The problem is the distinction of Silesia, Lower Silesia and Upper Silesia. It’s a historico-geographical problem: Silesia belonged  up to the middle of the 18th century (1742) to Austria (Habsburg empire), and was after that date until about 1919/20 entirely a Prussian province (with dukes etc.). After WW I the refounded Poland managed to force Germany and nearby Austria, loosers of  this war, to have a referendum in counties with a notable polish minority or even majority about their identity: if they would rather belong to Poland. After the vote there was an amputation of certain counties at the former border in the coal belt around Kattowitz - they voted for Poland. And its only after that date that the German started speaking of ‘Oberschlesien’ (Upper) and ‘Niederschlesien’ (Lower). I have a encyclopaedia from my father dating 1905 and there even the word ‘Oberschlesien’ does not exist. From the actual Polish point of view it sounds like this: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lower_Silesia>. (The text about upper Silesia is not so informative, at least in the english version, not in the german one.) Oberschlesien, for short often “OS” or “O/S”, became a separated part of Silesia also to remind Germany of the forced loss of the rich southwestern “peak” of old Silesia. That’s why Zabrse, now just at the new boundary, was renamed ‘Hindenburg’ (famous german marshal of WW I) and it was the faked polish invasion in nearby german Gleiwitz which gave Hitler the pretext of starting WW II.  So it’s quite clear that there has never been a “Breslau, Upper Silesia” and after 1921 it has always been in Lower Silesia (and even today again in Poland). The problem gets hot at those places, where Cassirers were clever and busy in the 19th century up to 1918 and suddenly were confronted with the unconfortable idea of becoming Polish citizens thus losing the ‘enlightened’ (more or less protestant founded) protection of the Prussian kings (and German Kaiser). For the now supernationalist/ heavy Catholic Poles the Germanophile jews were fellow-travellers (like in Austrian Galicia - after 1918 ten thousand jews had to flee from there to Vienna and then to Paris, London or the US). So one has to have a close look: Breslau belongs to Lower Silesia only after 1920/21, whereas Kattowitz, Schwientochlowitz or Rybnik are simply Silesia before 1920 and then Polish til 1939 and after 1945, but Gleiwitz, Beuten or ‘Hindenburg’ after 1920/21 are Oberschlesien, Upper Silesia, because people there decided to stay German. [Adalbert Saurma 21 Nov 2005]

			as explained in my letter yesterday, Gleiwitz is in “Upper Silesia” only after 1920 (til 1939). So, at the time Jeanette was born, in 1813, Gleiwitz was a normal prussian town in the ‘whole’ prussian province of Silesia (with 3 “Regierungsbezirke”: Breslau, Liegnitz, Oppeln, and Gleiwitz belonged to Oppeln (Opole today)). [Adalbert Saurma, 22 Nov 2005]

			In the “Regierungsbezirk Oppeln” is also the town of Guttentag (~’guten Tag’  = ‘good day’ = ‘hello’, ‘hi’. This ‘guten Tag’, polish ‘dzien dobry’, reappears in the name of the town today: Dobrozien), where Jeanette Steinitz’s mother, a Guttentager, came from, i.e. a jewish name derived from a place, like Posener.) In this “Regierungsbezirk” were also Ziegenhals (Isidor), Oberglogau (Siegfried’s brewery), and up to 1920 also Kattowitz, Schwientochlowitz, Beuthen, Königshütte, Rybnik etc. [Adalbert Saurma, 22 Nov 2005]

			“Markus Cassirer”: born in “Bujakow”: This is an interesting very little town (in the “Landkreis Rybnik”) because it is situated halfway between Kattowitz and Rybnik (all three went to Poland after 1920). In the citation from the memories of Walter Grünfeld it says that as a boy he and his aunt met in 1920 in Kattowitz a large group of Berliner Cassirers, comming from Rybnik, where they had voted (that means I think: the law then forced people to vote for Germany / for Poland at the place where they / their family originated. Perhaps Bujakow was to small to manage such a vote with people from as far as Berlin). So instead of Rybnik Bujakow might have been also one of the places in the Kattowitz region where the Cassirers from Russian Poland / austrian Poland, i.e. Galicia, or Moravia and Hungary, Bessarabia, whatever, first settled. [Adalbert Saurma writes (22 Nov 2005)]

			Some images of Schweinfurt found on the net