Meyer's children all went to Berlin—one converted to the Evangelical church

Meyer's children all went to Berlin—one converted to the Evangelical church

• Feb 06, 2024
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I wrote in the last post that there were six children of Meyer and Emilie Paechter in addition to Emil. Looking at the data again now, I think two of them are speculative, both added by Renee Cafiero. She is a close relation and has contributed inside family information, but her Ancestry research, like anyone's, requires vetting. 

I don't see enough evidence to endorse her listing of Anna Paechter (b. 1872) and Bertha Paechter (b. 1882) as children of Meyer and Emilie. The dates are plausible but I don't see the evidence. Also, she has the Ruth Paechter mentioned below as immigrating to the U.S., and I also don't endorse that. 

There is plenty of evidence for the four sons, or five including Emil. They are Julius (b. 1869), Heinrich (b. 1870), Emil (b. 1871), Karl (b. 1875) and Georg (b. 1876). Mostly we see them in address and phone directories. Pretty much any Berlin directory from the mid-1910s to the late 1930s will have listings for multiple Paechter brothers and their widows.

We also have death records for three of them who died of natural causes in the 1920s and 30s. One of them, Karl, along with his wife Else, were deported to Teresienstadt and murdered at Treblinka. Emil, as we've seen, managed to get out to New York and he died in London in 1951.

• The eldest Julius was a district court lawyer in Berlin (Landgericht Rechtsanwald), one of several doctors of law in the family. When he married Elise Juliane Christine Draeger in 1908, it was outside the faith and he himself was listed as of the Evangelical religion in the marriage record. There is no record of any children but that doesnt mean there were not any. Julius died at the Victoria-August Hospital in Charlottenburg in May 1931.

• There is very little on Heinrich Paechter except his 1930 death certificate. He died in the Berlin Jewish Hospital a year earlier at age 59 in June 1930. He lived in Charlottenburg and was listed as "without profession." There is no record of a wife or children.

• Karl was a merchant who married Else Lea Rosenbaum in Berlin in 1904. There is also no record of children from this marriage even though they lived together in Berlin for almost 40 years, until the final days for Jews in Germany, as noted above.

• Georg married Martha Callman from Baerwalde in Pomerania in Berlin in 1902. They are both listed as Jewish in the marriage record. They had a daughter Ruth in 1905 of whom there is no more information. A son born in 1908 died as an infant. Georg was a merchant who traveled to New York on business in 1912. He died in 1921 at age 44. Martha worked in the hat business after his death. She is in multiple directory listings until 1938, after which there is no information about her. 

The only one who left a continuing family line that we know of is Emil. His two children were Heinz Maximillian (Henry Pachter), whose daugthter was Renee Cafiero, and Hilde Irma Paechter, whom we have not previously discussed in depth. She'll be the subject of the next post.