Bukowski was born Heinrich Karl Bukowski in Andernach, Rhine Province, The Free State of Prussia, Weimar Republic (present-day Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany) to Heinrich (Henry) Bukowski, a German-American in the U.S. army of occupation after World War I who remained in Germany after his army service, and Katharina (née Fett). His paternal grandfather Leonard Bukowski had moved to the United States from the German Empire in the 1880s. In Cleveland, Leonard met Emilie Krause, an ethnic German, who had emigrated from Danzig, Prussia (today Gdańsk, Poland). They married and settled in Pasadena. He worked as a successful carpenter. The couple had four children, including Heinrich (Henry), Charles Bukowski's father. His mother, Katharina Bukowski, was the daughter of Wilhelm Fett and Nannette Israel. A Jewish origin of Nannette Israel is sometimes assumed, the name "Israel" is, however, widespread among Catholics in the Eifel region. Bukowski assumed his paternal ancestor had moved from Poland to Germany around 1780, as "Bukowski" is a Polish last name. As far back as Bukowski could trace, his whole family was German.