Note: In this postscript, I present additional documentary evidence confirming some of Dr. Julius Bruck’s descendants survived the Holocaust and made their way to England.
Related Post:
Post 68: Dr. Julius Bruck And His Influence on Modern Endoscopy
Dr. Julius Bruck (1840-1902) and his wife Bertha Bruck née Vogelsdorf (1843-1917) (Figure 1) had two sons and two daughters born between 1864 and 1872, all of whom were dead by 1937. The youngest son, Dr. Walter Wolfgang Bruck (1872-1937) (Figure 2), was the last to die. He and his wife, Johanna Bruck née Graebsch, had two daughters, Hermine and Renate, their fates unknown to me. One of my fourth cousins told me Hermine was born and died in 1924 in Breslau, Germany [today: Wrocław, Poland] and knew only Renate was also born there on the 16th of June 1926; there were unconfirmed rumors Renate had immigrated to England. As discussed in Post 68, independently, I found Johanna and Renate Bruck’s names in the “German Minority Census, 1939,” showing both were still alive in 1939, living in Breslau, and giving their ages. (Figure 3)
Operating under the assumption the connection to England had some veracity, I searched for a Renate Bruck there. I explained to readers in the original post that on ancestry.com I discovered a Renate Bruck listed in a Willesden, Middlesex, England marriage register, indicating she wed a man there named Harry E. Graham in October 1948. Uncertain this was really Dr. Julius Bruck’s granddaughter, I ordered the marriage certificate from the United Kingdom’s General Register Office (GRO) and confirmed Renate Graham was indeed the surviving daughter of Dr. Walter Wolfgang Bruck. (Figure 4) The certificate showed that both Renate Bruck and Harry Graham had previously been married.
Knowing now that Renate Bruck had survived the Holocaust, and somehow immigrated to England after 1939, I theorized that her mother might also have made it there since I found no indication in Yad Vashem she’d perished in the Holocaust. I searched for Johanna Bruck in MyHeritage hoping I might find new clues there, and indeed found a very promising lead. I discovered a Johanna M.E. Bruck living in Barnet, Hertfordshire, England, born around 1885, who died between January and March 1963, at the age of 78 (Figure 5); I already knew from Johanna Bruck née Graebsch’s first wedding in 1905 to Dr. Renner that she’d been born on the 10th of April 1884, and the difference by one year of her birth seemed insignificant (i.e., 1885 vs. 1884). I checked the distance between Willesden, where Renate Bruck married in 1948 for the second time, and Barnet, where this Johanna Bruck died, and found it was only 44 km apart, or 27 miles, so it was reasonable to assume these people might be related.
I’ve previously explained to readers that for a long time I erroneously assumed the information in ancestry.com and MyHeritage replicates itself, but recently discovered this is not the case. By this time, I was virtually positive this Johanna Bruck was Renate’s mother. I returned to the UK’s General Register Office database and searched for a Johanna Bruck who died in the first quarter of 1963. There, I found a listing for a Johanna M.E. Bruck, and ordered this woman’s death certificate. It arrived a few weeks later, and confirmed what I’d already strongly suspected, namely, that Johanna was indeed the widow of Dr. Walter Wolfgang Bruck (Figure 6); she died of early cardiac failure, a result of ovarian cancer. Thus, I’d finally solved the mystery of where and when Dr. Walter Wolfgang Bruck’s widow had died.
But I was not yet completely satisfied. I still had not figured out when Renate Bruck might have died, so I returned to ancestry.com. There, I uncovered evidence of yet a third individual Renate Bruck had wed, a man named Gary Newman who she married in 1956. (Figures 7a-b) There was also a fleeting reference on a family tree in ancestry that a Renate Newman had died in England on the 3rd of March 2013. (Figure 8) With an actual year of death, I located a death certificate in the UK’s General Register Office database corresponding to this lady. (Figure 9) Naturally, I ordered a copy of this document, which arrived in just the last few days. Any lingering doubt I might have had that this was Dr. Walter Wolfgang Bruck’s daughter was dispelled when I saw the maiden name “Bruck” on the certificate with her known date of birth, the 16th of June 1926. (Figure 10) Her cause of death was specified as esophageal cancer. She’d been an interior designer during her working years, while her husband had been a commodity broker.
At the time of her death in 2013, her son, Nicholas Francis David Newman, was attendant. Thinking I might finally have found a living descendant of the esteemed Dr. Julius Bruck from Breslau, I first tried looking for him under births in UK’s General Register Office database but discovered this index of historic births goes only until 1916; remember that Renate married her third husband in 1956 so Nicholas’ birth would obviously postdate 1916. The GRO database does, however, include death records until 1957, and, then again between 1984 to the present; oddly, death records between 1957 and 1991 are not available. Knowing Nicholas Newman was still alive when his mother passed away in 2013, I searched death records for the brief period from then to now. Not expecting to find anything, I was astonished to discover his death was recorded in the first quarter of 2016 when he would have been only 55 or 56 years of age. (Figure 11) I’m awaiting arrival of Nicholas Newman’s death certificate, as I write, hoping I might finally find a living descendant of Dr. Julius Bruck, four generations removed. To date, I’ve been unable to resolve the question of whether Renate Bruck might have had additional children with her third husband, or possibly children by her second husband, Harry Graham. The search continues.
JULIUS BRUCK & HIS IMMEDIATE FAMILY
| Name (relationship) | Vital Event | Date | Place |
| Dr. Julius Bruck (self) | Birth | 6 October 1840 | Breslau, Germany [Wrocław, Poland] |
| Marriage | 1863 | ||
| Death | 20 April 1902 | Breslau, Germany [Wrocław, Poland] | |
| Bertha Vogelsdorff (wife) | Birth | 31 December 1843 | |
| Marriage | 1863 | ||
| Death | 4 February 1917 | Breslau, Germany [Wrocław, Poland] | |
| Margarethe Bruck (daughter) | Birth | 19 August 1864 | |
| Death | 1923 | ||
| Fritz Bruck (son) | Birth | 31 October 1865 | |
| Death | 24 January 1883 | ||
| Gertrud Bruck | Birth | 13 January 1867 | |
| Death | 18 June 1869 | ||
| Walter Wolfgang Bruck (son) | Birth | 4 March 1872 | Breslau, Germany [Wrocław, Poland] |
| Death | 31 March 1937 | Breslau, Germany [Wrocław, Poland] | |
| Johanna Margarete Elizabeth Graebsch (daughter-in-law) | Birth | 10 April 1884 | Breslau, Germany [Wrocław, Poland] |
| Marriage (to Dr. Alfred Friedrich Karl Kurt Renner) | 6 May 1905 | Breslau, Germany [Wrocław, Poland] | |
| Divorce (from Dr. Renner) | 8 March 1917 | Breslau, Germany [Wrocław, Poland] | |
| Marriage (to Dr. Walter Wolfgang Bruck) | |||
| Death | 5 March 1963 | Barnet, Hertford, England | |
| Hermine Johanna Elisabeth Bruck (granddaughter) | Birth | January 1924 | Breslau, Germany [Wrocław, Poland] |
| Death | 3 October 1924 | Breslau, Germany [Wrocław, Poland] | |
| Renate Stephanie Gertrud Bruck (granddaughter) | Birth | 16 June 1926 | Breslau, Germany [Wrocław, Poland] |
| Marriage (to Eugen Walter Mehne) | |||
| Marriage (to Henry Ernest Graham) | 18 October 1948 | Willesden, Middlesex, England | |
| Marriage (to Gary Newman) | October 1956 | Willesden, Middlesex, England | |
| Death | 3 March 2013 | Woodbridge, Suffolk, England | |
| Nicholas Francis David Newman (great-grandson) | Birth | 1960 | England |
| Death | 2016 | England | |