Note: This story relates to the brief time between 1946 and 1948 when my father, Dr. Otto Bruck, worked illegally as a dentist in Nice, France.
The Nazi’s “Reich Citizen Law,” one of two Nuremberg Laws passed by the Reichstag on September 15, 1935, declared that only those of German or related blood were eligible to be Reich citizens; the remainder were classed as state subjects, without citizenship rights. From this point forward, my father was “stateless.”
For me, this story begins more than 60 years ago in Nice, France, along la Côte d’Azur, when as a young boy I was in the company of my maternal grandmother and we were walking through Vieux Nice. (Figure 1) I’m unsure what tricks time plays with memories, but I clearly remember my grandmother stopping along a street I would recognize many years later as Boulevard Jean Jaurès (Figure 2), pointing to a building on the windward side, and telling me my father had had his dental office there. My grandmother knew this because my father had done extensive work on her teeth. This may also have been when I first learned my father was Jewish. It would be many years, in all honesty, before I would absorb the full significance of these facts.
In previous posts, I’ve mentioned having visited on multiple occasions Ratibor (today: Racibórz, Poland), where my father was born in 1907. On my second visit there, in 2012, I met a gentleman at the Tourist Bureau, who, like myself, is a retired archaeologist. He currently edits a journal, entitled the Almanach Prowincjonalny, and upon learning of my family’s connection to Ratibor, wondered whether I’d be interested in writing an article for this periodical. I eagerly agreed, and in April 2013, my article was published.
In writing this essay, I’d learned from my mother that my father had worked for a woman dentist by the name of Mme. Lotter between 1946 and 1948 in Nice. Recall, this is the city where my parents first met, and where my dad settled after his release from the English Army in June 1946 because he had an aunt and cousins living there. (Figure 3) Because Mme. Lotter was entirely disinterested in dentistry, my father essentially managed her dental practice. This was an illegal arrangement because he was stateless, in French, “apatride,” and therefore not authorized to work in France. (Figures 4a & 4b) The authorities eventually caught him in flagrante in 1948 and charged him with practicing dentistry illegally. By this time, my father had obtained a visa for the United States which was predicated on not having a criminal record. Rather than risk being denied entry into the States, my father absconded before his trial.
Fast forward now to 2014 when my wife and I visited l’Hôtel de Ville in Nice in search of information on my father’s aunt and cousins. This was discussed in Post 16. While waiting for assistance, I was left alone for some moments and encouraged to peruse the books containing les certificats de décès, the death certificates, so took the opportunity to check for deceased Lotters. Having only this surname to work with, I systematically set myself to looking through the death certificates for the years starting with 1948, the year my father left France and Mme. Lotter was assuredly still alive.
In the spirit of Branch Rickey’s mantra that “luck is the residue of design,” I quickly discovered a gentleman by the name of HENRI LOTTER who died on May 28, 1970. Fortunately, there were only a handful of deceased Lotters, all men, but this individual caught my attention because it gave his divorced wife’s name, SIMONE JAUBERT. (Figures 5a & 5b) I discovered she died on November 1, 1964. (Figure 6) I requested copies of both of their death certificates, uncertain whether this Mme. Lotter-Jaubert was even a dentist.
Armed with these death certificates, I asked where the various people were buried. I was directed to a different nearby office of l’Hôtel de Ville in Nice, Service De L’administration Funéraire, essentially the “Bureau of Cemeteries.” Here we would make the acquaintance of Mme. Joelle Saramito, who, like other French bureaucrats I’ve met, was intrigued by an American who speaks fluent French; Mme. Saramito has helped me multiple times over the years including on one of my most spectacular discoveries, which will be the subject of a future post. As fortune would have it, Mme. Lotter-Jaubert is buried alongside her husband in Cimitiere De Caucade (Figure 7), the same cemetery where my Aunt Hedwig Loewenstein, née Bruck, and her son, Fedor Löwenstein’s headstones are located. While our visit to Cimitiere De Caucade allowed us to view all the tombstones simultaneously, it did not conclusively answer the question of whether this was the correct Mme. Lotter.
To answer this question, I revisited Mme. Saramito, and asked her where I might find Yellow Pages for Nice for the late 1940’s. She directed us to the “Archives municipales de Nice” (Figure 8), on the western outskirts of Nice. So, on July 4, 2014, we presented ourselves there to the “Président de salle” (Figure 9), literally, “President of the Hall.” Unquestionably, this must be one of the most highfalutin titles I’ve ever come across. Regardless, upon our arrival, I explained what I was looking for, and “Le Président” brought out several annuaires téléphoniques, telephone directories, for the period in question. Much to my delight, in the 1947-48 annuaire, under the listing for “Dentistes,” I found “Lotter-Jaubert, Simone, place Saint-Francois 2” (Figures 10a & 10b), confirming that Mme. Simone Lotter had indeed been a dentist. Simone’s ex-husband, Henry Lotter, I discovered had been un pharmacien, a pharmacist.
There remained but one final thing for me to confirm, whether in fact a distant memory that the office building my grandmother had pointed to was indeed located in Vieux Nice. (Figure 11) And, in fact, I was able to locate the still standing building at Place Saint-Francois 2, in the old section of Nice (Figures 12, 13 & 14). This story proves that occasionally with only scant information to begin with, in my case just a surname and a 60-year old childhood memory, one can sometimes make extraordinary discoveries about one’s family.
