{"id":431,"date":"2020-04-02T17:13:23","date_gmt":"2020-04-02T17:13:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ismardavidarchive.org\/indexofnames\/?p=431"},"modified":"2021-01-13T19:48:13","modified_gmt":"2021-01-13T19:48:13","slug":"benzion-wolff-david","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ismardavidarchive.org\/indexofnames\/benzion-wolff-david\/","title":{"rendered":"A Brief Biography"},"content":{"rendered":"

Benzion Wolff David, 1870\u20131930, father.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n

\"Benzion
Benzion Wolff David in an undated photograph. Photo courtesy of Hannah Wende.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Benzion Wolff David<\/span> was a bit of a mystery, even to his son, who could vaguely recall meeting one of his uncles, but knew little more than that his father came from the north of Germany.<\/p>\n

Thanks to records preserved in the City Archive we know that Benzion\u2019s father, Selig Wolff David, born September 9, 1820 in Friedrichstadt, was a butcher, a member of the civil defense corps (lance division) and a friend of the sports club. Selig owned property (10 Prinzenstrasse) and exercised his right to vote (for mayor and state parliament). He and his wife, Selde Behrend Levy, born on February 25, 1832\/33 also in Friedrichstadt, had eleven children. Only three boys (David Selig, born January 14, 1861, Benzion Wolff, born December 20, 1870, and L\u00f6we Juda Selig, born October 20, 1875) survived beyond childhood. In December 1874, Selig received a fine for failing to sand his icy street. In November 1875, Selig was fined for failing to report, in a timely fashion, the birth of a child, his fifth to die in infancy. Selde died at age 49 on January 23, 1882. Selig died on April 8, 1900 and was buried two days later. Notice of his funeral appeared in the local papers, as well as an ad expressing the gratitude of his family to his comrades-in-arms.1<\/a><\/sup>Family documents from the Museum \u201cAlte M\u00fcnze\u201d in Friedrichstadt<\/span><\/p>\n

Benzion Wolff David was born in Friedrichstadt on December 20, 1870. He was described as a businessman when he married Rosa Freund<\/a> in Breslau on November 28, 1907. When his children were small, he was a general insurance agent and, in 1918, had an account with the Bank f\u00fcr Handel und Industrie. A year after the outbreak of the First World War, at age 45, he was called up. His own description of his war service: \u201cFrom the 12th of July 1915 until the beginning of September, in Russia, Etappe, because of illness, returned to Germany; from February 1917 until 12 November 1918, first in the combat zone in Romania, then with the occupying army in the same place.\u201d2<\/a><\/sup>Zahlkarte f\u00fcr Kriegsteilnehmer, Centralna Biblioteka Judaistyna, Breslau.<\/span> He walked home from Romania, his health ruined by the malaria, to which hundreds of thousands of soldiers on the Eastern Front were exposed.3<\/a><\/sup>Malaria\u2018s Contribution to World Ward One\u2014the Unexpected Adversary<\/span> Benzion died on January 20, 1930 and was buried in the Cosel Cemetery, section 18 number 187-186. Eight months later, his widow ordered a simple gravestone in light Silesian granite from Karl Neustadt, Bebelstra\u00dfe 1. She paid an additional 25 RM to have ivy planted all around.<\/p>\n

Thank you to Christiane Thomsen in the Museum \u201cAlte M\u00fcnze\u201d in Friedrichstadt for her help with documents from the museum\u2019s collection.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Benzion Wolff David, 1870\u20131930, father. Benzion Wolff David was a bit of a mystery, even to his son, who could vaguely recall meeting one of his uncles, but knew little more than that his father came from the north of Germany. Thanks to records preserved in the City Archive we know that Benzion\u2019s father, Selig […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-d"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ismardavidarchive.org\/indexofnames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ismardavidarchive.org\/indexofnames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ismardavidarchive.org\/indexofnames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ismardavidarchive.org\/indexofnames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ismardavidarchive.org\/indexofnames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=431"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.ismardavidarchive.org\/indexofnames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1895,"href":"https:\/\/www.ismardavidarchive.org\/indexofnames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431\/revisions\/1895"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ismardavidarchive.org\/indexofnames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ismardavidarchive.org\/indexofnames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ismardavidarchive.org\/indexofnames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}