Childbed fever

The worst enemy of our families in the Borchardt-family tree was, of course, the Nazi “final solution”,
but there was another enemy, also very dangerous, and it belongs also to the past.

The medical term is “puerperal infections”, a general term for any bacterial infection of the female
reproductive tract following childbirth or miscarriage. From the 1600s through the mid to late 1800s, the
majority of childbed fever cases were caused by the doctors themselves. Perhaps our women were
luckier, because Jewish doctors of course washed their hands, but hospitals for childbirth became
common in the 17th century in many European cities, and there were non-Jewish doctors and nurses in
these institutions, and they infected many of the women.

Perhaps the most famous case, but not on our tree: Goethe's sister, Cornelia. He did not want to talk
about it. Only in the 19th century the doctors realized that death after birth is apparently associated
with inflammation caused at birth, and therefore began to pay more attention to hygiene, also and
especially of midwives.
In these times, giving birth was not only painful, it was highly dangerous!

The first cases on our tree we know about (and there is no doubt at all: There were much more than
what we know!), are from the fourth generation (gr-grandchildren of Baruch and Edel): Gitel Borchardt
(born von Glogau), who died in 1780 at age 21-24. We don’t know about children. Than Johanna (Edel)
Helfft (born Borchardt), died in 1799 also in the same age. Two wives of Zanvil Shmuel Lewin Eger (he
has more names…), and Emma (Esther) Judith Borchardt (born Hellborn), the gr-grandmother of Sascha
Morgenthaler. In the fifth generation we have Julie Burg born Riess, the wife of the first Jewish major in
the Prussian army, Meno Burg, and Aron Borchardt’s first wife, Gabriel Munter’s grandmother. In the
sixth generation Zanvil’s granddaughters Riekchen Rosenstein (born Feibes) and Johanna Sutheim (born
Feibes, both I-FEI), Pauline Salinger (born Borchardt, S-PHI), the sister of the Waldstein’s, Simon’s first
wife Seraphine Borchardt (born Munter, C-Isaa-m).

All these women were married and died in the age of 20-40, but we have no proof that birthgiving was
the reason of their death.

In the seventh generation we have the first cases, where we have evidence of women who died after
giving birth: Samuel Borchardt (C-Raph) is the grandfather of the Quaker author Margaret Hope Bacon,
and the only living child of Jeanette Fendig. After giving birth to a second child, this child and the mother
died, and Abraham Borchardt married Jeanette’s younger sister Amalie. The descendants of Abraham
and his two wives are a huge branch on our tree.

Most of these women are the first wives of their husband, and if they had children, they grew up with
his second wife. These children don’t have any connection to their biological mother, and she is
forgotten. Rosa Borchardt (born Primo, C-JAC-m) gave birth, in her short life, to at least five children who
survived, the youngest was Johanna, the mother of our Chicago-Evanston-clan, born Sep 20 1885 in
Schivelbein. Rosa died six weeks after that. Emma Reissner (born Israel, D-Rei-m) gave birth to at least
six surviving children, and died three days after the birth of Manfred. She is the gr-grandmother of
Ruben and Tamar Frankenstein and the Weichselbaum’s and the Benjamin’s, but their grandmother
Paula was nine years old when Emma died. Aron did not marry again and remained a widower for his
last 15 1/2 years. We do not know how he managed his household, but probably the burden fell on the
shoulders of the first daughter Helene, who was already 19 years old and married Nathan Konschewski
just 23 years later at the age of 42 years.

Aron's brother Max married again, when his wife Amalie Reißner (born Frank, D-Rei-m) died six days
after giving birth to Eugen Amalius. The cantor and elder of Stargard Jacob Borchardt (S-IIB) married
Jenny, after the death of Rosa Borchardt (born Tonn), which left him with three little children. Johanna
Lessing born Strauss (S-Nath) died 19 days after giving birth to her second daughter, who then was
named after her Johanna. The widower Simon married the younger sister Clara. (Simon's brother is the
great-grandfather of the German politician Gregor Gysi.) Hulda Reißner (born Kwilecki, C-Isaa) died at
the day of her daughter’s birth, David married one and a half year after that.

I believe the fast marriage of the widower is not only a practical way for him, but it is also for the
children. It makes for them easier to cope with the grief and continue their life and growing.

The list is very long, and it shows not only sad cases of early death, but also – in many cases – feelings of
guilt. There are no Nazis to blame, so who is guilty? We know of at least one case, the one of Lina
Joelsohn (born Borchardt, N-Mat), in which the widower – who didn't marry again - accused his boy of
the death of his wife, and in this case it is absurd in a special way: Lina died not after the birth of the
accused boy, but after the birth of his brother!

The list continues with Estelle Sander (born Borchardt, S-SEL) and Theresa Maguire (born Borchardt, D-
ARB), and it would have no ending, if the medical development wouldn’t have stopped it, at least for our
families. Some of the last cases, known to me, are Herta Lewin born Manheimer (S-IIB), the sister of my
grandmother, who died in September 1920 after giving birth to my mother’s cousin. She was a gifted
painter and the most beloved person by my grandmother. With all the sadness that came afterwards
with the Nazis, the death of her sister was the one thing my grandmother could never cope with. I
remember her sitting in her chair, fifty and sixty years after the death of her sister, and crying. Alice Edna
Shelander (born Hampton, C-Raph-m) died in July 1922 after giving birth to her fourth child, who died
also. Gertrud Rosenfeld (born Rewald, S-KKB-m) died in March 1916 after giving birth to Eva “Gustel”.
Gustel married 21 years later, when Germany wasn’t like before and in another continent, the youngest
brother of her father’s second wife.

Today postnatal infections are treated by penicillin, invented in 1928, when my mother was born, but
came into civil use only at the end of World War II.
For our families the problem belongs to the past, but around the world, each year die half a million
women from complications during and after childbirth. The World Health Organization (WHO) says, we
could save 98 percent of these women. A quarter of them die from bleeding after birth. Injections which
costs forty cents would help reduce the opening of the uterus. 99 percent of the victims are from
developing countries. Every sixteenth woman in the sub-Saharan countries die after birth, in Western
Europe, one of four thousand. My mother almost died in 1958 after giving birth, in Afula, but she
survived. (Otherwise I wouldn't exist.) One of the rare cases in the last fifty years happened in 1996, also
here, in Israel. One month after the birth of my son was born another son on our tree, also in Jerusalem,
like my son, and the mother died the same day.