Joseph Nathan Braunschweig was a pedlar born in Kembs, Alsace 1765. He and his younger brother, Lazare or Phillipe, were the children of Jacques Brauschweig and Leitz Ullman. Their grandparents were Nathan Braunschweig and Sarah Guggenheim, all from Kembs.
Veronika, the daughter of Joseph and Sarah Levy, married Moses Ellenbogen, a trader and religious teacher from Altdorf in Baden on the German side of the Rhine.
Moses and Fanny had seven children, Helene married Isaac Kassewitz, they had four children, two of whom emigrated to the US.
Their youngest child Jakob died in Bruschal just before the war and his wife, Sofie, died in the Gurs concentration camp in France in 1940.
I know little about the other children apart from their second son, Daniel.
In 1855, at the age of 14, Daniel, left home to train in business in Wertheim am Rhine and later in Ems. In 1869 he moved to Bruschal where he was a tailor and shopkeeper and married Babette Hirsch from Ilvesheim.
Daniel and Babette had three children, Sofie, Julius and Max.
Sofie married Michael Guggenheim from Dusseldorf and had two children, Hedwig and Fritz. Hedi married Simon Otto Weissmann and the couple were able to escape Germany in 1939 taking their one year old daughter Ruth with them. Sofie died in 1936, in 1940 Michael was deported from Dusseldorf to Theresienstadt and then to Treblinka where he died around 1942. Fritz was deported from Paderborn to Treblinka in March 1943 and then to Auschwitz where he was murdered later the same year.
Julius Ellenbogen was born on 7 April 1878 in Bruchsal, a small town in Baden Württemberg. Julius attended the local high school from 1887 to 1894. Good in all subjects, his report particularly praised his skills in Greek, maths and gymnastics.
In pursuing a legal career, he studied for seven semesters at Albert Ludwigs Universitat in Freiburg, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich and Ruprecht-Karls-Universität in Heidelberg, completing his studies in 1900 by passing the lower state law exam in April of that year.
As a trainee lawyer, Julius worked for a number of legal firms in Karlsruhe as well as taking up internships in the local court. He passed the higher state law exam in November 1903 and qualified in January 1904.
Julius married Anna Herrman in 1911 and practised as a lawyer for the next few years, interrupted by three years army service from June 1915 to December 1918. He was awarded the Knight’s Cross of the Order of the Zähringer Lion.
In 1923 Julius joined the board of the Jewish High Council for the Baden area, eventually rising to become its chairman, a post he held until the council was dissolved.He was admitted to the Karlsruhe Higher Regional Court in 1929. His right of audience was withdrawn in October 1938 and his name removed from the role of lawyers.
Julius and Anna's names appear on the list of Karlsruhe deportees from October 22 1940.
By this time all Jews had the names Israel and Sara added to their given names.
As part of the Wagner-Bürckel action, along with the vast majority of Jews in Baden and the surrounding area, Julius and Anna were detained on 22 October 1940 and transported to the internment camp at Gurs in the French Pyrenees.
A drawing of Julius (top, middle) in Gurs Interment camp in January 1941.
The artist was Richard Liebermann, a deaf and dumb Jewish painter who was later transfered from Gurs to Noe Camp. Richard, along with his brother and sister, escaped from Noe and made his way to Switzerland.
A few months later, in February 1941, the couple were among 600 inmates transferred to Camp Noe near Toulouse. In August 1943, with the assistance of the church, Julius and Anna were allowed to leave the camp and move to the hospice Romans sur Isere where they remained for the next three years.
Shortly afterwards, the remaining inmates at Gurs were transferred to Auschwitz where most were murdered.
In July 1946, while still in France, Julius was restored to the register of lawyers and he was appointed to be a judge in the high court as there was a shortage of judges ‘untainted by Nazism’.
Shortly after his return to Germany, in February 1947, he was appointed chairman of the commission for the purification of justice, a post he held until his resignation in August 1948.
In December 1951 Julius was awarded the Civil Cross in recognition of his service to Germany.
In December 1951 Julius Ellenbogen was awarded the Civil Cross in recognition of his service to Germany.
In 1946 Julius' records had been misplaced and he was required to evidence his education and experience before taking up his role as High Court judge. Below is his brief autobiorgraphy.
"In this attachment I hand over the completed personnel sheet in duplicate.
The information requested for the calculation of my seniority follows below:
a) At the time when I moved to the university, seven semesters of study were required for admission to the first state law examination. I studied at the University of Freiburg during the winter semester 1896/97 and the summer semester 1897; at the University of Munich during the winter semester 1897/98 and the summer semester 1898; at Heidelberg University during the winter semester 1898/99 and the summer semester 1899 and the winter semester 1899/1900. So the course lasted seven semesters.
b / I passed the first state law exam in the spring of 1900. During my processing period, the duration was extended from 3 years to 3½ years, so that I was not admitted to the second state examination until the autumn of 1903.
c / Professional activity before July 1, 1946.
After passing the second state examination, I was initially employed as an assistant worker and general deputy for Dr. Ludwig Haase worked in Karlsruhe. On January 1, 1904, I settled as a lawyer at the Karlsruhe Regional Court, admitted to the Chamber for commercial law in Pforzhein.
After the end of the judicial vacation in 1929, I was admitted to the Karlsruhe Regional Court as a lawyer at the Karlsruhe Higher Regional Court, and continued until my admission was withdrawn for racial reasons.
From April 1, 1923, I was a member of the Board of Directors of the Israelite High Council in Baden, and was, from July 1938, its chairman. After the dissolution of the Upper Council and its incorporation into the Reich Association of Jews in Germany, I was head of the Baden district office of the Reich Association until my expulsion on October 22, 1940.
As a result of this expulsion, it is not possible for me to attach documents, because at that time I was only allowed to take hand luggage. Only recently have I had the attached certificate of my activity with the Israelite High Council in Baden. I would be very happy if I could get them back because I need them to pursue my claims for compensation."
Anna died in 1957 and Julius in 1961.
Max left school at 16 and became an apprentice in a private bank in Bruschal.
Poor health excused him from military service, but he joined the Landsturm militia while continuing to progress in the bank.
In early 1915 he joined the Darmstädter Bank in Frankfurt am Main, he was responsible for setting up a new branch in Aschaffenburg and was promoted to director of the Giessen branch in 1919. Around 1921 he transferred to the Leipzig branch where he was quickly promoted to assistant director and,on 1 January 1923, to co-director.
Following a number of promotions and moves, in 1921 Max arrived at the Leipzig branch, initially as Head of Administration, then as Deputy Director. Two years later he was appointed Regional Director. He married Amanda Schönwald nee Decker, a Christian who had been accepted into the Jewish faith at the time of her first marriage and appeared to have been disowned by her family as a result.
The Darmstadter Bank failed in 1931 and was amalgamated with the Dresdener Bank and Max became a Joint Regional Director.
Amanda died in February 1935, the same year that the Nuremberg Laws were passed and life for Jews in Germany became increasingly difficult. Max was removed from his post the following year.
Max and Hans-Peter, their only child, had no home from this point on, Hans-Peter spent time in schools in Italy and Berlin and Max moved from city to city. In 1938 Max was arrested and spent a short period in Buchenwald before being released.
Max married for the second time in 1941, Margaretha Kohls was the head of a Jewish boarding school in Leipzig. He later said that the marriage had been to prevent her deportation. Margaretha was sent to Majdenek concentration camp where she was murdered in 1942.
After many months of trying to obtain a visa, Max gained entry to Cuba in 1942 and began lobbying for entry to the US, eventually being given permission to enter in 1945 and becoming a citizen in 1951.
He remained in the US for the rest of his life, with frequent trips back to Germany to visit his brother and occasionally to Britain to see his son.
He married for the third time in 1947, Elly Basch, describedby his son as 'very difficult'. She died shortly before Max in an asylum in Locarno in Italy.
Max died in a sanitarium in Switzerland in August 1962 and, as he had requested to have no marked grave, his ashed were scattered (illegally) on Lake Geneva.
Sofie Ellenbogen's daughter Hedy married Otto Weissman. Their daughter, Ruth, was born in 1939, the year that Hedy and Otto escaped Germany and sailed from Portsmouth to Australia.
The Weissmans purchased and ran the Chateau Napier guesthouse in Leura in the Blue Mountains area of NSW. The guesthouse became a centre for the refugee community in the area. The building was destroyed during bush fires in 1957.
Hans Peter was born on 5 August 1924 in a private clinic at Emilienstrasse 14 in Leipzig.
The Ellenbogen family lived in an appartment on the third and fourth floors of the DaNat Bank Leipzig offices on the Dittrich Ring.
Although both parents were of the Jewish faith, his mother by conversion, Hans-Peter was baptised as an Evangelic Lutheran in March 1931.
After spells in schools in Leipzig, Southern Tyrol and Berlin, Hans-Peter left Germany on the last Kindertransport, arriving in England on 27 July 1939.
On his arrival in England, Hans-Peter was supported by friends of his family and Aunt Edith, his Godmother Edith Mendelssohn Bartholdy, the politician and art dealer.
Peter joined the army in 1943, initially serving in the Pioneer Corps, as did many German Jewish refugees. Later he undertook commando training in Scotland and Wales and joined the Education Corps.