Note: This Blog post details how and where I located my great-uncle Wilhelm “Willy” Bruck’s grandchildren, that’s to say, my second cousins.
Related Post: Post 32: Finding Great-Uncle Willy
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 the Certificados 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.
