Note: In this post I discuss a collection of family photos I obtained from my second cousins in 2016, focusing on a few of historical significance and of personal interest.
In a post I have long intended to write, I discuss another collection of family ephemera, photos in this instance, I obtained in 2016 from my German second cousin, Margarita Vilgertshofer, née Bruck. This post harkens back and tiers off two posts I wrote that year, Posts 32 and 33. I refer readers to those earlier publications for the details describing how through a serious bit of detecting I was able to track down Margarita and her brother Antonio to Bavaria, Germany (Figure 1) though both were born in Barcelona, in Catalonia, Spain.
Through circumstances I’m still unclear about, a marginal insertion on Antonio’s 1946 birth certificate notes when and where he was married in the Federal Republic of Germany in 1982. (Figure 2) I’ve previously found vital certificates for ancestors where notations on where and when vital events in their lives, typically divorces, took place. What makes this notation so unique and inexplicable is that the birth certificate is from a municipal office in Spain, but the marriage took place in Germany. How and why this information was conveyed to Spain puzzles me.
In a similar vein, the most unusual case I’ve come across of vital data for an ancestor having been transmitted from one country to another is in the instance of one of my father’s first cousins, Heinz Loewenstein. I’ve written extensively about him. He was born in the Free City of Danzig in 1905, got married there in 1931, immigrated with his wife to Palestine in the 1930s, enlisted in the English Army’s Pioneer Corps, was captured during the Battle of Greece in 1941, escaped from German stalags multiple times but always recaptured, then eventually was liberated and returned to Palestine following WWII. He and his wife divorced in Palestine or Israel, and somehow this vital data was illegibly noted in the margin of his marriage certificate from a record presumably obtained by the Federal Republic of Germany (i.e., the Free State of Danzig ceased to exist following the start of WWII and Germany’s invasion of Poland and Danzig in 1939). (Figure 3) Knowing what meticulous record keepers the Germans are may explain why this information was recorded but how the Germans obtained it is the more curious question.
Returning to the subject at hand, I want to discuss several of the more unique pictures I found among my second cousin’s large collection of images. Knowing that perusing other families’ photos can be tedious, I will merely highlight a few of historic significance plus several of personal interest.
The most historically significant photo is one taken in Doorn, Netherlands showing Germany’s last Kaiser, Kaiser Wilhelm II. (Figure 4) The circumstances that resulted in the Kaiser being in Doorn is that following Germany’s defeat during WWI, he abdicated the German throne and went into exile in the Netherlands. The picture includes the Kaiser’s second wife, Empress Hermine of Germany (née Reuß zu Greiz), her daughter by her first marriage, and his retinue in exile. In the center of this group is an unidentified Bruck family member. This photograph was the subject of Post 65, and at the time I wrote that post I had no idea who the family member was.
I only learned the identity of the ancestor by marriage when I obtained a captioned copy of the identical photo from an altogether different source. I discussed this in Post 100. (Figure 5) Johanna Elisabeth Margarethe Gräbsch (1884-1963), the second wife of my accomplished Bruck relative from Breslau, Germany [today: Wrocław, Poland], Dr. Walther Wolfgang Bruck (1872-1937), is standing amidst Kaiser Wilhelm II and his entourage. Dr. Bruck was the Kaiser’s wife’s dentist and likely also the Kaiser’s dentist. How precisely this worked with the Kaiser being in Berlin, later in Doorn, and Dr. Bruck being in Breslau is unclear.
Another historically noteworthy photo shows the Duchess Cecilie of Mecklenburg-Schwerin (Figure 6) in the flower school of my great-aunt Franziska Bruck (1866-1942) (Figure 7) in Berlin when she visited it on the 15th of October 1915. The Duchess was the last German Crown Princess and Crown Princess of Prussia as the wife of Wilhelm, German Crown Prince, the son of Wilhelm II. My great aunt Franziska wrote two books featuring the elegant Ikebana-style floral wreaths and bouquets she specialized in, and, according to family lore, is reputed to have put together floral arrangements for the royal family.
Another photo among my cousin’s photo array, which crosses the line between historically noteworthy and personally interesting, shows Margarita’s mother working in Franziska’s flower school and shop in Berlin. (Figure 8) While I knew from her wedding certificate that my beloved Aunt Susanne, later murdered in Auschwitz, had been a managing director in Franziska’s flower shop, I’d never known any other family members who’d worked there.
In any case, the photos discussed above document my family’s personal relationship with Germany’s last royal family.
Further evidence of the Kaiser’s wife’s connection to my Bruck family can be found in Dr. Bruck’s Breslau house guest book, a scan of which I have, which she signed when she visited him in Breslau on the 23rd of April 1923 (Figures 9a-b), presumably to have her teeth worked on. Yet more evidence of the two families’ bond can be found in a signed children’s book that Princess Hermine Reuß gave to Dr. Bruck and his wife upon the birth of their second daughter Renate (Figures 10a-b). Their first daughter Hermine, named after the Princess, unfortunately died shortly after her birth.
My cousin Margarita’s photo collection includes some unique photos of family members. One of the most unusual is of my uncle Dr. Fedor Bruck (1895-1982) in his WWI military attire. (Figure 11) My uncle Fedor has been the subject of a few posts (see Posts 17 & 31) for several reasons. Firstly, he was one of around only 5,000 Jews who survived in Germany during WWII. Secondly, he was assigned to Hitler’s dentist’s surviving dental office following the war. Thirdly, because of his pre-war friendship with one of Hitler’s dentist’s dental assistants, he had knowledge of Hitler’s fate at the end of the war. Warned by the Americans this knowledge could get him kidnapped by the Russians, he fled Berlin. For their part, the Russians were anxious to uphold the specter of Hitler as a surviving “boogeyman” who could return at any moment to again terrorize the world. The photo of my uncle in his military uniform was taken in a studio, though I know from a surviving postcard that during WWI my uncle was based on the Eastern Front in what is today the Ukraine which was then part of Russia.
A brief related anecdote. My uncle’s wife, Verena Brook, née Dick (1920-2007), was 25 years his junior. Upon my uncle’s death in 1982, my aunt offered me some of my uncle’s memorabilia. One of the more unusual items she offered, which in retrospect I should have accepted, was the section of my uncle’s WWI uniform he’d cut out where a bullet had penetrated and he’d been wounded. I suspect I could have used this for DNA analysis.
Moving on to other unique family photos.
One photo I particularly fancy shows Margarita and Antonio’s grandfather, my great uncle Wilhelm Bruck (1872-1952) in 1889. He is standing alongside a so-called Penny-farthing, an early type of bicycle. (Figure 12) It was popular during the 1870s and 1880s, with its large front wheel that provided for high speeds on account of it traveling a large distance for every rotation of the wheel. Because the bicycle had solid rubber tires the only shock absorption was in the saddle.
In multiple earlier posts, I’ve discussed the hotel, the Bruck’s “Prinz von Preußen” Hotel, my family owned in Ratibor [today: Raciborz, Poland] for three generations, from roughly 1850 to around 1925. Several historic photos showing a partial view of the hotel, then located on Oderstrasse, exist. However, among my cousin’s collection is the only known photo of the front entrance of the family establishment. (Figure 13)
The Bruck’s hotel was originally purchased by Samuel Bruck (1808-1863), my great-great grandfather. The second-generation owner of the hotel was Fedor Bruck, my great-grandfather after whom my uncle Fedor Bruck was named. Though I previously had a picture of my great-grandfather, two additional photos of him survive in Margarita’s albums, including one in which he is most fashionably dressed in the finest attire of the day. (Figure 14)
Many years ago before I started doing ancestral research I visited the Mormon Church’s FamilySearch Library in Salt Lake City. Archived in the library’s stacks was a pretentiously titled book on my family, entitled “A Thousand Year History of the Bruck Family.” I’ve subsequently obtained a more mundanely named copy, “The Bruck Family: A Historical Sketch.” The book was written by Alfred Julius Bruck, who’d anglicized his name to “Brook” upon his arrival in England. Included in Margarita’s photos is one of Alfred Bruck and his wife, Rosie. (Figure 15) Other pictures confirm they visited Margarita and her family in Munich.
Expectedly there are many pictures of Margarita’s family within her collection, many of them very endearing. (Figure 16) The circumstances that led Margarita and her brother Antonio to having been born in Spain is because her grandfather, Wilhelm Bruck, worked in Spain in the early 20th century on the installation of the first electric lines in Barcelona. While he would return to Germany following the completion of his contractual obligations, following Hitler’s rise to power in 1933, his connections in Spain permitted him to immigrate there. Additionally, both of Wilhelm & Antonie Bruck’s two children, Edgar and Eva (Figure 17), were born there so retained Spanish citizenship.
There is an intriguing picture that speaks to the aristocratic lifestyle my great aunt and uncle led in Spain showing Edgar being fed by a wetnurse. (Figure 18) During their residence in Barcelona, Wilhelm and Antonie appear to have lived in Tibidabo, the highest neighborhood in the city. (Figure 19)
Intriguingly there are a few pictures of my immediate family among Margarita’s photos I was previously aware of. One is a cabinet card of my uncle Fedor, my aunt Susanne, and my father Otto as children. (Figure 20) Another is my aunt Susanne and her two cousins, Edgar and Eva, along with a group of other actors who performed together. (Figure 21)
A riveting picture in the collection, reflective of the horrific toll of WWI, was presumably taken at a recuperative center after the war. (Figure 22) Besides medical staff, it presumably shows wounded soldiers who had one of their limbs amputated. Since I recognize no one in the photo I’m uncertain why this picture is in Margarita’s collection.
Note: In this post, I discuss “stashes” of family photos I’ve uncovered, and the efforts I’ve undertaken with the help of near and distant relatives to identify people in some of those images even absent captions. In a few instances the photos are significant because they illustrate individuals renowned or notorious in history. In other cases, a good deal of sleuthing was required, including comparing the pictures of people in captioned versus uncaptioned images. On other occasions, I recognized portrayals of family members I knew growing up. And, in rare instances, I was able to determine a photographed person based on an educated guess.
The antisemitic and racist laws enacted by the Nazis short-circuited my father’s career as a dentist. Pursuant to his formal training at the University of Berlin, followed by an apprenticeship in Danzig (today: Gdansk, Poland), my father, Dr. Otto Bruck (Figure 1), opened his own dental practice in Tiegenhof in the Free City of Danzig (today: Nowy Dwór Gdański, Poland) in April 1932; by April 1937, my father was forced to flee Tiegenhof, and by March 1938 he had left Germany altogether, clearly seeing the handwriting on the wall. As an unmarried man with few family ties, this was an option open to him. My father would never again legally practice dentistry.
My father considered the five years he spent in Tiegenhof to be the halcyon days of his life. Judging from the numerous photos of his days spent there, including those illustrating his active social life, his professional acquaintances, and recreational pursuits, I would be hard-pressed to argue otherwise.
I originally intended in this post to briefly discuss with readers the history of Polish Mennonites because Tiegenhof, the town where my father had his dental practice, was largely Mennonite when my father lived there. The Mennonites arrived in the Żuławy Wiślane region (i.e. “the Vistula fens,” plural from “żuława”), the alluvial delta area of the Vistula in the northern part of Poland, in the 17th century. They came to escape religious persecution in the Netherlands and Flanders. I have instead decided to devote the subsequent Blog post to discussing the history of Polish Mennonites, and briefly explore how the Mennonites, who are committed to pacifism, inexplicably, became strong adherents of Hitler. I intend in the following post to use photos from my father’s collection to focus on one Mennonite family, the Epp family, with whom my father was acquainted and friends with. They have a dark history related to their connection to the Nazi regime.
Getting back on track. Curious whether the office building where my father had both his dental practice and residence still existed (Figure 2), in 2013 my wife Ann Finan and I visited Nowy Dwór Gdański. We quickly oriented ourselves to the layout of the town, and promptly determined that his office and residential building no longer stands. I would later learn that the structure had been destroyed by Russian bombers when Nazi partisans shot at them from this location.
During our initial visit to Nowy Dwór Gdański, we were directed to the local museum, the Muzeum Żuławskie. The museum docent the day we visited spoke English, so I was able to communicate to her that my Jewish father had once been a dentist in the town and had taken many pictures when living there of Tiegenhof and the Żuławy Wiślane region. I offered to make the photos available, which I in fact did upon my return to the States.
In 2014, my wife Ann and I were invited to Nowy Dwór Gdański for an in-depth tour and a translated talk. Naturally, during my presentation, I used many of my father’s photos. There was a question-and-answer period following my talk, and one Polish gentleman of Jewish descent commented on how fortunate I am to have so many photographs of my father, family, and friends. I agreed. In the case of this gentleman, he remarked he has only seven family pictures, which I think is often true for descendants of Holocaust survivors. In my instance, my father’s seven albums of surviving photos, covering from the 1910’s until 1948 when my father came to America, are the reason I started researching and writing about my family.
Given the importance pictures have played in the stories I research and write about, and the development of this Blog, I thought I would highlight a few of the more interesting and historically significant pictures in my father’s collection, as well as discuss other “stashes” of photos I’ve uncovered. Obviously, it’s impossible and would be of scant interest to readers to discuss all the photos.
My father was a witness to the rise of National Socialism from the window of his dental office in Tiegenhof. On May 1, 1933, my father photographed a regiment of “SA Sturmabteilung,” literally “Storm Detachment,” known also as “Brownshirts” or “Storm Troopers,” marching down the nearby Schlosserstrasse, carrying Nazi flags, framed by the “Kreishaus” (courthouse) on one side. (Figure 3)
Again, a year later to the day, on May 1, 1934, my father documented a parade of veterans and Brownshirts following the same path down Schlosserstrasse led by members of the Stahlhelm (“Steel Helmet”), a veterans’ organization that arose after the German defeat of WWI. (Figures 4a-b) In 1934, the Stahlhelme were incorporated into the SASturmabteilung, the original paramilitary wing of the Nazi Party.
Then again, the following year, on April 5, 1935, there was another Nazi parade. On this occasion Field Marshall Hermann Göring visited and participated in the march through Tiegenhof. The day prior, on April 4, 1935, Hermann Göring had visited the Free City of Danzig to influence the upcoming April 7th parliamentary elections in favor of Nazi candidates. The visit to Tiegenhof the next day was merely an extension of this campaign to influence the Free City’s parliamentary elections. In the photos that my father took on April 5th there can be seen a banner which in German reads “Danzig ist Deutsch wenn es nationalsozialistisch ist,” translated as “Danzig is German when it is National Socialist.” (Figures 5a-b) It appears that along with everyday citizens of Tiegenhof and surrounding communities, members of the Hitler Youth, known in German as Hitlerjugend, also lined the street in large number.
Students of history know about Hermann Göring but for those who are unfamiliar with him, let me say a few words. He would evolve to become the second-highest ranking Nazi after the Führer. Unlike many of Hitler’s sycophants and lieutenants, Göring was a veteran of WWI, having been an ace fighter pilot, a recipient of the prestigious Blue Max award, and a commander of the Jagdgeschwader a fighter group that had previously been led by the renowned Red Baron, Manfred von Richthofen. Göring was drawn to Hitler for his oratorical skills and became an early member of the Nazi Party. He participated with Hitler in the failed Beer Hall Putsch of 1923, during which he was wounded in the groin. During his recovery he was regularly given morphine to which he became addicted for the remainder of his life.
Göring oversaw the creation of the Gestapo, an organization he later let Heinrich Himmler run. He was best known as the commander-in-chief of the Luftwaffe, although after the Nazi victory over France, he was made Reichsmarschall, head of all the German armed forces. He amassed great wealth for himself by stealing paintings, sculptures, jewelry, cash, and valuable artifacts not only from Jews and people whom Nazis had murdered but also by looting museums of defeated nations.
Towards the end of the war, following an awkward attempt to have Hitler appoint him head of the Third Reich and thereby drawing Hitler’s ire, he turned himself in to the Americans rather than risk being captured by the Russians. He eventually was indicted and stood trial at Nuremberg. The once obese Göring, who’d once weighed more than three hundred pounds, was a shadow of his former self at his trial. Expectedly, he was convicted on all counts, and sentenced to death by hanging. His request to be executed by firing squad was denied, but he was able to avoid the hangman’s noose by committing suicide using a potassium cyanide pill that had inexplicably been smuggled to him by an American soldier.
My uncle, Dr. Fedor Bruck, has been the subject of multiple previous posts (i.e., Post 17, Post 31, Post 41). My uncle, like my father was a dentist. He was educated at the University of Breslau (today: Wrocław, Poland) and had his dental practice in Liegnitz, Germany (today: Legnica, Poland) until around 1933 when he was forced to give it up due to the “Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service” passed by the Nazi regime on the 7th April 1933, two months after Adolf Hitler had attained power. My uncle’s life is of interest because he miraculously survived the entire war hidden in Berlin by friends and non-Jewish family members. His story has also been of interest because he counted among his friends a woman named Käthe Heusermann-Reiss, who had been his dental assistant in Liegnitz.
Following the loss of his business my uncle relocated to Berlin hoping the anonymity of the larger city would afford him the possibility to continue working under the auspices of another dentist, which it did for a time. Käthe Heusermann also moved to Berlin and opportunistically landed herself a job as a dental assistant to Hitler’s American-trained dentist, Dr. Hugo Blaschke. In this capacity, she was always present when Dr. Blaschke treated Hitler. Following the end of the war, she was interrogated by the Russians and asked to identify dental remains which had been recovered in a burn pit outside the Reichstag. The bridgework performed by Dr. Blaschke on Hitler was outmoded so Käthe was easily able to recognize Blaschke’s work and Hitler’s teeth, a fact Stalin kept hidden from the world. Following Russia’s capture of Berlin at the end of the war, my uncle who’d temporarily been hiding in Käthe’s apartment learned from her that Hitler had committed suicide. This dangerous information resulted in Käthe being imprisoned in the USSR for many years, and my uncle barely escaping the same fate. Surviving among my father’s photographs is a noteworthy picture taken in Liegnitz of my uncle and Käthe Heusermann. Though uncaptioned, I have been able to compare it to known pictures of Käthe to confirm it is her. (Figure 6)
As I have told readers in multiple earlier posts my father was an active sportsman, and an excellent amateur tennis player. Among my father’s belongings I retain multiple of the prizes he was awarded for his achievements, including many newspaper clippings documenting his results. In August 1936, my father attended an International Tennis Tournament in Zoppot, Germany (today: Sopot, Poland), located a mere 32 miles from Tiegenhof. During his attendance there, he photographed the great German tennis player, Heinrich Ernst Otto “Henner” Henkel (Figure 7), whose biggest success was his singles title at the 1937 French Championships. Interestingly, Henkel learned to play tennis at the “Rot-Weiss” Tennis Club in Berlin. My father was a member of the “Schwarz-Weiss” Tennis Club in Berlin, so perhaps my father and Henner played one another and were acquainted. Henner Henkel was killed in action during WWII on the Eastern Front at Voronezh during the Battle of Stalingrad while serving in the Wehrmacht, the German Army.
As I mentioned above, my father left Germany for good in March 1938. He was headed to stay with his sister Susanne and brother-in-law, then living in Fiesole, a small Tuscan town outside Florence, Italy. During his sojourn in Italy, before eventually joining the French Foreign Legion later in 1938, my father visited some of the tourist attractions in Italy, including the Colosseum in Rome. One of the images that my father took there has always stood out to me because of the paucity of people around what is today a very crowded and visited venue. (Figure 8)
My father’s collection of photos number in the hundreds but I’ve chosen to highlight only certain ones because they illustrate a few personages or places that may be known to readers. My father’s collection is merely one among several caches of images I was able to track down through family and acquaintances. I want to call attention to a few pictures of family members that grabbed my attention from these other hoards.
In Post 33, I explained to readers how I tracked down the grandchildren of my grandfather’s brother, Wilhelm “Willy” Bruck (1872-1952). Based on family correspondence, I knew my great-uncle Willy wound up in Barcelona after escaping Germany in the 1930’s and theorized his children and grandchildren may have continued to live there. Official vital documents I procured during a visit there convinced me otherwise, that at least his son returned to Germany after WWII. I was eventually able to track down both of my great-uncle’s grandchildren, that’s to say my second cousins Margarita and Antonio Bruck, to outside of Munich, Germany. (Figure 9) I have met both, and they’ve shared their family pictures, which again number in the hundreds.
The cache included many images of family members, but there are two pictures I was particularly thrilled to obtain copies of. My uncle Dr. Fedor Bruck (1895-1982), previously discussed, fought in WWI on the Eastern Front. (Figure 10) Among the family memorabilia I retain is a postcard he sent to his aunt Franziska Bruck on the 3rd of September 1916 coincidentally from the Ukraine announcing his promotion to Sergeant. (Figures 11a-b) The ongoing conflict between the Ukraine and Russia makes me realize how long the Ukraine has been a staging area for wars.
Regular readers may recall that my father was born in Ratibor, Germany (today: Racibórz, Poland), in Upper Silesia. The family hotel there, owned through three generations between roughly 1850 and the early 1920’s, was known as the Bruck’s “Prinz von Preußen” Hotel. Among my second cousins’ photos is a rare image of the entrance to this hotel, which no longer stands. (Figure 12)
I introduced readers to two of my grandfather’s renowned sisters, my great-aunts Franziska and Elsbeth Bruck, way back in Post 15. Their surviving personal papers are archived at the Stadtmuseum in Spandau, the westernmost of the twelve boroughs of Berlin; these files have been another source of family photographs. Franziska Bruck was an eminent florist, and it is reputed that one of her clients was the last German Kaiser, Wilhelm II (1859-1941). One undated photograph taken in my great-aunt’s flower shop shows Duchess Cecilie Auguste Marie of Mecklenburg-Schwerin (1886-1954), the last Crown Princess of Germany and Prussia, who was married to Kaiser Wilhelm II’s son, Wilhelm, the German Crown Prince. (Figure 13)
My second cousins Margarita and Antonio Bruck introduced me to one of my third cousins, Andreas “Andi” Pauly, also living part-time in Munich, Germany. (Figure 14) The Pauly branch of my extended family, which originally hailed from Posen, Germany (today: Poznan, Poland) has been the subject of multiple blog posts, including Post 45 on Pauly family Holocaust victims and reflections in Post 56 by the paterfamilias, Dr. Josef Pauly (1843-1916), Andi Pauly’s great-grandfather. Josef Pauly and his wife Rosalie Pauly née Mockrauer (1844-1927) had eight daughters and one son born between 1870 and 1885; thanks to photos provided by Andi Pauly, not only was I able to obtain images of all nine children but also some of Pauly cousins I knew of by name.
Again, it is not my intention to boggle readers’ minds by showing all these photos but I want to focus on one particular picture I originally obtained from Andi Pauly that was the subject of Post 65. The photo was taken in Doorn, Netherlands on the 28th of May 1926, and shows a then-unknown Bruck family member standing amidst a group that includes the last German Kaiser, Wilhelm II, his second wife, Princess Hermine Reuss of Greiz (1887-1947), and her youngest daughter by her first marriage, Princess Henriette of Schönaich-Carolath (1918-1972), and the Royal Family’s entourage. (Figure 15) At the time I wrote Post 65, I was unable to determine who the Bruck family member was, nor whom the initials “W.B.” stood for.
Fast forward. In early 2021, I was astonished to receive an email from a Dr. Tilo Wahl, a doctor from Köpenick in Berlin, who stumbled upon my Blog and contacted me. He shared copies of the extensive collection of personal papers and photographs he had copied from the grandson of one of my esteemed ancestors, Dr. Walter Bruck (1872-1937), from Breslau, Germany (today: Wrocław, Poland) Again, this relative and my findings related to Dr. Walter Bruck have been chronicled in multiple earlier posts. The very same image discussed in the previous paragraph I had obtained from Andi Pauly was included among Dr. Bruck’s images. It was then I realized the unidentified Bruck family member standing with Kaiser Wilhelm II, his family, and his entourage was none other than Dr. Bruck’s second wife, Johanna Elisabeth Margarethe Gräbsch (1884-1963). (Figure 16) I discussed these findings in Post 100.
Dr. Walter Bruck’s collection of papers and photos yielded images of multiple family members about whom I was aware, including one of Dr. Walter Bruck’s three siblings. However, one that stands out amongst all these photos was the one of Dr. Walter Bruck’s grandfather Dr. Jonas Julius Bruck (1813-1883). (Figure 17) Dr. Jonas Bruck is buried along with his son, Dr. Julius Bruck, in the restored tombs at the Old Jewish Cemetery in Wrocław, Poland. (Figure 18) Dr. Jonas Bruck was a brother of my great-great-grandfather Samuel Bruck (1808-1863), the original owner of the Bruck’s “Prinz von Preußen” Hotel in Ratibor, Germany (today: Racibórz, Poland) I previously discussed.
In various places, I found fleeting references that Dr. Walter Bruck and Johanna Elisabeth Margarethe Gräbsch had both previously been married. I eventually found historic documents, my gold standard, confirming this. Using educating guesses based on incomplete captions and estimating the timeframe a few pictures in Dr. Walter Bruck’s collection were taken, that’s to say during WWI and before, I was even able to find pictures of both of their previous spouses among his photos.
Dr. Walter Bruck’s album also contain multiple pictures of his daughter, Renate Bruck (1926-2013). She was married three times, with images of two of her husbands included. Thanks to Post 99 Renate’s twin daughters, whom I knew about but had no expectation of ever finding since they’d left England years ago, instead found me. From this, I learned that Walter Bruck’s grandchildren and great-grandchildren live in Sydney, Australia.
I suspect the story I’m about to relate may resonate with some readers, the topic of missing or incomplete captions on pictures of one’s ancestors. Let me provide some context. During the time that my uncle Dr. Fedor Bruck was a dentist in Liegnitz, Germany he carried on an illicit affair with a married non-Jewish woman, Irmgard Lutze (Figure 19), with whom he had two children, my first cousins Wolfgang (Figure 20) and Wera Lutze. During the Nazi era time when it was prohibited and dangerous for an Aryan to have an affair with a Jew, the cuckolded husband nonetheless raised the children as his own. Therefore, they had the Lutze rather than the Bruck surname.
I knew both first cousins well, though both are now deceased. In any case, included among my cousin’s photographs was one that left me perplexed. It showed three generations, the eldest of whom was identified as “Tante Grete Brauer (mother’s sister).” (Figures 21a-b) The “Brauer” surname reverberated only because when perusing my great-aunt Elsbeth Bruck’s papers at the Stadtmuseum I discovered multiple letters written by Brauers. At the time I had no idea this represented another branch of my extended family.
As I discussed in Post 34, I would eventually work out that “Tante Grete Brauer” was my grandmother Else Bruck née Berliner’s sister, Margarethe Brauer née Berliner (1872-1942) who was murdered in the Holocaust. Prior to finding this isolated picture of my great-aunt, I was completely unaware of her existence. I’ve repeatedly told readers that my father had scant interest in family and rarely spoke of them to me growing up, so I was not surprised by this discovery.
I will give readers one last example of caches of family photos I’ve been able to recover by mentioning my third cousin once-removed, Larry Leyser (Figure 22), who very sadly passed away in 2021 due to complications from Covid. Over the years, Larry and I often shared family documents and photos. Several years ago, he borrowed and scanned a large collection of photos from one of his cousins named Michael Maleckar which he shared with me. As with any such trove, I found a few gems, including one of my own parents at a party they attended in Manhattan the early 1950’s. My father literally “robbed the cradle” when he married my mother as she was 22 years younger than him. This age difference is particularly pronounced in the one picture I show here. (Figure 23)
I will merely say, in closing, that I am aware of other caches of family photos that unfortunately I have been unable to lay my hands on. I completely understand that some of my cousins are busy leading their lives and don’t share my passion for family history, so they are excused. One other thought. The longer I work on my family’s history, the more I realize how much I regret not talking with my relatives when they were alive about some of our ancestors as my stories would be broader and would then be grounded in truths rather veiled in so much conjecture.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Sussman, Jeffrey. Holocaust Fighters: Boxers, Resisters, and Avengers. Roman & Littlefield, 2021.
Note: In this post, I discuss how I’m related to two living Brucks I’ve known for half-a-dozen years, and how I inadvertently stumbled on the answer and responded to their question, “Where’s the smoking gun?”
This story begins in 1951. Soon after I was born, my parents received a congratulatory note from my father’s uncle, Wilhelm “Willy” Bruck, then living in Barcelona, Spain. (Figure 1) As a boy, I would later meet my great-uncle’s daughter Eva in New York when she came to visit the family but never realized who she was. (Figure 2) Though I met her only once, I remember her fondly because she gave me an old silver coin I still cherish (i.e., readers will recall I’ve been a lifelong coin collector). Because of my father’s rather dismissive attitude towards family, except for his beloved sister Susanne murdered in Auschwitz, naturally he lost contact with most of his relatives. Thus, when I began my forensic investigations into my family, I was left to reconstruct and find family descendants on my own, years after my father was gone and might have helped.
Aware some family members had wound up in Barcelona, I began my search there vaguely cognizant my great-uncle Willy may have had grandchildren. To remind readers, I discussed the search for my great-uncle and his descendants in Posts 32 and 33. Since this remains one of my all-time favorite family quests, I will briefly remind readers how I met the two Brucks, first cousins to one another, as what can only be characterized as serendipity. I thought perhaps my great-uncle’s grandchildren, my second cousins that’s to say, might live in Barcelona. I started by checking the White Pages for Barcelona and found nary any Brucks there. I expanded my search to all of Spain and discovered 14 listings. I immediately did the calculus, and said to myself, “No problem, I’ll write to all of them!” And, this is in fact what I did in late 2013.
Many weeks passed with no responses. Then, early one Saturday morning, I received a call from a gentleman in Haifa, Israel by the name of “Michael Bruck.” I had no known relatives there so was intrigued why this namesake was calling. He quickly explained I’d written to his first cousin Ronny Bruck in Alicante, Spain inquiring about my great-uncle Willy. Aha! Michael is the family genealogist, so Ronny forwarded him my letter, ergo his call. I must share one other alluring aspect of this story that corroborates what Branch Rickey, the brainy former General Manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers, once said: “Luck is the residue of design.” That’s to say, luck doesn’t just happen, you create the circumstances to get lucky. For those who may be familiar with the postal service in Spain, they’ll know it’s notoriously unreliable. The letter I sent to Ronny inquiring about my great-uncle Willy not only arrived safely, but it arrived in his mailbox on his 65th birthday, making him believe some unknown cousin from America was sending him well-wishes! The stars were obviously properly aligned.
All my letters to the Brucks residing in Spain had included a photo of my great-uncle, and Michael immediately noted the family resemblance (Figure 3), even though he’d never come across Wilhelm Bruck’s name in connection with his own research. In 2014, my wife and I had already planned to spend 13 weeks in Europe visiting places associated with my family from northeastern Poland to southern Spain, so I suggested we all meet in Spain. Meeting there was not possible, so Ronny suggested Germany instead, and Michael and his wife joined us from Israel. Thus, in 2014, we met in person at the home of my first cousin. (Figures 4-5) Despite our in-depth respective knowledge of our family trees, over the years, Michael and I could never pinpoint how closely or distantly we are related.
Fast forward to the present. My previous post told the story about obtaining the complete roster of students who were enrolled in the Ratibor Gymnasium, high school, between its opening in 1819 and 1849; Ratibor is the town in Upper Silesia where my father was born in 1907, and where many Brucks hail from. Among the first-year students who attended the Ratibor Gymnasium upon its opening were two brothers, Isaac and Samuel Bruck. (Figures 6a-b) As I told readers in Post 73, Samuel Bruck is my great-great-grandfather, and is known to me. (Figure 7) His brother Isaac was completely unfamiliar to me, so I casually checked on ancestry.com and MyHeritage, to no avail. Not expecting to find anything through a Google search, I nonetheless checked Isaac’s name there. Imagine my surprise, then, when I was “kicked” into a query that had been posted by Michael Bruck in 2012 on Genealogy.com inquiring about him. (Figure 8)
As followers can read, Michael asked the genealogical community for information on Isaac Bruck and his wife Caroline Stolz from Ratibor; he went on to say that their daughter Marie Friederike Bruck married David Isaac there on the 29th of June 1857, and that Friederike was Michael’s great-great-grandmother. Upon seeing Michael’s message, it immediately became clear how we’re likely related. While I qualify the previous statement, there is absolutely no question in my mind how Michael, Ronny, and I are related. We are fourth cousins once removed. Let me briefly review the evidence, again by reference to primary source documents as in the previous post.
To remind readers what I said in Post 73, in the Ratibor Gymnasium Album, the names “Isaac Bruck and Samuel Bruck” occur in succession and are “bracketed” together with their unnamed father’s profession identically described as “Arrendator,” leaseholder. (Figures 6a-b) From a condensed family tree developed by my uncle Dr. Fedor Bruck reproduced here (Figure 9), I know that Samuel’s father was Jacob Nathan Bruck and that by association, so too is Isaac’s father. To me, the names in association with one another and their father’s profession being the same is “the smoking gun,” the answer to the question Michael and Ronny once posed.
The marriage register listing of Michael’s great-great-grandmother Marie Friederike Bruck to David Isaak dated the 19th of June 1857 survives and can be found on LDS Microfilm Roll 1184449. (Figure 10)
Below is a transcription and a translation of the marriage register listing for Isaac(k) Bruck’s daughter and her husband.
Register No.
Datum
1857
Vor & Zuname
Bräutigam
Gewerbe
Wohnhaft
Name der Braut
& ihrer Eltern
Gewerbe
Wohnhaft
(Register Number)
(Date
1857)
(First & last name of the groom)
(Occupation,
Residence)
(Name of the bride)
(& her parents’ occupation & residence)
GERMAN
113
29.6
David ISAAK, 32 Jahre, Sohn d[es] zu Wrirtzen verstorb[enen] Handelsmanns Hirsch ISAAK & der dort lebenden Ehefrau Cheinchen geb. CASPER
Handlungskommis, Berlin
Marie Friederike BRUCK, Ratibor, 24 Jahre
zu Altendorf verstorb[ener] Sattlermeister / p. Kaufm[ann] Isaak BRUCK & Ehefrau Caroline geb. STOLZ, Ratibor
ENGLISH
113
29 June
David ISAAK, 32 years old, son of the merchant Hirsch ISAAK, who died in Wrietzen, and his wife Cheinchen née CASPER, who lives there
Clerk, assistant or commercial employee, Berlin
Marie Friederike BRUCK, Ratibor, 24 years old
Died in Altendorf, master saddler / p. businessman Isaak BRUCK & wife Caroline née STOLZ, Ratibor
As readers can see, in the far-right column, Marie Friederike’s parents are identified, Isaak (spelled with a “k”) Bruck and Caroline Stolz, with a notation that Isaak died in Altendorf, a suburb of Ratibor (Figure 11), obviously before his daughter got married in 1857.
The town where the groom comes from is incorrectly spelled “Wrietzen,” when it should have read “Wriezen.” It’s a town in the district Märkisch-Oderland, in Brandenburg, Germany.
One final point. Some may wonder, as I did, why Michael and Ronny’s surnames are Bruck when this originates in their matrilineal line. (Figure 12) Michael explained that some of David and Marie Friederike Isaac’s children were in the clothing business in Berlin and owned several shops there in the late 19th and early 20th centuries; on account of persistent anti-Semitism, they started to use their mother’s maiden name. One of David and Marie Friederike’s sons, Max Isaac and his wife, formally applied to the Berlin authorities to use the Bruck name permanently on the 3rd of November 1919, evidence of which survives. (Figure 13)
It’s satisfying to have figured out how Michael, Ronny, and I are related, albeit in the scheme of things, it’s not seemingly a near ancestral link. That said, I maintain close ties with Michael and Ronny, and we regularly communicate. Furthermore, Ronny, by dint of his familiarity with Sütterlin, the German saw-toothed script briefly taught in schools there, has translated numerous family documents penned in this writing. This has enormously furthered my family research.
Note: In this Blog post, I discuss a few Bruck family Cabinet cards, photographic prints mounted on card stock, originating from several photo studios once located in Ratibor, Prussia, and Berlin.
The inspiration for this post came in part from a reader who inquired about the Helios photo studio in Ratibor [today: Racibórz, Poland] where her mother had worked during the 1930’s, and partially from some family photographs mounted on card stock with the names and locations of Ratibor and Berlin photo studios imprinted on the front or back.
In time, I would learn these photographs are referred to as Cabinet cards (Figure 1), which got their name from their suitability for display in parlors—especially in cabinets. This was a style of photograph first introduced in 1863 by Windsor & Bridge in London, that was a popular medium for family portraits. The Cabinet card, 108 mm by 165 mm (4 ¼” by 6 ½”) in size, gradually superseded the smaller carte-de-visite, 64 mm by 100 mm (2 ½” by 4”), which was introduced in the 1850s. The popularity of the Cabinet card waned around the turn of the century, particularly after the introduction of the photographic postcard (Figures 2a-b), but they were still being produced right until the First World War.
The name of the photographic studio is often imprinted on Cabinet cards under the photograph; typically a lithographic design covers most of the photo backing. Many designs incorporate attractive graphics, including medals or awards the studio supposedly won at some exposition or competition, or perhaps a medal of merit or excellence that was awarded by a European monarch. Sometimes, there is even an indication that the photographer or studio was the “official” photographer of a named monarch.
I always try to assist readers if possible, particularly if our respective ancestors originate from the same town; this sometimes presents an opportunity to learn more about the town’s history and its people, possibly obtain an alternative perspective, and often provides ideas for future Blog stories. Answering readers typically involves my consulting with more knowledgeable individuals. So, having never heard of the Helios photo studio the reader had asked about, I turned to my friend Mr. Paul Newerla, retired lawyer and current Silesian historian from Racibórz, for help. Paul sent a postcard of Langestraße, the street in Ratibor along which the Helios studio had once been located with the studio name circled (Figures 3a-b); he also included a page from a 1936 Ratibor Address Book listing existing photo studios with a larger advertisement for the “Photo-Helios.” (Figure 4) And, finally, in responding to the reader, I attached a section of a 1927 Ratibor map circling the approximate location of the studio.
More recently, I’ve turned my attention to the few Cabinet cards in my collection with the names and addresses of Ratibor and Berlin photo studios. These are often the most endearing and charming photos of my nearest relatives, specifically, my grandfather (Figure 5), along with my father (Figure 6) and his two siblings. (Figures 7-9) My ancestors literally seem to leap out from the picture and come to life.
The Cabinet cards depicting my family originate from three Ratibor studios, “J.D.P. Platz Kunst-Institut (Art Institute)” (Figure 10); “Oskar Krispien” at Oberwallstraße 10 (Figure 11); and “Alfred Schiersch” at Wilhelmstraße 12 (Figure 12); and two Berlin studios, “W. Höffert” with two locations, Leipziger Platz 12 and Unter der Linden 24 (Figure 13); and “V. Scheurich” at Friedrichstrasse 2017 in Berlin S.W. (Figure 14)
Curious whether I could learn more about these studios, I again turned to Mr. Newerla for help on the ones in Ratibor. In response to my query, Paul sent the list of existing photo studios from Ratibor Address Books for three years, 1889 (Figures 15a-b), 1923 (Figures 16a-b), and 1938. (Figures 17a-b) The 1889 directory showed J.D.P. Platz was located at Oberwallstraße 8, while the 1923 and 1938 directories indicated “Helios” or “Photo-Helios,” owned by Hans Ogermann, the studio the reader had asked me about, at Lange Straße 10. Alfred Schiersch was also listed in the 1923 and 1938 directories but shown to be at two different addresses, Oberzborstraße 8, then Eisenbahnstraße 3. None of the directories listed Oskar Krispien.
In addition to pages from various Ratibor Address Books, Paul sent me a link to “The Museum of Family History, Education and Research Center,” a virtual (Internet-only), multimedia, and interactive creation designed to help people learn more about modern Jewish history. Within this virtual museum is a link at “www.fotorevers.eu” to The Museum of Family History’s collection of over 3500 photos. This Polish and German language website documents by city the activities of photographers and their studios in the years 1850-1914; for Ratibor, it includes Jozef Axmann, Atelier Helios, and Platz Ph. (Figure 18), while for Berlin, W. Höffert is shown to be in multiple cities.
The Cabinet card depicting my grandparents around the time they got married in 1894 was taken at the W. Höffert studio (Figure 19), which on the reverse side of the card lists locations in seven German cities though more are known. (Figure 13) A different Cabinet card picturing only my grandfather at about the same age was taken at the “V.Scheurich” studio in Berlin. (Figure 20) Possibly, both photos were made in Berlin, although the wedding picture could certainly have been taken in Breslau, closer to Ratibor. However, the fact that neither picture was taken in Ratibor made me wonder where my grandparents married. Both were born in Ratibor and owned the Bruck’s family hotel there; additionally, I have a poem written by my grandfather’s brother, Wilhelm “Willy” Bruck, in honor of his brother’s wedding on the 11th of February 1894 that was printed in Ratibor, strongly suggesting my grandparents were married there. Yet, I had not previously found their wedding certificate at the Polish State Archives in Racibórz on two previous visits.
Knowing exactly the day my grandparents got married, I scoured the Landesarchiv Berlin database for their names but came up empty. Once again, I asked Paul Newerla whether he could check at the Polish State Archives in Racibórz for their wedding certificate on the off-chance I missed it, and sure enough he found it with ease. Possibly, my grandparents honeymooned in Berlin, and had their wedding photos taken there.
The reverse side of the Cabinet card from W. Höffert states: “Königlich Sächs., Königlich Preuss., Hof Photograph Sr. Königlich Hoh., Hof Photograph des Prinzen von Wales.” (i.e., Royal Saxon., Royal Preuss., Court Photographer Sr. Royal Dynasty Hohenzollern, Court Photographer of the Prince of Wales) In addition, there are three medals of merit or excellence illustrated on the Cabinet card. (Figure 13)
In the case of the Cabinet cards picturing my grandparents and their three children, since I know their vital statistics, they do not add to my knowledge of when specific events may have taken place or when they were born. However, for readers who may not have this information for their ancestors, knowing that Cabinet cards were in vogue between roughly 1866 and ca. 1914 may help narrow the window of time for which ancestral information is sought.
Note: In this Blog post, I discuss how I inadvertently uncovered vital records information for several people in my family tree and talk about leaving open the possibility of discovering evidence of ancestors whose traces appear negligible.
In the prologue to my family history blog, which I initiated in April 2017, I conceded there are some ancestral searches which are bound to end up unresolved during my lifetime. While I never actually close the book on these forensic investigations, I place them on a back-burner in the unlikely event I discover something new or make a new connection. This Blog post delves into one recent find that opened the door to learning more about several close ancestors whom I’d essentially given up hope of unearthing anything new.
Given my single-minded focus over the last two years on writing stories for my family history blog, I’ve woefully neglected updating my family tree which resides on ancestry.com. An opportunity recently presented itself to piggy-back on a friend’s membership to ancestry and review the hundreds of “leaves” associated with the roughly 500+ people in my tree. Typically, at the top of the list of ancestry clues are links to other family trees that may include the same people as found in one’s own tree. While I systematically review these member trees, I only “import” new ancestral information if source documents are attached to the member trees and I can confirm the reliability of the details; I may occasionally make exceptions if trees or tree managers have been trusted sources of information in the past, and/or I otherwise can confirm the origins of the data. Over the years I’ve seen multiple trees replicate the same erroneous information, and this is a path I choose to avoid.
The family ancestral information I happened upon came from a family tree I discussed in Blog Post 39, entitled “Schlesische Jüdische Familien,” “Silesian Jewish Families.” Regular readers may recall this tree has an astronomical 52,000+ names in it, so it should come as no surprise that it is often the source of overlapping or new information for individuals found in my own modest-sized tree. That said, I still apply the same rigorous principles in assessing the information found in this larger tree. I rarely take anything at face-value when it comes to vital records (e.g., births, baptisms, marriages, deaths) given the multiple reasons, often inadvertent or negligent, why data may be incorrect or divergent (e.g., illegible or unintelligible writing on source documents; transcription errors). With these caveats in mind, however, I came across some vital record information on the Silesian Families tree that seemed credible given the specificity of birth and death dates for a few individuals in my tree. The information related to my great-great-uncle Josef Mockrauer’s first wife, Esther Ernestine Lißner, and their son, Gerhard Mockrauer; while I’d previously found Gerhard’s birth certificate mentioning his parents, I had never found precise birth and death dates for Ernestine or Gerhard, so this was particularly intriguing.
Having previously established contact with the manager of the “Schlesische Jüdische Familien” family tree, a very helpful German lady by the name of Ms. Elke Kehrmann, I again reached out to her. I acknowledged that remembering the source of data for 52,000+ people is unrealistic but thought I should still ask. Initially, Ms. Kehrmann could only recall the information came from a manuscript prepared by an American Holocaust survivor who’d wanted to memorialize his lineage; with numerous computer upgrades over the years, Elke expressed the likelihood the document was digitally irretrievable. Disappointed, but not surprised, I was prepared to accept the vital records information at face-value.
Then, much to my delight, a day later Elke told me she’d located the source document from a larger collection entitled the “Pinkus Family Collection 1500s-1994, (bulk 1725-1994).” (Figure 1) It was too large to email, but she opined I might be able to locate it on the Internet, and, sure enough, I immediately learned the collection is archived at The Leo Baeck Institute—New York/Berlin (LBI) and can be downloaded for free. For readers unfamiliar with this institute, according to their website, “LBI is devoted to the history of German-speaking Jews. Its 80,000-volume library and extensive archival and art collections represent the most significant repository of primary source material and scholarship on the Jewish communities of Central Europe over the past five centuries.”
The Pinkus Family Collection is enormous. From the “Biographical Note” to the collection, I learned the Pinkus family were textile manufacturers. Their factory, located in Neustadt, Upper Silesia [today: Prudnik, Poland], was one of the largest producers of fine linens in the world. Joseph Pinkus became a partner in the firm S. Fränkel when he married Auguste Fränkel, the daughter of the owner. Their son Max Pinkus (1857-1934) was director until 1926. Subsequently, Max Pinkus’s son Hans Pinkus (1891-1977) managed the family company from 1926-1938 until he was forced out after the company’s total aryanization in the wake of Kristallnacht. Both Max and Hans Pinkus were very active in civic and cultural affairs and interested in local history; they amassed a large library of books by Silesian authors. In their spare time, they devoted themselves to genealogical research, the basis of the family collection archived at LBI. Hans Pinkus left Germany at the end of 1938, emigrated to the United Kingdom with his family in 1939, and died in Britain in 1977.
In reviewing the index to the collection, I had no idea where to begin. Fortunately, Elke came to my rescue and pointed me to “Series VII” (Figure 1), described as encompassing not just close Pinkus family relations but the broader array of families in Upper Silesia. Within this series I located pages related to my family, although, unlike other portions of the collection, ancestral information is recorded in longhand, in Sütterlin, no less. Even so, I was able to decipher most of the numerical data, and enlisted one of my German cousins to translate the longhand.
Here is where I discovered the source of the birth and death dates for my great-great-uncle Josef Mockrauer’s first wife, Esther Ernestine Lißner, and their son, Gerhard Mockrauer. A summary of vital information for Josef Mockrauer, his two wives, and their children follows:
I made other surprising discoveries in the Pinkus Collection. Briefly, some context. The second-generation owners of the Bruck’s “Prinz von Preussen” Hotel in Ratibor were my great-grandparents, Fedor Bruck (Figure 10) and Friederike Bruck née Mockrauer. (Figure 11) As the table below shows, Fedor and Friederike Bruck had eight children, only six of whom I’d previously been able to track from birth to death; Elise and Robert remained wraiths whose existence I knew about but assumed had died at birth, a not uncommon fate in the 19th century. This was not, in fact, what happened. Elise lived to almost age 4, and Robert to age 16. While Elise expectedly died in Ratibor, mystifyingly, Robert died on December 30, 1887 in Braunschweig, Germany, more than 450 miles from Ratibor. Why here is unclear. Their causes of death are a mystery, though childhood diseases a real possibility.
With respect to the tables above, I don’t expect readers to do anything more than glance at them; for me, they’re a quick reference as to what I know and where it came from, a form of metadata, if you will. The italicized information in the tables was new to me and originated from the Pinkus Collection.
As a related aside, Friederike Mockrauer and Josef Mockrauer were siblings. Interestingly, Josef Mockrauer would go on to eventually marry one of his sister’s daughters, his niece, my great-aunt Charlotte Bruck. Incestuous, I would agree.
Remarkably, on the very same page where I discovered Elise and Robert’s dates and places of death, I found my father and his three siblings listed! (Figure 17) Inasmuch as I can tell, the detailed family information was recorded by either Max (Max died in 1934) or Hans Pinkus around the early- to mid-1930’s, at which time my father, Dr. Otto Bruck, would have been a dentist in Tiegenhof in the Free State of Danzig, and this is precisely what is noted: “Zahnarzt im Tiegenhof (Freistaat Danzig)”; “Freistaat Danzig” was the official name of this former part of the Deutsches Reich after World War I.
Tracking down the Pinkus Collection with its relevant family history is admittedly noteworthy, but the real service was rendered by Max and Hans Pinkus. Their detailed compilation of ancestral data from related Silesian families was gathered while running a full-time business and in the days before genealogical information was digitized, when most of the painstaking work had to be undertaken manually through time-consuming letter-writing, and perhaps occasional phone calls and family gatherings. So, while I take obvious pleasure in having discovered the Pinkus Collection, I acknowledge the true forensic genealogists for amassing this valuable trove of family history.
Let me conclude by emphasizing that well-done family trees to which ancestry.com leads genealogists can often be the source of valuable forensic clues but should be closely scrutinized and delved into to before accepting the data prima facie. And, finally, I have no idea how many “cold cases” I can eventually solve but the challenge is what motivates me.
In the previous post, I described to readers how I went about finding my grandfather’s younger brother, Wilhelm “Willy” Bruck (1872-1952), as well as his wife, son and daughter-in-law. Starting with the knowledge that my great-uncle wound up in Barcelona, Spain and sent a congratulatory card from there to my parents in 1951, shortly after I was born, I began there. From the FamilySearch’s “International Genealogical Index” I knew my great-uncle Willy’s wife, Antonie Bruck née Marcus, had pre-deceased him by ten years in Barcelona, dying there in 1942; clearly, 1942 was the latest they would have arrived in Spain, and likely sooner. I assumed my great-aunt and -uncle had gone to Barcelona to escape the Nazis, although the circumstances of how they were able to immigrate to Spain was a complete mystery.
In Post 32, I explained how I obtained the Certificados de Defunción, death certificates, for my great-uncle Willy (Figure 1), and his son Edgar-Pedro (Figure 2) during a visit in 2014 to two bureaus in Barcelona, the Cementiris de Barcelona, S.A. and the Registro Civil de Barcelona; other than learning that payments for keeping them and their wives interred were current, the Cementiris refused to give me names of next of kin. Instead, they suggested I write a letter explaining my interest in contacting them, and they would forward my request asking if the next of kin were willing to share their contact information. In fact, I tried this approach upon my return to the States in 2014, ultimately to no avail, although I strongly suspect the Cementiris never contacted my relatives.
But, I’m getting ahead of myself. As previously explained, following my visit to the Cementerio de Montjuïc in Barcelona to visit the tomb of my great-uncle Willy and his family (Figure 3), I returned to the Registro Civil de Barcelona hoping to obtain documents for additional family members. I had the good fortune to encounter a very helpful English-speaking lady there who spent several hours researching records for possible relatives. She eventually gave me copies of various birth, marriage and death certificates for five individuals, the relationship and significance of which would take me several months to figure out. I didn’t realize it at the time, but one of these documents was the key to locating my great-uncle Willy’s grandchildren. Just to be clear, none of these certificates provided names of next of kin.
Readers may recall from Post 15 that the personal papers of two of great-uncle Willy’s renowned sisters, Franziska Bruck and Elsbeth Bruck, are archived at the Stadtmuseum in Spandau, a suburb of Berlin. Earlier in 2014, my wife and I spent two days there examining and photographing all the documents and pictures. (Figure 4) Among my great-aunt Elsbeth’s papers, I discovered multiple pictures that her brother Willy had sent from Barcelona of himself (Figure 5), his children, Eva (Figure 6) and Edgar Pedro, his daughter-in-law Mercedes and her family (Figure 7), and his grandson Antonio. (Figure 8) The captions on these pictures allowed me to partially piece together the family tree. I was able to match some pictures to a document I’d obtained at the Registro Civil de Barcelona, notably the Certificado de Matrimonio, marriage certificate, for Edgar Pedro Bruck Marcus and Mercedes Casanovas Castañé, married June 24, 1945. (Figures 9a-c & 10) I was also able to relate theCertificados de Nacimiento, birth certificates, to their two children, Antonio Bruck Casanovas, born 1946 (Figure 11), and Margarita Bruck Casanovas, born 1948. (Figure 12) To remind readers, in Spain, at birth, an individual is given two surnames, that of his mother and father. Again, none of these documents allowed me to determine whether great-uncle Willy’s grandchildren were still alive, or where they might be living.
The break-through in finding my great-uncle Willy’s grandchildren came during Thanksgiving 2014. My wife was out-of-town with her family, so I set myself the task of re-examining the documents I’d been given at the Registro Civil de Barcelona. When reviewing the birth certificate for Antonio Bruck Casanovas, I noticed something I’d previously overlooked, specifically, a notation that had been added in the upper-left-hand corner on October 26, 1983 indicating he’d gotten married to a woman named Ingeborg Prieller née Wieser in 1982 in a place called “Haag-R.F.A.” (Figure 13) Having no idea where Haag is, and what “R.F.A.” stood for, after researching these places, I quickly determined that Haag is in Bavaria, and that “R.F.A.,” is Spanish for “República Federal de Alemania,” the German Federal Republic. This was the first concrete evidence I had that one of my great-uncle Willy’s grandchildren had at least for some period lived in Germany and might still be there.
I made this discovery on a Sunday, I clearly remember. I immediately searched to find out whether this small town of approximately 6,500 inhabitants has a Rathaus, a town hall, where I could inquire about Antonio Bruck. I learned they do, and without delay sent them an email inquiring about my second cousin, laying out what I knew. Incredibly, by the following morning, the Rathaus confirmed the information I had uncovered on Antonio Bruck’s birth certificate was correct and that he still lived in Haag; this was the good news, the bad news was they couldn’t give me his contact information. Fortunately, the gentleman at the Rathaus offered to call Antonio and explain that a cousin from America was trying to reach him. By Tuesday, my second cousin Antonio had sent me an email explaining his consternation at being phoned by Haag’s Rathaus, asked to appear in person at their offices, and told I was trying to get in touch with him. Antonio wasted no time contacting me. So, only two days after figuring out that one of my second cousins was living in Germany, we’d miraculously established contact.
Let me briefly digress and touch on something that may be of passing interest to some readers. Given my persistence, it’s likely I would eventually have figured out another way to get in touch with my second cousins, although there’s no guarantee of this. The 1983 marriage notation on Antonio’s 1946 birth certificate simplified my search. What makes this notation on Antonio’s Spanish birth certificate notable is that he was married in Germany, but this information was somehow conveyed to the Spanish authorities in Barcelona. In my years of doing forensic genealogy, I’ve come across multiple examples where marriages and even divorces are noted on German birth certificates, but this is the only instance I’ve come across where such a notation crosses country borders, this in the time before the European Union. For people doing research on their ancestors, it pays to look for notations on vital documents, particularly on German birth certificates, that may inform when and where their relatives got married. While Antonio’s birth certificate includes this information, the birth certificate of his sister Margarita, also married in Germany, contains no such reference.
Once Antonio and I connected, we began a lively exchange of emails. (Figure 14) I learned a lot more about my great-uncle Willy and his family and widened my circle of previously unknown relatives who I eventually contacted. From the International Genealogical Index, I already knew that my great-aunt and -uncle had married in Hamburg on April 2, 1904 (Figure 15). Once Antonio confirmed that Wilhelm and Antonie’s children, Edgar and Eva, had been born respectively, in 1905 and 1906, in Barcelona, I wrote to the woman who’d helped me at the Registro Civil de Barcelona, asking for copies of their birth certificates. She remembered me, and in February 2015, sent me their Certificados de Nacimiento. (Figures 16a-b & 17a-b)
It turns out, Antonio’s grandfather had been an electrical engineer for AEG, Allgemeine Elektricitäts-Gesellschaft, a company established in Berlin 1893 that went defunct in 1996. Among other things, AEG was involved in the installation and generation of electrical power and transmission lines, and, as technical director at AEG, my great-uncle was sent to Barcelona in 1905 to supervise the set-up of electrification and street illumination in Barcelona. (Figure 18) As noted, Wilhelm and Antonie’s two children were born in Barcelona, where the family stayed until 1910 (Figures 19 & 20), whereupon they returned to Berlin.
The family’s association with Spain no doubt saved their lives during the rise of the National Socialists. It appears after Hitler’s ascendancy to power in 1933, the family returned to Barcelona at least until the start of the Spanish Civil War in 1936, although the family’s chronology during this period is at best confusing. It seems that Wilhelm and Antonie returned to Germany for a short period, because in 1937 they were given the choice by the Nazis of attending a re-education school to learn to become “better” Germans or leaving the country; they decided to relocate to Antwerp, Belgium.
At the outset of the Spanish Civil War, Edgar left for Geneva, Switzerland, but, unable to find work there, went to Paris soon after. Between 1937 and 1941 he was in France, living in Paris and Bordeaux, before eventually being incarcerated at the French detention center of Condom. Since France and Germany were at war, and Edgar was a German national, he was arrested. Seemingly, it was only the persistent efforts of Wilhelm that got Edgar released, whereupon he rejoined his family in Barcelona in 1941. It’s likely that once the Spanish Civil War ended on April 1, 1939, Wilhelm and Antonie returned to Barcelona from Antwerp.
Let me briefly digress again and draw the readers attention to a very common notation added to the birth and/or marriage certificates of German Jews during the Nazi period. (Figure 21) As previously mentioned, my great-uncle Willy and his wife Antonie Marcus were married in Hamburg, Germany on April 2, 1904. Below is the translation of their marriage certificate:
N.172
Hamburg, the 2nd of April 1904
In front of the below signed registrar appeared today because of their marriage:
1.) the chief engineer Wilhelm Bruck, known because of his birth certificate, lutheran religion, born on the 24th of October 1872 in Ratibor, living in Barcelona, son of the in Ratibor deceased innkeeper Fedor Bruck and his wife Friederike born Mokrauer, living in Berlin.
2.) Antonie Marcus, known because of her birth certificate, lutheran religion, born on the 13th of July 1876 in Altona, living in Hamburg, Heimhuderstreet 60/2, daughter of the in Altona deceased merchant Hirsch (called Harry) Marcus and his wife Adele born Hertz, living in Hamburg.
And on the right-hand side is written:
Nr.172
Hamburg, the 11th of march 1940
Antonia Bruck born Marcus, living in Barcelona Calle Balmes, has received the additional Christian name “Sara”.
Nr. 172
Hamburg, the 29th of April 1940
Wilhelm Bruck, living in Barcelona, has received the additional Christian name “Israel”.
In the next two additions on the right-hand side is written that those two additional names “Sara” and “Israel” are no longer valid
from the date of 22nd of July 1948
The certificate states that Wilhelm and Antonie were Lutherans though both were considered Jewish by the Nazis. As such, in March and April 1940, respectively, the Nazis gave them the additional names of “Sara” and “Israel,” identical names given to all female and male Jews during this period, names rescinded in writing after WWII. The Nazis even recorded the street in Barcelona on which my great-aunt and -uncle lived, Calle Balmes, presumably useful information had they ever invaded Spain. As an aside, according to my second cousins, because they were Lutherans, a major branch of Protestant Christianity, neither was able to attend “normal” schools in predominantly Catholic Spain so, instead, they were schooled at the “Lycée Français.” For this reason, in 1955 Edgar and his family returned to Germany so his children could attend regular public schools
Antonio put me in touch with additional relatives living in Munich and Berlin. One woman was a Dr. Anna Rothholz, a third cousin I eventually learned. (Figure 22) Anna, in turn, referred me to other third cousins, including the Pauly family. This was of particular interest, as a woman named Lisa Pauly helped my uncle Dr. Fedor Bruck survive in Berlin during WWII. One deceased Pauly cousin developed a very detailed “Stammbaum,” family tree, which I was given, but unfortunately this still does not explain how Lisa Pauly is related to the Bruck family.
I’ve mentioned in previous posts my father’s penchant for being dismissive of family. Not only did he lose touch with most, but he lost track of how they passed away. Case in point, I was always told Wilhelm’s daughter, Eva, whom I met in 1967 in New York, had committed suicide. In fact, she died of laryngeal cancer in 1977 in Ainring, Germany. (Figure 23) There is an interesting anecdote related to her death. She had wanted to be interred with her family at the Cementerio de Montjuïc in Barcelona, but an administrative hang-up prevented this. The Spanish kept telling the family the Germans should just ship the body to Spain, but the Germans refused to do this without something in writing, something the Spaniards never provided. Thus, Eva was buried in Germany against her wishes.
My wife and I eventually met my second and third cousins on a trip to Germany in May 2015. (Figure 24) Margarita, Antonio and I all brought family pictures, including of people we were unable to identify, but, between us, we eventually figured out who most were; they would later scan and send all the family pictures they inherited from their father and aunt. One particularly interesting identification was of Wilhelm’s wife, Antonie, who entirely unbeknownst to me, had worked in my great-aunt Franziska Bruck’s flower school in Berlin. (Figure 25) Stories of other people shown in the family pictures will be the subject of future posts, as they led me to other discoveries.
In 1951, some months after I was born in New York, my parents received a congratulatory card from my father’s uncle, Wilhelm “Willy” Bruck, my grandfather Felix Bruck’s surviving younger brother. (Figures 1a, 1b & 1c) Regrettably, this card, mailed from Barcelona, Spain, has not survived. At the time I began looking into my family, I knew very little about this great-uncle; it turns out his only daughter, Eva Bruck, visited New York in 1967 (Figure 2), although her connection to our family was never explained to me at the time. Still, I remember her clearly. Having been a coin collector my entire life, Eva immediately endeared herself by bringing me an Austrian 15 Kreuzer silver coin from 1686, an item still in my possession.
Eva had a very distinctive look so when I carefully re-examined my father’s pictures from Ratibor and Berlin when he and Eva were younger, she was easily recognizable. I was also able to identify her brother, Edgar Bruck, in these same images. (Figure 3)
As previously mentioned, my father took scant interest in his family and often quipped, “thank heavens we don’t have family!” When he spoke of his relatives or friends, he often used a French or German sobriquet, such as “la Socialiste,” “la Vielle,” or “Die Schlummermutter,” never mentioning surnames for these people. Given my father’s rather casual attitude about family, it’s not surprising he lost touch with them, and why I never met or knew how many aunts and uncles he had. For that matter, I was never even told how many siblings my father had, as readers may recall from my visit to the Polish State Archives in Raciborz (Post 12), where I learned of an older brother named Walter who died in infancy.
From the Ratibor microfilm records and the Polish State Archives in Raciborz, I discovered my grandfather had seven siblings and learned their dates of birth; since I track only five of the siblings into adulthood, it’s likely two died in infancy. Finding out what became of the surviving brothers and sisters during the Nazi era and uncovering whether any had children or grandchildren became a priority when I started the forensic investigations into my father’s family.
I started with my great-uncle Willy, Wilhelm Bruck. The Ratibor birth records showed he was born on October 24, 1872, while a page in FamilySearch’s “International Genealogical Index (IGI),” indicated he died on May 18, 1952, in Barcelona, and was married to an Antonie Marcus on April 2, 1904 in Hamburg, Germany; Antonie was born on July 13, 1876 in Hamburg, Germany and died in Barcelona (as Antonia) on October 10, 1942. When I began my search into my great-uncle Willy, this is all I knew. (Figures 4 & 5)
Aware of my great-uncle Willy’s connection to Barcelona, I searched the city’s White Pages for people with the surname Bruck hoping to find some of his descendants. I was a bit surprised when none showed up, although when I broadened my search to all of Spain, I found 14 people with the surname Bruck. At that instant, I decided to write to all fourteen individuals, enclosing the only photo I had at the time of my great-uncle Willy. (Figure 6)
I’ve often used this approach, writing “cold letters” to people I think may have information about my father’s family and friends. Typically, I get a response rate of about 50 percent, often absent information, although, in this instance, only two people responded. The first response was predictably negative. The second, however, was different. Early one Saturday morning, I received a call from Haifa, Israel from a gentleman named Michael Bruck; this immediately caught my attention because I was unaware of any Bruck relatives in Israel. It turns out, Michael is the first cousin of someone I’d written to in Spain, a man named Ronny Bruck. Early in January 2014, Ronny received my letter, coincidentally, on his 65th birthday. Thinking an unknown Bruck relative in America was sending him birthday well-wishes, he instead found my odd request asking about my deceased great-uncle Willy. Ronny forwarded my letter to his first cousin Michael in Israel, the family genealogist, ergo the call.
While both Ronny and Michael recognized a family resemblance between my great-uncle Willy and their ancestors, to this day we have not connected our respective branches of the family; whenever we come upon a new family tree, we immediately share it hoping to eventually find a “link.” Regardless, both Ronny and Michael have been of enormous assistance in my family research. Ronny learned Sütterlin for only one year in school, and has translated countless historic birth, marriage and death records written in this obsolete German script; Michael helped me track down one of my father’s first cousins who immigrated to Haifa after WWII, an arduous search that will be the subject of a future post. While we can’t pinpoint our family ties, I consider Michael and Ronny nothing less than intimate kin. (Figure 7)
Having basically reached a dead-end on my great-uncle Willy, I turned to the Los Angeles Jewish Genealogical Society for help contacting someone in Spain’s Jewish community thinking they might be able to assist. They put me in touch with the Synagogue Librarian for La Javurá, Ms. Alba Toscana, in Valencia, Spain (Figure 8), who suggested I contact the Comunidad Israelita de Barcelona or CIB, and they, in turn, sent me to the Cementiris de Barcelona, S.A. I emailed them in February 2014, and, within a day, they responded and confirmed that my great-uncle Willy was indeed buried in Barcelona, at the Cementerio de Montjuïc, with his wife, son and daughter-in-law; they also provided specifics on where all were entombed. The Cementiris, however, was unwilling to provide a copy of any of the death certificates for family members unless I presented myself in person and paid for the documents on the spot.
Fortunately, my wife and I already had plans in summer of 2014 to visit the places connected to my family’s diaspora, including Barcelona, so when we arrived there in July we presented ourselves to the Cementiris. (Figure 9) Payment was made in this office, then we had to trek across town to a separate office, the Ministerio de Justicia Registro Civil de Barcelona (Figure 10), where actual death certificates are obtained. The Cementiris provided a letter telling me when my great-uncle Willi and his wife died, and where they are entombed in theCementerio de Montjuïc. (Figure 11) I also received a separate document stating that payment for keeping the remains interred was current. As readers may know, it is a common practice in Spain and elsewhere in the world for relatives to pay to keep their ancestors buried, otherwise, the human remains are disinterred and placed in a charnel house after a certain number of years. The Cementiris, however, would not provide information on any living family members. Spain is a notoriously difficult place to obtain official documents and names of living and even deceased relatives because of its recent history of fascism; initially I was only able to obtain the death certificates for my great-uncle Willy (Figure 12), known here as Guillermo Bruck Mockrauer, and his son, Edgar-Pedro Bruck Marcus. (Figure 13)
A side note on Spanish names is relevant. In Spain, at birth, an individual is given two surnames, that of his mother and father. Thus, my great-uncle Willy’s father’s surname was Bruck and his mother’s maiden name was Mockrauer, so he was known in Spain as “Guillermo (Spanish for Wilhelm) Bruck Mockrauer.”
Armed with information on where my great-uncle Willy or “Guillermo” was interred, my wife and I set out to pay a visit to the Cementerio de Montjuïc. (Figure 14) I already knew Guillermo and his wife, who predeceased him by 10 years, were buried together, along with their son, Edgar and his wife, Mercedes. Interestingly, neither Willy’s son nor daughter-in-law’s names are inscribed on the headstone; this I had learned from the Cementeris before visiting the cemetery. (Figure 15)
Following our visit to the Cementerio de Montjuïc, I returned to the Registro Civil de Barcelona hoping to obtain official documents for additional family members I surmised had been born or died in Barcelona. I had the good fortune to land upon an English-speaking administrator who was enormously helpful; she asked me to come back after working hours, spent some hours on the computer, and provided me with some invaluable birth and death certificates that eventually enabled me to track down my great-uncle Willy’s grandchildren. It took some effort to decipher the significance of these documents. It was only after I returned home and correlated these documents with letters and pictures found among the personal papers of two of my renowned great-aunts, archived at the Stadtmuseum in Berlin, that I was fully able to connect the dots. This will be the subject of the following Blog post.
