The Six Wives of Captain Kearney

The Mysterious Anna Marie Engel 

In the my last blog, I introduced my grandparents and my search for their families (https://onlyliarsfam.blogspot.com/2024/11/adventures-in-genealogy.html). I had at my disposal an oral history taken by my aunt in 1990 (which had very early on been shown to be inaccurate) and the Familienstammbuch filled in by my Opa and Oma. Having discovered that Hermann Karrasch died at KZ Mauthausen, I turned my attention to Anna Marie Karrasch geb. Engel, his wife and their three children, Margarete, Elizabeth and my Opa, Horst Werner Karrasch. Per the oral testimony, her parents were listed as Wilhelm and Melita Engel and she apparently had a brother, Fritz Walter Engel. My faith in this information was low however, given my experience with Hermann Karrasch. 

According to my Opa, his mother Anna Marie Engel had been born in Allenstein in February 1906. He had described her as having black hair, and having been a "lady". My first port of call for Anna Marie Engel was the Allenstein Indexing project (https://namensindex.org/namen.php). This seemed like a logical place to look for Anna. 

Search results for Engel, Allenstein

Sadly, this led nowhere. Searching for her marriage record was also out, as no records from Sta. Wittmansdorf survived WW2. As a next step, I searched Bundesarchiv to see if Anna Karrasch had filed with the Burden Equalisastion Authorities. As an expellee from East Prussia she was eligible to file for damages associated with lost property. But there were no obvious matches. The closest match was Anna Karrasch geb. Janowski born in October 1907 who was claiming for loss of property in Ortelsberg (today Szczytno, Poland). This is about 50km from Bolleinen. But since neither the maiden name nor the date of birth or location matched, I judged it unlikely that this was my Anna.

Search result for Anna Karrasch Invenio, Bundesarchiv

And for about a year that was it. I couldn't find a trace of Anna Marie Engel or evidence that she had ever existed, beyond the Familienstammbuch. This showed that at the time of the wedding Anna had been living at Zaun, Flossing, Bavaria. According to a distant cousin of mine in Germany (Rainer), Zaun was a kind of isolated farm in Flossing. He was unable to locate it for me but it gave me a location to search for information. I wrote to Gemeinde Flossing and to a church in Flossing seeking Anna, but came up negative on both. And that would have been it, were it not for a lucky breakthrough. The same distant cousin of mine managed to visit VG Thaleischweiler and found the registration card for Horst Werner Karrasch. He wasn't allowed to make a copy of this information, but he took notes to send me. The most important findings were:

1. Anna Marie Karrasch geb. Engel had lived in Schauerberg until 21/09/1953. This meant that there should be some citizen registration data for her in VG Thaleischweilier.
2. Anna Marie Karrasch geb. Engel attended the wedding of Horst and Liesel and signed an affadavit swearing to the identify of her son Horst.
3. Anna Marie Karrasch geb. Engel was born on 04/02/1906 in Grabenhof, Kreis Labiau.

This last one was a big deal, because it was showed that searching for results in Allenstein was never going to yield fruit. Kreis Labiau is about 50km from Konigsberg (today Kaliningrad, Russia). This was important, because it established some connection between the Karrasch's and Konigsberg. Recall that when I found Hermann Karrasch's arrest record, I could not figure out why he was arrested by the Kripo Konigsberg. Now I had a tantilising possibility - perhaps he was visiting Anna's family at the time of the arrest. 

Sadly me for me, the records for Grabenhof no longer exist. So this wasn't going to get me anywhere in terms of finding civil vitals for Anna. But I could at least picture where she came from.

Kreis Labiau, Ostpreussen

For a few months I was a total standstill. But then I had a brainwave. I had my Opa's immigration file from the National Archives of Australia and included in this file was a history of his employment before leaving Germany. I took another look at this file. 

Horst Werner Karrasch work history

Most of his work locations were in and around the Pirmasens area (Schauerberg, Thaleischweiler etc). But the very first job listed described him working as a farmer for the Wiesmeier family in Elsenbach from 1949-1952. My Opa would have only been 15 in 1949, so it stood to reason that he would still be living with his mother and sisters during this time. So I wrote to VG Neumarkt-St. Veit, the region into which Elsenbach is now incorporated. And I hit gold. VG Neumarkt-St. Veit wrote back to me and sent me the first document which officially confirmed the existence of Anna Marie Engel and her two daughters. My Opa was not listed on this record, but since I know he existed, I was confident he lived there too.

Elsenbach population register, 1945

The population register for Elsenbach in 1945 lists Anna Marie Karrasch and her two daughters, Margarete and Elly (presumably a nickname for Elizabeth). The ages match perfectly and their previous residence was listed as Bolleinin. This is them. Both girls were evidently at school in Elsenenbach. Not only did this discovery give me my first primary source document for Horst's mother and sisters, but it also gave me valuable information about the family's path after expulsion. Based on this register, it seems likely that Elsenbach was the first place the Karrasch family went after leaving Bolleinen. More, it seems likely that they stayed in Elsenbach for some time, since Horst reported working there until 30 November 1952. 

Elsenbach, Kreis Muhldorf an Inn

There is probably more for me to discover in Elsenbach. Horst's oral testimony reports Elly (Elizabeth) dying circa 1950, so it is likely that her burial is recorded in a church book in Elsenbach. He also reports his sister Margarete getting married very young. Given that she would have been 20 by the time the family left Elsenbach, it is possible her marriage record resides in Elsenbach too.  

But discovering this record, in tandem with Anna's residence information in my Opa's marriage record in 1957 left me with another puzzle. Why on earth had Anna decided to move her family to Elsenbach specifically after expulsion? This was more 1000km away and to my knowledge, not a common destination for expellees. And then moved again to Schauerberg almost 500 km away in Rheinland-Pfalz? And then back to Flossing bei Polling, a mere 25km from Elsenbach, where the family had lived for seven years? These movements remain highly puzzling to me. 

My cousin Rainer has two intriguing theories for these movements. The first is that both Elsenbach and Flossing are close to the Austrian border, and Flossing is around 180km from Mauthausen, where Hermann Karrasch died. Could Anna have been trying to remain close to the last known location of her husband? At this stage, all I can do is speculate. But possibly in the chaos after the war, Anna may have hoped to see her husband liberated from the camps. And since she couldn't stay in their home in Bolleinen, perhaps she was trying to stay as close by as she could. It's a sad thought, since I know that Hermann died in March of 1945, just before the end of the war, never to see his wife or three children again. 

Flossing to Mauthausen

The second intriguing theory that Rainer has relates to why the Karrasch family moved to Schauerberg at all. According to him, there was a Karrasch family living in Weselberg in the 1950's. Walter Karrasch and his wife Frieda Pechtl had two daughters born in 1951 and 1953 respectively, both baptised in Weselberg, the village next to Schauerberg. He notes that Karrasch is not a common name for the Rheinland-Pfalz area, and a surname search on https://nvk.genealogy.net/map bears out this assertion. As of 1890, there a no Karrasch families shown in the area around Pirmasens. Most of them are concentrated in what is today the Warmian-Mausian Viovodeship (where indeed my Karrasch family are from) and around the Lower Silesian and Opole Voivodships. 

Karrasch surname distribution, 1890

Even by 1996, there are very few families living in the area of Pirmasens (one yellow dot on the French border). So Rainer's theory that perhaps the Walter Karrasch living in Weselberg was related to my Karrasch's and inspired their move the area is tantilising. I have written back to him to learn more about this family and hope to hear back from him soon.

Karrasch surname distribution, 1996

I still have some threads that I can follow for Anna Karrasch. Since she lived in Schauerberg, she likely has a citizen registration card held in VG Thaleischweiler. When I visit, I intend to go in to check for myself. And there must be some trace of her in Flossing bei Polling, although my enquiries haven't uncovered anything so far. Similarly, I hope to eventually find Elizabeth Karrasch's burial records. In all likelihood, her movements mirrored her brother's and her mother's. So she has to be buried somewhere in either Elsenbach, Schauerberg, Thaleischweiler, Pirmasens, Zweibruecken or Flossing bei Polling. For now, all I have of her is her brother's description of her. It is vanishingly little for a person who once had hopes and dreams, relationships and experiences. 

"She was the best sister anyone could have and I was very close to her. She was a good Christian." Horst Werner Karrach, oral testimony, 1990

Opa's oral testimony also states that Elizabeth was a nurse in a hospital in Oberammergau, where the family supposedly went after expulsion. So far, I have found no evidence that the Karrasch family were even in Oberammergau and it isn't near any of the locations I have evidence of them living. 

Of Margarete, I have less hope. She apparently married young, to a man possibly named Siegfried, and moved away, never to speak to her brother again. Unless I find a registration card for her within VG Thaleischweiler or VG Neumarkt-St. Veit, it seems unlikely I will track her down. She apparently had children, so one day maybe one of them or their children will do a DNA test and appear on my Mum's matches page. But that is a long shot.

It is a real irony of genealogy that I know the least about some of my closest relatives in my tree, my great aunts and great grandmother, whereas for other parts of my tree I can go back seven or eight generations. But therein lies the contradiction of genealogy.

For my next blog, I will be returning to Hermann - because there is a lot more to learn about his life and death than just his concentration camp records. And it is a story I feel obligated to tell.