"Pawsner" is a rare variant of the common name "Posner". Other variants are "Pozner" and "Posener". They all imply a resident of Posen in old Prussia, now Poznan in Poland -- just as a person from Hamburg, Frankfurt, or Wien (Vienna) was a Hamburger, Frankfurter, or Wiener. Such names were typically taken by (or forced on) urban Jewish families when tax collectors began to demand fixed family names, rather than the old style of "Joshua son of Joseph".
The best-known person with this name was the 18th-century writer Avigdor Pawsner -- especially for his epigram, "If you are looking for Hell, then ask an artist where it is. If you can't find an artist, then you are already in Hell".
