUCK IN THE FRENCH FOREIGN LEGION

Note: In this post, I discuss the five years my father was deployed in the French Foreign Legion in Algeria between November 1938 and November 1943. This installment provides an opportunity to discuss some of the Legion’s history, explore the “conflicted” role the Legion played during WWII and, by extension, explain how my father was able to travel from North Africa to France in 1941 during the war, seemingly across “enemy” lines.

Figure 1. My father Otto Bruck on leave in Constantine, Algeria, December 1941, attired in his French Foreign Legion uniform

My father voluntarily enlisted in la Légion étrangère, the French Foreign Legion, in Paris on the 9^th of November 1938, for a required five-year stint. The French Foreign Legion is a military service branch of the French Army that was founded in 1831 and was initially stationed only in Algeria, the largest country in Africa. During the 19^th Century, the French Foreign Legion was primarily used to protect and expand the French colonial empire throughout the world. It is unique in that it is open to foreign recruits willing to serve in the French Armed Forces; enlistees serve under the command of French Officers. Given the limited options available to people of Jewish extraction in the lead up to WWII, my father heeded the advice of one of his first cousins and decided to enlist in la Légion. (Figure 1)

Sidi Bel Abbès, located in northwestern Algeria less than 50 miles from the Mediterranean, was the headquarters of the Foreign Legion until 1962. Named for the tomb of the marabout (saint) Sīdī Bel ʿAbbāss, it was established as a French military outpost in 1843; from this time on the city was closely associated with the French Foreign Legion. The city was the location of the Legion’s basic training camp and the headquarters of its 1^st Foreign Regiment. After Algerian independence in 1962, all French troops and legionnaires were evacuated from Sidi Bel Abbès and transferred to Aubagne, France.

Figure 2a. Page 1 of my father’s “Livret Matricule,” military file, in the name of his nom de guerre “Marcel Berger, showing his service date, the 9th of November 1938, and his assignment to the “Dépôt commun des régiments étrangers (D.C.R.E.)” First Foreign Regiment

Figure 2b. Page 2 of my father’s “Livret Matricule,” military file, listing the dates to which he was assigned to different companies and Legion units

Figure 2c. Page 3 of my father’s “Livret Matricule,” military file, showing the different campaigns in which he participated

Figure 2d. Page 4 of my father’s “Livret Matricule,” military file, showing he participated in the Battle of Tunisia from the 19th of February 1943 until the 16th of April 1943

As nearly as I can tell from my father’s “Livret Matricule,” military file (Figures 2a-d), he reported to the 1^st Foreign Regiment, 1er Régiment étranger (1er RE), to which he’d been assigned in Sidi Bel Abbès on the 18^th of November 1938. He was incorporated into the Dépôt commun des régiments étrangers (D.C.R.E.), the Communal Depot of the Foreign Regiments (D.C.R.E.), which was administratively dependent on the 1^st Foreign Infantry Regiment. For reasons that will become clearer, I’m uncertain whether upon enlistment my father was originally issued dog tags under his birth name, Otto Bruck, or under his nom de guerre, “Marcel Berger.” Among my father’s remaining personal effects, I have French Foreign Legion D.C.R.E. dog tags under both names. (Figures 3a-b; 4a-4b)

Figure 3a. Front side of my father’s French Foreign Legion dog tag under his given name, Otto Bruck, identifying him as a member of the “Dépôt commun des régiments étrangers (D.C.R.E.),” the Communal Depot of the Foreign Regiments

Figure 3b. Back side of my father’s French Foreign Legion dog tag under his given name, Otto Bruck, showing his actual date and place of birth

Figure 4a. Front side of my father’s French Foreign Legion dog tag under his nom de guerre, Marcel Berger, identifying him as a member of the “Dépôt commun des régiments étrangers (D.C.R.E.),” the Communal Depot of the Foreign Regiments

Figure 4b. Back side of my father’s French Foreign Legion dog tag under his nom de guerre, Marcel Berger, with his fictitious date and place of birth

According to the history of the 1^st Foreign Regiment, the Dépôt commun des régiments étrangers (D.C.R.E.), the Communal Depot of the Foreign Regiments, was created on the 1^st of October 1933 in Sidi Bel Abbès. The Depot was under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Azan, whom, interestingly, my father once photographed. (Figure 5) According to my father’s military dossier, upon his arrival in Algeria, he was initially assigned to the D.C.R.E.’s Compagnie de Passage No. 3, a logistics operation company, on the 19^th of November 1938; then, to the D.C.R.E.’s Compagnie d’Instruction No. 2, a training company, on the 4^th of December 1938; and, subsequently, to the D.C.R.E.’s Compagnie de Passage No. 1, a different logistics operation company, on the 2^nd of April 1939.

Figure 5. Lieutenant-Colonel Azan, far-right, commander of the Dépôt commun des régiments étrangers (D.C.R.E.), the Communal Depot of the Foreign Regiments, in Ouargla, Algeria

A word about the role of a “Compagnie de Passage.” This group seemingly provided logistical support for soldiers in those rare moments of relaxation during the war related to housing, library services, general information, reading or writing rooms, barber shops, sports venues, cinemas, etc. It was also used to perform banking operations for the soldiers, such as withdrawing money to pay for their purchases. My father’s specific job(s) during these assignments is unknown to me.

On the 1^st of October 1939, my father was transferred to the Compagnie Automobile de Transport du Territoire des Oasis (C.A.T.T.O.), the Saharan transport unit of the Legion. C.A.T.T.O. was merged into the Batterie Saharienne Portée de Légion (B.S.P.L.), Saharan Battery Legion Range, on the 29^th of June 1939, the date the B.S.P.L. was created in Ouargla, Algeria; my father was assigned to the 1^st B.S.P.L. on the 1^st of November 1940 (Figure 6), which may correspond with his relocation to Ouargla from Sidi Bel Abbès, though I’m uncertain when this took place.

Figure 6. Insignia of the Batterie Saharienne Portée de Légion (B.S.P.L.), Saharan Battery Legion Range, to which my father was assigned on the 1st of November 1940

A word about the French Military term “Portée” as in “Batterie Saharienne Portée de Légion.” Technically, the term translates into English as “mobile,” although that’s inaccurate; the old Montées, the mule-mounted units from which the Portees originated, were also considered highly mobile. Therefore, the term Portée is supposed to mean “motorized” to distinguish the modern vehicle-mounted motorized infantry companies from the old Montées, the mule-mounted ones. (see “French Legion Mounted Companies“)

So far, I’ve related dry details on the military units to which my father was assigned, their presumed function, and when these assignments took place. Let me turn now to the Legion’s history during WWII for context. Initially, I was narrowly focused on trying to specifically understand how my father was able to travel from Algeria to mainland France for a two to three month stay between September and November 1941 to visit friends and family living there. (Figures 7-8) This visit in the middle of the war seemingly involved travel across “enemy” lines, and on the face of it was baffling. In looking into this, I stumbled upon a fascinating article by Edward L. Bimberg, entitled “World War II: A Tale of the French Foreign Legion,” that originally appeared in the September 1997 issue of “World War II” magazine. Below I summarize some of this author’s findings.

Figure 7. Photo of my father’s sister Susanne Müller née Bruck in November 1941 in Fayence, France, taken during my dad’s leave from the French Foreign Legion while stationed in Algeria

Figure 8. Photo of my father’s first cousin Jeanne “Hansi” Goff née Löwenstein in Monte Carlo, Monaco in October 1941, taken during my dad’s leave from the French Foreign Legion while stationed in Algeria

According to Mr. Bimberg, the Legion had always had a large complement of Germans in its rank. In the late 1930’s, intelligence officers at the headquarters of the French Foreign Legion in Sidi Bel Abbès, however, were puzzled by an even greater number of Germans pouring in, despite the Nazis’ widespread campaign to discourage them from enlisting. In this period, the German press was violently attacking the Legion, and the Nazi government demanded that recruiting be stopped. Still the Germans kept coming until half the privates and 80 percent of the non-commissioned officers in the legion were German. Eventually, it became clear that this influx had been orchestrated by German intelligence, the Abwehr. The goal was to destroy the Legion from within, which the German legionnaires nearly succeeded in doing.

According to my father, the Legion attracted its share of unsavory types, such as ex-convicts, criminals, murderers, pederasts, etc. More importantly, however, the French Foreign Legion had always attracted the dispossessed, such as Spanish Republicans who’d fought on the losing side of the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939); Jews, such as my father, escaping Nazi persecution; then, later Czechs and Poles who’d fled as the German Army began its march across Europe. Obviously, these refugees did not mix well with the new Germans in the Legion; the German non-commissioned officers terrorized the non-Germans resulting in frequent fights and courts-martial. The French officers could not trust their own non-commissioned officers, and morale in the Legion plummeted, almost to the point of disbanding the entire corps.

WWII is generally said to have begun with the German invasion of Poland on the 1^st of September 1939, and the subsequent declarations of war on Germany by France and the United Kingdom. With the declaration of war, the situation in France became critical, but the questionable loyalty of the Germans in the Legion made shipping them to fight in Europe too risky. Instead, four more foreign regiments were raised in France and trained by veteran Legion officers from North Africa. These newly created regiments garrisoned the Maginot Line, the line of concrete fortifications, obstacles, and weapon installations built by France in the 1930s to deter invasion by Germany. These legionnaires remained inactive during the so-called “phony war,” the period of comparative inaction at the beginning of World War II between the German invasion of Poland (September 1939) and that of Norway (April 1940).

Despite the general reluctance of sending entire Legion units to France, the French authorities decided something had to be done with the loyal elements of the Legion marking time in North Africa but anxious to fight. So, in early 1940, volunteers were called for, and two battalions of 1,000 men assembled, one in Fez, Morocco, and the other in Sidi Bel Abbès, Algeria; the volunteers were carefully vetted. The remaining German legionnaires of unquestioned loyalty were given non-German names and false identity papers to protect them in case they were captured by the Germans. Possibly, my father acquired his alias, Marcel Berger, at this time.

The two battalions were joined into the 13^th Demi-Brigade (13e Demi-Brigade de la Légion Étrangère) and put under the command of a Lieutenant-Colonel Magrin-Verneret, a WWI veteran apparently typical of military eccentrics who often turned up in the Foreign Legion. When the 13^th Demi-Brigade arrived in France, these desert-trained veterans were surprisingly issued a new type of uniform and skis, trained to fight in the Arctic, and outfitted as mountain troops with heavy parkas, boots, and snow capes. They were initially bound for Finland, but after the capitulation of the Finns to the Russians when the latter were still in league with the Germans, thus before the brigade could be deployed there, the war in Finland ended.

Instead, the 13^th Demi-Brigade was shipped to Norway to capture the northern port of Narvik from the Germans to prevent ore shipments from neutral Sweden needed by the Nazi regime. After bitter fighting, the legionnaires captured control of Narvik on the 28^th of May 1940. For the next few days, they pursued the retreating Germans through the snow-covered mountains toward the Swedish border; their aim was to capture General Edouard Dietl, who’d led the German garrison at Narvik, and his remaining troops and force them into Swedish internment. Regrettably, when the 13^th Demi-Brigade was only 10 miles from the Swedish border, they were ordered to return to France where they were needed in defense of France. The “phony war” was over with the German invasion of the Low Countries a few weeks earlier.

Edward Bimberg picks up the narrative: “The 13^th Demi-Brigade returned to France from Norway, sailing into the harbor at Brest on June 13, almost at the same time the Germans were marching into Paris. Colonel Magrin-Verneret was ordered to form a line as part of a proposed last-ditch Breton Redoubt, but it was no use. The Germans had broken through.

While on a forward reconnaissance mission to determine what could be done to delay the enemy, Magrin-Verneret and some of his officers became separated from the main body of the 13^th Demi-Brigade, and when they returned to Brest they could not find any trace of the unit. The reconnaissance party assumed that the main body had been over-run, and the colonel determined that he and his companions should try to get to England, where the British planned to fight on. Every boat seemed to have been taken over by fleeing British and French troops, but the Legion officers finally found a launch that took them to Southampton. Miraculously, most of the 13^th Demi-Brigade had already found a way to get there.”

The point of relating the above history to readers is to explain why from this point forward the French Foreign Legion was so sharply divided during WWII. On June 18, 1940, the French General Charles de Gaulle, leader of the new Free French movement, was now also a refugee in England. Magrin-Verneret immediately offered the services of the 13^th Demi-Brigade to de Gaulle, and soon they were training at Trentham Park near Stoke-on-Trent.

On June 25, 1940, the Franco-Italian armistice went into effect, which ended the brief Italian invasion of France during WWII. This followed by a few days the Franco-German armistice of June 22, 1940, which divided France into two zones: one under German military occupation and one left nominally under full French sovereignty, referred to as “Vichy France.” These armistice agreements meant war was over for now for the French Army, which was reorganized into the Armistice Army. That’s also why in, November 1940, a major reorganization took place within the Legion. Not coincidentally, as mentioned above, my father was reassigned to the 1^st B.S.P.L. on the 1^st of November 1940 in Ouargla, Algeria.

With the implementation of the armistice agreements on June 25, 1940, the men of the 13^th Demi-Brigade were given a choice, fight on with de Gaulle, or return to North Africa, which was now under the control of Marshal Henri Philippe Petain’s newly formed Vichy government. The 1^st Battalion, strongly influenced by Captain Dimitri Amilakvari, a 16-year Legion veteran who’d fought valiantly to capture a key hill in the battle of Narvik, elected to stay with de Gaulle. The 2^nd Battalion went back to Morocco and was disbanded.

Edward Bimberg resumes the story: “The French Foreign Legion, like the rest of the French empire, was now sharply divided. The 13^th Demi-Brigade had given its allegiance to the Free French, while the rest of the Legion, scattered throughout North Africa, Syria and Indochina, remained under the thumb of the Vichy government, which meant being under the sharp watch of the German Armistice Commission.

The Germans demanded that the men that had been planted in the Legion be returned to the Reich, and the Legion was not sorry to see them go. But the Commission had other, not so welcome demands. They had lists of refugee Jews, Germans, Poles, Czechs, Italians, and others they wanted back, to send to concentration camps.

There were many men in the French army in North Africa, particularly in the Legion, who had no sympathy for the Vichy government and hated the Germans. Besides, the Legion had a reputation for taking care of its own. Its intelligence system usually discovered the Armistice Commission’s visits well in advance and knew the names of the legionnaires on the lists. The wanted legionnaires were given new names, new papers and new identity discs. When the Germans came too close, the refugees would be transferred to far-off Saharan outposts where the Commission seldom took the trouble to visit.”

Edward Bimberg’s story provides some context about my father’s time in the French Foreign Legion. Obviously, after the Franco-German armistice went into effect in June 1940, Algeria, where my father was stationed, was under the control of the Vichy government. According to Bimberg, while many of the Legion’s officers and men in North Africa would have liked to join de Gaulle’s forces, they were hesitant to desert; also, the surrounding mountains and desert prevented them from reaching the Free French in large numbers, so they were forced to bide their time. Still, because the Legion looked after their own, they probably gave my father a new identity after the establishment of the German Armistice Commission. Some of my father’s pictures, which I will feature in my next Blog post, were taken in remote outposts in the Saharan desert, places I presume he and fellow at-risk legionnaires were sent to put them outside the Commission’s reach. My father’s two to three-month trip to mainland France between September and November 1941 was clearly possible because the Legion units in North Africa were under the control of the Vichy government, so technically his travel did not involve crossing enemy lines. Additionally, his lengthy stay may have been orchestrated to distance him from planned visits by the German Armistice Commission.

The 13^th Demi-Brigade, which rallied to Charles de Gaulle’s Free French forces following France’s capitulation to Germany in June 1940, was incorporated into the British Eighth Army as the 1^st Free French Legion. It spearheaded the Gaullist conquest of French colonies in sub-Saharan Africa and Syria, where it actually fought against Legion units loyal to the collaborationist Vichy government. The Allied invasion of French North Africa in November 1942 reunited the fractured branches of the Legion. Still, political rancor was slow to dissipate on account of confrontation between the opposing units in Syria. The feuding between the pro-Gaullist and ex-Vichy legion units continued in Italy, where the Legion participated in the breakthrough at Monte Cassino in 1944. By this time, my father was no longer a member of the French Foreign Legion, having by then enlisted in the British Army, a subject of a future Blog installment.

The reuniting of the legion units in November 1942 explains why my father was able to fight against the Germans in the Battle of Tunisia between February and April 1943, likely the only combat action he ever saw. (Figure 9)

Figure 9. My father preparing for the Battle of Tunisia in January 1943 in Touggourt, Algeria

Stumbling upon Mr. Bimberg’s article on the history of the French Foreign Legion during WWII was instrumental in helping me understand why my father was in certain places during his five years in the Legion. The story also explains why the Legion’s morale was so low: “The Vichy Legion in North Africa was not only constantly harassed by the German Armistice Commission but was short of weapons, gasoline and sometimes even food and tobacco. Legion strength fell to less than 10,000 men, and the German authorities continually urged the Vichy authorities to disband it altogether. Morale was at rock bottom, and the rate of desertions and suicides was rising.” Given the Legion’s tenuous position, I can imagine the situation for Jewish men like my father must have been nerve-wracking, even with French aliases.

The following post will be a photo essay of images from my father’s years in the French Foreign Legion.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bimberg, Edward L. “World War II: A Tale of the French Foreign Legion.” World War II, September 1997.

POST 79: DR. OTTO BRUCK’S PATH TO THE FRENCH FOREIGN LEGION

Note: Beginning with this post, I shift to the timing and chain of events that led to my father’s enlistment in the French Foreign Legion in November 1938, followed in an upcoming post by a discussion of my father’s time in this French military unit.

Post 71: A Day in The Life of My Father, Dr. Otto Bruck—22^nd of August 1930

Figure 1. My father’s first cousin, Jeanne “Hansi” Goff née Löwenstein, daughter of Rudolf and Hedwig Löwenstein, in Zoppot, Free City of Danzig [today: Sopot, Poland] on the 8th of March 1929

Figure 2. My father’s first cousin, Jeanne “Hansi” Goff née Löwenstein, daughter of Rudolf and Hedwig Löwenstein, in Danzig [today: Gdansk, Poland]

My father received his dental accreditation from the University of Berlin’s Zahnheilkunde Institut, Dentistry Institute, on the 31^st of May 1930. Soon thereafter, he moved to the Free City of Danzig, Freie Stadt Danzig in German, where he apprenticed with a Dr. Fritz Bertram. I think his relocation to Danzig may have been related to the fact that he was very close to his aunt and uncle, Rudolf Löwenstein and Hedwig Löwenstein née Bruck, and two of their three children, Jeanne (Figures 1-2) and Heinz Löwenstein, who all lived there. In Post 71, I described the tragic circumstances of Rudolf Löwenstein’s death in a plane crash in then-Czechoslovakia on the 22^nd of August 1930, when my father resided with him and his family.

By April 1932, my father had gained enough technical expertise to strike out independently, and open his own dental practice in the nearby town of Tiegenhof [today: Nowy Dwór Gdański, Poland]. While this was undoubtedly a signature achievement in my father’s life, slightly more than eight months later, on the 30^th of January 1933, Hitler was appointed Germany’s Chancellor by the President Paul von Hindenburg, and then became Führer in 1934. An October 1934 picture of the office building in Tiegenhof where my father lived and had his practice was festooned with Nazi flags (Figure 3), clearly demonstrating the predictable impact of political developments in Germany on the Free City of Danzig and the looming danger. By April 1937, my father was devoid of clients, so he shuttered his practice. Judging from the dates on his photos, he appears to have stayed in Tiegenhof until fall of that year.

Figure 3. Office building at Markstrasse 8 in Tiegenhof in 1934 where my father had his dental practice and living quarters, festooned with Nazi flags

I think my father then briefly went to Berlin to “lose” himself in the relative anonymity of a larger city. His adored sister Susanne and her husband, Dr. Franz Müller, had already fled Berlin in favor of Italy by March 1936. However, his older brother, Dr. Fedor Bruck, who would ride out the entire war in Berlin hidden by friends and family, was still practicing dentistry in Berlin in 1937 under the auspices of a non-Jewish dentist when this was still feasible. Perhaps, my father stayed briefly with his brother, but, regardless, by March 1938, his dated pictures place him in Vienna, Austria between the 5^th and 9^th of March. (Figure 4) His ultimate destination though was Fiesole, Italy, where his sister and brother-in-law were then living. His entered Italy on the 10^th of March 1938 but arrived in Fiesole only on the 26^th of March (Figure 5), spending the intervening period skiing in the Dolomites.

Figure 4. Series of photos my father took between the 5th and 9th of March 1938 in Vienna, Austria, after he’d fled Germany that month

Figure 5. Page from the registration log archived at Fiesole’s “Archivio Storico Comunale,” the “Municipal Historic Archive,” showing my father’s arrival in Italy on the 10th of March 1938 and in Fiesole on the 26th of March for a planned two-month stay

During Italy’s Fascist era, all out-of-town visitors were required to appear with their hosts at the Municipio, City Hall, provide their names, show their identity papers, indicate their anticipated length of stay, and complete what was called a “Soggiorno degli Stranieri in Italia,” or “Stay of Foreigners in Italy.” The surviving records for Fiesole are today kept at a branch of the Municipio called the “Archivio Storico Comunale,” the “Municipal Historic Archive.” (Figure 6) These registration logs and forms, while highly intrusive, are enormously informative for doing genealogical research, uncovering names of visitors, and establishing timelines for these guests. (Figure 7)

Figure 6. My friend, Ms. Lucia Nadetti (left), Director of Fiesole’s “Archivio Storico Comunale,” with another friend, Ms. Giuditta Melli, in June 2015 at the Municipal Archive

Figure 7. My wife, Ann Finan, researching historic records at Fiesole’s “Archivio Storico Comunale” in June 2014

While 1938 was hardly a serene time, by June or July, my father nonetheless decided to tour parts of Italy and adjoining Switzerland, including Florence, Rome (Figure 8), Pompeii (Figure 9), Naples, Sorrento, the Island of Ischia, and Ascona; his travels lasted until September. By the 15^th of September 1938, he was back in Fiesole according to a surviving immigration register on file at Fiesole’s “Archivio Storico Comunale.” This record indicates an anticipated two-week visit, though it’s not clear how long my dad actually stayed. (Figure 10)

Figure 8. My father’s August 1938 photo of the Colosseum in Rome

Figure 9. My father’s August 1938 photo of the “Dancing Faunus Statue of Pompeii”

Figure 10. Page from the registration log archived at Fiesole’s “Archivio Storico Comunale,” the “Municipal Historic Archive,” showing my father’s return to Fiesole on the 15th of September 1938 for a planned two week stay

Let me briefly digress and provide some historical context for what was happening in Italy at the time. On the 9^th of May 1938, Adolph Hitler had visited Florence escorted by Italian Duce Benito Mussolini, and toured some historic sites. Soon after, on July 14, 1938, Mussolini embraced the “Manifesto of the Racial Scientists.” Basically, this Manifesto declared the Italian civilization to be of Aryan origin and claimed the existence of a “pure” Italian race of which Jews were no part. Between September 2, 1938 and November 17, 1938, Italy enacted a series of racial laws, including one forbidding foreign Jews from settling in Italy.

It quickly became apparent to my father, his sister, her husband, and my grandmother, Else Bruck née Berliner, also living in Fiesole, that remaining in Italy was no longer possible. Again, according to records on file at Fiesole’s “Archivio Storico Comunale,” my aunt and uncle are deleted from the population records of the city, in Italian “Data dalle quale decorre la cancellazione dal Registro di popolazione,” beginning on the 16^th of September 1938. (Figures 11-12) Thus, my father’s arrival and registration in Fiesole the day before was likely timed to help his relatives pack up and leave, though he may have stayed longer.

Figure 11. Emigration record from Fiesole’s “Archivio Storico Comunale,” the “Municipal Historic Archive,” showing my aunt and uncle, Susanne and Franz Müller, were deleted from the population records of Fiesole on the 16th of September 1938

Figure 12. My aunt and uncle, Susanne and Franz Müller, standing by the entrance to the Villa Primavera in Fiesole, where they lived, perhaps around the time they permanently moved to France in September 1938

The next stop along my family’s odyssey was Fayence, France, roughly 42 miles west of Nice, France; Fayence is one of the “perched villages” overlooking the plain between the southern Alps and the Esterel massif. My uncle Dr. Franz Müller’s daughter by his first marriage, Margit Mombert née Müller, lived there with her husband, brother-in-law, and mother-in-law on a fruit farm the family owned. I discussed this in Post 22 so refer readers to that publication. I place my aunt, uncle and grandmother’s arrival in Fayence towards the end of September 1938. While the collaborationist government of Vichy France would not be established in the southern part of metropolitan France until July of 1940, my ancestors’ recent displacements and the reach of the Nazis would have made them extremely nervous. Clearly, in the case of my father, riding out the impending storm in France or elsewhere in Europe was not a viable option at the age of only 31.

Coincidentally, by 1938, but likely years before, his widowed aunt Hedwig Löwenstein née Bruck and her two children, discussed above, with whom my father had lived in Danzig between 1930 and 1932, had relocated to Nice, France. (Figure 13) Hedwig’s daughter, Jeanne “Hansi” Goff née Löwenstein (1902-1986), was close to my father throughout his life. Realizing the danger he was in, she advised him to enlist in the French Foreign Legion, which is precisely what my father, Dr. Otto Bruck, did.

Figure 13. In March 1946, my father’s widowed aunt Hedwig Löwenstein née Bruck with her three grown children, Hansi, Heinz and Fedor (seated), after she’d immigrated to Nice, France

In one of my father’s surviving post-WWII letters, dated the 7^th of January 1946, he requested a Carte d’identité, an identify card, from the Department of Alpes-Maritimes in southeast France, where Nice is located. In this letter, my father provides some dates that help establish where he was at various times before and during the war. According to this correspondence, by October 21, 1938, my father had arrived in Paris, France, where he applied for admittance to the French Foreign Legion, to which he was conscripted on the 9^th of November 1938 for a five-year hitch. So far, I’ve been unable to determine my father’s whereabouts between September 16, 1938, when he was in Fiesole, Italy, and October 21, 1938, when he arrived in Paris.

The French Foreign Legion is a military service branch of the French Army established in 1831. The Legion is unique in that it is open to foreign recruits willing to serve in the French Armed Forces. My father was given a French nom de guerre, an alias, “Marcel Berger.” (Figures 14a-b) From the French Foreign Legion, I was able to obtain my father’s “Livret Matricule,” military file, which states that Marcel Berger was born on the 6^th of January 1907 in Strasbourg in the French Department of Bas-Rhin, and that his profession was “Chirurgien dentist,” dental surgeon. (Figure 15) While my father’s profession is correctly indicated, he was in fact born on the 16^th of April 1907 in Ratibor, Germany [today: Racibórz, Poland]. My father’s fluency in French would have afforded him a measure of protection had he been taken prisoner.

Figure 14a. Front side of my father’s dog tag from the French Foreign Legion with his “nom de guerre,” “Marcel Berger”

Figure 14b. Back side of my father’s dog tag from the French Foreign Legion indicating he was supposedly born in Strasbourg, France on the 6th of January 1907

Figure 15. The cover page of my father’s “Livret Matricule,” military file, from the French Foreign Legion showing, among other things, his “nom de guerre,” “Marcel Berger,” and his enlistment date, the 9th of November 1938

Readers may think the title of this post somewhat odd, as though to imply that my father’s enlistment in the French Foreign Legion was somehow preordained. While my father was very much inclined to believe in kismet, fate, I am a strong believer that you control your own destiny. That said, realistically, without an exit visa to a “sanctuary” country a Jewish person’s options would have been extremely limited in the lead-up to WWII, so my father was fortunate the French Foreign Legion was open to him and that he was unmarried and had no children to look after.

In the following post, I will provide substantially more background on the history of the French Foreign Legion during WWII to account for the Legion’s “conflicted” role at the time and explain how my father was able to travel to France in 1941 “across enemy lines” to visit his beloved sister Susanne one final time.

POST 23: MY AUNT SUSANNE’S FINAL JOURNEY

Note: This is the last in the series of articles discussing my Aunt Susanne Müller, née Bruck, spanning from 1936, when she left Berlin with her husband Dr. Franz Müller, to the moment she was arrested in Fayence by the Vichy French in August 1942. It describes the final two-and-a-half to three weeks of her life and that of Ernst Mombert, her step-daughter’s brother-in-law. Surviving documents in my father’s personal papers, along with records publicly available, allow me to track the precise route my Aunt Susanne and Ernst took to their deaths in Auschwitz.

My Aunt Susanne and her step-daughter’s brother-in-law, Ernst Mombert, were arrested by the Vichy French in Fayence, France, probably around the third week of August 1942. Their arrests were the result of the implementation of the so-called “Final Solution to the Jewish Question.” On January 20, 1942, Nazi officials had convened in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee to discuss the implementation of the Final Solution, whereby most of the Jews of German-occupied Europe would be deported to Poland and murdered. Following the Wannsee Conference, the deportation of Jews throughout Nazi-occupied areas to extermination camps increased in momentum. In France, the deportations, which had begun in March 1942, reached their peak in the summer of 1942, overlapping with the arrest of my relatives. Involvement of French authorities intensified during this period.

Arrests of individual Jews in the occupied zone of France had begun around 1940, and general round up in 1941. By March 1941, the Vichy State created the Commissariat General aux Questions juives (“Commissariat-General for Jewish Affairs”), which managed the seizure of Jewish assets and organized anti-Jewish propaganda. Around this same time, the German began compiling registers of Jews living in the occupied zone. The Second Statut des Juifs of June 2, 1941 systematized registrations across all of France, including the unoccupied parts of France controlled by the Vichy government where Fayence was located. Because Jews in the unoccupied zone were not required to wear the yellow star-of-David badge, these records would provide the basis for future rounds-ups and deportations. No doubt, my relatives’ names were on these registers.

In Post 22, I told readers seven members of my family once lived at the fruit farm in Fayence, although only two were ever arrested by the French collaborators. It remains unclear why the other five were never seized. While I’m disinclined for various reasons to credit local French authorities for having played a role in protecting my family during WWII, supposedly 75% of the roughly 330,000 Jews in metropolitan France in 1939 survived the Holocaust, which is one of the highest survival rates in Europe. This story, however, is about Aunt Susanne and Ernst Mombert, my relatives who did not survive.

Figure 1-From Fayence, my aunt and Ernst Mombert were taken to Draguignan, Aix-en-Provence and Avignon, before being transported to Drancy, outside Paris

Figure 2-A headstone with the Star of David in the American Cemetery in Draguignan

Soon after my Aunt Susanne was arrested, she and Ernst Mombert were transported approximately 20 miles to the nearby town of Draguignan. (Figures 1 & 2) Whether they were taken there by train or other conveyance is unknown. The priority that the Nazis and their henchmen placed on the extermination of Jews following the Wannsee Conference suggests arrested Jews were brought to major transit centers in a matter of weeks for deportation to concentration camps. Susanne and Ernst wrote an undated postal card to the Mombert family in Fayence from Draguignan, postmarked August 26, 1942, that survives in my father’s personal papers; their stay in Draguignan was brief, only half-an-hour. (Figure 3) An acquaintance from the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles tells me Jewish detainees were encouraged to write postal cards so Nazis could identify and root out surviving family members.

Figure 3-Postal card mailed by my aunt and Ernst from Draguignan

My dear ones, We have just arrived in Draguignan and will leave in half-an-hour for aux Milles. Once again, I remind you to ask David to come for the pump, at any price, even if you must pick him up by car. Vegetables, be careful with the string-beans, water every other day—cabbage twice weekly. Cucumbers every other day—pick the corn—chase the birds, as directed by Marius. Tomatoes water once a week. Special attention: Carrots! bugs on cabbage. Take care of the old and the young. Don’t worry. Before sending the certificates, wait until our address has arrived. Love to all, Susanne, Ernst

Figure 4-Camp des Milles Detention Camp in Aix-en-Provence, now a museum, where my aunt and Ernst were briefly interned in August 1942

Figure 5-The holding area inside the former tile factory at Camp des Milles in Aix-en-Provence where Jewish internees were held during WWII

From Draguignan, Susanne and Ernst were then transported approximately 76 miles to the notorious French detention center at Camp des Milles in Aix-en-Provence, a place that is today a museum. (Figure 4) While it was never an extermination camp, unlike Auschwitz where Susanne and Ernst were murdered, it is extremely foreboding because it survives virtually intact and gives one a real sense of what awaited the Jewish internees. (Figure 5) Susanne and Ernst wrote a second postal card from here, dated August 24, 1942, postmarked five days later. (Figure 6)

Figure 6-The postal card mailed by my aunt and Ernst from Camp des Milles

August 24, 1942 Dearest Peterle, How are you? Did the doctor come? Take care of yourself and don’t lose courage—me, I am well—I have met some acquaintances from Hyères, a woman doctor from Berlin who knows you—well, we will see what happens to us. Ernst has also met some people he knows—we talk quite often. Mummi, how are you? And Margit and the rest of the family? Don’t work too hard—for the five of you there will be enough from the property. Go to Sénégnier and explain our situation to him. My thanks to all of you as well as to our friends for their kindness. My love to all of you. Thousand kisses, Papstein! Susanne

Next, Susanne and Ernst were taken 56 miles to Avignon, whose bridge is the subject of a children’s well-known French nursery rhyme, Sur le pont d’Avignon, although most certainly this was not on their minds. The last words my Uncle Franz and the Mombert family heard from Susanne and Ernst came from the third and final postal card mailed from there. The card is dated September 2, 1942 and postmarked the same day. (Figures 7 & 8)

Figure 7-The last words ever written by my aunt to my Uncle Franz following her arrest in August 1942, sent from Avignon

September 2, 1942

Dearest Franzl, Up to now, the trip has not been too bad. I stayed together with some very nice ladies. We are well fed, too well for my taste. I am so sad that I cannot send you anything (chocolates, sardines, cookies). All these things come from the Quakers and from the Union of the Israelites of France. . . but what does it mean to us? In any case, I have decided to hold on to be reunited with all of you. Do not lose your patience and courage. They have loaded all and everyone in wagon trains—old people, children, the sick, etc. Kisses, embraces for all of you and good wishes. Susanne

P.S. Maybe I will be able to send you something else.

Figure 8-Dr. Franz Müller in Fayence, after my aunt’s arrest, sadness seeping from every pore

In this last postal card, my Aunt Susanne mentions the Union Générale des Israélites de France (UGIF), along with the Quakers, as the providers of charitable donations. The Germans created the UGIF on November 29, 1941 to more closely control the Jewish community. Through this organization, the Germans were thus able to learn where local Jews lived. Many of the leaders of the UGIF were themselves ultimately deported to concentration camps.

Figure 9-Cattle car on railroad siding at Camp des Milles seen today

In this final postal card, my Aunt Susanne also mentions that by the time Jewish detainees had arrived in Avignon, they had been loaded into cattle cars, likely in Camp des Milles. The Société Nationale des Chemins de Fer Français (SNCF), the state-owned railroad system of France, was an active participant in the transport of Jewish detainees to the extermination camps, and evidence of their complicity can be seen even today in railroad sidings at Camp des Milles. (Figure 9)

My relatives never again wrote words that have been handed down to the present. The three postal cards, all written in French, selflessly remind the surviving family to carefully water and tend to the fruits and vegetables on the farm on which their survival clearly depended. The mundane nature of Susanne and Ernst’s final words is a poignant reminder of how ordinary Jews were trying to lead normal lives when their everyday existence was so tragically interrupted by the Nazis.

Figure 10a-Serge Klarsfeld’s report containing names of Jewish deportees aboard Convoy 29 from Drancy to Auschwitz-Birkenau

Figure 10b-Page from Serge Klarsfeld’s report with my Aunt Susanne & Ernst Mombert’s names

From Avignon, my relatives were taken more than 430 miles to Drancy, a suburb outside Paris, which was an assembly point for Jews being deported to concentration camps. My Aunt Susanne and Ernst Mombert are known to have survived until at least September 7, 1942. Both of their names appear, coincidentally on the same page (Figures 10a & 10b), on a list of 1000 Jewish prisoner deported from Drancy, a suburb of Paris, destined for Auschwitz, aboard Convoy 29, which departed Drancy at 8:55am and arrived in Auschwitz two days later. (Figures 11a & 11b) My aunt, correctly identified as a German national, is incorrectly shown having been born in “Ratisbonne” rather than Ratibor, Germany.

Figure 11a-Route that Convoy 29, holding my Aunt Susanne & Ernst Mombert, took between Drancy and Auschwitz from September 7 to September 9, 1942 (SOURCE: Yad Vashem)

Figure 11b-Stops that Convoy 29 made between Drancy and Auschwitz from September 7 to September 9, 1942

Figure 12-Cattle car at Auschwitz-Birkenau of the type that transported Jews to their death

Serge Klarsfeld, a Romanian-born French activist and Nazi hunter known for documenting the Holocaust to enable the prosecution of war criminals, compiled the lists using surviving German documents. The nationality of only 893 deportees was recorded from Convoy 29, possibly because some arrived from the unoccupied zone only a few hours before the convoy was slated to leave for Auschwitz. The German record of deportees was divided into seven sub-lists, and while both Susanne and Ernst originated from the unoccupied zone, they were likely identified as coming from Camp des Milles. The convoy contained 435 women and 565 men. Upon arrival in Auschwitz (Figure 12), except for 59 men and 52 women, the remaining deportees were immediately gassed to death. (Figures 13 & 14) According to my father, his sister always carried a poison pill in a locket, and I choose to believe she took her own life before the convoy arrived in Auschwitz.

Figure 13-Expended Zyklon B canisters once containing pellets used to gas Jews at Auschwitz-Birkenau

Figure 14-Crematoria at Auschwitz-Birkenau

It is impossible to pinpoint the actual date my relatives were arrested in Fayence. Cancellation dates on the postal cards and Susanne and Ernst’s arrival in Drancy no later than September 7^th suggest it cannot have taken more than three weeks before they were murdered, no later than September 9^th. The ultimate irony is that my aunt moved to Fayence, almost 1000 miles away from where she was born in Ratibor, Germany, only to be hauled back and murdered less than 70 miles from her hometown. Stolpersteins, the small, brass memorials commemorating individual victims of Nazism, have been placed, respectively, at the last residences in Berlin and Giessen, Germany where my Aunt Susanne and Ernst Mombert and his family lived. (Figures 15 & 16)

Figure 15-Stolperstein for my Aunt Susanne located in front of her last residence in Berlin-Charlottenburg, Kastanienallee 39

Figure 16-Stolpersteins for four Mombert family members, including Ernst Mombert, in front of their last residence in Giessen, Germany

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 74^th 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

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