My Family Mystery
Quitzow von Eldenburg Mystery
This is long, novel like long, there are good stories but I’m warning you. I hope it’s worth it.
Basically this is the story of what I know about the Quitzows of Eldenburg Germany and the mystery of the people named Eldenburg. Even if there is no mystery it’s fascinating reading. (to me @ least and maybe now I can get the whole thing down on paper) My maiden name is Eldenburg so it’s also partly my story.
My brother had already left home when I was a toddler so I was virtually an only child. I would play for hours in our attic of the old Missouri farmhouse. It contained much of the family memorabilia from 1881 on, my great grandparents came to America in 1881. It also contained everything else that could be stuffed into it such as an almost complete collection of Life and Look Magazines (having read them comes in handy with Jeopardy or Trivial Pursuit). I read through all the old letters, wished I could read German, found out my great-grandmother Caroline went blind, was a perfectionist housekeeper (ran her white gloved finger over surfaces after she came to live with her daughter-in-law, my grandmother)and didn’t trust anyone from New York City or any other big city that wasn’t German and maybe not them. Come to think of it when they came through Ellis Island they may have had a bad experience. I have the immigration papers, I have a christening record for my grandfather who was born in what is now Poland. (nothing @ all against Polish People, I married a Czech, but my dad nearly hit the roof when he found out his father was born in Poland. It was part of Germany then, it’s all good Daddy).
I never could find anything remotely concerning my great-grandparents life before they immigrated other than a few letters from Germany written in old German or low German? When I would ask why they immigrated the only answer I got was my great Grandmother didn’t want her sons to serve in the German army (or any other army I think) (mandatory conscription of young men for a few years in Germany was the law in the 1880s I believe). Her son Carl defied Mama and joined the Navy over here, sailed all over, married a woman from a big city who had seven children I believe. Talk about teenage rebellion. Supposedly my great-grandparents were very poor and had to eat berries out of the woods when they came to America. Then they bought two farms. I know doesn’t make sense to me either? It did take them a few years to buy the second one but they always seemed to have plenty to get by on. My great-grandfather looked like a sea captain with muttonchop whiskers and a twinkle in his eye. My great grandmother looked like she weighed 98 lb and you wouldn’t want to meet her in a dark alley, teeth or no teeth. The story was my great-grandfather was a chemist or a head of a brewery in Germany and he had discovered a way to make Vodka differently and that is how they got the money to come to America. There were 6 kids and 2 adults, my grandpa was 6 when they came over and the youngest. The family now that is close to me doesn’t like the brewery thing since they are mostly teetotalers. (I’m the black sheep, in fact I may be several black sheep, my brother and I take turns being the black sheep of the family. We didn’t finish college, he says he has negative credits, we eat meat, all kinds, we’ve been known to use tobacco, drive too fast and use alcohol, curse and have lustful thoughts outside of marriage, not all @ the same time. Rest of the family? Not so much, this is why what I’m about to tell you is so shocking)
I’ve always been curious about the family roots and most of the other branches had already been researched, one had over 5000 members on a webpage, I am related to everyone in central MO, I had to go out of state to find husbands both times just to be safe. In the mid 1980s when I was in my 20s I gathered enough information to start writing to several relatives both in the United States and in Germany. We got acquainted or reacquainted as the case may be, I corresponded with two of them in Germany, Walter Longholz or Longholtz and Wilhem Tietze. Wilhem passed away in 2000 I believe and I haven’t written Walter or his family for many years. If they find this I am alive and well and living in TX right now and as lazy as ever. Walter sent me a detailed family tree going back 400 years which is simply beautiful. It’s not for the Eldenburg side though.
I also found retired Lieutenant Colonel Pauline Hacke nee Eldenburg of Washington State. I am doing this all from memory so please pardon any misspellings or inconsistencies. My parents had became acquainted with her grandparents? I believe on a trip to Oregon in the 1950s, they saw a brother or cousins baby picture in the paper and noticed the name Eldenburg. (the article was about a baby named Eldenburg who could do chin ups I believe, after that story I did them too, I have the huge arms to prove it still). We corresponded for a while, you must remember this was before the days of the internet or before the Berlin Wall fell. Things were MUCH different then.
Ms. Hacker mentioned above was a very nice lady and very generous with her Eldenburg information. (of course she was—– she was related to me). She told me about the town of Eldenburg and her grandfather who immigrated to America in the 1800s, I think after the civil war. She said she thought there was a castle in the town or a large manor house but she didn’t know if it was still there after WWII. She sent me an old old map of Germany and it had the town of Eldenburg on it close to where the Elde and Elbe river meet.
This was thrilling in itself, but no one had the means or the time to go to Germany and it would have been almost impossible to find out anything before Germany became one again. Pauline and I wrote back and forth and talked about our families and life. We decided as the relatives before had decided that her grandfather and my great-grandfather had perhaps been brothers and were definitely cousins. There is still some family resemblance, the jaw for one. The name is just not that common.
Self portrait big nose
The interesting part of the story starts with my big nose. I have a big nose I know it. If I can still be ½ way decent looking (translate people don’t normally run and scream when they see me, just small children) with this nose imagine what I would look like with a normal one? I used to hate it but it’s all fine now. I asked Pauline if perhaps we weren’t part Jewish because I look Jewish (or part Native American, Hispanic, or Black take your pick, I got every dark gene in both families and all the ones for big nose too) and someone had told me the burg ending on our name meant we were Jewish (that was a load of you know what but…). I WANTED to be Jewish, it would be so cool, they were Gods chosen people, maybe I could convert? I’m not being facetious I really thought being Jewish was neat, in fact when they had one of the Israeli skirmishes my brother remarked all those people over there looked really familiar. No such luck we weren’t Jewish.
In fact Pauline wrote and almost scoffed @ my notion we were Jewish. This is where it gets interesting. She said her grandfather told about his grandfather who lived in the castle (read big stone house). We (those Eldenburgs or whatever their name was) charged people money to go up the river or past the town or something. (I’m picturing shooting @ people who go by on the highway by our house if they don’t throw some coins my way @ this point). We had been living in the castle or manor, don’t worry this is no claim to fame it gets BAD. Evidently this was NOT a good thing, there was a scandal with something about charging the toll and we had killed @ least one Jew. This was why she was SURE we were not Jewish.
So we are not Jewish. I go on with my life, my kids grow, I get a new husband and step kids, grandkids start coming, life is full. Then it’s 1997, September or October. We get internet. Life wasn’t the same after the computer and it sure wasn’t the same after internet. I look up Eldenburg, cool there’s the castle or house or whatever, it’s really not the same one and it’s a home for dowager baronesses or something. My father is still alive @ this point and I get to show him pictures of it.
After my father passed away I was home one fall afternoon. I think this was 2002, I’d looked up Eldenburg once in awhile for kicks since 97, nothing serious. I looked up Eldenburg and Google had this translation deal going on. I could translate German pages. WHOO HOOO, I don’t know if I slept that night or not. If I did it wasn’t long. I started reading and probably read all I could find for two or three days on the Eldenburgs and eventually the Quitzows because their name kept popping up. I’ve gone back since and haven’t found much more. I did find some cousins named Eldenburg who ran a lamp shade factory, I’ve lost their email address but they were VERY VERY nice people. I believe they told me about Paul Eldenburg, I’m going on memory again here, who had something to do with the railroad and the Nazis and somehow wasn’t really a Nazi? Also they told me about a great-great- …….. grandmother who was French. I’d always heard there was a bit of French in the family. That is one thing that they did tell me.
So I investigate and investigate. I finally tell my husband about it. I copy down my web pages onto paper and have him read them. He looks @ me strangely after he gets through and says, “Who ARE you all?” (he reads ALL of the pages which showed what I had copied was @ least interesting) . I get busy with things like trying to make a living and grandkids and kids. I’ve gone back since then and researched a bit but never for very long.
Here is the mystery and what I found out.
I read somewhere that the castle Eldenburg was built in like 1109 AD. I read today that it was built like 400 years after that. I find no reference to any people named Eldenburg in all references to the town and the manor or castle. I wrote to the people who take care of the new castle or manor and they told me my name wasn’t Eldenburg and if it was I was wrong because there were never any people named Eldenburg, maybe I’d licked the bottom of the moat while cleaning it and was having delusions, OK they really didn’t say the last part but they alluded it. (I’m thinking I don’t want a brick of the precious castle I just want ANSWERS) (there were people named Eldenburg in Germany, just not many and not hardly any before the early 1800s).
So I start reading about those people named Quitzow, then I see them referred to as Quitzow von Eldenburg. THEN I read the story about the Jew Clamp and the Rabbi. My pea brain says WAIT A MINUTE HERE. I’ve heard this story somewhere before. Ah yes Pauline told me the story about her great-great-grandfather or some great in there. BUT his name was Eldenburg because OUR name is Eldenburg. RIGHT? We won’t go into detail here but the changing of names went on after they immigrated, some of us were not called Eldenburg, not Quitzow either, a nice English sounding name. So the name change thing? It wasn’t exactly a foreign idea. Pauline isn’t alive for me to bounce this all off of @ this point.
I am almost horrified now. Yes Quitzows were barons, but they were ROBBER barons, they took Berlin once. They killed a Rabbi, I read on and brother killed brother and if I can find it the dead Quitzows von Eldenburg are supposed to populate a church somewhere near the town of Eldenburg. This is why my husband looked @ me and said who ARE you.
The family members in America are mild mannered, fairly bright, mostly professional people (except for my brother and I 
Not an angry or devious bone in their bodies. I just couldn’t equate robber barons who were fairly ruthless with these people. (this is also why I didn’t write about this before). The oldest member of the family @ this time was my Aunt in Oregon. I presented my theory to her and was prepared to be shot down big time. Either she had gotten soft in her old age or she really thought there was maybe something to what I had found out. She thought about it and thought about it and really couldn’t think of anything pertaining to our ancestors in Germany, She did say it was sort of strange, there was just no talk about it. Since then I’ve found out the family can keep a secret, and once again it’s been done before. I didn’t even know my first cousin was divorced till she was getting married again just because my aunt didn’t tell us. That wasn’t the secret though. We won’t go into the secret but it’s not a big deal to anyone except the family.
What was the reason for the name change if it took place and the immigration to America? The printing press and the popularity of books about the Quitzows in the 1800s seemed to be a fairly good reason, gossip and trying to live down what had gone before. I found Eldenburgs, Ellenbourg, and Eldenbergs but no real connection from the 1700s to the 1800s. I have no idea what my great grandfathers parents names were or where they lived. What really got me is I found my great grandmothers people and she was adopted. Supposedly into a cousin’s family but there are references to her maiden name.
I have been @ this long enough. My reason for writing this and exposing all my ignorance on the internet? Hopefully some day someone will read this and have more insight into all of this and some answers. For now it’s a mystery.
And finally the story of the Quitzows von Eldenburg and the Rabbi. Also Kurt Quitzow and Hans. You will have to copy these links and paste into Googles Translation tool. Unless you can read more German than I can, I know –der brief is gross.
A little history of the castle. Once again you need to translate.
http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=18039620
Pictures of the Castle and Jew Clamp, that is what it is called, I’m not being mean or funny. Translate my friends.
http://www.burgenland-mv.de/html/eldenburg.html
Another version of the story of the brothers and the jew clamp, go with the flow when reading, her is him etc. Must be translated once again.
Two Eldenburgs? English
I think I forgot to mention the line of the Quitzow von Eldenburg supposedly died out?
So where did the story come from? An old mans imagination? Why would he admit to such a horrible thing if it wasn’t his family? Sorry, needs translating again.
http://www.burgeninventar.de/specials/51el.html
This is a very long version of the story of Hans and Kurt Quitzow. Needs translated with Google.
http://www.literaturport.de/index.php?id=50&no_cache=1&textid=1839608878
This is taken from the following link, translated of course. It’s the story of the Rabbi and the turnpike. Remember it’s German translated to English and their sentence structure is different.
http://www.prignitz24.de/_prignitz/geschichten_legenden.php
When were persecuted during the reign of Joachim I, the Jews in the market badly, many of them fled to Mecklenburg, Hamburg and Lueneburg. She needed to pass the Eldenburg. There was the narrow causeway through Eldenburch blocked by a barrier, and the lord of the castle, a knight of Quitzow, demanded a high Wegzoll (toll I presume). Those who do not voluntarily pay, came to the Jews terminal. He had to put on a shoe, which set into the wall and was only just so big that someone could sit straight on it. It was so high up that the prisoner with his toes just touching the floor. The body was chained by a double chain on the wall, stuck his neck by an iron collar, closed the outstretched arms and hands and Armschellen on the wall. In this clip let languish Quitzow the Jews until the ransom for the bodies was. He refused the guard asked the two florins Wegzoll because he was going to walk and never possessed so much money. To the dispute was added to the lord himself. Vainly pleaded the Jew, to let him go. He was no businessman, but a poor rabbi from Stendal. When he heard the Quitzow, he laughed at him and said: “Since you’re a rabbi, you have to pay 100 gold florins. Your daughter might go to your people, and procure the money!” As long as you remain in the tower until the money is there. ” With hard blows, the girl was expelled, but the Jew down in the terminal. The next morning Quitzow asked him if he wanted to pay. Instead of answering rabbi chanted a funeral song. Then the knight slammed the door and walked away. The same thing happened the next morning. The venerable appearance of the Jews, however, had made it to Quitzow impression, and the dirge seemed to him the whole night, out of mind. On the third morning, he therefore ordered to put the Jews into a car and provide for Dömitz across the border. When the knight just wanted to see for themselves whether and how his command is executed, he found in the castle courtyard, the daughter of Jews with the tribe, who brought the ransom. Angry Quitzow rejected this, saying: “Keep your money and that makes it comes off with the old man!” People rushed to the tower and got there just dying to see the old man. Still, he called out to his killers: “It is written, I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the sins of the fathers upon the children” – then he breathed out his soul. Quick the dead man was freed. Lamenting the Jews carried him to the car and took him away. The ransom threw the girl to the knight with a curse at his feet. Since the Quitzow has set no Jews left in the tower. Whenever he met these seemed to him the dying old man before his eyes and prevented him from securing new outrage. The Curse of the Rabbi, but would later meet his sons.
I could go on and on but it’s late and I’ve been @ this all day. I hope someone can shed some light on the puzzle some day and if not it is written down for future generations, or psychiatrists for the study of pure craziness.
Oh and on more than one occasion my daughter has asked me after it seemed we were just having one thing go wrong after another if we had ever seriously p(&&#@ anyone off and maybe had a family curse? I always tell her well there is that Quitzow thing. Not that we are superstitious or anything. (as I throw salt over shoulder JUST IN CASE)
TC
