Note: This post is about Elisabeth “Lisa” Pauly née Krüger, one of my Uncle Dr. Fedor Bruck’s “silent heroes,” who hid him in Berlin during WWII for periods of his 30-month survival “underground.” Having learned she was married to my uncle’s cousin, I discuss how I worked out their exact relationship in what was on my part a clear case of over-thinking their consanguinity.
Related Post: POST 39: An Imperfect Analogy: Family Trees And Dendrochronology
Among my uncle’s surviving papers are two declarations, pledged under oath, identifying people who provided life-saving support to my Uncle Dr. Fedor Bruck (Figure 1) during the 30 months he lived “underground” in Berlin during WWII. My uncle’s trying ordeal began in October 1942 when friends warned him the Gestapo was preparing to pick him up for “questioning,” detainment which would have led to his deportation to a concentration camp and certain death; straightaway, he went into hiding to avoid arrest. The declarations written, respectively, on January 19, 1947 and February 3, 1947, were basically intended as letters of reference for the Americans. They attested to my uncle’s “good character” and provided a brief chronology of how and with whose help he’d survived underground. A little context is necessary.
As discussed in previous Blog posts, almost immediately after the war ended, my Uncle Fedor applied to what he described as the “pertinent authorities,” presumably the Russians in this case, for permission to take over the office and apartment of Hitler’s former dentist, Dr. Hugo Blaschke, which had survived the war unscathed. (Figure 2) Permission was granted in early May 1945. While my uncle’s situation may have seemed comparatively secure at the time, he’d apparently been warned by the Americans that he was at risk of being kidnapped by the Russians on account of his knowledge of Hitler’s fate, which Stalin sought to conceal. My uncle no doubt realized his danger since both Blaschke’s dental assistant, Käthe Heusermann, and Blaschke’s dental technician, Fritz Echmann, both of whom he knew, had been taken away by the Russians in 1945, not to reappear again in the West for many years. While my uncle maintained his dental practice in Blaschke’s former office until around July 1947, the declarations written in January and February 1947 strongly suggest my uncle was, so to speak, working on an exit strategy earlier.
One of the two affidavits provided to the American authorities on behalf of my Uncle Fedor was written by Elisabeth “Lisa” Pauly née Krüger. (Figures 3a-b) She mentioned how she hid him in her home for brief periods during the war and described her kinship as the wife of my uncle’s cousin; Lisa did not provide her husband’s name but only wrote he died in 1941, cause unknown. I first came across Lisa Pauly’s name in 2014 when I visited the Stadtmuseum in Spandau, outside Berlin, to examine the archived papers of two of my renowned great-aunts, Elsbeth Bruck and Franziska Bruck. There, I discovered a letter written by my grandmother, Else Bruck née Berliner, on February 2, 1947, mailed from Fayence, France to my great-aunt Elsbeth in Berlin care-of Lisa Pauly living at Maßmannstraße 11 in the Steglitz borough of Berlin. (Figure 4) Ultimately, this address proved to be useful for learning how long Lisa Pauly may have lived; more on this later.
Let me digress for a moment. In Post 33, I discussed the extraordinary lengths to which I went to finding two of my second cousins, born in Barcelona, but living outside Munich, Germany. Once I had established contact with one of these second cousins, Antonio Bruck, he connected me to a third cousin, Anna Rothholz, who in turn put me in touch with yet other third cousins, brothers Peter and Andreas “Andi” Pauly. This was a fortuitous development. Peter and Andi gave me a detailed hand-drawn Pauly family “Stammbaum,” family tree, developed by their father years before these could be created on-line. While I was still a long way from figuring out the hereditary connection between Lisa Pauly’s husband and my Uncle Fedor, this Stammbaum eventually paved the way for working this out, although not without some missteps.
As readers can see in Figure 5, a “Lisa” is highlighted, shown married to a “Franz” who died in 1941. Based on the affidavit Lisa Pauly had written in 1947, logically, I knew this was she and her husband. My confusion stemmed from the fact that Lisa’s husband was the son of Dr. Oscar Pincus and Paulina Charlotte Pauly, presumably named Franz Pincus. I continued my search, convinced there had to be a different Lisa who’d married a Pauly. After many fruitless months, I eventually began looking for her in Family Trees in ancestry.com. I finally found her on a tree listed as “Lisa Krüger,” born in the year 1890. (Figure 6) As discussed in Post 39, the tree is entitled “Schlesische Jüdische Familien,” Silesian Jewish Families. There is a notation in German on this tree that Lisa Krüger was married to a Franz Pincus, born in Posen [today: Poznan, Poland] on October 23, 1898, and that he went by the surname “Pauly.” I then realized my Uncle Fedor and Franz Pauly were second cousins, grandsons of sisters (Figures 7 & 8), and understood how badly I’d misconstrued their kinship. This was clearly a case of my over-thinking things and ignoring what the Pauly Stammbaum had clearly indicated.
Why Franz Pincus decided to change surnames and take his mother’s maiden name is unknown. Since both names are clearly Jewish and neither would have afforded an advantage in the Nazi era, I assumed Franz’s decision was made before the Nazis ever came to power. And, I was able to prove this using Berlin Phone Directories available on ancestry.com. Franz Pincus apparently changed his surname to “Pauly” between 1928 and 1930. A 1928 Berlin Phone Directory (Figure 9) lists a “Franz Pincus” living at Deidesheimer Str. 25 in Friedenau in the southwestern suburbs of Berlin, but by 1930 “Franz Pauly” is living at this address. (Figure 10)
As mentioned earlier, I knew from the affidavit Lisa had written and the letter my grandmother had written to my great-aunt in 1947, addressed to Lisa, that she resided at Maßmannstraße 11 in the Steglitz borough of Berlin. I searched both Lisa and Franz’s names in ancestry.com and found him listed at this address in Berlin Phone Directories between 1936 and 1940 (Figure 11), the year before he died. Beginning in 1966 and continuing through 1977 (Figure 12), Lisa’s name appears at the same address, suggesting the apartment building survived the war and that Lisa had lived there continuously, possibly from 1936 onwards. The disappearance of Lisa Pauly’s name from Berlin Phone Directories after 1977 may coincide with her approximate year of death. As we speak, I’m working to obtain Lisa’s death certificate from the Bürgeramt Steglitz to confirm when she died.
I’ve been able to learn almost nothing more about Lisa and Franz Pauly. While Peter and Andi Pauly have numerous Pauly family photos, they have none of either of them. It’s an enduring mystery to me how Lisa Pauly avoided deportation to a concentration camp given that at least three of her husband’s Pauly aunts were murdered in the camps along with their husbands and some of their children.
In the subsequent post, I will tell readers about other silent heroes who enabled my uncle to survive his 30 months underground in Berlin during WWII, inasmuch as I’ve been able to work this out.