Note: In this post, I tell readers a little more about a signet ring given to my father, Dr. Otto Bruck, by his landlady in 1937 upon his departure from Tiegenhof, where he had his dental practice in the Free State of Danzig. The post is based on information provided by one of the co-authors of a book on the history of Tiegenhof, Mr. Grzegorz Gola.
I apologize to readers at the very outset, as this Blog post is likely to be of interest to few of you and is more a reflection of my obsession with accuracy, recognizing I’m not an expert on many subjects I write about. When people with expertise on the matters I discuss enhance my understanding of these topics, I’m delighted.
From Blog Post 3, regular readers may recall the extraordinary lengths to which I went to learn the identity of a woman my father only ever referred to when I was growing up as “Die Schlummermutter,” translated roughly as “landlady.” With much letter-writing and the help of a gentleman from the Danzig Forum, I eventually learned Die Schlummermutter was named Frau Margaretha “Grete” Wilhelmine Gramatzki née Gleixner. She was born in Tiegenhof on June 13, 1885 and died there on February 24, 1942.
“The main element of the coat of arms on the ring shows a sloped battle axe embedded in a shield on what was once a red background, today only very faintly visible. The Gramatzki family is Polish aristocracy of the so-called Topór tribe or clan, once living around Preußisch Eylau [today: south of Kaliningrad, Russia]. And, in fact comparing the ring’s coat of arms to that of the Topór tribe shows them to be remarkably similar.”
A signet ring is described as “. . .having a flat bezel, usually wider than the rest of the hoop, which is decorated, normally in intaglio, so that it will leave a raised (relief) impression of the design when the ring is pressed onto soft sealing wax or similar material.” Thus, in the case of the ring given by Die Schlummermutter to my father it is essentially the “signature” of the Gramatzki family and a mirror image of their family’s coat of arms, so I logically assumed. However, Mr. Grzegorz Gola remarked the following:
“In my opinion, this is a variant of the ‘oksza’ coat of arms. (Figure 5) It is very similar to the ‘topór’ coat of arms. (Figure 6) ‘Oksza’ is a battle axe with a sharp tip, inaccurately, a halberd. According to the rules of heraldry, ‘oksza’ is turned to the right [left, when looking at the impression that would be pressed onto soft sealing wax]. The Gramatzki family had a ‘topór’ coat of arms. The Gramacki family had a ‘oksza’ coat of arms. The name ‘Gramacki’ in Polish is pronounced almost identically to the German pronunciation of ‘Gramatzki.’”
It’s not entirely clear what to make of this, that the ring given to my father, supposedly belonging to Grete Gramatzki’s husband, shows the Gramacki rather than the Gramatzki coat of arms. Possibly, the Polish Gramacki’s originally hailed from Germany or Prussia, and the Gramacki’s and Gramatzki’s have common ancestors.
Mr. Grzegorz Gola noted one other thing:
“. . .it is interesting that the coat of arms has a heraldic border (a narrow strip on the edge of the coat of arms). (Figure 7) This is very rare in Polish coat of arms. Much more often, this occurs in Scottish, French or English coat of arms. Formerly, in Poland, this meant it was the coat of arms of a younger, newer branch of the family. (In England and France, the heraldic border meant the family of an illegitimate child.)”
Perhaps the first and second issues are interrelated, the slight variation in the shape of the battle axe and the presence of a heraldic border, indicating that Grete Gramatzki’s husband was from a younger branch of an older family or an offspring of an illegitimate son.