| Notes |
- RESEARCH_NOTES:
1. Website of Peter Bruce Herzenberg of London, England (since relocated to South Africa). Website is no longer functioning as of 7 Aug 2007. Copies of much of his data from the website in my possession. He indicates references by codes, which pertain to the original source and file held in his database, which I have not seen. I have no key to the sources except HL is Leonardo Herzenberg, HG is Gail Herzenberg, PC is probably Piltene Cemetery records, LA is probably Latvian Archives, FA is probably Aleksandrs Feigmanis (Latvian researcher hired by Harold Hodes), and YL is Len Yodaiken (Israeli researcher hired by Harold Hodes); however, he lists the main researchers and their contributions in a lengthy report which I include in full in the notes of the earliest Herzenberg of this database. In regards to this individual:
HL 106/107 shows b. in Goldingen, d. in Goldingen, md. to 1. Bernitz, 2. Solmanssohn.
2. Courland (Kurzeme in Latvian, Kurland in German) is the historically distinct area of modern day Latvia bounded by the Baltic Sea to the west, Lithuania to the south, and the Dvina River (now Daugava) to the North. Its historic capital was Mitau (now Jelgava). It had ice-free Baltic ports with commercial and strategic importance. At its height Courland was a prosperous and cultured German-speaking Duchy. Courland was a separate Gubernia (Province) of the Russian Empire from 1797-1918. 50-60% of the Jews living in Riga just north of Courland had family roots in Courland. The names of the various towns have changed now that the area is part of Latvia (new-old as of early 1900s):
Aizpute-Hasenpoth
Jelgava-Mitau
Kuldiga-Goldingen
Liepaja-Libau
Piltene-Pilten
Talsi-Talsen
Ventspils-Windau
3. Len Yodaiken notes children of Ernestine and Michael Bernitz as Julius Bernitz (md. Polly suzman), Hermann Bernitz, and Frieda Bernitz in his "The Herzenbergs of Piltene and Liepeja Latvia," 1 Jan 2000, copy in my possession - KP.
BIOGRAPHY:
1. 28 Jul 2007 Http://www.herzenberg.net/leo/htmlrh/Content.html copyrighted by Leo Herzenberg:
"An meinen Sohn (To my son) Leonhard Herzenberg von (from) Robert Herzenberg. Memoirs written during the 1940's." Translated during the 1990's by Leonardo (Leonhard) Herzenberg. The entire memoir is quite lengthy and included in its entirety in my notes with Joseph Herzenberg, the original known ancestor, in this database. The following is only the portion dealing with this part of the family:
"The Generation of My Parents
[78] My grandparents Naftali and Nese had four sons and six daughters: Leonhard, Joseph, Ignatz, Leopold, Sarah, Ernestine, Sophie, Fanny, Dora, and Lina...
Of the aunts I know even less, except for Fanny, of whom I write later...
Aunt ERNESTINE's first husband was Michael Bernitz, who was a widower with many Children. From this marriage came my cousins Julius, Hermann (Hemske), and Frieda. Uncle Bernitz, also a brewer, died young. Aunt Ernestine stayed with the younger children at Grandmother's in Goldingen, cousin Julius came to my father and was raised with me. He was a little [85] older than I, attended Blumenau's cheder, and then in 1895, when my father and uncle Joseph founded the firm Gebruder Herzenberg, he became an apprentice in the business. He stayed there a few more years after the death of my father with my brother George. He lived in our home, sharing my room until I left home in 1902. Soon after that my brother George drove him out of the business [herausgeekelt]. He had a small factory [industrie] making coconut mats [kokoslaufern] in Libau, which the Soviets left him in 1940 [die ihm die Soviets in 1940 belassen haben]. He had two children in his marriage, Mischa and Nancy. Mischa supposedly plays cello, of Nancy I know nothing. When cousin Hermann became older, he also came to Libau as an apprentice at Gebr. Herzenberg, and uncle Joseph took him into his house. Times there were not good for him. But he was so cheerful and imperturbable that he tolerated it very well. He emigrated to South Africa still before the first world war, [86] where he became fat and wealthy. His sister Frieda also followed him there, where, as far as I know, she is married and happy. Aunt Ernestine, in a second marriage, married a widower, Salmanssohn, with whom she had a son, whom I hardly knew. He worked in my father's business, and he was also driven out by my brother George after father died. I don't know what became of him."
2. PDF entitiled "My Ancestors and my Descendents -- The Bernitz Family. Latvia to South Africa, by Charles Bernitz, February 2010, fully posted 5 July 2020 to the Family Search sources for Micahel Behr Bernitz and Ernestine Herzenberg. The following are excerpts concerning Michael Bernitz and Ernestine Herzenberg and Ernestine's second husband. For photos see the same PDF in Family Search:
"Michel Behr Bernitz
Michel, also known as Mikhail and Michael (my great-grandfather) was married twice, and had children in both marriages.
Michel‟s birth date is not known, but can be calculated as being between 1830 and 1840. He grew up in the Jewish community in Hasenpoth (now called Aizpute). We know that the children from his 2nd marriage to Ernestina were born in Gros-Dahmen (Russian: Gruz-Dimena), in the Hasenpoth district; we can therefore assume that he settled there around 1884. It is located 5 km from the current civil parish of Gramzda. This was a small place without authorities with whom to register births. Michel only obtained a certificate regarding their birth registration from the Rabbi of the Skude district (which is across the border in Lithuania) many years after they were born. He was known to be a brewer, and the certificate mentioned above refers to him as the Hasenpoth petit bourgeois Michel Behr, an indication that he had been admitted to the merchant class. Gros-Dahmen was a large country estate, belonging to a Baron Nicholas Schroder. It did not have (and still does not have any large town). Michael had two marriages, with children from each marriage.
First marriage to Lea Friedman.
Michel married Lea Friedman in 1862, when she was 21 years old. He was either of a similar age, or up to 10 years older. They lived in Hasenpoth, and had 2 boys and 2 girls – Isidor (birth date unknown), Nochum (1870), Rahle (1874) and Pere (1875). Both daughters married in Latvia. No further records have been found for Nochum – he probably left Latvia. As we have not yet located any birth documents for Isidor, there is a possibility that Nochum and Isidor are the same person. Lea died on the 24th May, 1875, the year that Pere was born. I suspect that she died in childbirth.
Second marriage to Ernestina Herzenberg
I have been puzzled by a number of issues relating to Michel Behr‟s history.
1. The lack of birth documents for himself, as well as for the second son from his first marriage.
2. The fact that he chose not to register the births of any of the children of his second marriage for many years (I believe that the birth certificate that was eventually issued by the Rabbi in Skude was only issued after Michael had died, probably at the request of his then widow Ernestina).
3. The fact that he moved from Hasenpoth, where he had been an established merchant (brewer), to Gruz-Dimene after his second marriage to Ernestina.
4. The stories, retold independently by both Ernie (as heard from Herman), and by Joanna (as heard from Isidor), that Michel and Ernestina socialized with the nobility, or that he was possibly even ennobled himself, with the title of Baron. Though intriguing, this is extremely unlikely. But was there any basis for the stories?
The fact that neither the birth of his second son, nor subsequent children‟s births were registered was not in itself unusual. Records may simply be lost or destroyed. As described elsewhere, conscription laws for Jewish boys were draconian, and parents took many risks and used many ploys to protect their sons from this. Failing to register a birth was one device; it exposed the father to financial punishment, but possibly protected his son. Moving away from Hasenpoth with a new bride certainly provided an opportunity to hide his new sons from birth and conscription registers. Whether this was the reason that Michel Behr moved is not established, but I think that it may have been. The move to Gros-Dahmen is itself of interest. Situated in Courland, close to the current Lithuanian border, it was a large country estate belonging to a Baron Nicholas Schroder. It is known that on the estate he farmed sheep, pigs, carp, and honey. There was a large mill, and also a very large house. There are early descriptions of large buildings that provided housing for hundreds of servants and farm staff. The estate itself was one of many similar ones. There are descriptions of large parties held by the landowners, horse riding and hunting and other entertainments.
The Herzenberg's may well have facilitated the move to this estate. Robert Herzenberg had recorded that “Our family was distributed throughout the Pilten area in the estates of the barons such as Baer, Ropp, Osten-Laken, Vietiunhof, etc. They were dairy and wood retailers, but predominantly, distillers.†He recalls further that “. . . there was a converted (from Judaism) "frauâ€, the cousin of my mother, Rosa Herzberg, the daughter of great-aunt Balkan Herzberg (born Herzenberg) who had married the Baron Lowenstein of Kokenhusen. I knew this baroness personally.â€
Schroder was a Christian German landowner. Ever since the crusades, many Germans had lived in the Baltic provinces of the Russia Empire. RÄ«ga was practically a German city. They were not the majority but they were the rulers.
The German nobility as well as German members of the Great Guild (merchants) and the Small Guild (organized craftsmen) were responsible for promulgating the laws and rules in the cities and provinces. The Baltic Germans, especially the nobility, also frequently held high positions in the Tsar‟s government. This is not surprising, as almost all of the Tsars of the Russian Empire during the 19th century were ethnic Germans. Nicholas Schroder had acquired the estate in 1878, and the family continued to own it until the Russian occupation in 1940. This estate as well as the surrounding estates, together with their employees, required the supply of numerous goods and services. These were provided by traders and artisans living on small settlements on land belonging to the estate.
Gramzda, where Michel Behr had his business, and where Herman and Frida were born.
Gros-Dahmen, as it was, no longer exists, and cannot be found on a modern map of Latvia. With the aid of Rita Bogdanova and Elena Spungina we were able to narrow the search to a small town with the modern Latvian name of Gramzda. I visited this, found the local municipal offices, and through the translation skills of Elena, I received confirmation from the “mayor†of the town that the site of the estate still existed.
With his kind assistance I was able to meet the current owner, Irena (no surname given) and her family who have been living there since 1953. They now occupy a very much smaller house that was built above the previous cellars of the estate, and which they built themselves over many decades. They have also restored the fish ponds. She was visited in 2000 by a descendent of Nicholas Schroder, a man at that point 99 years old. As a boy he had lived on the estate and she told us how he vividly described life on the estate. The house was very large. It was built at the water‟s edge, and was surrounded by water. There was a large carp pool, servant‟s buildings, and a timber workshop. The beautiful garden was huge, and had many gardeners. Irena remembers that when she was still a child that the gardens were still beautiful.
The remains of the tree lined carriage drive to the estate, over 1 km long.
The house and all of the buildings were burned down in 1905.They were rebuilt, but then destroyed by the Russians, who then erected a small number of military hangers, still to be seen. Very few people lived in the area during communist times, nor live there now. The countryside still consists of forests and open fields. Around the estate the remnants of the gardens and ponds can clearly be seen, with beautiful winding drives lined with 200 year old trees.
With this information available, I believe that there is now a plausible explanation for the previously mentioned puzzling issues. Michel Behr never did register the birth of his son Isador, in order to protect him from conscription. After Lea Friedman, his first wife died (1875), Michel remarried. He used the opportunity to leave Hasenpoth with the children from his first marriage. With his new wife Ernestina, he settled on the estate of Baron Schroder, around 1880/81 (probably soon after Baron Schroder himself arrived in 1878). He was able to establish a business based upon brewing. Typically in those times, licenses were granted to Jewish merchants to own a tavern and brew beer. They were heavily taxed for this privilege, whilst at the same time providing a useful service to the workers in the area. Michel and Ernestina had 3 children - Julius, Herman and Frida.
They were far from any Jewish community. The closest was at Skude, now called Skuodas (and in Lithuania). It was about a day‟s journey away. They would have had to travel about 10 kilometres. by carriage, to join up with the railway line from Libau. Skude had a sizable Jewish community, and was under the auspices of the district Rabbi of Telz. Telz, now also in Lithuania, was a major centre for Jewish study, with a number of famous yeshivas. They would not have had much opportunity to attend the synagogue, but at the same time would have been “conveniently unable†to register the births of their children. Michel died around 1889 while his children were still young (Julius 8, Herman 4 and Frida 1). Unable to continue running the business, they had to leave Gros-Dahmen, and Ernestina went back to Goldingen with her children. It was during this same time frame that Isidor had either already left or did leave for South Africa. Like so many of his compatriots, economic opportunity as well as the avoidance of conscription would have been the motivating factors. I have been unable to trace the burial place of Michel. His body would have been transported to an approved Jewish cemetery, probably some distance away.
I believe that the birth certificate issued by the Rabbi at Skude was only done after Michel died and probably given to Ernestina.
The children would have observed a great deal about life on the noble estates. Their father as a merchant may well have had close contacts with the Baron. Many of the Barons had good relations with the Jews. They possibly had
contact with their great aunt Rosa Herzberg who had married the Baron Lowenstein of Kokenhusen. These childhood memories, retold many times, could have been the basis for the stories of the grand life they had remembered. In any event, it all ended when Michel died. As the lives of Ernestina and Herman are well documented after that time, there was certainly no evidence of further grandeur or titles...
Ernestina Herzenberg
Ernestina was the sixth child of Naphtali (Naftali) Herzenberg and Agnes (Nese) Brenner. Naftali and Nese had four sons and six daughters: Leonhard, Joseph, Ignatz, Leopold, Sarah, Ernestine, Sophie, Fanny, Dora, and Lina. The Herzenbergs were a large family in Kurland. Their history has been well documented by the Herzenberg descendents (www.hertzenberg.net). RobertHerzenberg, of the same generation as Herman Bernitz and his brothers and step-brothers wrote his reminiscences in the 1940‟s. These were translated into English by his son Leonardo in the 1990‟s. They provide much information about Ernestina and the Bernitz family. They further provide a fascinating view of the lifestyle of our ancestors‟ generations in Kurland Ernestina‟s birth date is unknown. Her eldest brother Leonhard was born in 1856. As she gave birth to Julius in November 1881, she must have been fairly young when she was married (say 21). Therefore she probably married Michel around 1880/81, and was born in approx 1859/60. She was certainly much younger than Michael, possibly by 20-30 years.
Left. Ernestina, holding a grandchild. Louis, Elias, Johana and Sofia Salmonsohn were her stepchildren. Right: Joe‟s nephew Zalman, with his mother. Photos from Bertha Aberman.
Ernestina gave birth to 3 children with Michel - Julius, Herman and Frieda. She was also stepmother to Michel‟s 4 children by his first marriage to Lea Friedman – sons Isidore and Nochum and daughters Rahle and Pere. She was mother to a further child (Josef Salmonsohn) as well as 3 step-children in her second marriage. After Michel Behr Bernitz had died, Ernestina remarried. Her second husband was Shlomo Salmonsohn (Salmonsohn), a widower.
The following account is from the Reminiscences of Robert Herzenberg
“Aunt Ernestine‟s first husband was Michael Bernitz, who was a widower with many children. From this marriage came my cousins Julius, Herman (Hemske), and Frieda. Uncle Bernitz, also a brewer, died young. Aunt Ernestine stayed with the younger children at Grandmother's in Goldingen, cousin Julius came to my father and was raised with me. He was a little older than I, attended Blumenau's cheder, and then in 1895, when my father and uncle Joseph founded the firm Gebruder Herzenberg, he became an apprentice in the business. He stayed there a few more years after the death of my father with my brother George. He lived in our home, sharing my room until I left home in 1902. Soon after that my brother George drove him out of the business. He had a small factory making coconut mats in Libau. He had two children in his marriage, Mischa and Nancy. Mischa supposedly plays cello, of Nancy I know nothing.
When cousin Herman became older, he also came to Libau as an apprentice at Gebr. Herzenberg and uncle Joseph took him into his house. Times there were not good for him. But he was so cheerful and imperturbable that he tolerated it very well. He immigrated to South Africa still before the first world war, where he became fat and wealthy. His sister Frieda also followed him there, where, as far as I know, she is married and happy. Aunt Ernestine, in a second marriage, married a widower, Salmonsohn, with whom she had a son, whom I hardly knew. He worked in my father's business, and he was also driven out by my brother George after father died. I don't know what became of him.â€
The grave of my great-great-grandmother, Nese Herzenberg, born Brenner. She is buried in a plot in Libau Jewish cemetery next to her father Naftali Brenner.
Ernestina’s second marriage to Shlomo Salmonsohn
When Ernestina married Shlomo (his first wife had died), she also became stepmother to his children from his first marriage, a son and a daughter.
In all, Shlomo had 6 children, sons Louis and Elias, daughter Johanna, Sofia and Mara by his first marriage, and Joe with Ernestina in his second marriage. We know that Elias and Louis both immigrated to South Africa, whilst Mara
remained in Goldingen in Latvia. There is no evidence that she ever married, and she did not have children. Her handwriting and letters indicate that she was not well educated; perhaps she has some learning difficulties. She probably died during the Holocaust.
Photograph of Mara, with handwritten inscription on back: Dear brother. I am sending you my picture. Hope you will appreciate it. Write how you find it - does it do me justice? I am well and hope you are the same. many regards from your sister Mara
The Salmonsohn Family.
Records show that there have been Salmonsohn's in Goldingen since the late 1700s at least. The first recorded Salmonsohn was Abraham. His birth date can be calculated as 1770-1780. He had at least 3 sons– Solomon, Joel, and Levin. Joe‟s lineage was through Solomon. The chart below shows that there were a number of descendents in each subsequent generation, and further research is needed to link the other descendents of Abraham.
This picture dates from 1919. It appears to be taken at the Seder table. The lady standing at the back is servant (most likely non-Jewish). Who are the others in the photo? The lady in the centre bears a resemblance to the photograph of a younger Ernestina (strong chin). She was 60 in 1919. The lady first left is strongly like the one who appears with Zalman on page 31. Therefore possibly his mother, and the wife of either Louis or Elias Salmonsohn (sitting far right). The man next to Ernestina is possibly Zalman – compare also to picture page 32."
BIRTH:
1. Date and place are unsubstantiated guesses only by Kenny Petersen.
MARRIAGE:
1. JewishGen website for family trees has an entry for Herman (Zvi) Bernitz b. 1886 in Libau and d. 11 Jan 1948 at Witbank, South Africa. Parents are listed as Mikhael Bernitz and Ernestina Hertzenberg. This would establish a marriage of before 1886.
SOURCES_MISC:
1. Leonardo Herzenberg http://www.herzenberg.net/
|
Chris & Julie Petersen's Genealogy
Abt 1860 - 