Willi Feibusch Chraplewski

In 2021 a book from the library of Willi Feibusch Chraplewski could be given back.

The stamp "Dr. Chraplewski pr. Arzt Wriezen, Markt 20 Fernsprecher 162", clearly identifies Willi Feibusch Chraplewski as the previous owner. Based on the determined life dates, 1887-1944, of Chraplewski and the date "1899", which is connected with the provenance of Dr. F. Selberg, Chraplewski could be clearly proven as the last known owner of the book.

Willi Feibusch Chraplewski was born on 15 August 1887 in Gnesen (today Gniezno) near Poznan, the son of the glazier Josef Chraplewski and Johanna Feibusch. He studied medicine at the University of Berlin from 1906 to 1912 and then practiced first in Wriezen an der Oder. In 1913 he married Lucie Hornung in Berlin, who had been born there on 16 January 1890, to Salomon Hornung, a merchant, and Cäcilie Fried. Also in 1913, on December 9, Ilse Hannah Magdalene Chraplewski was born in Wriezen, the couple's first child. Willi Chraplewski took part in the First World War as a civilian doctor. After the end of the war he moved with his family to Berlin to Wrangelstr. 21 and opened a practice. On 7 November 1920, their second daughter, Susan "Susi" Chraplewski, was born. Ilse Chraplewski graduated in Berlin in 1932 and enrolled at the University of Berlin the same year. She pursued a degree in journalism.

Since 1933, the Chraplewski family was persecuted as Jewish in Germany. Thus, daughter Ilse was barred from attending university, and father Willi's license to practice medicine was revoked in 1938. In the summer of 1939, Willi and Lucie Chraplewski managed to escape to Shanghai. They traveled by ship from Naples on the S.S. Husimi Maru. He tried to open a practice there as well, but did not succeed. Plagued by severe depression, he attempted suicide in 1940 or 1941, only narrowly failing. Shortly thereafter, the Chraplewskis were forced to live in the Shanghai Ghetto in Hongkew. His health continued to deteriorate, partly due to the hygienically disastrous conditions in the ghetto and the poor nutritional supply. He died in the Shanghai Ghetto on 25 April 1944. Lucie Chraplewski's health was also severely affected by living in the ghetto. She contracted amoebic dysentery and meningitis, became severely emaciated, and did not receive adequate medical care. She died on 16 August 1944, also in the Shanghai Ghetto.

Susi Chraplewski had managed to escape to England before 1940. She married Alfred C. Daniels there in April 1945. We do not know any more about her further life.

In January 1939, Ilse Chraplewski married Fritz Sommerfeld, an office manager from Poznan, in Berlin. Together with him and his daughter Ruth Gabriele, born in 1935, from his first marriage to Charlotte Lilli Else Melzer (1901-1936), who had died at an early age, Ilse also emigrated to Shanghai in 1940. Since the sea route was already cut off, they escaped by the Trans-Siberian Railway. The family survived not only the Holocaust, but also the Shanghai Ghetto.

The marriage did not last long; in 1944 Ilse and Fritz Sommerfeld divorced in Shanghai. Fritz Sommerfeld moved to Tel Aviv with his daughter in 1949. Both were in poor health, Fritz due to life in the ghetto and Ruth due to poor medical care - she was diabetic. Also out of economic constraints, Fritz and Ruth Sommerfeld moved back to Berlin in 1957. Fritz Sommerfeld opened the travel agency "Passagebüro Cosmopolit" here at Brandenburgische Str. 39. He died in Berlin on 6 February 1975. Ruth married in Berlin in 1958, nothing is known about her further life.

Ilse Chraplewski married Werner Adolf Haase, a native of Bernstein (now Pełczyce), in Shanghai in 1945, with whom she had a son, Gerald Martin, two years later. The Haase family moved to the United States in 1948. They lived for a long time in Detroit, later in Denver. Werner Haase died there in 1988, and Ilse Haase, née Chraplewski, followed him in 2008.

The path of the book into the stock of the Zentral- und Landesbibliothek Berlin (ZLB) is unclear and could not be traced clearly. The acquisition journal of the Berliner Stadtbibliothek (BStB) only lists the in-house book storage as the vendor. The biography of the previous owner suggests, that the book was part of a purchase of books from the last apartments of deported Jewish Berliners, which the BStB made in 1943 - however, this cannot be proven. Equally possible is that the book was purchased from antiquarian sources after the forced sale of the entire furnishings of the Chraplewski family in 1939. However, this cannot be proven either.