Aunt Franka's Memoirs:

[Google Translate (German below):]

My maternal grandfather, Chaim Mendel Lubliner, was very wealthy by nature; it was possible for him to buy a small estate, which he named "Lublinowka" after his family name. There he did nothing all day long than to sit over the Talmud while he left all the practical work to an economist. Among other things, he wrote a well-known commentary on a commentary that made a great impression in rabbinical circles. In any case, after his death[1] a rabbi came to his second wife (also the daughter of a rabbi) and wanted the manuscript. My grandmother, despite her origins from a rabbi, had absolutely no respect for written paper and had simply thrown it away. The disapproval in Hasidic circles was great, but it was of no use.

His brother[2] had taken a different career. He was more of a dynamic nature and didn't like living in a small corner. He studied for rabbis and was called to Antwerp, where he became Grand Rabbi. His judgment was so valued, and he took such a lively interest in the fate of the city, that it is said that he was always consulted on very serious urban problems. His portrait as one of the city's most deserving citizens hung in the city council of Antwerp.[3]

I do not know whether Rabbi Isaak Lubliner[4] had descendants, probably yes, and it is also possible that these have adopted a French name.

A sister of these two brothers married in Paris, a merchant named Zucker, who was very good at business and died early, leaving behind a large number of children. Two daughters of this Mr. Zucker worked as actresses and supposedly had great success, albeit under different names. Both married wealthy merchants in Strasbourg. The name of one was Lassmann, as the other was called, I don't know. But during the First War, when I was in Berlin with my mother, a young field doctor came forward who claimed to be a grandson of this Aunt Zucker. Apparently he died in the war.

I met Aunt Zucker, who lived in Paris, as a student, because my mother had turned to her with a request to take care of me. This aunt was actually at the train station when I arrived and waved a yellow envelope as a sign of identification. Even though I had a reserved room, she took me home, and so I spent the first night in Paris with her. A very nice move of hers. In their home I met at least 10 people, 7 men, who argued heavily while the women tried to help me. My aunt's two daughters, who were still single, were real beauties, married in Paris, but unfortunately they fell in the First War. - The aunt was not only a very good, but also a very clever woman. She took my studies in Paris from a completely different angle than I did and said: "There are also big fish in the big pond and you can marry splendidly here. I'll be looking for a man for you" - which I however indignantly rejected. In any case, she had the trait of all Lubliners, namely, great quality. She often came to my dorm room to see how I live and whether I don't need something. She was appalled by my little room and brought me food so that I wouldn't starve to death. But I was so absorbed in Parisian life that I didn't appreciate her kindness very much.

But her daughters also took care of my clothes one of them also gave me a wonderful hat, which I was ashamed to wear as a student. My cousins ​​were also unusually good and friendly. But due to a lack of time, I seldom made the long journey to maintain relationships with them. These two daughters tragically perished in the First War.

[German:]

Mein Grossvater mütterlicherseits, Chaim Mendel Lubliner, war von Haus aus sehr reich; es war ihm möglich, sich ein kleines Gut zu kaufen, das er nach seinem Familiennamen "Lublinowka" nannte. Dort tat er den ganzen Tag nichts enderes, als über dem Talmud zu sitzen, während er alles praktische Arbeit einem Oekonomen überliess. Er schrieb unter anderem auch einen sehr bekannt gewordenen Kommentar zu einem Komentar, der in den Rabbinatskreisen grossen Eindruck machte. Jedenfalls kam nach seinem Tode ein Rabbiner zu seiner zweiten Frau (auch Tochter eines Rabbiners) und wollte das Manuskript haben. Meine Grossmutter hatte jedoch, trotz ihrer Herkunft von einem Rabbiner, nicht die geringste Achtung vor geschriebenem Papier und hatte es einfach weggeworfen. Die Enpörung darüber in chassidischen Kreisen war gross, doch nutzte sie nichts nehr. 

Sein Bruder hatte eine andere Karriere eingeschlagen. Er war eher dynamischer Natur und lebte nicht gerne in einem kleinen Winkel. Er lernte fiür Rabbiner und wurde nach Antwerpen berufen, wo er Grand Rabbin wurde. Man schätzte sein Urteil so sehr, und er nahm so le bhaften Anteil an den Geschicken der Stadt, dass man ihn angeblich immer bei sehr ernsten Stadtproblemen zu Rate zog. Im Magistrat von Antwerpen hing sein Portrait als einer der verdienstvollsten Bürger dieser Stadt. 

Es ist mir nicht bekannt, ob Rabbiner Isaak Lubliner Nachkommenschaft hatte, wahrscheinlich ja, und es ist wohl auch möglich, dass diese einen französischen Namen angenommen hat. 

Eine Schwester đieser beiden Brüder heiratete nach Paris, und zwar einen Kaufmann, namens Zucker, der geschäftlich sehr tiüchtig war und früh starb, eine grosse Zahl Kinder zurücklassend. Zwei Töchter dieses Herrn Zucker wirkten als Schauspielerinnen und hatten angeblich grosse Erfolge, allerdings unter anderem Namen. Beide verheirateten sich nach Strassburg mit reichen Kaufleuten. Der Name des einen lautete Lassmann, wie der andere hiess, weiss ich nicht. Doch während des 1. Krieges, als ich mit meiner Mutter in Berlin war, meldete sich ein junger Feldarzt, der behauptete, ein Enkel dieser Tante Zucker zu sein. Angeblich ist er dann im Krieg gefallen.

Die Tante Zucker, die in Paris lebte, habe ich als Studentin kennen gelernt, da meine Mutter sich an sie mit der Bitte gewandt hatte, sich meiner anzunehmen. Diese Tante war nun tatsächlich an der Bahn, als ich ankam, und schwenkte als Erkennungszeichen ein gelbes Couvert. Trotzdem ich ein bestelltes Zimmer hatte, nahm sie mich zu sich nachhause, und so verbrachte ich die erste Nacht in Paris bei ihr. Ein sehr schöner Zug von ihr. In ihrem Heim traf ich zumindest 10 Leute an, 7 Männer, die heftig diskutierten, während die Frauen sich um oche mich bemühten. Die zwei noch ledege Töchter meiner Tante, waren richtige Schönheiten, heirateten in Paris, đoch fielen die leider Manner im 1. Krieg. - Die Tante war nicht nur èine sehr gute, sondèrn auch eine sehr kluge Frau. Sie nahm mein Studium in Paris von einer ganz anderen Seitet als ich und sagte: "Im grogsen Teich sind auch grosse Fische und Du kannst hier glänzend heiraten. Ich werde mich um einen Mann für Dich unsehen."- Was ich jedoch entrüstet zurückwies. Jedenfalls hatte sie den Zug aller Lubliner, nämlich eine grosse Güte. Sie kam öfters in meine Studentenbude, um sich zu überzeugen, wie ich lebe und ob ich nicht etwas brauche. Sie war über mein kleines Stübchen entsetzt und brachte mir auch Iebensmittel, damit ich nicht verhungere. Ich war aber vom Pariser Leben so in Anspruch genommen, dass ich ihre Güte gar nicht sehr schätzte.

Doch ihre Töchter kümmerten sich auch um meine Kleidung eine von auch schenkte mir einen wundervollen Hut, den ich mich aber als Studentin zu tragen schämte. Auch meine Cousinen waren ungewöhnlich gut und freundlich. Aber aus Zeitmangel machte ich selten den weiten Weg zu ihnen, um die Beziehungen zu pflegen. Diese beiden Töchter gingen im 1. Krieg auf tragische Weise zugrunde.   

Mom's Memoirs:

[In the 1920's, there was still family in Berlin, including] Samuel and Hanne Lubliner, my mother’s cousin. They lived then in a big house with garden in Grunewald and had a growing family. Their oldest son, Ismar, was my age, then there was Hans (Hanscher), Felix and much late little Jette. There also was another cousin Hans Lubliner, married to a very pretty lady, Tante Anni but Uncle Hans died young and I believe his wife remarried, or maybe there had been a scandal; anyway she was never mentioned again. Samuel Lubliner got into financial difficulties. I understand one of his unsuccessful ventures was trying to plant tobacco in Palestine, and he died impoverished and insane in a sanitarium. When Hitler came to power, Ismar, the eldest, very soon went to the USA where he was adopted by an American family. He fell (?) in WWII. [5] Hans went to Palestine to a kibbutz.[6] I don’t really know when and where Felix and the rest went but eventually Hanne and Jette were in New York where my mother got together with them once when visited the first time in 1952. This was the last contact ever. Something other than Samuel’s downfall must have occurred somewhere along the line, but either I was not aware of it or I forgot. I don’t remember exactly when they had to give up their big house and I don’t really remember seeing them after that. There was also a cousin (all on my mother’s side, she had 71 first cousins!). Krotoschiner[7] in Berlin, with two children, a little older than myself but we got together with them very rarely. They were Germans, like the Lubliners, and would not believe in Hitler’s anti-Semitism. They made no attempt to emigrate and perished.

...

[From email, November, 2009]

There definitely was a Willy Aschkenasi (the Aschkenasis - I am not even quite sure of the spelling) lived in East Prussia, Koenigsberg, (My mother spent a year there as a young woman) Gutti Ahlsen definitely sounds familiar, there was talk about her, but I am VERY vague: was she divorced, a writer, neither?[8]

Letters to Trude Aschkenasy, 1897

These items were all tucked into one of Aunt Franka's diaries. While I had initially hoped (from the envelope and letterhead) to learn that these were letters from Rafael Baumgarten, instead they turned out to be from Leonora and their daughters to the daughter of Leonara's sister Flora. These letters were tucked into two separate diares from the early 1930's which suggests that someone forwarded them to Aunt Franka after Trude's death, which is reported as in 1930. [Third set in Polish, not yet transcribed, translated.]

Notes:

1. See his grave below.

2.  However, also see the other story below, which suggests that Isaac Lubliner was a cousin of her grandfather's, not a brother. Looking at the family tree, I suspect the confusion is that they were half-brothers.

3. She repeats this story in the note below.

4. Aunt Franka was in contact with Antwerp in 1949 (see below). Isaac Lubliner died in May 1895, and was buried in the cemetery of Kiel-Anvers on May 3, 1895.

5. See essay about Ismar Lubliner by Rabbi Jonathan Lubliner.

6. Hans subsequently emigrated to the U.S., changed his name to Immanuel, and was the father of Rabbi Jonathan Lubliner.

7. Slightly misspelled. The cousin was Rosalie Sara Krotoszyner, daughter of Moritz Lubliner. She died in October 1941, just before her husband and their three children were deported to the Minsk ghetto on November 14, 1941, (Transport, Train Da 54 from Berlin,) and were killed there.  The children were actually closer in age to Mom than she seems to suggest: Johanna (1915), Helmut (1917), and Manfred (1919).  [In another place, there is reference to just 62 first cousins!] [See also references to her and her father here.]

8. Mom's vagueness on Gutti was pretty right on. That was her pen name (born Gustava was a writer (and apparently had a child who died): "She was born {Gustava Aschkansy] in Königsberg on September 4, 1869, and died there on May 24, 1929, into a respected Jewish merchant family. Her brothers were the physician Willy Aschkanasy and the lawyer David Aschkanasy, at the time the best-known criminal defense attorney in East Prussia." [From introduction to  Einsamkeitswandern (republished 2013)}. Project Gutenberg has text of her book Die Mutter.

9. According to family tree on Geni, that would be Ernest.

10. Guess Aunt Franka thought Mom was into this.

11. My best guess is that Adele Lubliner had been married to Max Lubliner (see tree) below, and that Fela was their daughter. I have found Lodz death cards for Max from 1917 and residence card for  Fela from 1918. In addition, there are holocaust record for a "Dora Adele Lubliner" born on January 31, 1868 with surname Forelle (name on tree below begins with an F, but can't make out the rest), who was deported from Charlottenburg (address on card) on May 28, 1943 to  Theresienstadt and killed on August 2, 1943.

12. Willy and Gustava (see note 8, above) were children of Flora Lubliner (see genealogy below). I thought Mom had mentioned this family elsewhere, but have not found anything. Willy and his wife Lena are acknowledged in the obituary for Aunt Rosa. 

13. Addressed to Trude in care of Salomon Aschkenasay, her father, in Konigsberg. As noted in the notes on the Baumgartens, he was very close to this brother-in-law.

14. I did not have Gertrud's name when I first was handling this letter, but did know there were daughters other than Gustava.

15. Leonora uses Trude's relationships, so Mama is Flora, Uncle is Rafael. Guess Trude saved her own letter as special, and not letters to her mother from her aunt.

Notes to tree: 

The death of Jacob Lubliner in New York is recorded in the booklet that Rafael Baumgarten kept. This genealogy says there was a second marriage.