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Julius Braunhart was captured in 1941 and taken to Theresienstadt, which was a concentration camp and ghetto established by the SS in the town of Terezín, located in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia.
His death date is recorded as March 23, 1943. He was 58.
His daughter Lilly, son Lothar, and ex-wife Dorka had escaped to Shanghai around 1940. This approximate date is calculated based on a letter from Lilly, where she referred to "10 long years in Shanghai", and the fact that she arrived in New York as "stateless" on September 5,1950. Lothar and Dorka arrived in New York on January 31, 1951, also designated as "stateless". It is unknown why the three of them stayed in Shanghai for a few years after the war ended. In any case, they ended up finally locating in San Francisco, where all three of them lived out their lives.
For an unknown reason Lilly had contacted the authorities in Terezin, and received Julius' cremation certificate, displayed above.
Here is the translation:
Date: Sept 29, 1948
From:
Ministry of Social Welfare
Sadova, Czechoslovakia
To:
Lilly Hoorin
c/o American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee
119/121 Wayside Rd.
Shanghai, China
Re: Search for Julius Braunhart
In response to your inquiry from July 23, 1948, regarding the search for Julius Braunhart, we would like to inform you that after a search of records, we found only the following:
Julius Braunhart (no personal data found) was cremated in the Terezin Concentration Camp on March 23-24, 1943 (#14174).
Signed by,
Minister (of Social Welfare)
Julius and Dorka were divorced on February 16, 1927 in Berlin. It is believed that Julius deserted the family, and that likely was a cause of the divorce - pure conjecture. It also explains why he did not join his ex-wife and family in their escape to Shanghai. There rarely is a good reason to desert one's spouse and family, but in this case it was fatal for Julius.
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