Baby Karl Kurt Karsunke from Berlin

This is such a sad, heartbreaking story, but I believe we owe it to baby Kurt to share it with the world. The photo is labelled “Kurt Karsunke,” and the note in German simply says: “Died as a baby.”

And indeed, little Karl Kurt Karsunke remained in this world for just eight months. He was born on July 25, 1903, in Berlin, to Karl August Karsunke, a coachman, and his wife Johanna Gertrud, née Reinke, a seamstress from Berlin.

Baby Kurt died on March 20, 1904. His parents had married only a few months earlier, in January 1903 - both just 24 years old at the time.

Perhaps we can end this family story on a more optimistic, gentler note. It’s comforting to imagine that baby Kurt would have been a big brother to his younger sister, Gertrud Hildegard Karsunke, who was born in March 1905. Gertrud married Felix Johann Berent, a bank clerk from Berlin, in May 1929. Maybe it was she who kept this photo safe all those years.