Historian's win elates persistent supporter

Salvatore Caputo
March 9, 2007

The fourth nomination was the charm for Johannes Bruno, who received an Obermayer German Jewish History Award this year thanks to the perseverance of Scottsdale resident Florence Covinsky.

"I was absolutely elated" after learning that Bruno was to be honored, Covinsky said. "It took four times, and he was so deserving."

She was so elated that she and her husband, Marvin, paid their own way to Germany to enjoy the award ceremony with Bruno.

The Obermayer awards were created seven years ago by American Jewish businessman Arthur Obermayer, who was inspired by his contacts with historians in his family's ancestral town of Creglingen in southwestern Germany. Obermayer later created a Jewish museum in the town.

Bruno was one of five people to receive the award this year.

The Covinskys met Bruno for the first time during a trip to Germany last August after years of correspondence.

The story began in 2001 when the Covinskys and Florence's late mother, Hannah Hirsch, visited Germany. Hirsch wanted to visit her maternal grandparents' graves in Speyer.

After much searching among plots overgrown with weeds and underbrush, they found Hirsch's grandmother's grave but not her grandfather's.

So they went to the cemetery office. The staff provided a map but it was of no help, Covinsky said. "The office employees were busy with other duties and could not accompany us back to the site."

After they returned to Scottsdale, a distressed Hirsch wrote to the town asking for the grave's location.

Hirsch's request went to Bruno, a retired schoolteacher who had written a 308-page book called "Schicksale Speyerer Juden 1800-1980" ("Fates of Speyer's Jews 1800-1980"), published in 2000.

Bruno wrote back to provide the inscription on Hirsch's grandfather's tombstone as well as information on his five children, including an uncle who died in infancy and about whom Hirsch had never known.

Interested in genealogy herself, Covinsky had questions about her mother's family, and Hirsch suggested that she write to Bruno for information.

Covinsky became impressed by the amount of research he had done and details he uncovered that neither she nor her mother knew about their "rather large family."

"And I kept on writing to him," she said. "He wrote about what he was doing" - guided tours, articles, books, tours of the mikvah, lectures and working to create a memorial to victims of the Nazis in Speyer - "and I thought, 'Wow.'"

Bruno emigrated from Italy to Germany 50 years ago and has lived 36 years in Speyer. A former schoolteacher, he has devoted his retirement to researching the Jewish history of the Rhine River town.

When Covinsky became aware of the Obermayer award through the Gersig genealogy e-mail list (German Special Interest Group of jewishgen.org) in 2003, she decided that Bruno deserved the honor. She nominated him in 2003 and every year since.

For information on the other award recipients, visit obermayer.us/award.

JTA's Toby Axelrod contributed to this report.