POST 15, POSTSCRIPT: BERLIN-FRANZISKA & ELSBETH BRUCK: “ARTIFACTS” FROM FRANZISKA’S BLUMENSCHULE (FLOWER SCHOOL)

Note: I continue with a series of postscripts to earlier Blog posts to catch readers up on findings I’ve made since publishing the original stories. In this brief postscript, I discuss rare “artifacts” from my renowned great-aunt Franziska Bruck’s blumenschule, flower school, in Berlin which readers have generously sent me.

Related Posts:

Post 15: Berlin & My Great-Aunts Franziska & Elsbeth Bruck

Post 21: My Aunt Susanne, Née Bruck, & Her Husband Dr. Franz Müller, The Fiesole Years

Figure 1. My great-aunt Franziska Bruck (1866-1942)

 

My great-aunt Franziska Bruck (Figure 1), the renowned Berlin florist (Figure 2), killed herself on the 2nd of January 1942 in Berlin-Charlottenburg, probably a few days before she was ordered to report for deportation. Likely not having access to Veronal and Scopolamin-Entodal, the most commonly used poisons of the time, she gruesomely ended her life by hanging. By committing suicide, Franziska wanted to avoid the fate of her Jewish neighbors, others of whom were soon deported.

 

Figure 2. Franziska Bruck in her “Schule für Blumenschmuck”

 

 

In April 2019, I was contacted through my Blog by a Ms. Karin Sievert of the “Stolpersteininitiative Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf,” requesting information on my great-aunt Franziska and her siblings (see table at the bottom of this post for vital statistics on my great-aunt and her immediate family). To remind readers, the Stolpersteine project, initiated in 1992 by the German artist Gunter Demnig, commemorates people who were persecuted by the Nazis between 1933 and 1945 (e.g., Jews, Sinti, Roma, political and religious dissidents, victims of “euthanasia,” homosexuals, Jehovah Witnesses, etc.). Stolpersteine, or “stumbling stones,” are concrete blocks measuring 10x10cm (i.e., 3.9 in x 3.9 in) which are laid into the pavement in front of the last voluntarily chosen places of residence of the victims of the Nazis. Their names and fate are engraved into a brass plate on the top of each Stolperstein.

Figure 3. Prinzregentenstraße 75 in Berlin’s Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf borough, Franziska Bruck’s last voluntarily chosen place of residence

 

 

Like many unmarried women of the time, Franziska Bruck sublet an apartment located at Prinzregentenstraße 75 in Wilmersdorf. (Figure 3) By virtue of a Nazi law from 1939 voiding tenant protections for Jews, she’d already been forced to move from there to Waitzstraße 9. (Figure 4–“Arolsen Archives–International Center on Nazi Persercution“) This law stipulated that apartment leases could be terminated without notice and Jews had to find a new place to live within days or were quartered with other similarly displaced Jews. In the case of my great-aunt Franziska, in 2011, the Berlin Stumbling Stone Initiative Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf installed a stone in front of her last home at Prinzregentenstrasse 75. (Figure 5)

 

Figure 4. Page from the “Arolsen Archives-International Center on Nazi Persecution” on my great-aunt Franziska Bruck showing she lived at Waitzstraße 9 and died on the 2nd of January 1942

 

Figure 5. Franziska Bruck’s “stolperstein,” located in front of Prinzregentenstraße 75 in Berlin, recognizing her as a victim of Nazi persecution

 

Ms. Sievert learned of my family history blog from one of her colleagues and requested my assistance in compiling a brief biography of my great-aunt. I was most happy to assist and provide family photographs. Readers can remind themselves by referring to the original post that I included a photo taken in Franziska’s flower shop showing the last Crown Princess of Germany and Prussia, Princess Cecilie, touring her Blumenschule, flower school. (Figure 6) Supplementing information I provided, Karin did her own research and purchased a postcard from a dealer of the same visit taken at a slightly different angle. (Figure 7) In addition, Karin also found an original advertisement for Franziska’s “Schule für Blumenschmuck,” taken from a “Daheim-Kalendar 1915,” home calendar from 1915. (Figures 8-9) As Franziska’s descendant and namesake, Karin graciously and generously gave me both rare family artifacts. I was enormously touched by this kind gesture.

Figure 6. Last Crown Princess of Germany & Prussia, Princess Cecilie, visiting Franziska Bruck’s “Schule für Blumenschmuck”

 

Figure 7. Postcard of the last Crown Princess of Germany & Prussia, Princess Cecilie, visiting my great-aunt’s flower shop

 

Figure 8. An original advertisement for Franziska’s “Schule für Blumenschmuck,” taken from a “Daheim-Kalendar 1915,” home calendar from 1915, given to by Ms. Karin Sievert of the “Stolpersteininitiative Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf”
Figure 9. Cover of the “Daheim-Kalendar 1915” containing the original advertisement for Franziska’s “Schule für Blumenschmuck”

 

Figure 10. My and my wife’s Italian friend, Giuditta Melli, a professional potter, who created a replica of a floral vase like ones used by my great-aunt Franziska for her Ikebana-inspired floral arrangements

 

I would be remiss in not acknowledging another magnanimous deed done by an Italian lady my wife Ann and I befriended at a bus stop in Florence, Italy, in 2014. Like me, our friend, Giuditta Melli (Figure 10), is of Jewish ancestry, and her great-uncle was murdered by the Italian Fascists during WWII in Florence. Giuditta is aware of my great-aunt’s books on flower binding and gardening (Figures 11-12), as well as her floral art featured in important art magazines of the time. (Figure 13) Franziska’s floral work was patterned on Ikebana, the Japanese art of floral arrangement. Giuditta, a potter by profession, created and sent me a replica of a Japanese vase like ones featured in my great-aunt’s floral creations. (Figure 14) This was another enormously kindhearted act that reminds me that while Franziska died under tragic circumstances, her memory and work live on. (Figure 15)

Figure 11. Cover of Franziska Bruck’s 1925 book “Blumen und Ranken,” translated as “flowers and vines”
Figure 12. Cover of Franziska Bruck’s 1926 book “Blumenschmuck,” translated as “flowers”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 13. Cover of February 17, 1915 “Die Bindekunst” periodical with article on Franziska’s floral arrangements

 

Figure 14. The Ikebana-inspired vase created and given to me by Giuditta Melli

 

 

FRANZISKA BRUCK & HER IMMEDIATE FAMILY

 

Name

(relationship)

 Vital Event Date Place
       
Franziska Bruck

(self)

 Birth 29 December 1866 Ratibor, Germany (Racibórz, Poland)
Death 2 January 1942 Berlin, Germany
Fedor Bruck

(father)

 Birth 8 October 1834 Ratibor, Germany (Racibórz, Poland)
Marriage 7 July 1862 Ratibor, Germany (Racibórz, Poland)
Death 2 October 1892 Ratibor, Germany (Racibórz, Poland)
Friederike Mockrauer (mother) Birth 15 June 1836 Leschnitz, Germany (Leśnica, Poland)
Marriage 7 July 1862 Ratibor, Germany (Racibórz, Poland)
Death 29 February 1924 Berlin, Germany
Felix Bruck (brother) Birth 28 March 1864 Ratibor, Germany (Racibórz, Poland)
Marriage 11 February 1894 Ratibor, Germany (Racibórz, Poland)
Death 23 June 1927 Berlin, Germany
Charlotte Bruck (sister) Birth 8 December 1865 Ratibor, Germany (Racibórz, Poland)
Marriage 18 March 1888 Ratibor, Germany (Racibórz, Poland)
Death 10 January 1965 Stockholm, Sweden
Elise Bruck (sister) Birth 20 August 1868 Ratibor, Germany (Racibórz, Poland)
Death 19 June 1872 Ratibor, Germany (Racibórz, Poland)
Hedwig Bruck (sister) Birth 22 March 1870 Ratibor, Germany (Racibórz, Poland)
Marriage 17 September 1899 Ratibor, Germany (Racibórz, Poland)
Death 15 January 1949 Nice, France
Robert Bruck (brother) Birth 1 September 1871 Ratibor, Germany (Racibórz, Poland)
Death 30 December 1887 Braunschweig, Germany
Wilhelm Bruck (brother) Birth 24 October 1872 Ratibor, Germany (Racibórz, Poland)
Marriage 2 April 1904 Hamburg, Germany
Death 29 April 1952 Barcelona, Spain
Elisabeth “Elsbeth” Bruck (sister) Birth 17 November 1874 Ratibor, Germany (Racibórz, Poland)
Death 20 February 1970 Berlin, Germany

 

Figure 15. My great-aunt Franziska Bruck’s grave in the Weissensee Jewish Cemetery in East Berlin

 

 

2 thoughts on “POST 15, POSTSCRIPT: BERLIN-FRANZISKA & ELSBETH BRUCK: “ARTIFACTS” FROM FRANZISKA’S BLUMENSCHULE (FLOWER SCHOOL)”

  1. To whom was Wilhelm Brock married? Question From Kira Kilmer- grand daughter of another Charlotte Brock, daughter of a Brock – von Korschembahr marriage

  2. One of my favorites so far! The story of your great aunt is heartbreaking as her choices were so limited. But what is lovely is the relevance of memorializing through Guidetta’s vase. The link of past to present and from family to stranger and now friend shows that we are all connected.

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