FISCHHOF & FRIEDLAENDER

As a follow-up to the last 2 blog entries and and earlier one concerning Julius FRIEDLAENDER, I ran across this entry in Peter Clive's book "Beethoven and His World: A Biographical Dictionary" (Oxford 2001), p.111-112:

This may represent a further piece of circumstantial evidence to support the conclusion that the book dealer and music publisher Julius FRIEDLAENDER (1820-ca.1880 (?)) was the first cousin of my great great grandmother Lina IMMERWAHR geb. SILBERSTEIN (1811-1883), because Julius would have been a "step" first cousin of the pianist, composer and professor of music Joseph FISCHHOF (1804-1857) whose library he purchased after Joseph's death.

Losing Georg LUNGE (sort of)

This blog posting is about discovering that Georg LUNGE's grandfather was seemingly married twice, first to Georg's grandmother and then to Rosa FRIEDLAENDER, my great great great great aunt.  If that is correct, it makes Georg LUNGE a "step-cousin", though presumably his mother and her siblings and step-siblings were close enough that a family bond persisted.

The Dear Reader will recall, if only because it was in the immediately preceding blog posting (!), that the family connection between Philipp IMMERWAHR (and his siblings, such as my great grandmother Clara FREUND geb. IMMERWAHR) and Prof. Georg LUNGE was through their common FRIEDLAENDER family.   The grandmother of Philipp and Clara, Babette SILBERSTEIN geb. FRIEDLAENDER was a sister of Rosa FISCHHOF geb. FRIEDLAENDER, grandmother of Georg LUNGE.  Babette and Rosa were daughters of Joseph FRIEDLAENDER.

The name of Rosa FISCHHOF's husband was not mentioned in the Will of her aunt Rosalie GOTTHEINER geb. FRIEDLAENDER.   He had already died by 1828 when Rosalie decided to leave some money to Rosa's daughters Amalie, Friederike and Pauline of Brünn.   These FISCHHOF girls were not just identified as daughters of Rosa, they were referred to as Enkeltöchter (granddaughters) of Rosalie's brother Joseph FRIEDLAENDER.

In May 2007, from an 1840 Breslau marriage entry for Friederike FISCHHOF and Joseph WIESENBERG, I learned that Friederike's father was Joseph FISCHHOF.

In May 2009, at the archive of the Centrum Judaicum in Berlin, I found a copy of the Todesanzeige (death report) for Amalie LUNGE geb. FISCHHOF.  The main piece of new information was that she was born in the town of Butschowitz, near Brünn in Moravia.

Looking online at that time for information on FISCHHOFs with a connection to Butschowitz, led to information about a musician Josef Fischhof (4 Apr 1804, Butschowitz - 28 Jun 1857, Wien) who is mentioned in Hugo GOLD’s “Die Juden und Judengemeinden Mährens in Vergangenheit und Gegenwalt”, at p. 176:
“Zu Fischhof vgl. Wurzbach, Biogr. Lex. d. Kaisert. Österreich IV., S. 254-256 (Nach dieser Quelle hat J. Fischhof gleichnamiger [?] {2)} Vater, 1768 in Butschowitz geboren, eine Broschüre verfaßt, in der er seine Mitbürger zur Leistung des Militärdienstes auffordert.)
2)  Vielleicht mit dem im MB erwähnten “Morenu ha-Rabbi R. Josaia Fischhof b. Jehuda” identisch?” [MB = Butschowitzer Memorbuch]

It seemed likely that Joseph was a brother of Amalie, Friederike and Pauline, based on dates and place, and their father being Joseph FISCHHOFF, but there was no direct evidence to show they were from the same FISCHHOF family from Butschowitz (but how many could there be).

Two weeks ago, a great granddaughter of Prof. Georg LUNGE reconnected with me by e-mail to catch up and to ask about the LUNGE family history.  In particular, she wondered whether I could identify a photograph of a family portrait - the man identified as "Georg Fischhof LUNGE".

I was not able to help identify the man in the family portrait (other than to question the accuracy of the name written on the photograph), but the question caused me to look again at my FISCHHOF information and to return to the internet for clues.

This time, a similar search led to information in a Geni.com posting that identified about 10 children of Joseph FISCHHOFF and Rosa Blühdorn FRIEDLAENDER.  The information in that tree came mainly from Butschowitz Jewish community records (available online at www. badatelna.cz), from Vienna records searchable online (though www.genteam.at), and from the 2011 book "Wie Einmal War", by Georg GAUGUSCH of Vienna, whom Don and I met in the Lohestrasse Jewish cemetery in Breslau (Wroclaw) in October 2011.

The Breslau Jewish community birth records that included the birth of Georg (Josef) LUNGE, identified his mother as Amalie (Cheile) LUNGE geb. FISCHHOF.   In the Butschowitz records, the birth of Cheile FISCHHOFF was recorded in May 1806 (4 years earlier than would be expected based on her listed in age in her Heirats-Anzeige in 1834 (24) and her Todesanzeige in 1874 (64)).

The Butschowitz records also record the births of Friederike (1812) and Pauline (1814).  These three FISCHOFF sisters line up perfectly with the girls mentioned in the will of Rosalie GOTTHEINER geb. FRIEDLAENDER.

The catch is that their mother was listed as Rosa geb. BLÜHDORN, not Rosa geb.  FRIEDLAENDER.   Rosa FRIEDLAENDER does appear in the records for the births of Joseph FISCHHOFF's later children (Emma, August and Julius), born in 1818, 1821 and 1823.  The earlier children from Josef in 1804 to David in 1816 all appear to be the children of Rosa BLÜHDORN.

So, it is my conclusion that the two Rosa's are two wives of Joseph FISCHHOFF and that Amalie was a daughter of the first wife Rosa BLÜHDORN, not my great great great great aunt Rosa FRIEDLAENDER.   If that is correct then Amalie LUNGE geb. FISCHHOFF was a "step" first cousin of Lina IMMERWAHR geb. SILBERSTEIN, and Prof. Georg LUNGE was a "step" second cousin of Philipp IMMERWAHR.

With that in mind, it is interesting that Rosalie GOTTHEINER's will referred to the FISCHHOF girls as granddaughter of Rosalie's brother Joseph FRIEDLAENDER.  This suggests to me that the stepmother Rosa FISCHHOF geb. FRIEDLAENDER considered her step-daughters to be hers, and presumably she raised them to feel that way.

(A copy of "Wer Einmal War" is en route from England; maybe it will provide some more details to support this conclusion.)

Finding Georg LUNGE

This blog posting is about finding the family connection to Georg LUNGE, industrial chemist, and Professor of Chemistry at the ETH in Zürich.

For some reason, I think it was my mother who first drew my attention to the passage in Dr. Gerit von LEITNER's book "Der Fall Clara Immerwahr" (1994) that Dr. Philipp IMMERWAHR (1839-1908) was a friend, and a cousin, of the chemist Prof. Dr. Georg LUNGE (1839-1923).  Philipp was the father of Dr. Clara HABER geb, IMMERWAHR (1870-1915), first cousin of my mother's father.  (All these doctors had Ph.D.s in chemistry.)

That must have been in 1999.  At the time, I did not see how Georg LUNGE could be a cousin of Philipp IMMERWAHR.  Since Philipp was an older brother of my great grandmother Clara FREUND geb. IMMERWAHR (1845-1914), I thought I knew enough about this family to know all the potential links to Georg LUNGE, whatever his ancestry was.

Eventually, possibly in 2002, I wrote to Dr. von LEITNER to see if she had more information in her research notes for her book that might expand on the published comment that Philipp and Georg were cousins.   She responded, but she did not have further details.  She suggested I contact the archives of the Max Planck Institute, since they have considerable HABER materials.   I did, but they were not able to provide any clues.

In late 2002, I contacted the archive of the ETH in Zürich to see what I could learn about Georg LUNGE's family.  They wrote me about his wife and family and also that his parents were Heinrich LUNGE and Amalie FISCHHOF.

Earlier, I had run across this item in the pre-War German-Jewish genealogy periodical, "Jüdische Familien Forschung", Vol. 12, Issue 43 (1936), special edition “Unsere Ahnen” exhibit of family portraits at the Jüdische Museum Berlin:
Dargestellte Personen:  Amalie LUNGE, geb. FISCHOF, gest 1870, Breslau,
gemalt von RESCH
Besitzer:  die Enkelin Clara GUMPERTZ

(Ernst RESCH was a portrait artist in Breslau who painted portraits of my great grandmother Lina IMMERWAHR geb. SILBERSTEIN, as well as her sisters Rosalie (KROHN) and Sophie (KROHN), and her aunt Amalie SILBERSTEIN geb. KEMPNER.)

There things stood for about 4 years.

In September 2006, I was looking in the new (for me) resource, Stefi JERSCH-WENZEL's “Quellen zur Geschichte der Juden in Polnischen Archiven," Band 2 - Ehemalige preußische Provinz Schlesien, and ran across this entry:
S.245:   Amtsgericht Breslau -- 4991 Nr. 303
Testaments-Akten Gottheiner [Gottheimer], Rosalie geb. Friedländer, gest 18.12.1828
  1828-1829
Enth. u. a.: Todesanzeige der Rosalie Gottheiner geb. Friedländer. -- Aufsetzung des Testamentes mit Nennung der Erben: Töchter des Brüders Marcus Friedländer (Breslau), Jeanette verehel. Kuh, und Babette verehel. Silberstein, Töchters des Brüders Gerson Friedlaender (Rosenberg O/S) und der Enkelinnen des Brüders Joseph Friedländer in Brünn, die Geschwister Fischoff sowie das weibliche Waiseninstitut der heisigen israelitischen Gemeinde.
I ordered a copy of this Will from the Archiwum Panstwowe w Wroclawiu, the successor to the Breslau Stadtsarchiv, and learned in November 2006 that my great great great great great aunt Rosalie GOTTHEINER geb. FRIEDLAENDER (ca.1763-1828) had left money to 3 granddaughters of her brother Joseph FRIEDLAENDER (at that moment, my newly discovered great great great great grandfather).  Those 3 sisters were Amalie, Friederike and Pauline FISCHHOF of Brünn.
A couple weeks later in December 2006, in the course of corresponding with the German author and playwright Sabine Friedrich of Coburg (she wrote a play about Clara IMMERWAHR), I realized the likely identity of Hirsch Lunge’s wife Amalie Fischof with the great niece of Rosalie Gottheiner, geb. Friedlaender.

With that connection, though the previously almost unknown FRIEDLAENDER family, Philipp IMMERWAHR and his cousin Georg LUNGE were confirmed to be cousins -- they were second cousins through their respective mothers' mothers.

A mystery solved, or so it seemed.

SIMONSOHN Family - A New and Extensive Set of Cousins

After finding the JACOBSOHN family tree in Berlin in late October 2011, I tried to trace the various new lines of the family -- without much success.  One family of interest was the SIMONSOHNs from Guttstadt in East Prussia.  It they existed, they would be the descendants of my great great great aunt Flora JACOBSOHN (b.1821) and her husband Caspar SIMONSOHN (b.ca.1817).

In November 2011, the first clues came from the Yad vaShem online databases.   There was an Emma MARCUS geb. SIMONSOHN, born in Guttstadt in 1861, who was deported from Berlin to Theresienstadt on 14 September 1942, and died there less than 4 weeks later on 9 October 1942.   A grandchild of hers submitted a Page of Testimony to Yad vaShem in her memory.  The name of the submitter was transcribed as "Lola Wang" of Adelaide, Australia.

Based on the address, I sent an e-mail inquiry to 2 synagogues in Adelhaide and received a response the next morning from the "Honorary Archivist" of the Adelaide Hebrew Congregation: the illegible name was actually Warner DUBIN.  I also received links to photographs of the gravestones of Warner and his wife Riva, a link to Australian National Archive catalogue entries for Warner DUBIN, born as Werner DEMBINSKY, and the name of his daughter in Victoria (AU).

I quickly found a person with the right name on Facebook and sent her a note.  It took until the end of January 2012 to receive a reply.  I had found the right person, but she did not know if her great grandmother Emma was a daughter of Caspar SIMONSOHN.   She had forwarded my question to her cousin Gary, the family historian.  Another two months later, Gary also noted that he did not know who Emma's parents were.

Since the information from Australia was inconclusive, I went back to the internet to look for other possible candidates for cousinhood.  There was enough of Wilma Aden-Grossmann's 2007 book "Berthold Simonsohn. Biographie eines jüdischen Sozialpädagogen und Juristen (1912–1978)" available through Google Books to learn that Berthold's father Alfred SIMONSOHN was also born in Guttstadt, in 1858. The author acknowledged a memoir by Berthold's brother Karl which she had received from Karl's son Alfred SØRENSEN.

At the end of March 2012, I wrote to the author.   When something brought me back to the SIMONSOHN search in mid July and I remembered not hearing back from the author, I e-mailed her again.  But, then a few minutes later, I decided to see if the Alfred SØRENSEN whose e-mail address I had found was the right one.

That was the crucial step.  The next day Alfred replied and did turn out to be the son of Karl.  And even though his father had not left any additional information about the family history, he had a copy of a SIMONSOHN family tree prepared by this uncle Berthold.  But, he was going off on vacation.

Fortunately, when he came back from vacation, Alfred remembered my inquiry and sent me a most wonderful 50th-birthday-present, just one week early.   His uncle Berthold's SIMONSOHN Stammbaum answered my questions -- Emma and Alfred were siblings and they were children of Caspar SIMONSOHN and my great great great aunt Flora geb. JACOBSOHN of Guttstadt -- and provided a very complete update on their descendants and the rest of the extended SIMONSOHN family.

I already knew that Caspar's brother Joachim SIMONSOHN had married Flora's sister Henriette JACOBSOHN.  Now, I had information on the descendants of Joachim and Henriette as well.  And, confirmation that my great great grandfather Victor Moses JACOBSOHN's second wife Ida was their daughter and his niece.  (Victor Moses and Ida were the parents of Curt JACOBSOHN who seems to have been the donor of the JACOBSOHN Stammbaum to what is now the archive of the Centrum Judaicum in Berlin.)

My aunt Eva knew her grandmother Ida RAPHAELSOHN geb. JACOBSOHN and also her step-great grandmother Ida JACOBSOHN geb. SIMONSOHN.  I think I remember correctly that Eva considered her step-great grandmother Ida to be nicer or friendlier than her grandmother Ida.

Alfred's and Emma's family lines are pretty much up to date.  Now, there are many other new lines of cousins to try to trace.  So far, I have only made slight progress on one -- the ALTERTHUM family; 5 sons who all seem to have made it to Palestine, some or all of whom changed their name to ATAR.

After another great expansion of the previously unknown JACOBSOHN side of the family, there is plenty more to follow-up on.