POST 45: HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCE: RECALLING MY PAULY ANCESTORS

REMARK:  What started out as an attempt to remember relatives and friends of Dr. Josef Pauly’s branch of my family who perished in the Holocaust became more involved the deeper I got into writing.  I uncovered two new third cousins, including an elderly relative who personally knew some of the victims; I discovered a diary written by one of the Holocaust victims, translated into English, describing the final wrenching months of he and his wife’s lives before they killed themselves; I found a second, lengthier account, in German, written by the daughter of another victim, describing her father’s final two years before he too committed suicide; I learned about a Polish on-line database with inhabitant information from Posen, Germany [today: Poznań, Poland] (Figure 1), the community where Dr. Pauly lived and where all nine of his children were born.  And, to top it all off, I just uncovered another collection at the Leo Baeck Institute in New York/Berlin, the John H. Richter Collection, an enormous cache of materials referencing, among other ancestors, the family of one of Josef’s son-in-laws, the Neissers.  None of these discoveries alone have changed the trajectory of this post, but together they were cause for distraction.  That said, these recent finds allow me to tell a more complete story.

Note:  In this post, I remember members of my Pauly family and their close friends who perished in the Holocaust.

Related Posts:

Post 40:  Elisabeth “Lisa” Pauly Née Krüger, One of My Uncle Fedor’s “Silent Heroes”

Post 44:  A Trove of Family History from the “Pinkus Collection” at The Leo Baeck Institute

 

Holocaust Memorial Day takes place annually on different days across the globe and marks the date on which remaining prisoners at Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest Nazi concentration camp, were liberated in 1945.  This is a day for everyone to remember the millions of people murdered in the Holocaust, under Nazi Persecution, and in subsequent genocides which followed in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia, and Darfur.  With each passing month, unhappily, I learn about more members of my extended family and their friends who perished at the hands of the National Socialists.  To coincide with this day of remembrance, I want to recall and memorialize the multiple victims among the Pauly branch of my family along with a few of their close friends.

Regular readers may recollect that Post 40 post was 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.”  Most of the Pauly family members mentioned in this post were aunts, uncles, and cousins of Lisa Pauly.  Briefly, let me provide more context on how this family is related to me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In Post 44, I mentioned two siblings, my great-grandmother, Friederike Mockrauer (Figure 2), and her brother, my great-great-uncle, Josef Mockrauer (Figure 3); I was already aware of their existence but found more information on their children in the “Pinkus Family Collection” archived at the Leo Baeck Institute in New York/Berlin.  Friederike and Josef had other siblings, including a sister Rosalie Mockrauer (1844-1927) (Figure 4) who married Dr. Josef Pauly (1843-1916) (Figure 5) from Posen, Germany [today: Poznań, Poland]; together they had eight daughters and one son, all of whom survived to adulthood.  Ancestrally-speaking, these nine children would be my first cousins twice-removed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The only son from Josef and Rosalie Pauly’s union was named Wilhelm Pauly (Figure 6), and through steps I detailed in earlier posts, I was able to track down two of Wilhelm’s grandsons, Peter Pauly and Andreas “Andi” Pauly, living in Germany; Peter and Andi are my third cousins.  Both have been enormously helpful in the course of my ancestral research.  Not only have they provided a detailed, hand-drawn Stammbaum (family tree), developed by their father, Klaus Pauly, but they’ve scanned and made available copies of many family photographs. 

 

This included a photo of a large Pauly family get-together that likely took place in Posen, Germany, probably in the mid-1890’s, judging from the estimated age of some of the individuals pictured whose dates of birth are known to me.  The partial caption that accompanied this and other photos has allowed me to put names to some of the people shown, including all nine of Josef and Rosalie Mockrauer’s children.  Through a laborious process of cross-comparison with other photos, including another large Pauly family get-together for the 1901 marriage of one of Josef and Rosalie’s daughters, I’ve now been able to identify 22 of the 31 individuals captured on film in this snapshot (Figure 7); as I was writing this post, an elderly third cousin from Canada who I only just learned about, Ms. Agnes Stieda née Vogel (Figure 8), helped identify two more people.  Considering the age of the image and the incomplete captioning, it’s astonishing that after almost 125 years it’s still possible to put names to faces of people who lived largely “anonymous” lives.  I attach the table below with names and vital data of the people (i.e., casual readers need not concern themselves with this): 

 

NO.	NAME	EVENT	DATE	PLACE
1	Anna Rothholz née Pauly	Birth	14 March 1871	Posen, Germany
		Death	21 June 1925	Stettin, Germany
		Marriage	20 May 1892	Berlin, Germany
2	Josef Pauly	Birth	10 August 1843	Tost, Germany
		Death	7 November 1916	Posen, Germany
		Marriage	1869
3	Paula Pincus née Pauly	Birth	26 April 1872	Posen, Germany
		Death	31 March 1922	Magdeburg, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany
		Marriage	16 November 1891	Berlin, Germany
4	UNKNOWN WOMAN
5	Julie Neisser née Sabersky	Birth	26 February 1841	Wöllstein, Germany
		Death	11 April 1927	Berlin, Germany
6	ERNST NEISSER	Birth	16 May 1863	Liegnitz, Germany
		DEATH (SUICIDE)	4 OCTOBER 1942	BERLIN, GERMANY
		Marriage	5 September 1898	Stettin, Germany
7	Margarethe Neisser née Pauly	Birth	16 January 1876	Posen, Germany
		Death	10 December 1941	Berlin, Germany
		Marriage	5 September 1898	Stettin, Germany
8	Rosalie Pauly née Mockrauer	Birth	3 January 1844	Leschnitz, Germany
		Death	28 November 1927	Berlin, Germany
		Marriage	1869	Unknown
9	Rosalinde Kantorowicz née Pauly	Birth	22 January 1854	Tost, Germany
		Death	3 November 1916	Frankfurt am Main, Hessen, Germany
10	UNKNOWN MAN
11	Charlotte Mockrauer née Bruck	Birth	8 December 1865	Ratibor, Germany
		Death	10 January 1965	Stockholm, Sweden
		Marriage	18 March 1888	Ratibor, Germany
12	UNKNOWN WOMAN
13	UNKNOWN BOY
14	Therese Sandler née Pauly	Birth	21 August 1885	Posen, Germany
		Death	1969
15	GERTRUD KANTOROWICZ “GERTRUDE PAULY (PSEUDONYM)”	Birth	9 October 1876	Posen, Germany
		DEATH (MURDERED)	20 APRIL 1945	THERESIENSTADT, CZECHOSLOVAKIA
16	Maria Pohlmann née Pauly	Birth	21 July 1877	Posen, Germany
		Death	Unknown
		Marriage	30 September 1901	Posen, Germany
17	GERTRUD WACHSMANN NEE POLLACK	Birth	10 July 1867	Görlitz, Saxony, Germany
		DEATH (MURDERED)	22 OCTOBER 1942	THERESIENSTADT, CZECHOSLOVAKIA
		Married	17 October 1893	Görlitz, Saxony, Germany
18	Heinrich Sabersky	Birth	July 1845	Grünberg, Germany
		Death	January 1929	Berlin, Germany
19	HELENE GUTTENTAG NEE PAULY	Birth	12 April 1873	Posen, Germany
		DEATH (SUICIDE)	23 OCTOBER 1942	BERLIN, GERMANY
		Marriage	5 February 1898	Berlin, Germany
20	ADOLF GUTTENTAG	Birth	4 December 1868	Breslau, Germany
		DEATH (SUICIDE)	23 OCTOBER 1942	BERLIN, GERMANY
		Marriage	5 February 1898	Berlin, Germany
21	Wilhelm Pauly	Birth	24 September 1883	Posen, Germany
		Death	1961	Unknown
22	UNKNOWN MAN
23	ELLY LANDSBERG NEE MOCKRAUER	Birth	14 August 1873	Berlin, Germany
		DEATH (MURDERED)	15 MAY 1944	AUSCHWITZ, POLAND
		Marriage	1892	Posen, Germany
24	Edith Riezler née Pauly	Birth	4 January 1880	Posen, Germany
		Death	1963	Unknown
25	UNKNOWN MAN
26	UNKNOWN WOMAN
27	ELISABETH HERRNSTADT NEE PAULY	Birth	2 July 1874	Posen, Germany
		DEATH (MURDERED)	27 MAY 1943	THERESIENSTADT, CZECHOSLOVAKIA
		Marriage	11 May 1895	Cunnersdorf, Germany
28	Arthur Herrnstadt	Birth	15 March 1865	Hirschberg, Germany
		Death	21 October 1912	Stettin, Germany
		Marriage	11 May 1895	Cunnersdorf, Germany
29	Adolf Wachsmann	Birth	3 January 1859	Ratibor, Germany
		Death	Unknown	Unknown
		Married	17 October 1893	Görlitz, Saxony, Germany
30	UNKNOWN MAN
31	UNKNOWN MAN

 

*Names italicized and in CAPS are family and friends who perished in the Holocaust.  Numbers in the left-hand column correspond with the numbered, circled heads in Figure 7.

 

Having identified more than half the people in the Pauly family photo, I researched their fate using family queries, ancestry.com, and Yad Vashem; I’ve learned through experience that if I can find no other information on the fate of family, I’m compelled to check the Holocaust database.  While multiple of the individuals in the photo had the relative “good fortune” to have died before the Nazis came to power, I was surprised at the number of people in the photo killed by the Nazis or who took their own lives after they were told to report for deportation. (Figure 9)  What was even more sobering was discovering that children or husbands of some of the people photographed similarly perished during the Holocaust.  While I’m unable to show images of all the victims, it’s important to acknowledge they once existed.

Adolf and Helene Guttentag

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Helene Guttentag née Pauly (1873-1942) (Figure 10) was the third oldest of Josef and Rosalie Pauly’s daughters, and married Dr. Adolf Guttentag (1868-1942) (Figure 11); they had one son, Otto Guttentag (1900-1992), who immigrated to America.  In the course of writing this Blog post, I found his obituary and established contact with one of Adolf and Helene Guttentag’s grandchildren, my third cousin Christoph Guttentag (Figure 12), living in North Carolina; I learned from him about the existence of a diary that Adolf Guttentag wrote for his son in the final weeks of his life before he and Helene committed suicide on October 23, 1942 in Berlin.  The diary eventually made its way to their son, who donated it to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.  It is available in English on their website (i.e., Christoph’s mother did the translation).  My next Blog post will be about this diary, which is unquestionably one of the saddest accounts I’ve read about Jews entrapped in Germany during WWII with no means of escaping other than to kill themselves.

Hermann Rothholz

Dr. Hermann Rothholz (1857-1940) was married to the oldest of Josef and Rosalie’s nine children, Anna (1870-1925) (Figure 13); she died in 1925, and thereby escaped the horrors of the Holocaust.  Dr. Rothholz was not so fortunate, and was transported from Stettin, Germany [today: Szczecin, Poland] to the Lublin District of Poland, and died there on October 19, 1940.

 

 

 

 

Ernst Neisser

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ernst Neisser (1863-1942) (Figures 14a-b) was born in Liegnitz, Germany [today: Legnica, Poland] in 1863 to a Protestant family of Jewish descent.  He was a bacteriologist, and the nephew of Alfred Neisser who in 1879 isolated the Neisseria gonorrhoeae bacteria that causes gonorrhea. Ernst Neisser became the director of the municipal hospital in Stettin, Germany in 1895, and married Margarethe Pauly (1876-1941) (Figure 15) in Stettin on September 5, 1898.  After his retirement around 1931 they moved to Berlin.  He and his cousin, who was named Luise Neisser (1861-1942), committed suicide together.  In Adolf Guttentag’s diary, Ernst’s cousin is referred to only as “L. Neisser”; only one Neisser with the initial “L” is listed in the Shoah database who died in Berlin, “Luise,” so I reasoned this was the cousin with whom Ernst committed suicide.   And, Ms. Stieda confirmed her name.

Margarethe Neisser’s name does not appear in Yad Vashem as a Holocaust victim, suggesting she died before Ernst killed himself.  According to the large family tree I’ve referred to in previous posts, the “Schlesische Jüdische Familien” (Silesian Jewish Families), she died on December 10, 1942, two months after her husband.  This death date made no sense to me.  First, Yad Vashem suggests Ernst Neisser was a widower (Figure 16), and second, why would Margarethe wait two months to kill herself after her husband, unless they were divorced or separated and living apart, no evidence of which exists.  I’ve explained to readers in the past that I rarely accept prima facie ancestral data from other trees unless I can track down the origin, even if the information is from a usually reliable source.  I again contacted Ms. Elke Kehrmann, the tree manager, and asked where dates for Margarethe’s death come from; she explained she’d found them in two other trees, but upon re-examining those trees, Elke realized she’d accidentally recorded the death year as 1942 when it was really 1941!  Once I learned this, the timing of Ernst Neisser’s death vis a vis his wife’s death made more sense.  The cause of her death is unknown, but the fact remains she is not listed as a Shoah victim.

In the course of researching Ernst Neisser, I found a 34-page typed letter written by his daughter, Susan Vogel née Neisser, in 1947 to an American relative.  It is entitled “Die letzten ebensjahre Vaters Prof. Ernst Neisser,” “The Last Two Years, Professor Ernst Neisser,” and describes the last years of her father’s life from 1939-1942.  The letter concentrates on the suicide of Ernst and his cousin to escape deportation in 1942.  Unfortunately, the document is written in German, so presently I can offer no insights on Dr. Neisser’s final years.

And, lastly, as mentioned at the outset under “Remarks,” I learned about the huge “John H. Richter Collection, 1904-1994” archived at the Leo Baeck Institute in New York/Berlin; suffice it to say, this collection includes an enormous amount of ancestral information, not only about the Neisser family, but even about my own Bruck ancestors.

Elizabeth Herrnstadt, Anna Herrnstadt, & Ilse Herrnstadt

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Elizabeth Herrnstadt née Pauly (1874-1943) (Figure 17) was the fourth of Josef and Rosalie Pauly’s daughters.  She was married to Arthur Herrnstadt (1865-1912) (Figure 18), with whom she had two daughters, Anna (“Aenne”) in 1896 (Figure 19) and Ilse in 1897. (Figure 20) Arthur died in 1912, but Elizabeth, Aenne and Ilse were all murdered in 1943 in the Theresienstadt Ghetto in Czechoslovakia.  Astonishingly, Aenne Herrnstadt was the godmother of Agnes Stieda, the third cousin I mentioned above.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gertrud Kantorowicz (pseudonym “Gertrud Pauly”)

Gertrud Kantorowicz (1876-1945) (Figure 21), like all nine of Josef and Rosalie’s children, was born in Posen, Germany; her pseudonym was apparently “Gertrud Pauly,” suggesting a close relationship with the Pauly clan.  Gertrud was one of the first women in Germany to obtain a PhD. in Humanities.  She was in England in 1938 but inexplicably returned to Germany later that year.  After the outbreak of war, she arranged a post at Skidmore College in the United States, but by then was unable to leave Germany legally; she was arrested trying to illegally cross into Switzerland, and sent to the Theresienstadt Ghetto in Czechoslovakia, where she died in April 1945, shortly before the end of WWII.

 

Gertrud Wachsmann

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gertrud Wachsmann née Pollack (1867-1942) (Figure 22) was married to Adolf Wachsmann (Figure 23), an Apotheker (pharmacist) in Posen.  The detailed Pauly Stammbaum (family tree) I’ve alluded to in multiple posts, includes some Pollacks, suggesting Gertrud was a distant cousin of the Paulys.  She appears to have been deported from Breslau, Germany, first to a detention camp at Grüssau in Lower Silesia, then to the Theresienstadt Ghetto in Czechoslovakia where she perished in October 1942. (Figure 24)

 

Elly Landsberg

 

Elly Landsberg née Mockrauer (1873-1944) (Figure 25), was the daughter of Josef Mockrauer by his first marriage to Esther Ernestine Mockrauer née Lißner; to remind readers, Josef Mockrauer was the sister of Rosalie Pauly née Mockrauer.  Josef Mockrauer’s second wife was Charlotte Mockrauer née Bruck (1865-1965) (Figure 26), my great-aunt, who was born in 1865.  In a book by Elly Landsberg’s grandson, W. Dieter Bergman, entitled, “Between Two Benches,” he mentions his grandmother:  “In 1891 Elly came from Berlin to the town of Posen to stay with her aunt Rosalie and with the well-known family of Dr. J. Pauly.  Her widowed father had remarried a young cousin and Elly was not happy in Berlin.  In Posen, however, she fitted right into the family of eight girls.” (p.11)  A point of clarification.  Josef Mockrauer was not in fact a widower, and his first wife Ernestine Mockrauer lived until 1934; after separating from her husband, she had an out-of-wedlock son in 1884, Georg Mockrauer, oddly given the surname of his mother’s former husband.

In 1892 in Posen, Elly married a lawyer, Adolf Landsberg (1861-1940), who came from a family of distinguished scholars and rabbis.  Elly went on to become a lawyer.  She lived in Naumburg Saale, Germany during the war, and was deported first to the Theresienstadt Ghetto in Czechoslovakia, then moved to Auschwitz, where she was murdered on May 15, 1944.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In response to why Maria might have survived the Holocaust when multiple members of her family did not, my cousin sent, among other things, what turned out to be an “Einwohnermeldekarte” (resident registration card) or “Einwohner-meldezettel” (resident registration form) for Maria and her husband.  Having never seen one of these cards, I asked about its origin, and my cousin explained that each city historically kept these records for their residents.  With recent changes in European laws, these police records must be digitized for individuals born at least 120 years ago and made available at no cost to the public.  Poznan, Poland happens to be one of those jurisdictions which has automated these resident registration cards, but each city and country is moving at its own pace.

Polish databases, for me, are notoriously difficult to navigate.  I had the incredibly good fortune to find detailed English instructions on how to use these digitized population records for the city of Poznań (Posen), so for any readers with ancestors born there at least 120 years ago, here is the link.

Readers may rightly wonder where some of the specific vital data included in the table above comes from, so using the digitized Posen population records, I’ll give three examples.

 

The resident registration card for Alexander “Axel” Pohlmann and Maria Pauly, mentioned above, records their marriage as 30^th September 1901. (Figure 29)  A photo given to me by Andi Pauly of Axel and Maria’s wedding is captioned with the date 1902 (Figure 30), so the resident registration card provides an opportunity to precisely date the event.

 

Three resident registration cards can be found among the Posen population records for Josef and Rosalie Pauly and their nine children; as readers may be able to discern, for at least some of the children, their date of birth and place and date of marriage are shown. (Figures 31a-c)

 

And, finally, the resident registration form for Adolf and Gertrud Wachsmann, friends of the Pauly’s, provides Adolf’s date and place of birth and their date and place of marriage, all previously unknown facts now firmly “anchored” with reference to a historic document. (Figure 32)

In conclusion, in the absence of surviving personal papers, it is very difficult to properly commemorate victims of the Holocaust who led fulfilled lives which were abruptly terminated by the Nazis.  Still, I feel a need to at least speak their names, show their faces, where possible, and acknowledge their existence using what scant evidence can be found to show they were once living beings.

REFERENCE

Bergman, W. Dieter

1995  Between Two Benches.  California Publishing Co. San Francisco, CA