Note: A document I recently found in the Israeli Defense Forces Archives about my father’s first cousin, Heinz Löwenstein, substantiates and adds to what I know about this charismatic family member.
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The mother of one of my ex-girlfriends would in jest remark to her daughter when she was working on her Ph.D. that she was learning more and more about less and less. Whenever I publish a postscript to an earlier post, I often think the same, that I’m delving deeper into the life of someone whose circumstances I’ve already explored. Oftentimes it adds a more nuanced or fuller understanding of that individual, at other times it confirms or refutes what I previously concluded. My measuring stick, however, is how much I’ve learned about an ancestor vis a vis what I knew when I started researching them.
Thus, in the case of one of my father’s charismatic first cousins, Heinz Löwenstein (Figure 1), whom I met on one occasion as a child, his wartime whereabouts were shrouded in mystery. Shrouded in mystery, that’s to say, until an English gentleman from Maidstone, England, Mr. Brian Cooper (Figure 2), contacted me and provided a wealth of documentary material confirming that Heinz had joined the English Army in Palestine, been deployed to Greece, was captured by the Germans during the Battle of Greece, and spent the remaining wartimes years in various prisoner-of-war (POW) camps in Austria, Poland, Hungary, and Germany. The reason Brian contacted me is that his own uncle, Henry William Jackson, whose fate he’s never worked out, had been interned in the same POW camp in Lamsdorf, Germany [today: Łambinowice, Poland] as Heinz, and he’d come across Heinz’s name while researching his uncle. Whether they ever met remains unknown.
Having been born in Danzig, Germany [today: Gdańsk, Poland] in 1905, naturally Heinz spoke German fluently. On several occasions when he escaped from detached POW work camps, this allowed him to blend into the countryside for a brief time before he was inevitably recaptured. After his last escape, probably in August 1943, he made his way to Hungary, where he was detained on the estate of Count Mithaly Andrassy in Szigetvár, Hungary under the name of “Henry Loewenstein.” (Figure 3) Because there was no state of war between Hungary and the United Kingdom prior to Germany’s invasion of Hungary in March 1944, any British POW escapees, if caught by the Hungarian authorities, could expect no more than internment by Hungary as a neutral power; there was no concern that British POWs would be returned to German control.
Following Germany’s invasion of Hungary, however, Heinz inevitably was recaptured by the Germans. Inexplicably, by then he had successfully adopted an alias, “Henry Goff,” “Goff” being his sister’s married name. After his capture, he pretended to have been born in Manchester, England on his actual date of birth, the 8th of March 1905. The Germans never grasped that “Heinz Löwenstein” and “Henry Goff” were one and the same person, although the English military authorities who’d been given the names of British prisoners by their German counterparts realized this. (Figure 4)
Both Heinz Löwenstein and my father, Dr. Otto Bruck, were in the English Army’s Royal Pioneer Corps (RPC), though in different theaters. Heinz, as mentioned, joined the RPC when Palestine was a British mandate, while my father switched to the English Army in November 1943 in Algiers, Algeria after a five-year stint in the French Foreign Legion. In 2010, I wrote to the British Army Personnel Centre, Historical Disclosures Office asking whether they could find and send me his military file for the 2 years 226 days my father spent in the Pioneer Corps, to no avail.
Upon establishing contact with Brian Cooper, who is an expert on English POW records, I asked him whether he had any thoughts on where I might write to obtain both my father and Heinz’s military files. After telling him I’d already written to the British Army Personnel Centre many years earlier, he suggested I contact the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) Archives, with whom I dutifully followed up. While the IDF undertook an extensive search, the archives suggested I contact the Pioneer Veterans Association. Thus, I approached them asking where I might possibly find my father and Heinz’s military files.
In the case of Heinz, Mr. Norman Brown, the Controller RPC Association, kindly responded after consulting with the Association’s historian telling me “There is no evidence of him transferring to the PC (the number is R Signals). I am afraid all records are in Jerusalem—somewhere.”
In the instance of my father, Mr. Brown was able to provide a few more details: “Your father did serve in our Corps. He was enlisted into 362 Coy Pioneer Corps on 19 Nov 1943. The following is an extract from the nominal roll of the Company (dated Jul 1944):
13301902 LCpl Bruck Otto—DOB 16 Apr 07—Place of birth Ratibor Ge—enlisted Algiers—Nationality German”
Norman sent me an abbreviated War Diary for Coy 362 for the period of its existence, 1943-44. (Figure 5)
Norman helpfully explained that a Pioneer Company was commanded by a Major and usually consisted of approximately 10 Sections of 25 men each led by a Sergeant with a Lieutenant assigned to every two sections. Including the small headquarters element (cooks, clerks, etc.), the average strength of a Company was 288 men. A Group Headquarters commanded between 5 and 18 Companies in its geographical area. The abbreviations “SOS” and “TOS” shown in the diaries simply mean “struck off strength” and “taken on strength,” i.e. date posted out and date posted in.
According to the Association’s annotated records my father’s file was apparently sent to “North Africa Records,” the location of which to date remains a mystery. Norman thinks these records may reside in an unknown location in Cairo. I even asked my contact at the IDF Archives if she had any clue where these records might be found but unfortunately, she’s been unable to help.
After many months of not hearing from the IDF Archives, and believing they’d been unable to track down Heinz’s military file, suddenly a few weeks ago I was notified they had located a file with information about him. After completing the necessary paperwork to obtain the document, they sent me the attached two pages. (Figures 6a-b) Hoping they had found his military file, instead I received a 1960 application Heinz completed as a former POW requesting compensation from Germany for his internment; the file was found in the Jewish Combatant Collection. Other than the date, the application is written in Hebrew. I asked my fourth cousin once removed who lives in Haifa, a mere 15 miles from Acre, Israel, where Heinz was then living, to translate it. (Figure 7)
At Brian Cooper’s suggestion, I am currently working with the Israeli Archives to try and ascertain the outcome of Heinz’s compensation application.
Heinz Löwenstein referred to himself as “Hanoch Loewenstein” at the time he submitted his application in 1960 requesting compensation from the German government. I know from other documents, as well as his 1979 “Burial Certificate” (Figure 8), that he had changed his name to “Hanoch Avneri,” his surname at times spelled as “Avinary.” Heinz’s date and place of enlistment into the English Army were previously unknown to me but learned had been on the 5th of August 1940 in a place called Sarafand (believed to be Al-Sarafand). Heinz’s 1960 application confirms that he was captured in Kalamata, Greece on the 29th of April 1941, imprisoned in Corinth, Greece, Wolfsberg, Austria, and Lamsdorf, Germany [today: Łambinowice, Poland], facts all previously known to me. Heinz’s Service Number (PAL8576) and PoW number (2332) were also confirmed. Heinz indicated he was liberated in Germany in May 1945, which I’d surmised.
Heinz identified three Israeli friends with whom he was interned during the war, namely, Simon Offenheimer, Shlomo Menachem, and Shimon Leichtmann. Brian Cooper found the names of Simon Leichtmann (Figure 9) and Simon Offenheimer (Figure 10) on POW lists with detailed information; nothing was found on Schlomo Menachem. On ancestry, I also discovered Simon Offenheimer’s 1923 marriage certificate (Figure 11) and military records that showed he fought in WWI. (Figure 12)
The information I’ve collected on my father’s first cousin, which has been of particular interest since I once met him and since the rumors surrounding his wartime escapades are legendary within the family, has been hard earned. I attribute much of my good fortune to what Branch Rickey, the former brainy executive of the Los Angeles Dodgers, often quipped that “luck is the residue of design.” I hope that my persistence may eventually result in learning yet more about Heinz.