In August 2015, a search for BACH on a very useful online database “Juden im nördlichen Teil des ehemaligen Deutschen Reiches” introduced me to a man named Wolff BACH, Schneider in Kurnik, who was married to Dore and had a son Heymann Wolf BACH in Kurnik in 1844 and daughter Hannchen BACH in Kurnik in 1846. (Heymann died in 1846). There was no obvious connection to my BACH family from Inowroclaw (Hohensalza).
The thing that caught my attention was that Wolff was naming a son Heymann and a daughter Hannchen in the 1840s. My great great great grandparents R. Moses Aron BACH (1809-1879) and Mathilde GOLDMANN (ca.1815-1888), in addition to my great great grandfather Jakob BACH (ca.1838-1924) (and Julie, Fanny, Sarah and Israel (Isaac)), had a daughter Johanna (Hinde) in about 1844 and a son Heymann (Chajim) in 1848.
And Moses Aron BACH’s sister Philippine (Frimet) FINK geb. BACH (ca.1820-1893) named her first son Haim (Joachim) FINK ca.1850 and named her first daughter Johanna (Hannah) in 1852.
And Moses Aron BACH’s sister Flora FRANKENBERG (later FRANK) geb. BACH (ca.1818-1902) named a daughter Hanne in 1851. (Flora and Julius FRANK also named a son Hermann (1846-1850), but no son named Heymann / Heimann / Joachim / Chajim / Haim — upon a new reflection, that may be because Julius FRANK’s father was named Joachim (Heymann) (Chajim) FRANKENBERG. Julius’ mother Jette died in 1834, but perhaps his father Joachim did not die until after 1846 (when Julius and Flora had their last son Aaron), more or less precluding Flora from naming a son Heymann.)
In view of that naming pattern for the children of Moses Aron, Flora and Philippine, the fact that Wolff BACH of Kurnik also named children Heymann and Johanna in the 1840s raised the possibility (maybe even a likelihood) that Wolff was another child of Menachem BACH and Dore CARO.
No additional information about Wolff BACH has come to light (yet). His having children in Kurnik is not a problem. R. Moses Aron BACH had children in Mieschkow, Czerniejewo (Schwarzenau), and Myslowitz. Flora had children in Fordon (and later emigrated to the US). Philippine had children in Hamburg. So, it is clear the family was spreading out from Inowroclaw, with or without an outpost in Kurnik.
Speculation 1 - Wolff BACH of Kurnik is part of the family of Menachem BACH and Dore CARO.
Speculation 2 - Wolf BACH of Kurnik, who was the father of Isaac W. BACH (b.1850), Flora BACH (b.1854) and Leopold (Leo) Walter BACH (b.1857), was the same as Wolff BACH, father of Heymann and Hannchen.
Thanks to Ted's and Gary's family trees posted on Ancestry.com, I have learned of this family of Wolf (or Wolfe) BACH who had at least the son Isaac W. in Kurnik; quite possibly Isaac's sister Flora and brother Leopold (Leo) Walter were also born in Kurnik, though family lore is that Leo was born in Berlin. These siblings came to the US early (by my family's standards); Isaac in 1863, Flora in 1865 and Leo in 1880. Flora seems to have settled in New York. Isaac was first in Denver, but then lived the rest of his life in New York. Leo settled in Denver and remained there.
Gary's mother's baby book identified her great grandparents as Wolfe BACH and Johanna.
Speculation 3 - If that is correct, and if that Wolfe was the same person as Wolff who was the father of Heymann and Hannchen, then the simplest speculation would be that Wolff was first married to Dore and had children with her in the mid 1840s, and then, presumably after Dore's death, he re-married Johanna in the late 1840s and had children with her in the 1850s.
For now, it is just speculation upon speculation. I will hope to update this story some day with some actual evidence.
All this speculation-to-the-3rd-power came after the earlier speculation that the parents of Menachem BACH or Deborah (Dore) CARO may have been named Heymann (Chajim) and Johanna (Hannah) based on the names of their childrens' children. And that had led to the speculation-to-the-nth-degree, that the RAPHAELSOHN ancestor Elisabeth (Liebe) CARO's father Heymann CARO of Chodziesen (Kolmar) was somehow the same person as speculative-Heymann, father of Deborah CARO.
Saturday, November 7, 2015
Saturday, February 28, 2015
Finding the Arthur BACH Family (entry in progress)
[11 Jan 15 - started on the return ferry ride from Swartz Bay, Vancouver Island, BC to Tsawwassen]
I think it was in early 1998 that I ran across reference to Kurt BACH who died in Florida in 1994. I must have run across the information about Kurt through an internet search for BACHs from Breslau. That probably led to some form of death notice or obituary that not only referenced Breslau, but also identified Kurt's synagogue in the Miami area. The historical guess is that I sent an e-mail to the synagogue and heard back from Lotte GLOVER geb. LANDAU.
From there, things are still sketchy. I think Lotte knew Kurt BACH but did not know about his family. But, oddly enough, she did know of Mom's great uncle Sanitätsrat Dr.med. Josef BACH of Breslau. On 18 July 1998, I made the following note:
"her [Lotte's] father Ezekiel LANDAU was a friend of Sanitätsrat Josef BACH in Breslau and visited him there. She also recalled Ezekiel LANDAU may also have visited some family in Myslowitz (where Amalie (geb. LANDAU) BACH lived). (Lotte’s half-aunt in Israel explained that the LANDAUs did not have much contact with the family of Josef BACH because the LANDAUs were orthodox, and Joseph BACH was 'ein deutscher Staatsbürger jüdischen Glaubens'."
Lotte's brother was R. Sol LANDAU (1920-2004). In 2005, I ran across the entry in the online catalogue of the Jewish Theological Seminary for the "Papers of Conservative Rabbis and Synagogues", which included this comment in connection with R. Sol LANDAU:
“Rabbi LANDAU's father, Rabbi Ezekiel LANDAU (1888-1965) was born in Prague, Czechoslovakia. He was the great-grandson of the renowned scholar Ezekiel LANDAU (1713- 1793), also know as "Nodah Bi Yehuda" after the title of his most famous work."
According to information attributed to Sol, his father's father Isak LANDAU (1863-1943) was the son of a Jecheskel LANDAU. This Jecheskel was a rabbi in Kempen and was named in memory of the Noda b'Jehuda.
I was not able to place these LANDAUs within the family of Amalie BACH geb. LANDAU (1836-1925) or to find any other link between them and the BACH family. At the time, I did not realize that "Haskel" was a nickname for Jecheskel (Ezekiel), so I made up a link in the family to make Isak's father Jecheskel LANDAU a son of my great great great grandparents Haskel LANDAU and Nesche LANDAU geb. LANDAU.
(28 Feb 15 - progress made on UA664 from YVR to ORD, en route to RDU and Chapel Hill)
In late 2013, knowing that Haskel LANDAU would not have named a son of his Jecheskel, I doubted the possibility of Isak LANDAU's father being a son my great great great grandfather Haskel LANDAU. In late 2014, after receiving the Jichus Brief that Wolf SCHEINWECHSLER provided to Samuel PLAWNER in 1930, and learning that Haskel (Jecheskel) LANDAU's father was R. Jitzhak LANDAU of Wlodawa, I developed a new theory about Sol LANDAU's grandfather Isak LANDAU -- that he was named after Haskel's father Jitzhak, and that it was his grandfather and not his father who was said to have been R. Jecheskel LANDAU of Kempen. This would make Isak LANDAU (1863-1943) and Dr. Josef BACH (1867-1943) first cousins, as well as contemporaries. By this theory, the identity of Isak's father is unknown; he would either be another as-yet unknown son of Haskel and Nesche LANDAU, or he would be an as-yet unknown son of one of the known sons of Haskel and Nesche, or the son of one of their daughters, if the LANDAU daughter married a LANDAU.
But back to Kurt BACH -- and the FRIEDLAENDERs of Brieg, Breslau, Shanghai and Peoria. After finding the family of Israel BACH, I was inspired to look again for traces of Arthur BACH's family. Since Arthur had lived in Brieg, I did a search on Ancestry.com for BACH and Brieg. This led me to the 1947 passenger list showing Kurt BACH's entry to the US when he arrived in San Francisco from Shanghai. He was born in Brieg in 1906. I then found a family tree posted by Susan KOPPE which confirmed that Kurt was a son of Arthur BACH and Ida BLACHMANN. From there, I found information about Kurt's brother Hans and their sister Lotte Cäcilie FRIEDLAENDER geb. BACH. They had all escaped Nazi Germany and found refuge in the Shanghai Ghetto. The sister and her husband got to the US first and settled in Peoria, Illinois. When the brothers got to the US, Peoria was their destination as well.
An obituary for Lotte Cäcilie's son Lawrence identified other family members and within a couple days, I was in contact with Larry's children and Larry's brother who was 91 and living in New York. One of Larry's sons mailed me a photocopy of a great family tree which his uncle had prepared in Shanghai. It was not just Kurt and his brother and sister who had spent the War in the Shanghai Ghetto. Lotte Cäcilie's husband and their sons also spent the War years in Shanghai. The family tree prepared by Hanns Werner in the 1940s listed all the family members who had been in Shanghai. It is a great handwritten family tree. It filled in many gaps in this part of the BACH family tree.
(28 Feb 15 - and continued in the Lilly Library on the East Campus of Duke University)
To my surprise, the old family tree did not allow me to link the FRIEDLAENDERs to any of the other known FRIEDLAENDER families of Silesia. But by coincidence, it did enable another connection to come to the fore. In August 2015, Don and I met up with a BACH cousin from Iowa to make a day trip to Vancouver Island. Her sister had married a FRIEDLANDER, originally a FRIEDLAENDER, who had been born in Shanghai when his parents were refugees there. As it turned out, from the information in that old family tree, the father Georg FRIEDLAENDER was a first cousin of Werner who made that family tree. My cousin and her husband were not related, but they were part of the same "Family Hedge". His uncle Siegmar (Zwi) FRIEDLAENDER (1899-1958) had married Lotte Cäcilie BACH (1902-1956), and Lotte Cäcilie was a second cousin of Erna LOEWENSON geb. BACH (1897-1996), whose granddaughter was the cousin of mine in question.
And to tie back into the LANDAU discussion above, Erna LOEWENSON geb. BACH was a daughter Dr. Josef BACH (1867-1943), who was a family friend (and probably cousin) of Ezekiel LANDAU, father of Lotte GLOVER geb. LANDAU.
And then there is the still unconfirmed connection of Erna's husband Dr. Martin LOEWENSON (1891-1956) to the LOEWENSONs married into the LAUDON and JACOBSOHN families of East Prussia. To be continued…
(An international and transcontinental blog entry.)
I think it was in early 1998 that I ran across reference to Kurt BACH who died in Florida in 1994. I must have run across the information about Kurt through an internet search for BACHs from Breslau. That probably led to some form of death notice or obituary that not only referenced Breslau, but also identified Kurt's synagogue in the Miami area. The historical guess is that I sent an e-mail to the synagogue and heard back from Lotte GLOVER geb. LANDAU.
From there, things are still sketchy. I think Lotte knew Kurt BACH but did not know about his family. But, oddly enough, she did know of Mom's great uncle Sanitätsrat Dr.med. Josef BACH of Breslau. On 18 July 1998, I made the following note:
"her [Lotte's] father Ezekiel LANDAU was a friend of Sanitätsrat Josef BACH in Breslau and visited him there. She also recalled Ezekiel LANDAU may also have visited some family in Myslowitz (where Amalie (geb. LANDAU) BACH lived). (Lotte’s half-aunt in Israel explained that the LANDAUs did not have much contact with the family of Josef BACH because the LANDAUs were orthodox, and Joseph BACH was 'ein deutscher Staatsbürger jüdischen Glaubens'."
Lotte's brother was R. Sol LANDAU (1920-2004). In 2005, I ran across the entry in the online catalogue of the Jewish Theological Seminary for the "Papers of Conservative Rabbis and Synagogues", which included this comment in connection with R. Sol LANDAU:
“Rabbi LANDAU's father, Rabbi Ezekiel LANDAU (1888-1965) was born in Prague, Czechoslovakia. He was the great-grandson of the renowned scholar Ezekiel LANDAU (1713- 1793), also know as "Nodah Bi Yehuda" after the title of his most famous work."
According to information attributed to Sol, his father's father Isak LANDAU (1863-1943) was the son of a Jecheskel LANDAU. This Jecheskel was a rabbi in Kempen and was named in memory of the Noda b'Jehuda.
I was not able to place these LANDAUs within the family of Amalie BACH geb. LANDAU (1836-1925) or to find any other link between them and the BACH family. At the time, I did not realize that "Haskel" was a nickname for Jecheskel (Ezekiel), so I made up a link in the family to make Isak's father Jecheskel LANDAU a son of my great great great grandparents Haskel LANDAU and Nesche LANDAU geb. LANDAU.
(28 Feb 15 - progress made on UA664 from YVR to ORD, en route to RDU and Chapel Hill)
In late 2013, knowing that Haskel LANDAU would not have named a son of his Jecheskel, I doubted the possibility of Isak LANDAU's father being a son my great great great grandfather Haskel LANDAU. In late 2014, after receiving the Jichus Brief that Wolf SCHEINWECHSLER provided to Samuel PLAWNER in 1930, and learning that Haskel (Jecheskel) LANDAU's father was R. Jitzhak LANDAU of Wlodawa, I developed a new theory about Sol LANDAU's grandfather Isak LANDAU -- that he was named after Haskel's father Jitzhak, and that it was his grandfather and not his father who was said to have been R. Jecheskel LANDAU of Kempen. This would make Isak LANDAU (1863-1943) and Dr. Josef BACH (1867-1943) first cousins, as well as contemporaries. By this theory, the identity of Isak's father is unknown; he would either be another as-yet unknown son of Haskel and Nesche LANDAU, or he would be an as-yet unknown son of one of the known sons of Haskel and Nesche, or the son of one of their daughters, if the LANDAU daughter married a LANDAU.
But back to Kurt BACH -- and the FRIEDLAENDERs of Brieg, Breslau, Shanghai and Peoria. After finding the family of Israel BACH, I was inspired to look again for traces of Arthur BACH's family. Since Arthur had lived in Brieg, I did a search on Ancestry.com for BACH and Brieg. This led me to the 1947 passenger list showing Kurt BACH's entry to the US when he arrived in San Francisco from Shanghai. He was born in Brieg in 1906. I then found a family tree posted by Susan KOPPE which confirmed that Kurt was a son of Arthur BACH and Ida BLACHMANN. From there, I found information about Kurt's brother Hans and their sister Lotte Cäcilie FRIEDLAENDER geb. BACH. They had all escaped Nazi Germany and found refuge in the Shanghai Ghetto. The sister and her husband got to the US first and settled in Peoria, Illinois. When the brothers got to the US, Peoria was their destination as well.
An obituary for Lotte Cäcilie's son Lawrence identified other family members and within a couple days, I was in contact with Larry's children and Larry's brother who was 91 and living in New York. One of Larry's sons mailed me a photocopy of a great family tree which his uncle had prepared in Shanghai. It was not just Kurt and his brother and sister who had spent the War in the Shanghai Ghetto. Lotte Cäcilie's husband and their sons also spent the War years in Shanghai. The family tree prepared by Hanns Werner in the 1940s listed all the family members who had been in Shanghai. It is a great handwritten family tree. It filled in many gaps in this part of the BACH family tree.
(28 Feb 15 - and continued in the Lilly Library on the East Campus of Duke University)
To my surprise, the old family tree did not allow me to link the FRIEDLAENDERs to any of the other known FRIEDLAENDER families of Silesia. But by coincidence, it did enable another connection to come to the fore. In August 2015, Don and I met up with a BACH cousin from Iowa to make a day trip to Vancouver Island. Her sister had married a FRIEDLANDER, originally a FRIEDLAENDER, who had been born in Shanghai when his parents were refugees there. As it turned out, from the information in that old family tree, the father Georg FRIEDLAENDER was a first cousin of Werner who made that family tree. My cousin and her husband were not related, but they were part of the same "Family Hedge". His uncle Siegmar (Zwi) FRIEDLAENDER (1899-1958) had married Lotte Cäcilie BACH (1902-1956), and Lotte Cäcilie was a second cousin of Erna LOEWENSON geb. BACH (1897-1996), whose granddaughter was the cousin of mine in question.
And to tie back into the LANDAU discussion above, Erna LOEWENSON geb. BACH was a daughter Dr. Josef BACH (1867-1943), who was a family friend (and probably cousin) of Ezekiel LANDAU, father of Lotte GLOVER geb. LANDAU.
And then there is the still unconfirmed connection of Erna's husband Dr. Martin LOEWENSON (1891-1956) to the LOEWENSONs married into the LAUDON and JACOBSOHN families of East Prussia. To be continued…
(An international and transcontinental blog entry.)
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