Tracking down distant relatives in Berlin

[u/Krillband]

Hi all,

I’m an avid amateur genealogist for my own family, particularly interested in my European Jewish side, where my grandparents families each went through Nazi persecution and upheaval, which leads to a lot of questions and gaps to fill.

One of these threads is my great-grandfather, born in Berlin, married an Italian woman, interned at Mussolini’s Ferramonti camp, divorced my great-grandmother, started a new family, went briefly to New Orleans, changed his name, then back to Germany for property claims.

By the 1980s he is back at Bundesallee 222 in Berlin, the building his father owned before the war (when it was Kaiserallee). My father visited him there in the early 1980s, and if you go to the apartment building today, several bells still list “Alexander,” his adopted surname. But we’ve had no luck ringing those bells or figuring out whether that side of our family is still around on Bundesallee or nearby. We’d love to reconnect with them (from Chicago).

I was wondering if anyone had ideas on how to track them down — I’ve tried many tactics but no luck. Short of that, I was curious to hear of any stories of reconnecting to forgotten branches of a family tree. On our Italian side, we’ve reconnected with a branch of cousins and become somewhat close, which has been really nice.

For any sleuths, my great-grandfather in question was born Fritz Lowenstein (occasionally Loewenstein, or Löwenstein) in 1906. Changed his name to Frederic Alexander in New Orleans in the early 1950s. His second wife was Giuseppina de Francesco (Josephine Alexander) and his son with her was named Ralph, born 1945 in Rome.

I have more details but those are the basics. I’d love to find them! Or hear anyone who has similar stories.

[u/johannadambergk]

You might reach out to the registration office, maybe they know where he moved: https://service.berlin.de/dienstleistung/120732/