POST 148: METAPHORICALLY, THE TWELVE DAYS OF CHRISTMAS

 

Note: In this post, I discuss how I recently came into possession of images of ancestors from a branch of my family that originates mostly from Breslau [today: Wrocław, Poland], and learned about a memoir written by the grandfather of the English lawyer who shared these pictures.

 

Related Posts:

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

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

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

POST 132: FATE OF THE BRUCK’S “PRINZ VON PREUßEN“ FAMILY HOTEL IN RATIBOR (RACIBÓRZ): GEOPOLITICAL FACTORS

POST 143: TOM BROOK, BBC JOURNALIST ON SCENE THE DAY JOHN LENNON DIED

 

A scant three months ago, on the 29th of September 2023 to be precise, I received an email from a lawyer living in Wolverhampton in the West Midlands of England, Helen Winter, née Renshaw. (Figure 1) I say “scant” because in the short period since we’ve been in touch, we’ve already exchanged several hundred emails.

 

Figure 1. Helen Winter, née Renshaw in Attingham Park in Wolverhampton in 2023

 

In Helen’s initial missive, she explained that she is a descendant of the Bruck family and that her maternal grandfather was Professor Eberhard Friedrich Bruck (1877-1960). (Figure 2) He taught law at the University of Bonn until enactment of “The Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service” (German: Gesetz zur Wiederherstellung des Berufsbeamtentums, shortened to Berufsbeamtengesetz) by the Nazis on the 7th of April 1933. The primary objective of this law was to establish a “national” and “professional” civil service by dismissing certain groups of tenured civil servants, including individuals of Jewish descent and non-Aryan origins. Additionally, the law forbade Jews, non-Aryans, and political opponents from holding positions as teachers, professors, judges, or within the government. It also extended to other professions such as lawyers, doctors, tax consultants, musicians, and notaries.

 

Figure 2. Helen’s grandfather, Professor Eberhard Friedrich Bruck (1877-1960), with his dachshund “Seppel” in 1913 in Mittenwald, Bavaria

 

Following Eberhard’s dismissal as university professor and confiscation of his home, he fled to the United States and wound-up teaching at Harvard University. As Helen further explained, her grandfather wrote a memoir for his daughter, Helen’s mother (Figure 3), relating the history of his branch of the Bruck family. As a Christmas gift to her nephews and nieces, Helen has slowly been translating the account. Her grandfather’s chronicle makes mention of the Bruck’s “Prinz von Preußen” Hotel, the family business in Ratibor [today: Racibórz, Poland] owned by three generations of my family. (Figure 4) While researching the history and fate of the hotel, Helen stumbled on multiple blog posts where I made mention of the establishment.

 

Figure 3. Margot Renshaw, née Bruck (1917-1985), Helen’s mother and Eberhard’s daughter

 

Figure 4. The Bruck’s “Prinz von Preußen” Hotel in Ratibor [today: Racibórz, Poland] in 1942, owned by my family for three generations from ca. 1850 until 1926

Helen has promised to share her grandfather’s translated story but has given me a preview of the brief entry her grandfather Eberhard Bruck wrote about his great-grandfather, Jacob Nathan Bruck, my great-great-great-grandfather from Ratibor. Since Jacob arguably died in 1832 or 1836 and Eberhard was born in 1877, he would not have known him personally. Eberhard’s written accounts of Jacob are likely stories he heard about him growing up and may have been clouded by the lens through which childhood memories are often remembered. In an upcoming post, I intend to discuss the meager details I’ve been able to uncover about my earliest known ancestor from Ratibor but suffice it for now to say the particulars caused me to more thoroughly investigate when the Bruck’s Hotel might have been built. These findings will be the basis for yet another post because they give insights on avenues others may want to follow in examining their own family histories.

On various occasions I’ve told readers that my ancestral tree has fewer than 1,500 names, which pales in comparison to multiple trees I’ve come across with more than 100,000 names. I use my tree mostly to orient myself to the people I write about on my blog. That said, I have people in my tree, living and deceased, whose names I’ve come across without knowing anything about them. This was the case with my fourth cousin Thomas “Tom” Friedrich Brook until he contacted me asking if we were related; I wrote about Tom in Post 143. (Figure 5) This was also true of Helen who previously existed only as a wraith. Coincidentally, Tom and Helen Winter are second cousins who’ve never met (i.e., Helen and Tom’s grandfathers were brothers), and like Tom, Helen is my fourth cousin.

 

Figure 5. My fourth cousin, Tom Brook (b. 1953) who coincidentally is Helen Winter’s second cousin

 

In conjunction with translating her grandfather’s memoirs, Helen recently obtained family documents and pictures her older sister was curating. (Figure 6) Scrutinizing these items in combination has caused Helen to become obsessed with ancestral research. I can relate!

 

Figure 6. Helen with her older sister Anna (right) as children (photo courtesy of Helen Winter)

 

It is not my intention to further dwell on this branch of my family. However, as I just mentioned, I have numerous individuals in my tree I know nothing about and have no idea what they looked like. As names only, they are lifeless. Helen has been like the gift that keeps on giving because she has sent me pictures of many of my ancestors, including some of the earliest known ones from Breslau [today: Wrocław, Poland]. Acquiring these visuals for my ancestral tree is like filling in my Bingo card!

Among the most beguiling images Helen sent are ones of Jacob Bruck’s son and daughter-in-law, Dr. Jonas Julius Bruck (1813-1883) (Figures 7a & b-10) and Rosalie Bruck, née Marle (1817-1890) (Figures 11-12) and his famous grandson, Dr. Julius Bruck (1840-1902). (Figure 13) Julius is known for having designed in 1867 a water-cooled diaphanoscopic instrument for transillumination of the bladder via the rectum.

 

Figure 7a. Miniature painting from the 1830s of Dr. Jonas Julius Bruck (photo courtesy of Helen Winter)

 

Figure 7b. English-language caption on the back of the miniature painting of Jonas Bruck indicating that Jonas’s wife didn’t care for the painting because she thought her womanizing husband had it done for another woman (photo courtesy of Helen Winter)

 

Figure 8. A second painting of Dr. Jonas Bruck (photo courtesy of Helen Winter)

 

Figure 9. Yet a third painting of Dr. Jonas Bruck (photo courtesy of Helen Winter)

 

Figure 10. A photograph of Dr. Jonas Bruck later in life (photo courtesy of Helen Winter)

 

Figure 11. A photograph of Dr. Jonas Bruck’s wife, Rosalie Bruck, née Marle (photo courtesy of Helen Winter)

 

Figure 12. A second photograph of Rosalie Bruck, née Marle (photo courtesy of Helen Winter)

 

Figure 13. A photo of the famous and fashionable Dr. Julius Bruck (1840-1902) in August 1880 (photo courtesy of Helen Winter)

 

Jonas and Julius Bruck and their respective wives are interred in a mausoleum-like structure at the Old Jewish Cemetery in Wrocław, Poland (Figure 14), and are among my only Bruck ancestors whose burial location is known. Because I am friends with the Branch Manager of the Old Jewish Cemetery, Dr. Renata Wilkoszewska-Krakowska (Figure 15), I shared the pictures Helen sent with her and she was thrilled to receive them since some of the people are interred in “her” cemetery.

 

Figure 14. The mausoleum-like structure at the Old Jewish Cemetery in Wrocław, Poland where Drs. Jonas and Julius Bruck and their respective wives are interred (photo courtesy of Dr. Renata Wilkoszewska-Krakowska)

 

Figure 15. Dr. Renata Wilkoszewksa-Krakowska receiving her Ph.D. diploma at the recently renovated Baroque Leopoldina Hall at the University of Wrocław, built between 1728-1732

To close this post, I will share two other images (Figures 16-17) Helen has sent over the last several weeks, like the twelve daily gifts of Christmas! Suffice it to say, my Bingo card is becoming quite full!

 

Figure 16. Tom Brook’s father, Casper Bruck (1920-1983) in his military uniform (photo courtesy of Helen Winter)

 

Figure 17. Tom Brook’s father and uncle, Casper Bruck and Peter Bruck (1922-1977) as children (photo courtesy of Helen Winter)