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Project: Experience Reports, according a contribution by Dr. Peter Chr. Clemens for the Deutsche Genealogentag 2003 in Schwerin: Family HENRIQUES-JOSEPHY- An Example of German-Jewish Genealogy -“Horizontal”
research for living relatives is my favourite, much more than “vertical”
research for dead ancestors. Therefore I am much more a family researcher than
an ancestor researcher or Ahnenforscher (the German language authority DUDEN
gives Ahne =ancestor). Of course, I need ancestors as a “bridge“ to further
living relatives, therefore at least a little interest of mine is in ancestor
research. My
great-grandfather Otto KAYSEL, born 1843, honour citizen of Ludwigslust
Mecklenburg, married Ottilie née
JOSEPHY, born 1848. She was born Jewish, but shortly before her wedding she
converted to Lutheran Protestantism, by undergoing baptism. In classical Jewish
understanding, the baptism is no valid act, thus she remained Jewish. Judaism
is transferred from the mother to her children, and thus only this relationship
can establish membership within the Jewish community. To convert to Judaism
without a Jewish mother is (almost) impossible. The relevance of the mother,
not the father, may have its reason in the fundamental uncertainty, whether a
supposed father in fact is the biological father (as you know, he is not in ca.
10%, because of the unfaithfulness of the women). Because according to Jewish
understanding my great-grandmother remained Jewish in spite of her baptism, of
course all her children are Jewish as well. The baptisms of my grandmother and
my mother are not relevant and thus they are Jewish, and also all four sons of
my mother are Jewish, including myself. (My children are not Jewish, because I
have the “wrong“ sex.) According to Protestant understanding, because of my
baptism I am a Protestant. According to HITLER’s race view, I am one eighth
Jew, which is just as absurd as to be one eighth pregnant. I feel that I am
better described as an orthodox - an
orthodox humanist, who enjoys to partly participate in the Christian as well as
in the Jewish community life.
Each
new contact to a descendant of the siblings of my great-grandmother is
psychologically sensitive, because the parents or at least uncles or aunts were
murdered during the Nazi regime, or because they had not succeeded in leaving
Germany in time. Often the living descendants had to promise never to contact a German or Germany again.
Of course I am a German, but at the same time I am a family member, and
according to the Jewish belief system I am a Jew. Much sensitivity and patience
can help. A last aunt, whose parents were murdered by the Nazis and who herself
escaped to England by a Kindertransport, told me this year that she wants to
come to Mecklenburg. When
my Jewish relatives come here for the first time they visit my home and me, I
show them the home sites of their ancestors. However they don’t visit a German
and Germany. I show them our wonderful Mecklenburg, so that they fall in love.
They go home. Two years later I get an email: “I only want to inform you that
we come to Germany again. We will visit Munich and Berlin and of course also
Mecklenburg. We would like to have a cup of coffee with you on Sunday
afternoon.“ This shows that I had succeeded in building a bridge from them to
their ancestor’s homeland and not only to me. This is my special kind of family
research and, I hope,, is a small contribution to the understanding among
different people and nations. Especially for people who indeed have profound
reasons to deny any contact to us Germans and Germany. That is the reason, why
I am especially interested in the Jewish branch of my mother’s family.
Such
a bait is the long ancestor column of my great-great-grandmother Henriette
HINRICHSEN. Five generations of this ancestor column are the result of the
research by my grandfather, 15 by my cousin Joseph BEN BRITH in Israel, the
further 101 generations you find in the Bible.
20
generations backwards of my great-great-grandmother Henriette HINRICHSEN you
find the first Chief Rabbi of Portugal,
Ya' isch IBN YAHYA. He lived from 1110
to 1204. Before becoming a rabbi he was a military commander for a Moslem
leader in Marocco. The relations between Jews and Moslems until ca. 1900, were
always very friendly, in contrast to the relations between Jews and Christians.
This again and again showed problems, because of the missionary labours and intolerance of the Christians. His
descendant line through 24 generations
to me is well documented in church/ synagogue books. His 101 ancestor generations you only find
in the Bible. If you believe church books, you must also believe in the
Bible - this is absolutely logical and can only be denied by persons
without any humour.
In
generation no. 7, we find ENOCH, who, according to the Bible, was the first man
to ascend (the second was ELIJAH, the third JESUS), 3000 B.C.. In generation
no. 8, you find METHUSALEM, whose good genes enable my mother to play tennis
and drive her own car at age of 91 years, and predict the same life expectation
for me. In generation no. 10, we find NOAH,
2500 B.C.. He had three sons:
HAM’s descendants are the Africans, JAPHET’s the In
generation no. 20, we have ABRAHAM
with his wife SARAH, 1700 B.C..
SARAH laughed when the Lord predicted her very late pregnancy. ABRAHAM offered
his son ISAAC as a sacrifice, but
God refused. When ISAAC was dying at 190 years, SARAH tied pieces of hairy goat
skin on the arms of her 2nd son JACOB, thus her blind husband gave the blessing
not to his hairy and non-faithful 1st son ESAU, but to his 2nd son JACOB.
In
contrast it took the Christians another 3000 years to introduce regular basic
education. E.g. in Prussia the parents had to send their children to school only
in 1717. Even then only the boys were sent to school, and these only in the
winter (when there was no farm work). Due to the Jewish 3000-year-tradition of
literal and scientific education, 20% of the NOBEL prize winners are of Jewish
descent, out of only 0.2% of the world population. Many prominent persons
originate from Jewish families: MARX, EINSTEIN, FREUD, LENIN, TROTZKI, Rosa
LUXEMBURG, KISSINGER, CHAGALL, RUBINSTEIN, KAFKA, SPIELBERG, Barbra STREISAND,
Isaac STERN, GARFUNKEL, Stefan ZWEIG (and also HITLER). For
centuries Christians were allowed to obtain credits only from Jews: "From the foreigner (=the Jew) you may take interest, but not
from your brother (=the Christian)." (5.Mose 23: 21). Until
the late 19th century Jews were not allowed to buy or lease land
e.g. as a farmer, nor to go into the guilds of the craftsmen, nor to have a public
appointment. Thus Jews were not allowed to get "normal" occupations.
This
attachment of Jews to occupations of "higher social level" continues
until today, causes jealousy, and is thought to be one reason for the
persistence of antisemitism. In
generation # 33, we find KING DAVID,
1000 B.C., who as a child with his sling defeated GOLIATH and who played
the harp. As important as it is for some Christians to be a descendant of
CHARLEMAGNE, so it is for some Jews to have a line from KING DAVID. From him
there goes a line of descent to MARIA, the mother of JESUS CHRIST, another one to JOSEPH, the “father“ of JESUS. A third
line goes through 68 generations (via the subsequent KINGS OF JUDAH and then
via the Babylonian Exilarchs) to our
first Portuguese Chief Rabbi 1110-1204 and then through 24
generations to me. One
could say JESUS is my far removed cousin, at the risk of some blasphemy. After
having looked at selected persons of the 101 generations from ADAM and EVE to
the first Portuguese Chief Rabbi, now I would like to point out some persons of
the 24 generations from the Chief Rabbi to me.
A portrait
of Michel HINRICHSEN hangs in London at my cousin Klaus HINRICHSEN. Michel was
appointed court banker in 1677 by the Duke of Mecklenburg. Unfortunately it is
not proven that the portrait shows Michel, it is not named and was handed down
over many generations. This family HINRICHSEN is the
oldest Jewish family that continuously lives in Mecklenburg since 1677.
Michel HINRICHSEN’s great-great-granddaughter is Henriette HINRICHSEN, who
married August JOSEPHY, and had 15 children with him, the last of whom was my
great-grandmother. Why
don’t we have older Jewish families in Mecklenburg? All Jews were burned to death in 1492 in Sternberg, 30 km east of
Schwerin, They were accused of having disgraced host icons. In the same year,
all Jews in Mecklenburg were banished or murdered, many burned to death. After that for almost 200 years there were
no Jews continuously living in Mecklenburg. (Mecklenburg historians know, that ca. 1660 two
Jewish men were in Mecklenburg, but
only professionally and without family, and only for a few years - Abraham
HAGEN and Bendix GOLDSCHMIDT.) ===================== Up
to now I told a lot about than “vertical” research for dead ancestors. But, as
I said above, “horizontal” research for living relatives is my favourite. Now I
will tell you ===================== Usually
you know your 1st cousins, with whom you share grandparents. Most of you
already don’t know your 2nd cousins, with whom you share great-grandparents. I
search for these. And after I have
found them, I try to meet them, in their home country or here in Mecklenburg.
Then I go to the great-great-grandparents and search for their descendants, my
3rd cousins. After I have met all of them, I go to the
great-great-great-grandparents and search for my 4th cousins. Etc. Of Michel
HINRICHSEN, who came to Schwerin in 1677, I know ca. 2000 descendants. Only about six live in Schwerin
or in Mecklenburg, most of them in North America, South America and Australia.
If through family research I meet another genealogist, we exchange packages of
data and amalgamate them mutually. This
way, I found a cousin in Israel - Joseph BEN BRITH, born Manfred BUNDHEIM. He descends from a brother of
Michel HINRICHSEN, and he lives in Israel. He is a genealogist too. He searched
for his ancestors through decades of his life. He found the ancestors mentioned
above, dating back to 1100 A.D.. As told above, of Michel HINRICHSEN, who came to Schwerin in 1677, I know
the ancestor Ya'isch IBN YAHYA, 1st
Chief Rabbi of Portugal (born 1110 A.D.), and because this Rabbi was the
grandson of the last Babylonic Exilarch
DAVID BEN ZAKAI (ca. 960 A.D.), with the help of the Bible I also know my descent from KING DAVID 1000 B.C., and
going all the way back to ADAM and EVE 3760 B.C..
But as my
primary concern is horizontal research for alive relatives, quite often I have
relatives from all over the world staying with me at my home, and I show them
around in Mecklenburg. Visiting relatives is extremely easy. I can call
relatives in Toronto "I will have a conference in your city, and as we are
related, can I stay with you five days?" The answer is always yes. This
success is especially remarkable because
they are people, whom I have never met before. I only explain how we are
related, and which 3rd cousin gave me
the tip that in Toronto is another cousin. Especially remarkable was a
conference in Munich. I called my 4th cousin Miguel HINRICHSEN (with the same
occupation as me) beforehand and asked
whether I could stay with him and his family. He said yes, no problem, but
after the first 2 days of your conference my wife and I will be going to
another conference, and we must organize, how we get back the key. Thus I lived alone in their house and could have
stolen everything. We family researchers often have such experiences: being aware of the fact of such a
relationship is enough to create this confidence. And that in spite of the
knowledge that we have had spies and murderers in our families.
As many of
you know in Judaism, to be wealthy or rich is not disreputable or
disadvantageous for good fortune in the heavens; but the wealth must be
acquired absolutely honestly. The risk of being swindled by a Jewish merchant is much lower than to be similarly
hurt by a Christian. Among Jews there are very few poor persons. The reason is
that Jewish communities already had their own social systems a long time ago
e.g. an "Armen- und Witwen-Kasse", i.e. a fund for poor people and
widows. For this every member of the
community had to pay 10% of his income - and everyone was proud, if he had
arrived at a higher tax bracket. =========================== Of
the ca. 2000 descendants I will point to selected descendant lines. ===========================
Portraits of
Sophia and Ruben HINRICHSEN hang in London in Klaus HINRICHSEN’s home and in
Buenos Aires in Jürgen HINRICHSEN’s home. Ruben was a merchant. In Ludwigslust
he acquired the title of “Court appointed Supplier” (Hoflieferant). Daughter
Henriette HINRICHSEN married August JOSEPHY. A relative is Rudolf JOSEPHY,
whose home town was Goldberg near Güstrow, he was a delegate in the parliament
at St. Paul’s church in Frankfurt on Main in 1848.
Otto KAYSEL
became honorary citizen of his home town of Ludwigslust near Schwerin, where a
street is named after him. Because of his prominence, my mother and I are
invited to many official events in Ludwigslust. ============================= We
come to other descendant lines from Michel HINRICHSEN. Via
Michel’s son Ruben, grandson Michel and great-granddaughter Sophie with her
cousin Ruben Samson "Shamshen" HINRICHSEN, we come to
great-great-grandson Adolf HINRICHSEN. Of him, I have a photograph. Adolf
married Sophie née AARON. Of the people with this very beautiful and very
Jewish surname, many have changed into the very usual surnames AHRENS, AHRENDT,
AHRNDT, probably 90% of the people with these names originate from Jewish
families named AARON. Adolf and
Sophie HINRICHSEN’s child Marianne married Albert COHEN. This is a typically
Jewish name, COHEN in Hebrew means "priest". Seven of their eight
children changed their surname to their mother’s maiden name HINRICHSEN.
Hermann COHEN, who changed his name to HINRICHSEN, had a son Otto HINRICHSEN,
born 1911 and called "Doddy". He moved to Brazil where he celebrated
his 90th birthday in 2001.He is very much alive and still very active. I am in
email contact with him. He has many children and grandchildren, all but one of
whom live in Brazil. With several of them,
I also exchhange emails. I have four invitations to Brazil, and one day I will
visit them. Doddy's fifth son, Fernando, with his wife Claudia and his children
moved to Portugal, where the ancestor line originally came from. Doddy,
although not born in Brazil, is an honourary citizen (a) of his city (Recife)
and (b) of the entire state (Pernambuco). This shows, that he is perfectly
integrated, and moreover that he has done excellent work for his city and his
country Brazil. For
characterization of this “compassion” in Christianity and Judaism in contrast
to other large religions, there is an anecdote: A man fell into a Gully. A
Buddhist comes along, looks down, says "I must think about this, what it
means" and passes. A Moslem comes along, looks down: "That is
fate", and passes. Then a Jew and a Christian come along, they see the man
down there, immediately climb down and bring him up. Such
anecdotes always exaggerate, but have a true kernel. Social activity - ecclesiastically "compassion" - is of high value in our society, stamped by
Christian ethics, which are at the same time Jewish ethics. Even for those of
us, who don’t believe in God, but grew
up in this Christian-stamped ethical system. Characteristically this is even
stronger in the Jewish citizens, as shown by the funds for the poor and widows. In view of
this background, for me it is plausible that Doddy HINRICHSEN (unfortunately I
cannot read his autobiography written in Portuguese) became an honorary
citizen. Maybe this happened after he installed a social insurance system for his
employees in his business of cotton merchant,. Many of my commercial Jewish
relatives did similar things. These social securities were important
institutions, also for the non-Jewish
employees, as the state did not yet offer them. ===============================
James’ and
Molly's grandson Antonio DAL BRUN lives in Padua, he is finance manager of a prominent alcoholics
firm. It was extremely difficult to contact him. I only knew that a DAL BRUN
had gone to Padua. In the internet-directory, there were three DAL BRUNs. Two
were never at home. When calling the
third - Antonio - I always had his wife at the phone, I spoke in English and
German. But obviously she did not understand and hung up. Finally I asked my
niece, who is a student in Rome, to
call there for me. Antonio was enthusiastic. The next day I had an email. I am
looking forward to visiting him in Padua. ============================== A
fourth descendant line from Michel HINRICHSEN goes via Ruben to another
grandson, named Samson, who married Jette née ISRAEL. From Samson HINRICHSEN
and Jette the line goes via Rebecca married to Samson MARCUS, who changed his
name to HINRICHSEN - Wolf - Michel ("Emil") - Erich – Rolf - Karin HINRICHSEN married to
Dieter STEINMANN to Nicole who married Heiko MEYER. Many of you know that my
civil occupation is that of pediatrician. Heiko MEYER is a colleague of mine.
He went to Rotenburg on the Wümme/ Lower Saxony, and there he joined another
paediatrician, who many years earlier had worked on his M.D. dissertation under
my supervision. First I had a connection only to this colleague, now also to
Heiko MEYER. This double connection, is that just coincidence or providence? Especially
remarkable ist that we come to Nicole STEINMANN also via the line Michel -
Rebecca - Wolf - Rosalie married to Joseph KEMPNER - Laura married to Michel
("Emil") HINRICHSEN - Erich - Rolf – Karin married to STEINMANN -
Nicole married to Heiko MEYER. This shows, that here we had intermarriages. And moreover a third and fourth line
goes to Nicole STEIMANN: via Michel
- Hanna - Sophie with Wolf HINRICHSEN we come to the lines mentioned above. We
see, that there were several intermarrieages, thus so-called "ancestor
loss". Heiko therefore is my cousin through four lines. ================================ A
fifth descendant line from Michel HINRICHSEN goes via Ruben to Michel - Ruben.
This sequence shows all male court agents from the 1st to the 4th generation.
The 3rd and 4th lived in the house, that today is the city museum of Schwerin.
From the last Ruben, the line goes via
Adolph HINRICHSEN (corset manufacturer in Hamburg) - Robert HINRICHSEN
(took over the corset factory from his
father) to Henri HINRICHSEN, proprietor of the music publishing house
"Edition C.F. PETERS".
"C.F. PETERS" is very well-known still today. A street in Leipzig is
named after Henri HINRICHSEN. Henri was a city counsellor, Dr.phil. h.c.. His
honorary Dr. title he got from the university for his many social activities,
which he financed from the income of his music publishing house. He enabled
many young women whose parents were not wealthy enough to study music. This
again shows that in a Christian country women’s education was predominantly a
Jewish concern, for non-Jewish as well as for Jewish women. This family branch
suffered severely, as did many others, from the terror of the HITLER time: Both
parents and two of the six children and a child-in-law were murdered in the
Holocaust. Henri's granddaughter Irene, music scientist and journalist,
published a book with the entire story of the music publishing house C.F.
PETERS, ISBN 0-9536112-0-5. Irene is a very charming woman, very often visits
Germany and whom I met here and in London. =============================== While
building bridges to living relatives via my family research I met lovely
cousins, who live in profoundly different sociocultural contexts. This is
typical for relatives, who are more
distant than 2nd cousins, thus where the common ancestors are more distant than
common great-grandparents. Without family relationships, in our society it
usually is only possible to come into
close contact with people, who live in the same social setting as we
ourselves. To others there is a "distance hurdle". But the abstract
knowledge about the kinship - even if you are only 10th cousins - is
sufficient, to come close to each other. You don’t need to go through 3 hours
to 3 weeks of smalltalk. At once you speak about very personal and different
life circumstances. Without the bridge of kinship, you stay in the situation of
a tourist, you only learn dead cultural monuments, but you don’t really
penetrate into the depths of the emotional problems of the people of the other
country. Also you can ask a relative, already after 17 minutes, "What
crazy person are you, that you already have the fourth spouse?" You could
never put this question to a non-relative within the first three weeks. Such
visits of relatives here or of me in their homelands are my favorite kind of
vacation. I satisfy my curiosity for other persons and for other ways of life. ==========================
========================= As you can see, our family HENRIQUES/ HINRICHSEN
is continuing to grow. Peter Chr. CLEMENS, M.D. ~Ph.D., Am Tannenhof 52,
D-19061 Schwerin-Schlossgarten, Tel +49-(0)385-565670 (or -5202660), fax
-5558979 (or -5202676), dr.clemenspc@p4all.de |
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