Last night she wrote me that she found my great grandfather Morris Baumann on an Ancestry family tree of Germans from Schmieheim, the village he came from. Morris married Clara Lederer, one of Samuel daughters, and was business partners with Julius Lederer, Sue's great grandfather.
So we were messing around via email about this and she found this link to Jews in Schmieheim and the story about this little girl Hanna Baumann, born in 1934, and how she, at age 5, tried to escape from Germany via train with her parents; they were intercepted by German guards and shot. I've learned that deaths in the Nazi Holocaust are usually very complicated and not what they seem.
Hannah Baumann is also on this family tree. So is Morris Baumann, who's original name was Maier Baumann. Same exact birthdate, same parents, it's him. We don't know who put this family tree together or how accurate (or well-cited) it is. There are a lot of names that repeat. I just don't know how to work this big Ancestry family tree to see how they are related. Making me kinda nuts. At one point, I had them both related to Wolf Baumann only to realize that they were completely different Wolf Baumanns.
To comemorate little Hanna's death, the new kindergarten school in Schmieheim has been named after her. There was a companion mentioned, Gunther. I did write to him and he replied but hasn't helped much yet.
Picture of the children Gunther Karger and Hanna Baumann as children.
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