Taking stock of our Paechter census

Taking stock of our Paechter census

• Nov 30, 2023
• 0 Comment

Update on 02/18/2024: The census of descendants of four of the five children of Julius and Rahel Paechter is now complete. An accounting of the descendants of Rosa Kleemann will be undertaken later. The article below was written 11/30/2023...

Now that we have fully explored two of the five Paechter branches in recent posts, this is a good time to take an overview look to see what further explorations lie ahead. 

We have most recently covered the Isaak Paechter branch, including his two children, Kurt Julius and Rosa, who were Holocaust victims, and six grandchildren who got out of Germany for England and South Africa. The story of the Paechter children in England and their relationship to noted musicologist Annaliese Landau exemplifies the uplifting spirit that fills these family narratives.

The two daughters of the Salomon Paechter branch also got out of Germany, one to England and one with a married daughter to Brazil. A son from that branch, Ernst Simonson, already a prominent research scientist in Germany, went on to a distinguished career in the United States. A third son and any possible continuing family line in Brazil are loose ends that need to be tied up. Also Ernst's son Walter deserves a post about his career and family.

We've looked at one line from the Meyer Paechter branch, his son Emil Fritz Paechter and grandson Heinz Maximillian Paechter, later Henry Pachter. But Emil had four brothers and Heinz had a sister, so we need to come back and run down those histories. Also, we have mentioned Henry Pachter's daughter Renee but not yet covered her interesting history, so that remains on the agenda. 

Those are the three male Paechter lines. The female lines are our own Wohlgemuth family and the Rosa Paechter Kleeman branch. We have not written about the Kleeman family recently but in the past learned the history of a cousin Peter Nash, who was born in Berlin, got away with his parents to Shanghai and eventually settled in Australia. His grandmother Alice Kleeman, daughter of Rosa, was one of 10 Kleeman children, so there are a multitude of stories in that branch that are yet to be revealed. I don't propose to undertake that work right away but will set it aside as a future project. 

The Friedericke Paechter Wohlgemuth branch includes only our own immediate family descended from Elly Ringel Wohlgemuth and Helga Ringel Ruby as well as Leopold Meyer Wohlgemuth, the son of Julius, who escaped Germany for Brazil. I don't think Leopold left any heirs in Brazil but that bears further examination.

All together, I count 30 third-generation Paechters coming from the five lines. Among them and their immediate family are numerous individuals who were prominent in science, politics and the arts. While their individual achievements have been noted elsewhere, our Paechter survey is the first project to understand these interesting people and their life stories in a family context.