For Gerda -- The Search for Israel BACH

This week, a 17-year puzzle had a happy solution.

In 1997, after my project to update the Falk Stammbaum had brought me into contact with Gerda OPPENHEIM geb. PETROVER (1910-2007), I heard many interesting stories about Gerda's life and her recollections of her family -- my family.  She was a great lover of "mischpochologie".  I had searched for Gerda because her grandfather Lippmann Meyer FALK (1841-1909) was a first cousin of my paternal grandfather Dr. Hermann FALK (1875-1932).

It may have been in our first telephone call when I directed the conversation to her grandmother Fanny FALK geb. BACH (1850-1831).  I was curious if Gerda knew anything about her BACH family since my mother's mother was a BACH, and great granddaughter of R. Moses Aron BACH (1809-1879), rabbi in Raschkow, Schwarzenau, Myslowitz, Breslau and Schildberg.  As soon as Gerda said her grandmother was the daughter of a rabbi, I knew what was coming next: Fanny's father was R. Moses Aron BACH.

At that time, I did not know much about my own BACH family; I did not know of any children of R. Moses Aron BACH other than my great great grandfather Jakob BACH (ca.1838-1924).  In addition to the daughter Fanny (Gerda's grandmother), Gerda recalled another sibling of Jakob and Fanny.  She remembered knowing about a brother who had lived in Berlin and was a tailor.  She did not recall his name or when he lived.

In 1997, I did what I could to try to figure out who this great great great uncle BACH was.  Through a genealogy acquaintance in Berlin, I learned about a family in London descended from BACHs of Berlin.  That led to some interesting correspondence, but no connection to the unknown ggg uncle.

In 1998, review of the Myslowitz Jewish community records from the mid 19th century uncovered new children of R. Moses Aron BACH and Mathilde geb. GOLDMANN:  Julie (d.1850), Heymann (b.1848) and Sarah (1851-1854).  Heymann was a possible candidate for the ggg uncle in Berlin, but I was not able to find any trace of Heymann in Berlin.  In 2010, I finally learned more about Heymann:  he married Rosa SCHOEPS and lived in Breslau.  So, Heymann was not the tailor in Berlin.

In 2006, I learned about a series of books prepared by Stefi JERSCH-WENZEL which catalogue Jewish historical materials in archives all over Germany and also in former German parts of Poland.  One of those books, "Quellen zur Geschichte der Juden in Polnischen Archiven;  Band 2 - Ehemalige preußische Provinz Schlesien", includes items in the archive of the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw.  The archive is in Warsaw, but it contains materials from former German areas, such as Breslau, other towns in Silesia, and towns in Posen and East and West Prussia.

One of the catalogued items that put Warsaw on my research travel agenda has this description:
"Privatkorrespondenz der Familie Bach.  Korrespondenz des Rabbiner Bach aus Schildberg (Posen) an seine Familie in Myslowitz"

I had a chance to visit Warsaw in August 2007, but the archive was closed.

In early 2012, I learned about an initiative among archives in Europe to make Jewish historical materials available on the internet.  One of the participating archives in the Judaica Europeana project was the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw.  And, most amazingly, they selected their Breslau materials to scan and put online.  Since the BACH family correspondence had apparently been in a Breslau Jewish community file before the War, it was part of the Breslau materials and was included among the materials put online.  (Those files mysteriously disappeared from the internet later in 2012, and only came back online a few weeks ago.)

The BACH family correspondence consists of letters from the 1870s from R. Moses Aron BACH and his wife and children in Schildberg in Posen Province to the oldest son Jakob BACH who was living with his family in Myslowitz.  Most of the letters are written in Hebrew; whether in Yiddish, or in German written in Hebrew letters, I am still not sure.  Most of the notes from the children to their brother Jakob are in German.

A few of those notes in German were signed by Israel BACH, a new member of the family of Moses Aron and Mathilde BACH.  I assumed he was the youngest and was born about 1860, since his grandfather Israel GOLDMANN was said to have died in 1859.  With a name for another son, I went back to the Berliner Adressbücher and other resources to see whether he was the missing brother who had settled in Berlin and had been a tailor, as Gerda had recalled.  Even with a name, I still did not make any progress.

Back in 2010, in one of my periodic visit to the archive of the Centrum Judaicum in Berlin, I had copied the Todesanzeigen for R. Moses Aron BACH and for Mathilde BACH geb. GOLDMANN.  Those death records showed that they left 5 children, 3 sons and 2 daughters when they died.  From Mathilde's Todesanzeige from 1888, I saw that these children were living in Breslau, Myslowitz and Strelno.

For some reason, I think because of being distracted by learning about an EHRLICH branch of the BACH family, I did not focus on those residences for the surviving children.  (The distraction came from the fact that the document was signed by Emanuel EHRLICH, a previously unknown grandson of Mathilde.  That clue led to learning about the daughter Johanna BACH (ca.1844-1913) and her husband R. Kaufmann EHRLICH (1840-1888).)

In April 2014, I finally decided to name the unknown son in the family tree (tailor in Berlin) as Israel BACH, since he was the only available candidate, even though I had never been able to find any trace of him in Berlin.

In early June 2014, I looked again at the Todesanzeige for Mathilde BACH geb. GOLDMANN.  After 4 years of reading right past it, the locations of her 5 surviving children in 1888 finally made the right impression.  They were in Breslau, Myslowitz and Strelno.   I knew that my great great grandfather Jakob BACH lived in Myslowitz, and that Gerda's grandmother Fanny FALK geb. BACH was living in Breslau at that time.  I had learned in recent years that Johanna EHRLICH geb. BACH and Heymann BACH lived in Breslau.   That only left Israel BACH to have been living in Strelno in 1888.

The information that Israel BACH had been living Strelno finally gave me something to work with.  After trying a Google search on Bach and Strelno (any search with "Bach" gets swamped with music-related results), I searched the online Deutsches Gedenkbuch and found Moses M. BACH, born in Strelno in 1884, who was deported from Berlin in 1942 and murdered in Auschwitz.  I then did a search on Yad vaShem's online database and found Pages of Testimony submitted in memory of Mor Moses BACH, his wife and son, and in memory of Margarethe FUSS geb. BACH, born in Strelno in 1894, and her husband.  These Pages of Testimony had been submitted in 1999 by the nephew of Moritz Moses BACH and Margarethe FUSS geb. BACH; Ezra, living then in Givatayim.  This also meant there was at least one other son in that BACH family from Strelno; Ezra's father.

A tantalizing clue was that Ezra identified his uncle Mor Moses BACH as having been a tailor in Berlin.

I could not find an e-mail address for Ezra, but I found him in the Israeli online "white pages" -- at the same address he had in 1999.  So, I had to resort to a postal letter.   When I had not had a response after a couple weeks, I telephoned and reached Ezra.  He had received my letter and he seemed positive about my theory that we were BACH family cousins.  He said he would ask his son to write me.  Another two weeks later, I had an e-mail from Ezra's son and daughter-in-law.  The initial indications were all positive.  Ezra's grandfather whom they knew as Isaak was apparently also known as Israel.

Isaak (Israel) BACH with Ezra and his little sister.

A few days later, they sent me a photograph of Isaak's gravestone from the Weissensee Jewish cemetery in Berlin -- with no mention of the name Isaak:  Israel BACH -- Israel ben R. Mosche Ahron

There was the final proof that I wanted to confirm that I had found the family that Gerda had mentioned in 1997.  Israel was not a tailor, but his son Moritz (Moses) BACH (1884-ca.1942) had been a tailor in Berlin.  It must have been him that Gerda had heard about from her mother Friederike PETROVER geb. FALK (1879-ca.1941), or her grandmother Fanny FALK geb. BACH.

I wish I could have found this BACH family in Israel when I could have shared the news with Gerda.  But I am happy to remember Gerda as I continue to correspond with our newly found cousins.

The SCHEININ Family

In December 2013, I had finally learned a lot about the family of R. Zwi Hirsch KALISCHER’s youngest daughter Auguste SCHEININ geb. KALISCHER (1851-1920).  Auguste and Albert SCHEININ’s daughter Recha (FUCHS) had emigrated to England and her children had gotten to England and the US.  Their daughter Hanna was unable to emigrate and was murdered in the Riga Ghetto.  Their son Leo emigrated to New York; he never married and he died in New York in 1935.  And their oldest son Emanuel had moved from Leipzig to Erfurt.   From First World War Bavarian military records, I had learned that Emanuel had married Meta SCHLOSS and that they had four children.

From passenger lists and other online sources, I had learned that Emanuel and Meta’s oldest child was Max SCHEININ who had married Sylvia RESNIKOW (originally RESNIKOWITZ), and that the youngest was Hilde SCHEININ who had married Fred SANDER.   But there I was stuck.  I could find any children for Max or Hilde, though I had run into information suggesting that Hilde and Fred SANDER may have had a daughter named Arlene.

There things stood (for not too long), until cousin Leo FUCHS put me in contact with our cousin Irene FUCHS.  After asking Irene whether she happened to know anything about her cousins descended from Emanuel SCHEININ (which she did not), I did some additional searches in Ancestry.com for additional traces of the SCHEININ family.  I am not sure what changed; maybe I included the birth year based on what I had found earlier.  For some reason, this time, among the user-submitted family trees, I found a very small family tree consisting of Max SCHEININ and Sylvia, Sylvia’s parents, and a child of Max and Sylvia (no name) who had two sons (no names).  That little family tree had been posted on Ancestry.com in August 2013.  I could have run across it in my earlier searches, but had not.

I sent a note to the contact for that tree.  But I wasn’t willing to wait for a reply; and frequently no reply ever comes.  So I did a search for the person’s Ancestry.com user name and found reference to a Barbara from Kingston, NY.  A little more searching led to the obituary of the second husband of that Barbara from Kingston.  I also found a likely e-mail for the same person.  That e-mail elicited an almost immediate response.  I had found my 3rd cousin from the SCHEININ family.  Barbara was happy to learn about new family, and she helped me learn more about her SCHEININ family.

I learned that the other two siblings of Max and Hilde were a boy who died relatively young and a sister Hedwig who had been in England before coming to New York, and later settling in Israel.  And I learned that Hilde had had a daughter Arlene and an older daughter Roslyn.  Barbara’s information was 30+ years old; she did not have any contact with those first cousins of hers.

A little more digging led to the possibility that Arlene SANDER was the same-age Arlene living in the Boston area.  I sent an e-mail through a work-related website, and since I was not sure it would arrive, I also printed the same note to send by mail.  I had the letter ready to mail on Saturday when I was flying to North Carolina and decided to take it with me to mail from Chapel Hill, rather than mailing it from Point Roberts.  Soon after arriving in Chapel Hill, I had a response from Arlene — she was the right person.  Like her cousin Barbara, she was also happy to learn about new family and to get in contact with her long-lost first cousin Barbara.  (I never did mail that letter.)

It was very satisfying to make so much progress learning about the SCHEININ branch of the KALISCHER family, but it was even more rewarding to reunite Barbara and Arlene in their first-cousinship.

TROPLOWITZ Cousins

From Don’s review of the 1889-1910 Breslau Standesamt records indexed by JRI-Poland, he found the names of the parents of Franz KOHN. They were Samuel KOHN and Martha TROPLOWITZ.  Franz was in the tree because his wife Margarethe SCHOTTLAENDER was part of the SCHOTTLAENDER family mentioned in the Memoir by Herbert PRIEBATSCH that Don had reviewed and mined for family information back in 2009.

Martha TROPLOWITZ was in the tree as a daughter of Bernhard TROPLOWITZ and Rosalie TURBIN, niece of David IMMERWAHR.  Martha’s husband was only known as XY KOHN, based on the Todesanzeige for Bernhard TROPLOWITZ which was signed by Bernhard's daughter Martha KOHN.

With this link, Franz KOHN became (known to be) our third cousin once removed. He and Margarethe had two children Ludwig Wilhelm KOHN and Stephanie Ellen KOHN. Steffie, as she was apparently known, was the only member of this family who managed to emigrate. She settled in London where she died in 1990.

Franz, Margarethe and Ludwig were all still living in Breslau (or in detention in Grüssau) in 1942. On August 30, 1942, they were deported to Theresienstadt. Franz died there in February 1944. Margarethe was deported to Auschwitz in May 1944; Ludwig had already been deported to Auschwitz in January 1943.

From available information, Steffie never married and did not have any children.  This new line of cousins from a little known part of the IMMERWAHR family seems to have ended with Steffie.

The Half Cousins

Sharing the news about the remarkable appearance of fragments of the gravestone of Johanna FALK geb. KALISCHER (1845-1929) had the effect of bringing new cousins to my attention.  But, they are not descended from Johanna; they are descendants of Emanuel FALK (1832-1906) and his first wife, his niece, Ernestine FALK geb. BERLINER (1838-1865).  Ernestine's mother Zerline BERLINER geb. FALK (ca.1813-1867) was an older sister of Emanuel.

For equal air time, here is a photograph of Ernestine's gravestone, also in the Lohestrasse Jewish cemetery in Breslau:

Ernestine died in connection with the birth of her fifth child, a daughter who died on her second day and three days before Ernestine.

The family of Emanuel FALK's second marriage to my great grandmother Johanna FALK geb. KALISCHER was always well-known to me.  They were the families of my father's aunts and uncles.  But, the "Stammbaum der Familie Falk" (Breslau 1937) also had information on the children of Emanuel FALK's first marriage to Ernestine FALK geb. BERLINER.  There was almost no family memory of the fate of those half-great-aunts and uncles, and half-cousins.

Emanuel and Ernestine had three children who lived to adulthood, Sara FALK who married Berthold SALZ and had 4 children, and Loebel FALK and Louis FALK, who lived long and short, respectively, did not marry, and had no children.  Other than reading the names in the Falk Stammbaum, and seeing the now-lost gravestones for Loebel and Louis in the graves of the "Familie Emanuel Falk", the only other note about this part of the family was from my aunt Eva WULKAN geb. FALK (1911-2005).   When she was young, she knew of her half-uncle Loebel, living in an old age home in Breslau.  Being interested in family and liking to do good deeds, Eva went to visit Loebel.  According to Eva, he had no interest in her or her visit.  Not a promising legacy to build on.

Sara and Berthold SALZ had three daughters Else, Rosa and Gertrud, and a son Jacob Fritz.  Else had married Wilhelm RISCH and had sons Kurt (b.1904) and Erich (b.1907).  Rosa had married Albert HIRSCH and had the children Walter (b.1909), Hans (b.1914) and Erna (b.1916).  Gertrud did not marry.  Jacob Fritz had married Meta Tana WAGNER and had a son Heinz Michael (b.1916).  That was where the information ended.

[After writing the above about Kurt and Erich, I checked again in the online database of the Deutsche Gedenkbuch and this time finally found some specific information:  they were both deported from Breslau on 13 April 1942 to the Izbica Ghetto along with their parents.  There was still no death information, but I now assume that they all died in that Ghetto in 1942.  Before, I had the non-specific information from Pages of Testimony from their cousin Walter HIRSCH that they had been deported and killed.  From what I have read, it is impossible to learn who died in Izbica of disease or from the brutality of the guards, and who was deported to Belzec, Sobibor or Majdanek...]

My early-internet searches failed to come up with any new information about the SALZ, HIRSCH or RISCH families.

In October 2000, having similarly gotten stuck in my search for another part of the FALK family, my third cousin Martin WOLFSOHN (b.1890) and his wife and daughter, I had turned to the Search Bureau for Missing Relatives.  Soon, I had received information about Martin and his wife, and the suggestion to check with Chevra Kadischa in Haifa to get the address for their daughter.  That worked, and a couple weeks later I was in contact with Shoshana and her husband.

It turned out that Shoshana had her father's copy of the Falk Stammbaum.  But, it also turned out that it was not the same version my family had.  Her copy was from 1938; ours is from 1937.  Her copy was handwritten; ours is typed and bound.  Her copy had a "Kapitel 267"; ours stopped at 266.  And the new Kapitel 267 happened to be the page for Walter HIRSCH's family, which consisted of him and his wife Felicia GORSKI, and the important clue that they had made Aliyah in 1938 and were living in Jerusalem.  (I am not sure how I came to learn about Kapitel 267 and its contents; Shoshana must have happened to mention that her Stammbaum had 267 chapters, allowing me to notice the discrepancy from our copy.)

In mid December 2000, with the knowledge that Walther HIRSCH was living in Jerusalem in 1938, I immediately contacted the Search Bureau in Israel to ask about the HIRSCH family.  The Search Bureau seems to have been a one-woman show.  The always-helpful Batya responded very quickly with great information:  Walter HIRSCH and his wife had come to Israel and died some decades ago; and Hans HIRSCH and his wife came to Israel in 1949 and had a daughter RIta.  Batya gave me Rita's address and phone number in Israel.

The next day, I called Rita and was able to confirm that she was my half second cousin once removed.  The unknown family of Emanuel FALK and his first wife were no longer unknown.  From Rita, I learned about her family's escape from Nazi Germany to Shanghai, and about her family, her brother and the family of her aunt Erna who emigrated to Colombia, but then returned to Germany -- to East Germany (DDR).

Still, I did not learn anything more about the family of Else RISCH geb. SALZ or about the family of her brother Jacob Fritz SALZ.  That did not happen until July 2005, when I stumbled across a death notice for Jacob Fritz SALZ in the German-Jewish weekly paper "Aufbau".  He had died in London in 1950.  The notice mentioned his son Heinz Michael SALZ (b.1916) and a grandson Anthony SALZ.  I was able to find an e-mail address for the right Anthony SALZ in England, and heard back from him the next day.  His father had died only a few weeks before.  I learned a little about the SALZ family, but Anthony was very busy and I did not get more details.  (I came close to meeting Anthony a couple years later when a work assignment took me to the same building that housed the law firm where he worked.  But, by the time I was there, he had moved to a different firm.)

That is were things stood with the SALZ line until this week.  I sent a note to all the branches of the "Familie Emanuel Falk" with information about the newly found gravestone fragments.  I sent a copy to Anthony as well.  I did not hear back from him, but the next morning, I did receive a note from his sister Joanna.  I did not know he had a sister.

Now, we are catching up on a few generations of family history.

Amazing (III), the Context - Familie Emanuel Falk

Today, Don and I received two amazing photographs from the head of the "Cemetery Art Museum", a division of the Municipal Museums of Wroclaw (Muzeum Sztuki Cmentarnej, Oddział Muzeum Miejskiego Wrocławia) -- see the two preceding blog entries, Amazing (I)  and Amazing (II).

For almost 40 years, I have known about the family grave of my part of the FALK family in Breslau., the family of my great grandparents Emanuel FALK (1832-1906) and Johanna FALK geb. KALISCHER (1845-1929).  It is in the Lohestrasse Jewish cemetery in Breslau; now the Stary cmentarz żydowski in Wroclaw, Poland -- under the control of the Municipal Museums of Wroclaw.

My family had two photographs that accompanied a trip report by our cousin Hertha MENDELSON (originally MENDLOWICZ) (1893-1988) from her visit to Breslau in the early 1960s.  The photograph she took during her visit looked a lot like this one that I took on my first visit to Breslau in 1996 (except this photo was taken after we had pulled down all the ivy off the wall):

The other photograph was one that Hertha had taken before she left Breslau in 1941, so some time between 1936 and 1941(the family graves include that of my half great uncle Loebel FALK (1862-1936)):

In the late 1970s, there was an article in a German newspaper or magazine, or perhaps in the German Jewish weekly "Aufbau", that came to our attention, probably through Hertha or my aunt Eva WULKAN geb. FALK (1911-2005).  The article was about the efforts of the German Democratic Socialist party to find and renovate the grave of Ferdinand LASSALLE (1825-1864), a founder of the precursor to the political party.  From that time on, I have wanted to have the "Familie Emanuel Falk" graves renovated with new gravestone plaques and a metal fence.

In May 1996, on my first visit to Breslau with my mother and my brother Don, I finally got to see the Lohestrasse cemetery and the grave site for myself.

In January 2002, I learned that the Museum Director Maciej Lagiewski had had the missing gravestone plaque of my mother's grandparents Wilhelm Salomon FREUND (1831-1915) and Clara FREUND geb. IMMERWAHR (1845-1914) replaced with a new one, based on a pre-War photograph I had sent him a year and a half earlier.

That made me think, again, about replacing the lost tablets of the Familie Emanuel Falk gravestones for (from left to right):
Loebel FALK (1862-1936), Louis FALK (1864-1897), Johanna FALK geb. KALISCHER (1845-1929), Emanuel FALK (1832-1906), Hermann FALK (1875-1932), Martin FALK (1876-1927).

But, I could not have the center plaques replaced if I did not know what the text was.  The old photograph was great, but it was taken at an angle and the Hebrew text of the central panels was not in focus.  In 2004, with the help of Photoshop, I took a very high-resolution scan of the old photograph and tried everything I could think of to make the text more legible -- particularly to someone who could read Hebrew.  I played with the brightness and contrast.  I tried reversing black and white.  I skewed the image to try to simulate a straight-on photo.

When I thought it was as good as I could make it, I sent the image to a genealogy internet acquaintance to see if he could make any headway.  I do not recall all he came up with, but I do know that he was the first to tell me that Emanuel FALK's Hebrew name was "Secharja Mendel".  (This has mainly served to put me back into uncertainty about my father's Hebrew name.  He was originally named Hans-Ludwig Emanuel FALK, though by the time I knew him he dropped the hyphen and the Emanuel.  Dr. Hermann FALK's first and only son, I assumed that his middle name Emanuel was his Hebrew name.  Learning that his grandfather, his namesake, Emanuel FALK had the Hebrew name Secharja Mendel, has left me wondering whether my father's Hebrew name was Secharja Mendel...)

In March 2007, when I was going to London, I had the "enhanced" versions of the gravestone inscriptions with me.  I was hoping to be able to meet with my third cousin once removed R. Elyokim SCHLESINGER (b.1921), whom, I had read, was a leader of a project to protect and restore Jewish cemeteries in Central Europe.   I arranged a meeting with Rabbi SCHLESINGER and he seemed to enjoy trying to figure out the blurry text.  He kept a print and later sent me his transcription of the Hebrew texts, with some bits undecipherable.

In January 2008, I got some additional input from one of my favorite cousins in London (not from the FALK family).  Still not feeling that I had the definitive transcription of the Hebrew texts, I could not proceed with the project to restore the family graves.

On each visit to Breslau -- in 1996, 1998, 2003, 2007 (solo), 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012, Don and I visited the Erbbegräbnis Familie Emanuel Falk.  We trimmed the ivy and the misshapened juniper bush, and took photos.

Before our visit to Breslau (Wroclaw) in November 2013, I arranged for us to meet with Renata Wilkoszewska-Krakowska, the new head of the "Cemetery Art Museum", the current name for the Lohestrasse Jewish cemetery.  We had a very nice meeting, learning about the ongoing efforts to clean up the cemetery, erect fallen gravestones and create a complete index of the cemetery burials.  During our conversation, we told her about a few family graves, include the memorial along the north wall, not far from the entry gate, for the Familie Emanuel Falk.  With a handy thumb-drive, I was able to leave her with a copy of the old photograph from the 1930s.

Earlier today (21 January 2014), Ms Wilkoszewska-Krakowska sent us the news that her team had uncovered broken gravestone fragments in an area of the cemetery quite far from the Familie Emanuel Falk graves, and that, thanks to the photograph we left with her, she had identified two fragments as being from the gravestone tablet of our great grandmother Johanna FALK geb. KALISCHER.  Just amazing.

Of course, now we wonder whether more fragments may exist on the grounds of the Lohestrasse cemetery. 

And we ponder, again, when and how to restore the gravestones of these closest family members.

Amazing (II)

Amazing (I)

This and the next photograph were received today from Renata Wilkoszewska-Krakowska, head of the Cemetery Art Museum, a division of the Municipal Museums of Wroclaw.

WARSCHAWSKI and Zerkow

The path to our WARSCHAWSKI ancestors had many steps.

First, on 28 Nov 1997, there was learning that R. Moses Aron BACH (1809-1879) was married to the daughter of Israel GOLDMANN of Mieschkow in Posen Province, and later learning that her name was Mathilde.

Then, on 14 Jul 2001, from the family papers of R. Aron HEPPNER, there was the information that Israel GOLDMANN's wife was named Sara, and that her parents were Itzchak and Röschen.  Rabbi HEPPNER's papers also provided the information that Israel GOLDMANN lived from 1797 to 1863, and that Sara lived from ca.1798 to 1848.

Then, yesterday (17 Jan 2014), the puzzle pieces described in the previous blog entry led to the conclusion that Sara GOLDMANN was Sara GOLDMANN geb. WARSCHAWSKI.  And if Sara was born WARSCHAWSKI, then her father Itzchak must have also been a WARSCHAWSKI:
      meet my great great great great great grandfather Itzchak WARSCHAWSKI.
The only hitch is that his full name is all that is known of him.

In the first 24 hours of knowing the name of my "5x g gf" Itzchak WARSCHAWSKI, I have not been able to find any information about him.  But that has not prevented me from coming up with one theory about the WARSCHAWSKI family.

In Breslau Standesamt records indexed by the group Jewish Records Indexing - Poland (JRI-Poland), there are two records which I believe relate to the same man Isaac WARSCHAWSKI.  One is a death record, the other a marriage record.

The death was that of Helene WARSCHAWSKI geb. TUCHMANN, wife of Isaac WARSCHAWSKI, who died in Breslau in 1897 at age 56 (ca.1841-1897).  She was probably born in Ostrowo, daughter of Abraham TUCHMANN and Rosalie ANGERSKI.

The marriage was that of a 52-year-old Isaac WARSCHAWSKI (b.ca.1846) in Breslau in 1898.  Since he was 52, it seems reasonable to guess that this was a second marriage; and coming a year after the death of Helene, it also seems reasonable to guess that it is the marriage of the same Isaac WARSCHAWSKI; particularly, since both Helene and Isaac each had a connection to the town of Katscher in Upper Silesia.

In 1898, Isaac married the 28-year-old Luise MOSES.  Isaac was probably born in Zerkow in Posen Province.  His parents were Leiser WARSCHAWSKI and Kreindel WOLFSOHN.

Based solely on his name and his age, this Isaac WARSCHAWSKI from Zerkow could be a grandson of Itzchak WARSCHAWSKI.  Itzchak was probably born in the 1770s, and could easily have died before 1846 when Isaac was born.  If Itzchak and Isaac are related, the Zerkow records could be place to look for further clues about this family -- though a grandson being born there, would not necessarily mean that the grandfather ever lived there.

On the other hand, Zerkow is only about 10 km northeast of Mieschkow where the GOLDMANN family lived, making it quite reasonable that Itzchak and his daughter Sara WARSCHAWSKI could have been from there.

So, Zerkow will be the first next-step in looking for WARSCHAWSKI clues.

Four Coincidences Make a WARSCHAWSKI

dcm --- [introduction typed by Daxter Black, Cowboy Kitty Poet]

Over the last 4 days, four serendipitous events led to identifying a new great great great great aunt and the family name of a (little) known great great great great grandmother.

The story can always start earlier, but this one will start last week when cousin Irene in Dallas let me know about the website "Ahnenforschung in Schlesien" run by a Polish couple who have made easy- (for some) to-use links to Breslau Standesamt records which have been scanned and posted online by the Archiwum Panstwowe we Wroclawiu.  I was not able to view the Breslau Standesamt I records because, as it turns out, the set up only works on PCs and not on Macs.

Nevertheless, I made a couple people in Europe aware of the website.  Peter, in England, reciprocated by sending me images of a variety of 19th century Rybnik Jewish community records. [Coincidence 1]  There were a few interesting birth and marriage entries, but the one that really caught my attention was an entry recording the 6 May 1861 marriage in Breslau between Simon RAHMER, age 53 1/3, and Cecilie (Zirel) GOLDMANN, age 28 11/12:

Cecilie's parents were given as Israel GOLDMANN and Sara geb. WARSCHAWSKI.

I immediately wondered whether Cecelie (b.ca.Jun 1832) was a new sister of my great great great grandmother Mathilde (Matel) BACH geb. GOLDMANN, whose parents were Israel GOLDMANN (1797-1859) and Sara (ca.1798-1848) -- maiden name unknown.  This GOLDMANN family lived in Mieschkow, at least from 1815 to 1835 when their children Mathilde (b.ca.1815), Henriette (b.ca.1819) and Isidor (b.1835) were born.  In 1835, Israel was a tradesman (Handelsmann).

It seemed that this should be the case, but there was no information in the 1861 marriage entry about where Israel and Sara lived, Israel's occupation, or whether they were still alive in 1861.  In addition, this was a Breslau marriage being recorded in Rybnik, Upper Silesia, but neither place was particularly close to Mieschkow in Posen Province.

It would have been very helpful to consult the original Breslau marriage record, but I am not aware of any source for Breslau marriages of the 1860s.

Looking further at the Rybnik Jewish community documents, there was information about Simon RAHMER's first wife and their children, and the death of the first wife Marianne (Marie) RAHMER geb. REICH.  (Another thing lacking from the 1861 marriage entry was specific mention that Simon was a widower or that it was his second marriage.  Definitely skimpy on details.)

Funny thing about Marianne REICH; when I first looked at the Rybnik records, Marianne's name caught my attention because, in the old handwriting, the name REICH looked initially like "BACH".  Maybe that somehow prepared me to find some new information related to the BACH family -- and it was R. Moses Aron BACH who was married to Mathilde GOLDMANN...

There was also the death entry for Simon RAHMER.  He died on 28 June 1863.  Interestingly, the entry in the Rybnik records says that Simon was "zu Rybnik" and also, as an insert, "aus Breslau"  [Coincidence 2]:

The Rybnik records did not include any further information about Cecilie; neither a second marriage or a death entry.   Since Simon was "aus Breslau" when he died just 2 years into his marriage with Cecilie, I looked for Cecilie in the few available years of Breslauer Adressbücher which I have copies of; in this case, 1868, 1870, 1887 and 1891.  She was there, in 1868 and 1870, but not in 1887 or thereafter:
      1868 - Rahmer, Cäcilie, Wwe., Graupenstr. 14 II.
      1870 - Rahmer, Cäcilie, vw. Kfm., Graupenstr. 14 III.

Since she was not listed in the 1887 directory, I assumed she had died in Breslau sometime between 1870 and 1887.

Some internet searches to learn more about Simon RAHMER turned up a little information, but nothing immediately helpful.  I wrote to the Israeli author of an extensive WERTHAN family history that include a line descended from Simon and his first wife.

Next, I looked at the few RAHMERs in my family tree file, now including a little over 60,000 people and 10 RAHMERs.  First, I wrote to a genealogy acquaintance whose great uncle (by marriage) was Wilhelm RAHMER (1848-1926).  Then I ran across a page from Daniel LOEB's online family tree which provided the first name of the unknown RAHMER married to my father's 5th cousin Friederike LANDSBERG.

Then I got to Irma RAHMER in my tree.  She was born in Berlin in 1894 to Isidor RAHMER (1861-1925) and Selma CARO.  Irma was the mother of my maternal grandmother's third cousin Menachem HEPPNER, through the GOLDMANN family (via Menachem's father).  I had a notation from a 2001 e-mail from Menachem HEPPNER that Irma was related to the GOLDMANN family - through her mother Selma CARO.  Now, however, with the information about Cecelie GOLDMANN marrying a RAHMER, I suspected Irma's link to the GOLDMANNs may have been through her father Isidor RAHMER.  Looking through old e-mails, I also found a second note from Menachem in which he repeated the comment that Irma was related to the GOLDMANNs, but without specifying through which line, paternal or maternal.

I had quite a few details about Isidor and Selma which I had received in 2001 from the Weissensee Jewish cemetery in Berlin, along with a comment that Isidor and Selma might not be Irma's parents.  I am not sure why that note had not been followed-up with a further note confirming that they were Irma's parents, because another old note from Menachem made that quite clear.

I think it was because of that former uncertainty that I decided to look at the 1894 Berliner Adressbuch to see which RAHMERs were living in Berlin when Irma was born.  Isidor was listed, along with a few others:
      Rahmer, Herm., Dr. med., pr. Arzt x., O Andreasstr. 4 I. * 9-10, 5-6.
      Rahmer, S., Dr. med., pr. Arzt x., SW Blücherstr. 6 I. * 8-10, 4-6.
      Rahmer, C., Bäcker, NW Gerhardstr., 3
      Rahmer, Isid., Kfm., SO Franzstr. 11. III. (s. Nachtr.) s. Max Sonnenfeld.
      Rahmer, Wilh., Kfm., SO Schmidstr. 37. II. s. Groß & Rahmer.
      Rahmer, Abr., Dr. Weingroßhdl., NW Calvinstr. 13. Pt. s. Commandit-Gesellschaft Dr. Rahmer & Co.
      Rahmer, C., geb. Goldmann, Kfmsww., S Sebastianstr. 62. III.

But the last listed entry was, of course, the most interesting!  [Coincidence 3]  C. RAHMER geb. GOLDMANN could only be Cäcilie (as she was known), last seen in Breslau in 1870.  Now, she was in Berlin in 1894.  Checking the Berlin Adressbücher before and after, it turned out that Cäcilie came to Berlin in about 1883 and was last listed in 1896:
     Rahmer, Isidor, Kaufm., O Blumenstr. 80.81 III. (Tel. VII. 1411) s. Max Sonnenfeld.
     Rahmer, C., geb. Goldmann, Ww., O Blumenstr. 80.81.

Again, the last listing was the most interesting.  In 1896, Cäcilie was living with Isidor RAHMER.  [Coincidence 4]  I had looked at each year's entry hoping to find that Cäcilie was living with one of the other listed RAHMERS.  It was only the last one that included Cäcilie that linked her to another RAHMER.  And it was the "right" RAHMER: Isidor.

With the clue from Menachem that his mother was somehow related to the GOLDMANN family of his father Dr. Ernst HEPPNER, son of R. Aron HEPPNER and Selma GOLDMANN, who was a daughter of Isidor GOLDMANN (1835-1903), who was a son of Israel GOLDMANN and Sara of Mieschkow, it seemed quite reasonable to conclude that Cäcilie and Isidor were mother and son, and that Cäcilie RAHMER geb. GOLDMANN's parents were the same Israel and Sara as Isidor GOLDMANN's parents.

With that conclusion came the result that my great great great great grandmother Sara was born Sara WARSCHAWSKI.

A couple hours before I had found all the puzzle pieces, I wrote an e-mail to Menachem HEPPNER to get back in contact, tell him my theory, and see what he thought.  My e-mail bounced back.  An internet search revealed the sad news that Menachem had died in 2010 at the age of 86.

I cannot share this new discovery with Menachem, but I can preserve the new information for his and my extended family, which are, in fact, one and the same.

[Next, some speculation about Sara's father Itzchak and a WARSCHAWSKI family from Zerkow, a town in Posen Province very close to Mieschkow.]