K 65 JOHANNA VAN WIEN, 1910, Cast Silver, 55mm., 170.70g., Edge-punch; “KGoeTz, Silber”, Gussfrisch, RRR.

Goetz was commissioned by the Dutch Van Wien family to commemorate their daughter’s birth on April 3, 1910.

Obverse: Inscribed, J and S, Full-sailed schooner sailing past windmill and tulip field. Cartouche reads in Dutch “EENE VOORSPOEDIGE VAART” (A Prosperous Journey.”) KGoeTz below.

Reverse: Flower frond over name “JOHANNA VAN WIEN” and “GEBOREN-IN-MÜNCHEN AM 3.APRIL 1910 (Born in Munich on April 3, 1910). The inscription lozenge below is surrounded by zodiac wheel above, spring wildflowers to each side and two flowers at the base. The lozenge sits upon a scrolled cartouche with the inscription; “GESEGNET SEIST-DU-VOM-EWIGEN-O-UNSERE-TOCHTER ( Blessed be you by the Lord, oh’ our daughter).

It could be interesting to note that Goetz had used the wrong zodiac sign of the bull for this birth date. Aries, the Ram, would have been the correct zodiac birth sign for this date.

Once again another great peice!

Hello Goetzdude,

this is another nice piece of Goetz, which I have not yet seen.
All his private work on birthdays, marriages and other occasions are very precisely worked out.
Thank you for showing!

Any thoughts on the J and S on the sails or is it something obvious that I have overlooked?

That is something I am looking for like you, bill!

The text on the little sign below the sailing boat is Dutch and can be translated as "Always a good trip".
The S could be the first letter of her father or mother??

I'm assuming that the J&S are the parents first initials but with Goetz you just never know. I'll see if I can find out anything of the family. They were apparently wealthy and there might be something on the net that I can find.

I have found something in the internet about a Dutch family named van Wien and her daugther was born in 1917 in Krefeld in Germany.
http://historie.venlo.nl/persoon.asp?odID=606
The whole family has been murdered by the faschists in Auschwitz.
But I have not found anything about a Johanna van Wien born in München, which might be the daughter of another family.
I assume that it will be a difficult activity to find out the background, but this is something what makes the collecting of those medals real interesting to know, what are the details on it.
Lets go ahead to find out what was going on with this family.

Later remark: The father of the Johanna van Wien born in Krefeld in 1917 was the daugther of Sally van Wien, who was brother of Ferdinand van Wien, the father of the Johanna van Wien mentioned on the medal.

Here is another van Wien family which might sort of match. About a woman named Mathilde Ambrunn: "1905 heiratete sie Ferdinand van Wien, mit dem sie später in München lebte. 1938 wurde Ferdinand van Wien im KZ Dachau ermordet. Der Witwe gelang es 1939 in die USA zu emigrieren." http://www.gunnet.de/stephani/step_p67.htm

Seems they were Jewish (at least what the nazis considered to be Jewish). Both "ene voorspoedige vaart" and "Gesegnet seist du vom Ewigen" could be references to the Old Testament or the Tanach.

Christian

Dear friends of Goetz medals,

I have investigated the dates of Johanna van Wien at the town archive of Munich.
I have received a copy of her declaration of birth and of her marriage with Dr. Kurt Willi Bauer.
Johanna van Wien was the daughter of Ferdinand and Mathilde van Wien.
She had an older brother named Stephan van Wien.

Therefore the two letters on the sails of the sailing boat are clear: these are the insignia of Johanna and Stephan.

The second younger brother of Johanna, this was Bertram following the declaration of birth. On the medal he was called Bertrand, maybe the French version of the German Bertram. A medal on his birth can be found on Kienast 64. He died already in an age of two years.
In Kienast part II there is a remark on Opus 64: The letters S, J and B on the reverse are the initials of the first names of the van Wien children.
Now we know more: These are Stephan, Johanna and Bertram or Bertrand.

Ferdinand van Wien was murdered by the nazis in Dachau on 14/11/1938.
In September 1939 Mathilde van Wien was able to emigrate together with her children Stephan and Johanna to the USA.

With his two medals on Johanna van Wien and Bertrand van Wien Karl Goetz has made not only two great pieces but a memorial for the family van Wien.

I believe it is useful to add a copy of Kienast 64.
This I have taken from the publication, therefore the quality is not very high.



I have just changed the picture. Now it is taken from Moeller auction 41, May 2006, Nr. 5208.

A very fascinating post, took a rather intriguingly interesting twist with the research on the subject matter of the medal. The medal is so personal, it is not connected with any well known political or social event, but something so significant for a family. In that vain I find it more appealing than something more well known, because it has a personal feeling - and the latter unfortunately tragic turn of events for the family makes it all the more desirous to research for more information.

Thanks Research!! This is what it's all about...the history, the digging, the discovery. I had seen the other medal in Kienast II, and it was recently on the block at Moeller, but I have primarily focused my attention to the medals in my collection and hadn't really put two and two together that there were more than one birth medal.

Kienast left a lot to be desired in the descriptions of Goetz' medals and it is my full intention to eventually have in-depth descriptors for each of the medals on both my web site and in the future Goetz redux publication.

Not knowing the German language, nor having a clue as to where any answers could be located in Germany, I am forced to rely on such dedicated people as Research5. Your assistance is greatly appreciated! Bravo to you!!

And Bravo to this thread. Great reading.

Goetzdude,

Thank you for your hint that Kienast 64 has been offered in the Moeller auction 41.
I have changed the picture of the medal. It is a scan again, but with somewhat better quality.
Now again you can get an impression on the quality of the work of Karl Goetz.
I will try to receive the original picture from Mr. Möller, if still available.

I think I have a picture if you can't come up with one research5. The one you posted seems nice enough though.

I have begun to see if the Van Wien's came through Ellis Island when she and her two children arrived in the U.S.. The Ellis Island web site doesn't find them in their registery database but many mistakes in the recording of passenger names were made at the time of arrival. I will search more too. I don't recall when they stopped using Ellis Island and it is possible they came through another port.

Goetzdude, Christian,

I have seen that the internet page already mentioned by Christian contains the whole van Wien family as far as it concerns Ferdinand van Wien and his wife Mathilde.

http://www.gunnet.de/stephani/step_p67.htm

This page is in German and intends to commemorate the jewish citizens of Gunzenhausen.
Mathilde van Wien (born Ambrunn) was born in Gunzenhausen on 15/07/1886. She was the mother of Johanna van Wien.

Unfortunately it is stated at the bottom of this page that no relatives of the van Wiens have been found so fare.
It has to be considered, that even remarks in the registration books of the town administration must not tell the truth. It happens, that a remark that someone has emigrated, in reality was an attamp to cover their murder in a KZ (concentration camp).

I would be happy to receive the information, that Johanna van Wien together with her brother Stephan and mother had reached the USA and escaped the nazis.

If memory serves correct, Ellis Island was last used in 1954. Also please account for the fact that they often misspelled names if they thought they heard something different etc. A few people that think they are Irish are in fact German, because they were made to change their names to something more likely to be easy to pronounce. One of my German ancestors family names is Crantzdorf, from Bavaria, their name changed to Grindstaff, but probably because they changed it to a literal translation of the name into English.

I am going to check my Ancestry.com account and see if I can find anything on this family too.

Scottishmoney...Thanks....and good, you have an ancestry.com account. I couldn't justify the membership fee because I already know about my heritage back to 1520 Germany. It appears that there were many other ports that the 'second wave' of immigration used with the breakout of WWII. Ancestry.com has links to those port archives too. Research5 has provided the mother's birthdate so this may help a lot. Good luck, and thanks again.

I didn't find anything on Ancestry, but I will also try the LDS site at familysearch.com. They often have better information.

BTW you are lucky to have your German ancestry so far back, so far I have my German ancestry back to 1685 only. Mostly from Bavaria, but also Hamburg. Germany is the only country I have been to where my ancestors came from and I visited the actual area and walked the dock in Hamburg that the ship left from etc. They have very good research centres there, and I found that not even speaking a lot of German I got pretty far with helpful people there.

I am descended from Volga Germans...they emmigrated to Russia in 1740 to farm wheat and then a few came here to the U.S. in 1918 to escape the Russian revolutions. I visited the two villages they founded just south of Saratov, Russia shortly after the wall came down. They were from the Fulda Germany vicinity originally and a few descendants from Russia returned to the area after the wall came down...I have yet to meet them though.

Ah yes, the Volga Deutsch, your ancestors were the lucky ones. Anyone that stayed there after 1941 got shipped off to Kazakhstan, or even Far East Russia by Stalin. Only after 1991 were they allowed to leave the places they were settled in, and many immigrated to Germany. During the 18th Century Germans as well as Scots and French were invited into Russia as farmers, and were not subject to seignorage like native Russians. Whole neighbourhoods of Moscow were referred to as the German suburbs during the 18th century.

I have searched the Ellis Island database for every spelling variation of Van Wien offered and found nothing. I tried the mother and the children seperately too and still nothing. Even tried looking for Johanna Bauer with no luck. Although this isn't a difinitive outcome I am beginning to think they never made it out of Germany as Research5 has suggested. I will continue looking however,,,I hope we can find a happier ending.

Yeah, but that is just Ellis Island. So far I have checked ancestry.com, and familysearch.org and not come up with anything. Having done my own genealogy for years, you find that you will often hit a wall and then later on something else will come along in the form of a idea etc.

But I am going to go in and search with variations on the name, see post above about names being mispelt, and being changed either by the immigrants or by immigration officials.

Yes, I'm aware of the naming problems...

Ancestry.com does have other immigration records...

New York Passenger Lists, 1820-1957 - Updated!
Baltimore Passenger Lists, 1820-1948
Boston Passenger Lists, 1820-1943
Canadian Border Crossings, 1895-1956 - New!
California Passenger and Crew Lists, 1893-1957 - Updated!
New Orleans Passenger Lists, 1820-1945
Philadelphia Passenger Lists, 1800-1945
Passenger & Immigration Lists Index, 1500s - 1900s - Updated!

I'm just not a paying member

And that is pretty incomplete when you consider all the places they could have came in, for instance Miami was a destination back then also, and featured prominently in the infamous SS St. Louis episode in 1939.

while I have nothing to add...I just wanted to say great thread and medal...thanks to Goetzdude I have gain a real appreciation of Karl Goetz (and medals in general).

I am ashamed to admit that I had never heard this story before. A quick synopsis can be found here.

I have to question the 'children' traveling with their mother unless they were escorting her. Both in their late 20's, and Johanna married, it would seem to me that they would be worried about their own new families and relationships too.

PS. Thanks Drusus...every medal has a story and that is why they are so fascinating. You'll learn something new every day if you collect them. We are so lucky to be living in the information age of the internet too.

I have heard about the SS St. Louis, but I did not know the name of the ship.
This of course was used by the nazis for their propaganda to convince simple minded people, that what they are doing is right.
Anti-Semitism is a long story and sometimes supported by the Christian church.
After the WW II the catholic church helped Christian people to emigrate to South America, not asking whether they were nazis or not. But no Jew was supported at that time.
The conflict between the Christian church and the Jewish church is based on the fact that the Jews have murdered Jesus Christ.

Still today in Germany the Christian church maintains their privilege that together with the tax the "church tax" is automatically collected by the Government based on the concordat signed by Pius XII and the nazis.

But back to the family van Wien. I am going to Munich mid of August.
There are several points in Munich where I am going to investigate on the van Wien family. I hope to bring more details in the coming weeks.

Good luck in Munich Research5! I wish I was visiting there...I'd love to see Goetz' old house, Goetz' grave, the Bayerisches National Museum, and several dealer friends near by. I am hoping to make it back over again soon...it's been three years since my last visit to Germany!

We'll await word from you Research%

Actually the government does that for every religious community that is a public law organization (Körperschaft des öffentlichen Rechts) and wants the government to collect it: the Roman Catholic Church, various Lutheran (evangelisch) and other Christian churches, but also Jewish communities. That tax system is a little odd indeed, but then again in other countries you can get married (with all the civil law impacts) by a priest, which I think is about as strange.

(Slightly OT but I guess that in this thread that does not matter much any more. )

Christian

There was a news item a couple of weeks ago about the German Government stopping Tom Cruise from filming because he is a member of a non-sanctioned religion, in this case, Scientology. But maybe the real reason was less his Scientology beliefs, and more his weirdness in general, you know, couch jumping, weird things said etc.

No, his being somewhat odd was not the primary problem. Scientology was the problem. If you make a movie like Valkyrie, primarily about Stauffenberg, it does seem kind of strange that, of all actors in the (English) world, a leading member of such an organization plays somebody who wanted to do away with a totalitarian regime.

That is also what Stauffenberg's son has said various times. And that is why some people in the government don't think it's a good idea that original locations such as the Bendlerblock should be used. But such locations have been used for various German/European movies about Stauffenberg, and frankly, I don't see why they should not shoot some scenes with that weird guy there.

Don't know who claims that the German Government stops anybody from making the movie, but that is a pretty obvious lie. After all, the German Government sponsors the movie - they get almost €5 million from the Filmförderfonds. That is almost 10 percent of the FFF's annual budget. But maybe such "minor details" are not that well known elsewhere.

Christian

Scottishmoney....have you had the chance to dig into the immigration sites/locations for additional information regarding Johanna van Wien?

(it's raining here today which has allowed me a free day form my exterior house painting project )

Hi friends of Goetz medadals,

Due to the bad wheather and that the Munich town archive is closed until mid of October 2007, I have not been in Munich as planned beginning of August.
But I am planning already a business trip to Munich, after the town archive has been reopened mid of october 2007.

Has anybody been successful in finding US relatives of Johanna van Wien??

I am going to try doing some research in some online sites here in the USA, Goetzdude has also contacted me about this. I will have to put together a plan and start doing the research so that hopefully I can find the informations we would like to find.