A Vanished Village

Today's Washington Post has a fascinating story about a unique Polish town.

Trochenbrod, founded in the early 19th century as a way for Jews to avoid long mandatory service in the Russian army, was one of a kind. While there were large Jewish communities in many cities and tiny Jewish farming villages scattered across Eastern Europe, Trochenbrod was an all-Jewish town the likes of which had not existed since ancient times.

The town prospered until the Soviets invaded in 1939, followed two years later by the Germans.

A handful of skilled tradesmen were taken to other towns by the Germans and worked to death or executed. A Jewish historian writing in April 1945, shortly before Germany surrendered, said only 33 of the town's residents were still alive by the end of 1944. By then, the town had returned to Soviet control.

The survivors had nothing to return to. Germans and Ukrainians had burned some of the buildings in the village. Other houses had been looted, disassembled and destroyed by partisans and farmers in the area. After the war, the Soviets bulldozed what remained and turned the land into a collective farm.

Trochenbrod had ceased to exist. [Link]

No Room on Her Bookshelf for Hate

Melissa O'Brien's decision to dispose of an unwanted family heirloom led to a really touching piece in the St. Petersburg Times.

On my grandmother's bookshelf, wedged in between Katharine Hepburn's Me - Stories Of My Life and Ernest Hemingway's The Snows of Kilimanjaro was a copy of Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf. It is a 1939 German edition, and inside the front cover, neatly scrolled like a wedding invitation, are the names of my grandparents and the date of their nuptials. My grandparents told me that this book was issued to every newly married couple in Germany in the late 1930s and early 1940s.

When both my grandparents had passed on, my mother decided to sell some of their things. I specifically asked her not to sell Mein Kampf. I wanted to find a way, short of burning the book, to dispose of it properly. The place I finally found for it may come as a surprise. I donated it to the Florida Holocaust Museum in St. Petersburg. [Link]

So Funny She Forgot to Laugh

A new television program in Germany invites celebrities to trace their family histories. The first episode demonstrated why some Germans are reluctant to delve into their pasts.

The actress Mariele Millowitsch, 51, was the first guest on Auf der Spur meiner Ahnen (On the Trail of My Ancestors). Cameras filmed her as, for the first time, she watched footage of her actor father Willy performing comic routines for an audience of Nazi officers.

Miss Millowitsch appeared uncomfortable, protesting that her father must have been doing his best to earn a living, rather than performing out of any ideological conviction. [Link]

The Good Brother

Albert Goering despised everything his brother stood for, but was able to put the family name to good use by simply writing it on official documents.

In this way he saved countless Jews from certain death in his role as a deliberately inept director at the Skoda armaments factory. The Gestapo were on to him, but he managed to slip through their clutches.

The tragedy of Albert Goering was that the surname that allowed him to make a stand during the Third Reich’s rise was the surname that condemned him following the Reich’s collapse. After he surrendered to the Americans, the interrogators refused to believe his protestations. He faced years in prison until his claims were finally verified. Following his release, his marriage collapsed and he eked out a miserable living as a translator. Nobody wanted to honour his name. He died, in obscurity, in 1966. [Link]

The Black Sheep's Brothers

Katrin Himmler's great-uncle was an infamous war criminal, and her in-laws were among his victims. But that didn't stop her from delving into her family's history and relating the uncomfortable truths in a new book, The Himmler Brothers.

As family history always had it - along with history in general - it was only Heinrich who was ever a committed Nazi member. He was portrayed as a black sheep; a kind of monstrous aberration, while both his parents, Gebhard and Anna, and his two brothers, Gebhard and Ernst, were seen as average sorts of Germans. Yet Katrin's father - Ernst's son - began to question this portrayal and so, in 1997, he asked his daughter for a favour: would she go through the federal archives to discover more on Ernst? Katrin didn't turn him down, despite her delicate position as the wife of an Israeli Jew. [Link]

Hitler's Favorite Jewish Filmmaker

In his new biography of Leni Riefenstahl, Steven Bach claims that "Hitler's filmmaker" was even more Jewish than her patron.

[She] had her mother’s birth records falsified. There could be only one reason for that, theorized Bach: Leni Riefenstahl had Jewish ancestors.

“Intimate friends who knew her mother swore that she was Jewish,” said the author. “It shows the depths of her ambition, if true, that nothing, not even her own genetic heritage, could stand in the way of that ambition. She was not a deeply emotional anti-Semite, but she was most definitely an opportunistic anti-Semite: One of those people who goes along wholeheartedly once it became the temper of the times.” [Link]

How to Make a Racist Shut Up

William Hoff, Jr., was a virulent racist, and a leader of the National Socialist Movement. According to his brother Sheldon, he was also part African American.

Around 1995, Sheldon uncovered a bombshell, a gem that could have destroyed Wild Bill's credibility with the Nazis - in the 1910 census, their father's family was listed as black. Sheldon eventually traced their black ancestry back to the 1600s.

When he told his brother about his find, Wild Bill brushed it off.

"He was in denial, but after that he never gave us any of his 'white is superior' stuff," Sheldon said. [Link]

Fiorello's Fascinating Sister

Here's something I didn't know: The mother of New York mayor Fiorello LaGuardia was Jewish, and his sister—born in Greenwich Village in 1881—was interned by the Nazis. The memoir Gemma LaGuardia Gluck wrote after her return to the United States in 1947 has been re-released 46 years after its first publication. It sounds like a great read for biography buffs.

While Gluck details her time at the Ravensbruck women's concentration camp with great clarity — she is believed to be the only American-born woman interned by the Nazis — the book is about more than that. Her life spanned the great wave of immigration to the United States in the 1880s to the presidency of John F. Kennedy. She grew up in New York City and the Old West, later led a cosmopolitan life in Budapest and lived her last years in a municipal housing project in Long Island City, Queens, built during her brother's term as mayor of New York City. [Link]

Just a Little Bit Nazi

Descendants of a gynecologist who participated in Hitler's eugenics program were denied compensation for artwork confiscated by Soviet soldiers after the war. Their argument, though clever, did not sway the court.

Dr Schuster was head of the Chemnitz women’s clinic during the war and a senior member of the National Socialist Doctors’ Association. But, said the legal team, he was only one of 14,427 Germans in leading Nazi posts at the local level; he could, therefore, be held responsible for only 0.006 per cent of Nazi crimes. [Link]

So, What Did Your Grandfathers Do During the War?

DNA tests are underway to prove whether a 50-year-old electrician from Granada, Spain, descends from two notable Nazis.

In an interview in El Mundo, the man, referred to only as Guillermo, claims to remember hearing cryptic family conversations in German as a child. A photograph of the Granada man shows a striking resemblance to a juxtaposed image of Himmler, whom he believes is his maternal grandfather. Guillermo also claims his father is the son of Hitler, born in 1931 of a relationship between the Führer and his supposed Austrian lover, Geli Raubal. [Link]

As further proof, Guillermo submits that, ever since he was a young boy, he has had the overwhelming urge to invade Poland.

Fascists Have Family Trees Too

From the (Wolverhampton, U.K.) Express & Star:

Blue blood in family trees

By Roger Poole
Dec 19, 2005

Question: what's the connection between Henry the Second and Hermann Goering? Answer: the Nazi leader was descended from the English king.

Surprised? So was I until I looked a little deeper into the subject of royal genealogy, prompted by the recent discovery of lines of descent linking new Tory leader David Cameron with William IV, and his wife with Charles II and Nell Gwyn.

[snip]

The more one looks into the whole subject of family links, the less intriguing one's position becomes.

We're probably all related to Nancy [Reagan] - and to [British fascist] Oswald Mosley - and to old Hermann Goering. And if that's the case, this is definitely a good place to stop.

[Read the whole story]

tags: genealogy, family history, family tree

You Too Can Be a Nazi Hunter

From New York (N.Y.) Newsday:

Croatia seeks 92-year-old WWII suspect

SNJEZANA VUKIC
Associated Press Writer

September 22, 2005, 9:52 AM EDT

ZAGREB, Croatia - Croatia has requested that Austria extradite a 92-year-old World War II war crimes suspect who was tracked down by an amateur Nazi hunter, the justice minister said Thursday.

[snip]

Aschner, a former police chief in eastern Croatia, allegedly enforced racist laws in 1941-1942 under Croatia's World War II Nazi puppet regime, which persecuted tens of thousands of Jews, Gypsies and Serbs.

He is suspected of committing crimes against civilians, mainly Jews and Serbs, the minister, Vesna Skare Ozbolt, told The Associated Press.

[snip]

Aschner lived peacefully in Croatia for years before he was discovered two years ago by an amateur researcher, Alen Budaj.

Budaj traced his family history and discovered Aschner's alleged wartime role. He then located him living in central Croatia and alerted authorities, setting in motion a hunt for the elderly suspect - and prompting Aschner to seek shelter in Austria.

[snip]

[Read the whole story]

That Would Be an Uncomfortable Reunion

From News24.com:

The Hitler Family unveiled

09/08/2005 20:40 - (SA)

Hamburg - Adolf Hitler left no offspring when he died in his bunker in 1945. But despite his lifelong attempt to conceal his origins, he in fact had numerous relatives, some still living in America.

Aside from a sister called Paula, he had a half-brother named Alois who owned a bar in Berlin and he had a nephew, William Patrick "Willie" Hitler.

[snip]

Filmmakers Oliver Halmburger and Thomas Staehler have unearthed rare film interviews along with hitherto unseen genealogical records in their film "Die Familie Hitler" (The Hitler Family).

[snip]

[Read the whole story]

The Census and the Senseless

Most of us use census data in our research without giving a thought to why it was gathered. Anyone curious about the United States' decennial census quickly learns that a census is mandated every ten years by our constitution, for the purpose of apportioning seats in the House of Representatives. No ethical issues there, so long as you ignore the apportionment calculations that undervalued non-white persons.

Other censuses require a second look. The United States gathered information on Native Americans throughout the 19th century. This information was ultimately used to displace Indian populations. The 1940 census was misused—against the wishes of the Census Bureau—to track down and detain Japanese-Americans after Pearl Harbor.

The most egregious examples of census-abuse come from Nazi Germany. Special censuses and registrations of Jews and other minorities were conducted in Germany and occupied nations for the purpose of expediting Hitler's "Final Solution." The ethnicity of their victims was established, the demographics of a potential slave workforce were provided, and convenient routes for deportation were found with the help of these censuses.

Now comes the ethical question for modern genealogists: Should we use these censuses in our research?

The question parallels one which confronted scientists and physicians in the past. The Nazis conducted inhuman experiments on their victims—experiments which could not be replicated without violating codes of personal and professional ethics. The question to be answered was, Should we use data derived from these experiments?

In genealogy the question takes on a special significance, because the people who would benefit from the use of this census data are the very people Hitler targeted for extermination. The 1939 census is an invaluable source of information for Jews tracing their ancestry to pre-war Germany. For many families, it is indispensable.

As genealogists we are historians, and as historians we cannot afford to overlook useful data. An African-American genealogist who refuses to use records created by slaveholders will find his path blocked at every turn.

Perhaps the proper approach to such records is to consider their use a protest against and repudiation of their original purpose. Using Nazi census records to perpetuate the history of a family once marked for destruction may be the best way to spit in the eye of evil.

More Reading:

• Population Council: Population Statistics, the Holocaust, and the Nuremberg Trials
• U.S. Federal Statistics and Statistical Ethics: The Role of the American Statistical Associations — Ethical Guidelines for Statistical Practice (PDF)

Grandfather's Occupation: Instrument of Evil

From BBC News of Aug. 1, 2005:

My grandad the Nazi

Dan Tetsell grew up with an uncomfortable family secret - his grandfather was an SS officer. The more he's got to know about him, the more Dan realises his grandad was, in many ways, just an ordinary guy. And that's what's worried him.

Lots of people find their grandparents embarrassing. Maybe they pretend to be hard of hearing, maybe they have a weird fondness for boiled sweets. Or maybe, like my grandfather, they were a Nazi.

I don't mean a Nazi in the jobsworth sense. No, unfortunately, my grandfather Kurt Martens was in the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler, the premier regiment of the Waffen SS.

[snip]

Here was a member of my own family involved, even at a very low level, with the defining horror of the twentieth century and I'd never got to ask him that age old question: what did you do in the war, grandad?

[snip]

[Read the whole story]

They Always Seemed Like Such Nice Folks

From The Akron (Ohio) Beacon Journal of June 22, 2005:

Residents used to questions about roads with Hitler in name

KRISTY ECKERT

Associated Press

CIRCLEVILLE, Ohio - When he refers to his street address, Larry Harris always waits for the pause.

"Bitler?" people sometimes respond, thinking they've misunderstood.

No, the name begins with an H.

"Like Adolf," Harris says. "But he doesn't live in our neighborhood."

His wife said she often ends up spelling it out: H-I-T-L-E-R.

Otherwise, they're hardly bothered by their association with the Nazi dictator of World War II. After about 30 years here, the Harrises said they're accustomed to strange looks and questions. Their neighbors are, too.

Long before Adolf came to power in Germany, the Pickaway County Hitlers were well-known farmers in Circleville, where three rural roads are named for them: Hitler No. 1 Road, Hitler No. 2 Road and Huber-Hitler Road.

[snip]

Down the lane from [Idabelle White's] home, several Hitlers are buried at the Hitler-Ludwig Cemetery. The cemetery caretaker said he also fields his share of questions - and pranks.

"I get some weird calls on the answering machine," said Duane Howard, as he walked among tombstones on Hitler graves from as early as the 1800s.

[snip]

[Read the whole story]