Adventures in Genealogy
How it all began
When I started my genealogy journey I had very little to go on. I knew the names and dates of birth of my mother's parents: Horst Werner Karrasch (Opa) born on the 26th June 1935 in Bolleinen Osterode East Prussia and Liesel Hoffmann (Oma) born 15th Jan 1925 in Thaleischweiler, Südwestpfalz. Both my Opa (Horst) and Oma (Liesel) are deceased. Luckily, my aunt had slightly more.
According to their Familienstammbuch, which my aunt had a copy of, Horst and Liesel were married civilly on the 18th December 1953 and married in the Thaleischweiler protestant church on the 19th of December 1953.
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| Familienstammbuch Horst Karrasch and Liesel Hoffmann |
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| Horst Karrasch and Liesel Hoffmann wedding photo |
For Liesel: Heinrich Hoffmann shoe factory manager living in Thaleischweiler and Anna Woll living in Thaleischweiler. The pair were married on 14th September, 1928 (this will open a can of worms later).
I also had my aunt's oral history - she had collected this through interviews with my Opa and Oma in 1990, and by writing to relatives back in Germany and getting her neighbours to translate the answers. From this we had some interesting tidbits:
- We knew the names of Opa and Oma's siblings
- We had some information about the lives of Oma and Opa's parents
For this post, I am going to primarily address Opa's (Horst Werner Karrasch's) side. According to the oral history my aunt was supplied almost 20 years ago, Horst's father Hermann Karrasch was born on the 13 October 1903 to parents Elspeth Weisskopf and Horst Werner Karrasch in Bolleinein Osterode. Hermann Karrasch apparently completed a university education in Allenstein Osterode, where he met his wife Anna Marie Engel. He worked with his father as a grazier managing the land on behalf of a Gut (or land owner). And finally (and this will become the first of the big lot of lies, or more charitably, misremembered facts) he apparently died in Russia in 1943, shot down whilst serving in the Luftwaffe.
There is some very detailed commentary that my Opa provided about the aftermath of this event (bearing in mind that he would have been 8 in 1943, when these events allegedly took place).
"When my mother was notified that my father had been shot down she broke down. The next morning, her previously black hair had turned completely white and she was never the same again." Horst Werner Karrasch, oral testimony, 1990
The same page records Hermann and Anna Marie as having three children, my Opa and his two sisters, Elizabeth and Margaret Melita. Margaret Melita was recorded as having been born 18 March 1933 in Bolleinen and was married in 1949 in Wiesbaden to Siegfried (unknown). Her last communication with Horst (my Opa) was recorded as being in 1950.
Anne Marie Engel's page states that she was born 22/2/1906 in Allenstein, Ostpreussen and attended university. Her parents were recorded as being Melita Engel (for whom Margaret Melita was presumably named) and Wilhelm Engel.
Anne Marie Engel was recorded as having a brother called Fritz Walter Engel. According to her record page she died in 1962 at age 56.
"She was a lady and attended finishing school in Switzerland. She met my father at university." Horst Werner Karrasch, oral testimony, 1990.
Armed with this information, I set out to try and validate this information. The information in the Familienstammbuch lined up with the oral testimony, but neither of these documents are primary sources. In fact, the Familienstammbuch was likely filled in by my grandparents.
It didn't take me long to realise that searching for primary sources was going to be pretty impossible. No civil records survive from Sta Wittmansdorf, where my great grandparents marriage record would have been, and all their children's civil birth registrations would also have been. There are also no records for the parish of Seelsen, to which Bolleinein belonged, for the relevant time period. Dead end.
I joined the always helpful Facebook group German Genealogy - Prussia, Austro-Hungary, Russia, Denmark, Siwss & More and when I made one of my first, extremely inarticulate posts, they helpfully sent me the Ortsplan for Bolleinein.
Orstplan Bolleinin
This document was written by Willi Marzinowski after expulsion and shows his recollection of Bolleinen pre-1945. It lists families and includes a sketch of the town.
Included in the list are two Karrasch entries. Living in Wohnhaus Kitch were Emma Mediger, Schneiderin und Karrasch (no first name). Living in house number 45 was Wilhelmine Karrasch Ww. (Widow).
None of these were particularly good matches for my Hermann Karrasch and his wife and three children. Also, if the testimony of my Opa was accurate, Hermann and his family lived on a large landed estate, not in the town proper.
Next on my list was to investigate if Hermann Karrasch was in fact a pilot during World War two. My first port of call was Volksbund's war grave commission. I did an open search for any Hermann Karrasch.
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Screenshot of results from War Graves Commission search |
The first result could obviously be ruled on the basis that the Hermann Karrasch listed died before my own grandfather was born. The second was a vague match, but the birth date was later than what I had been told. Belzongen appears to refer to an area of Ostpreussen not terribly far from Allenstein (present day Olsztyn). So the area was broadly correct, but not Bolleinein as I had been told. I wasn't confident this was my Hermann Karrasch.
Next, I searched on Ancestry for Hermann Karrasch born in Bolleinen. And what I found shocked me.
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| Prisoner card from Mauthausen concentration camp |
One of the first things I found was a prisoner card for Hermann Karrasch born in Bolleinein, but 21/12/1897. So now I had the right name and the right location, but the (maybe) wrong date of birth. It is worth noting that Bolleinen was a very small village, so there wasn't a huge chance of there being two Hermann Karrasch men being born there at approximately the same time. Still, I needed more information.
The next record that Ancestry threw up was a record in the Mauthausen death book. It gave me the following information:
| Name | Hermann Karrasch |
|---|---|
| Birth Date | 21 Dec 1897 |
| Birth Place | Bolleinen |
| Mauthaus # | 19829 |
| Nationality | Germany (Deutsches Reich) |
| Arrest Reason | SV (Security detention) |
| Night and Fog | No |
| Death Date | 23 Mar 1945 |
| Death Place | St. Valentin |
| Cause of Death | Fliegerangriff (Air attack) |
| Transfers | St. Valentin |
| Source | AMM Y/36; |
This meant that the Hermann Karrasch in question had died in Mauthausen and was imprisoned as a "green" (more on that in a later post). His death date was later than the 1943 my Opa had given, but again, the details of Hermann's death were completely different.
So, the question became, was this my Hermann Karrasch? If so, that would mean my Opa was completely wrong about major details of his father's life and death. My next stop was the Arolsen Archive. There I searched for both Hermann Karrasch and for his prisoner number 19829.
My next find largely put to rest any doubt I had. Searching by his prisoner number 19829 resulted in a Hollerith preparatory worksheet card.
This seemed to be the closest I would get to confirmation that my Hermann Karrasch was in fact imprisoned and eventually killed in Mauthausen concentration camp. There were still some mysteries. For example the top left column notes that this prisoner was transferred to Mauthausen by the Kripo (criminal police) Konigsberg (modern day Kaliningrad). This was a bit of an oddity based on what I knew about the family and where they had apparently lived. Hermann was also entered into Mauthausen on 17/12/1942 and didn't die until 23/3/1945. This was an incredibly long survival for Mauthausen, a stage 3 death camp with an average survival length of three to six months. All these mysteries later became clear, which will be the subject of another blog (in which I write to the Arolsen Archive directly, and order several books). However, I was fairly confident that Horst Werner Karrasch's father had not in fact been a pilot shot down over Russia but in fact had died in KZ Mauthausen. This became my first lesson in doubting the oral testimony I had as the starting point of my family tree.
Much later (only last week) I received the final confirmation I needed to square away this mystery. I wrote the Sta Thaleischweiler to obtain the civil marriage details for my Oma and Opa (which occurred in 1953). And there, on the page listing Horst's parents was the information I had been looking for. Hermann Karrasch's birthdate, listed clearly. December 1897, not October 1903. It wasn't perfect, as this document lists Hermann as being born 31/12/1897 whereas the camp records show 21/12/1897. But this was a far better fit with the facts I had (and it won't be the first time my relatives make errors with dates of birth). Later, I found war records for Hermann Karrasch from WW1 that confirmed his date of birth as 21/12/1897 (and gave me his parent's names which I didn't have). But that again, is a subject for another blog.
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| Parent details - Horst and Liesel's civil marriage record However...this document threw another spanner in the works. It turns out that Anne Marie Engel (who was alive at the time of this wedding) was born on 4/02/1906 (not too far from the 22/02/1906 given by my Opa's oral testimony) but in Grabenhof, Ostpreussen not Alleinstein. This would set me off on a mission to find out about Anna Marie Engel - to this day, my most difficult and elusive ancestor. For that story, tune in next time. |
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