SIMONSOHN Family – A New and Extensive Set of Cousins

After finding the JACOBSOHN family tree in Berlin in late October 2011, I tried to trace the various new lines of the family — without much success.  One family of interest was the SIMONSOHNs from Guttstadt in East Prussia.  It they existed, they would be the descendants of my great great great aunt Flora JACOBSOHN (b.1821) and her husband Caspar SIMONSOHN (b.ca.1817).

In November 2011, the first clues came from the Yad vaShem online databases.   There was an Emma MARCUS geb. SIMONSOHN, born in Guttstadt in 1861, who was deported from Berlin to Theresienstadt on 14 September 1942, and died there less than 4 weeks later on 9 October 1942.   A grandchild of hers submitted a Page of Testimony to Yad vaShem in her memory.  The name of the submitter was transcribed as “Lola Wang” of Adelaide, Australia.

Based on the address, I sent an e-mail inquiry to 2 synagogues in Adelhaide and received a response the next morning from the “Honorary Archivist” of the Adelaide Hebrew Congregation: the illegible name was actually Warner DUBIN.  I also received links to photographs of the gravestones of Warner and his wife Riva, a link to Australian National Archive catalogue entries for Warner DUBIN, born as Werner DEMBINSKY, and the name of his daughter in Victoria (AU).

I quickly found a person with the right name on Facebook and sent her a note.  It took until the end of January 2012 to receive a reply.  I had found the right person, but she did not know if her great grandmother Emma was a daughter of Caspar SIMONSOHN.   She had forwarded my question to her cousin Gary, the family historian.  Another two months later, Gary also noted that he did not know who Emma’s parents were.

Since the information from Australia was inconclusive, I went back to the internet to look for other possible candidates for cousinhood.  There was enough of Wilma Aden-Grossmann’s 2007 book “Berthold Simonsohn. Biographie eines jüdischen Sozialpädagogen und Juristen (1912–1978)” available through Google Books to learn that Berthold’s father Alfred SIMONSOHN was also born in Guttstadt, in 1858. The author acknowledged a memoir by Berthold’s brother Karl which she had received from Karl’s son Alfred SØRENSEN.

At the end of March 2012, I wrote to the author.   When something brought me back to the SIMONSOHN search in mid July and I remembered not hearing back from the author, I e-mailed her again.  But, then a few minutes later, I decided to see if the Alfred SØRENSEN whose e-mail address I had found was the right one.

That was the crucial step.  The next day Alfred replied and did turn out to be the son of Karl.  And even though his father had not left any additional information about the family history, he had a copy of a SIMONSOHN family tree prepared by this uncle Berthold.  But, he was going off on vacation.

Fortunately, when he came back from vacation, Alfred remembered my inquiry and sent me a most wonderful 50th-birthday-present, just one week early.   His uncle Berthold’s SIMONSOHN Stammbaum answered my questions — Emma and Alfred were siblings and they were children of Caspar SIMONSOHN and my great great great aunt Flora geb. JACOBSOHN of Guttstadt — and provided a very complete update on their descendants and the rest of the extended SIMONSOHN family.

I already knew that Caspar’s brother Joachim SIMONSOHN had married Flora’s sister Henriette JACOBSOHN.  Now, I had information on the descendants of Joachim and Henriette as well.  And, confirmation that my great great grandfather Victor Moses JACOBSOHN’s second wife Ida was their daughter and his niece.  (Victor Moses and Ida were the parents of Curt JACOBSOHN who seems to have been the donor of the JACOBSOHN Stammbaum to what is now the archive of the Centrum Judaicum in Berlin.)

My aunt Eva knew her grandmother Ida RAPHAELSOHN geb. JACOBSOHN and also her step-great grandmother Ida JACOBSOHN geb. SIMONSOHN.  I think I remember correctly that Eva considered her step-great grandmother Ida to be nicer or friendlier than her grandmother Ida.

Alfred’s and Emma’s family lines are pretty much up to date.  Now, there
are many other new lines of cousins to try to trace.  So far, I have only
made slight progress on one — the ALTERTHUM family; 5 sons who all
seem to have made it to Palestine, some or all of whom changed their name
to ATAR.

After another great expansion of the previously unknown JACOBSOHN side of the family, there is plenty more to follow-up on.