Connected Families and Possible Connections

			My great grandfather, Leopold Metzenberg, and his father, Issac Metzenberg, compiled a family tree of descendants of Jacob Metzenberg. In recent years, this family tree has allowed the descendants, many of whom now use the name Samuelson (after Samuel Metzenberg, a son of Jacob), to reunite. I am copying my 5th Cousin, Roderick Young of London, England, on this message. Roderick and I are both descendants of Jacob Metzenberg, who lived in Lissa, Prussia, which is today known as Leszno, Poland. Many descendants of Jacob Metzenberg live in England and the United States. (Or you might say, the tragically few descendants that there are.) I will also forward this message to Gail Samuelson, who lives north of London, and is a 4th cousin. I’m sure she will join me in presuming that Hermann Metzenberg, and hence, Professor Falk, is a long lost relative. She is the organizer of periodic “Metzenberg reunions” in London. I attended one in 2003. I’ve also added Anthony Sameuelson, who is her uncle. If you search for “metzenberg” on Google, most of the links are to my father, my brother, and my sister-in-law. They are all geneticists. My father, who is retired, still does research, and has had a paper published this year. You may also find my name, and that of my grandfather, in association with Dick Blick Art Materials, which is a family business. I started our Internet site at www.dickblick.com. If you search for Samuelson, you may find out about an extended family that has been involved in every aspect of the film industry, both in England and in California. Four Samuelson brothers owned a film equipment rental business, and they were involved in hundreds of films up through the 1990s. Today there are at least a dozen Samuelsons involved in the industry. Roderick Young is a rabbi. I’ll let him tell his own interesting story. There were a number of other branches on Leopold’s tree that might have survived the Holocaust. Lissa is upstream from Berlin in the duchy of Posen, and Jacob Metzenberg appears of have been just passing through. My father believes that Jacob may have come from Szeged, Hungary, but we have no proof of that. Lissa is in Posen, a duchy and province of the old German Empire that ajoins Silesia. Both Silesia and Posen had large Jewish populations, and both became part of Prussia with the three partitions in the 18th century. Leopold Metzenberg carried on a great deal of correspondence during the period of the Third Reich. Only a few of the letters he received survive. One of them that survives appears to have been from an unrelated acquaintance in Danzig, and is an appeal for funds to assist a poor Jewish woman. This letter does not appear to concern a family member. Leopold traveled back to the old country several times, and seems to have known many people there. But after the war, before the end of his life, he destroyed almost all of his letters, leaving only the envelopes and stamps, which is how we know about his correspondence. None of the names on the envelopes are of people we can identify as relatives. I believe that he may have destroyed his correspondence because he felt personally ashamed that he had lost much of his money in the Depression, and could not afford to do more to help people escape from Nazi Germany. But I have no way of knowing whether my theory is correct, and I may be imposing my own feelings onto his legacy. He died several years before I was born. My father does remember at least one family of refugees staying with his family in Chicago in the 1930s, but he remembers very little about them, since he was a child, and I don’t think they were related on his grandfather’s side. One thing I do have is a postcard from Walter Metzenberg, addressed to Leopold. It is a completely ordinary postcard, written in English, and it says just about nothing. I believe they were 2nd cousins, and that Leopold had visited Walter in Germany. Howard PS: I lived in Switzerland for a year as a small child, and I have returned there twice to visit. I have also visited Heidelberg once, in 1984. I have never been in eastern Germany or Poland. At one time, I spoke enough German for a simple conversation, but I have largely forgotten it.

			There is the following reference to Hermann Metzenberg in the web via Google. Item (’Los’) #16 from the catalogue of auction # 122, 11/26/2004, at the ‘Villa Griesebach Auktionen’, Fasanenstrasse 25, 10719 Berlin, shows children playing on the beach (literally: ‘Beachpicture with playing children’): Max Liebermann 1847 – Berlin – 1935 ‘STRANDBILD MIT SPIELENDEN KINDERN’. 1901 Oel auf Leinwand. Doubliert. 59,5 x 73,5 cm (23 3/8 x 28 7/8 in.). Unten rechts signiert und datiert: M Liebermann 1901. Eberle 1901/25.– [3248] Gerahmt Provenienz: Hermann Metzenberg, Berlin / Paul Cassirer, Berlin / Walter Bürhaus / Galerie Carl Nicolai, Berlin / Privatsammlung, Sueddeutschland Ausstellung: Badefreuden. Strandleben und Wasserspass von Liebermann bis Hockney (Sammlung Haag). Neu-Ulm, Städtische Sammlungen, 1999, Kat.-Nr. 1, m. ganzseitiger Farbabb. / 31. Sommerausstellung: Badefreuden. Ploen, Kunstverein Schloß Ploen, 2001, o. Nr., m. ganzs. Farbabb. Literatur und Abbildung: Gustav Pauli: Max Liebermann, Des Meisters Gemaelde in 304 Abbildungen. Stuttgart und Leipzig, Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1911 (= Klassiker der Kunst in Gesamtausgaben, Neunzehnter Band), Abbildung S. 130 oben, S. 252 / Erich Hancke: Max Liebermann. Sein Leben und seine Werke. Berlin, Bruno Cassirer, 1914, S. 405 u. S. 539 (Werkkatalog) EUR 200.000 – 300.000 (sold at 500 000) US $ 248,000 – 372,000 Villa Grisebach Auktionen · Auktion Nr. 122 · Ausgewaehlte Werke +Search+

			Walter Metzenberg’s collection of fine books: Bibliothek Walter Metzenberg : Luxus- und Pressendrucke, die Drucke der Maximilian-Gesellschaft, Bibliographie und Buchwesen / Utopia, Buchhandlung und Antiquariat, Berlin. - Berlin : Utopia, Buchhandlung und Antiquariat, [1931]. - 71 S.; (dt.) (Katalog / Utopia, Buchhandlung und Antiquariat, Berlin ; 57) Nebent.: Katalog der Sammlung Walter Metzenberg Obviously W. Metzenberg’s library was dispersed after an auction (by ‘Utopia’) at this date, perhaps he died before. Here’s one of two of his dramatic ‘ex libris’ (by Alois Kolb) he pasted in his books: http://tle.northwestern.edu/museum/catalog/cgi/full_wrapper.cgi?DB=1&QUERY=1985.2.177&REGION=IDNUMBER& Here’s a book of his collection with the ‘ex libris’ that showed up again, with beautyful japanese family crests: http://www.b-n.nl/php/auction.php?AuctionNumber=321&CategoryNumber=0&GroupNumber=24&Searchterm=metzenberg&submit=