Karin Guth, Bornstraße 22. Ein Erinnerungsbuch. Dölling und Galitz, Hamburg 2001. ISBN 3-935549-06-7 Author © Karin Guth English translation © Struan Robertson Preface Following the National Socialist's seizure of power in 1933 Jews in Germany immediately became the victims of systematic discrimination, alienation and persecution. More than 2,000 anti-Jewish laws, regulations, decrees and statutes prescribed every aspect of their lives from the deprivation of their rights to their final extermination. Almost daily, new "legal" decrees deprived those defined as Jews of their basis of existence until 1941 when the deportations to concentration camps began where the planned genocide was implemented. These "laws" legitimated the progressive program of persecution and freed the perpetrators from any feeling of responsibility.       Jews were cruelly persecuted for many years by means of prohibitions to occupations, education and training, by the expropriation of their possessions and money, by the restricted provision of food and clothing, by visible stigmatisation and by exclusion from public and cultural life. Every conceivable aspect of life was regulated: private cars were compulsorily sold and the use of public transport prohibited, radios, typewriters, cameras, record players and records and all other electrical devices had to be surrendered. It was forbidden to buy books or newspapers, to use public telephone boxes, to possess domestic animals, to be outside between 8 o'clock in the evening and 6 o'clock in the morning, to patronise non-Jewish hairdressers, as midwife to assist with the birth of not-Jewish children or to purchase from shops not expressly designated for Jews.       Jews were cruelly persecuted for many years by means of prohibitions to occupations, education and training, by the expropriation of their possessions and money, by the restricted provision of food and clothing, by visible stigmatisation and by exclusion from public and cultural life. Every conceivable aspect of life was regulated: private cars were compulsorily sold and the use of public transport prohibited, radios, typewriters, cameras, record players and records and all other electrical devices had to be surrendered. It was forbidden to buy books or newspapers, to use public telephone boxes, to possess domestic animals, to be outside between 8 o'clock in the evening and 6 o'clock in the morning, to patronise non-Jewish hairdressers, as midwife to assist with the birth of not-Jewish children or to purchase from shops not expressly designated for Jews.       Jews were spatially segregated by being expelled from their dwellings and quartered as subtenants with Jewish landlords and tenants. Following the first deportations in the autumn of 1941 the Nazis designated some of the now "free" Jewish housing trusts as so-called "Jew Houses", in which those Jews still remaining were forced to live for weeks or months under intolerable conditions until their transport to the extermination camps.       The object of this memorial book, as was the artistic-documentary installation in situ, is to restore the individuality to the former inhabitants of the Louis Levy Housing Trust at Bornstraße 22, designated by the Nazis as a "Jew House" and misemployed in the implementation of their program of extermination. With the assistance of Jürgen Sielemann at the Hamburg State Archives it was relatively easy to determine the names of the house inhabitants between 1941 and 1945; finding these individuals or even relatives was more difficult. My persistence and helpful tips enabled me to contact relatives and acquaintances of some former inhabitants and to a woman, who was deported from this "Jew house" when still a girl. All were prepared to communicate to me their painful memories in writing or in interviews and to place family photos as well as documents at my disposal.       In the course of my work on the "Project Bornstraße 22" personal relationships, in certain cases even friendships, were formed through correspondence, encounters, conversations and common endeavours, whose significance for me goes far beyond the project. I experienced many very affecting moments. For example, I would like to mention my personal encounter with Schlomo Schwarzschild and his wife Aviva from Israel, who, after many letters, telephone conversations and emails, stopped over in Hamburg to make me a surprise visit one morning. My getting to know Herbert Krogmann, 1926 born grandson of the first tenants Isaak and Male Wohlmuth, was equally significant. He lives in Israel and Denmark and regularly visits his grandparents' grave in Hamburg. His interest in this publication, like all others with personal connections with the house Bornstraße 22, gave me the encouragement to fulfil the project in memory of the former inhabitants despite difficulties.       Foremostly, I wish to thank the victims of National Socialist persecution, or relatives of such, who related their lives and history of suffering and who trusted to me original photographs and documents for the project.       I also wish to thank those who gave me important tips, particularly Struan Robertson whose Internet project The History of Jews in Hamburg informed me about the history of the Bornstraße 22 house. Friends supported me in my work with their encouragement and interest. Dr. Josef Steinky gave the manuscript a critical reading. Heartfelt thanks! Jewish Housing Trusts - the Louis Levy Trust at Bornstraße 22 At the time the National Socialists gained power there were more than 30 Jewish housing trusts in Hamburg, in which the needy could live rent free or for a minimal rent. Wealthy Jewish merchants donated capital for the establishing of building trusts generally for needy Jews but some also for needy people of other denominations. The welfare of poor Jews was the responsibility of the Jewish community.       In 1898 the merchant Louis Levy died leaving a considerable fortune. In his will he specified that a trust be established in his name to provide accommodation for needy people. The bequeathed sum of money enabled the building of three apartment houses at Durchschnitt 1 and 8 and at Bornstraße 22, named after him. Bornstraße 22       The Louis Levy Trust at Bornstraße 22 is a solid, four-storey house comprising 12 flats and two shops with accompanying flats behind. When in 1903 the house was complete there was a long list of candidates for one of the three room apartments with kitchen/living room without bathroom. The sole bathroom for all tenants was on the fourth floor adjacent the laundry room. Certain initial conditions had to be fulfilled before candidates were even considered: they had to be in regular employment and be a staunch member of the Jewish community. The size of the family was also relevant as a married couple with four or seven children was not uncommon as tenants at Bornstraße 22.       Among the first tenants were the married couple Isaak Hirsch Wohlmuth and Male Wohlmuth, who were married on 26 July 1897 in Hamburg. Isaak was born 1871 in Krakau, Male 1870 in Prussinow. At that time these towns were in East Galicia (west of the Ukraine); Isaak and Male were in their early twenties when they decided to move to Hamburg. Isaak's income as a clerk was not large and the family, with its four children Arthur, Jonny, Rosa and Frieda, was probably grateful to be able to move into a low rent flat in a new apartment house in a pleasant neighbourhood. Isaak Hirsch Wohlmuth and Male Wohlmuth with their children Rosa, Arthur, Jonny and Frieda, in 1903, the year they moved into Bornstraße 22       For the daughters Rosa and Frieda the parents had the choice of three Jewish girls' schools in the immediate neighbourhood. The Loewenberg School at Johnsallee 33 was particularly cosmopolitan; director Dr. Jacob Loewenberg placing particular value on instruction in literature and contemporary art. Christian pupils could also attend the school. At Christmas time a Christmas tree and a Hanukka lamp stood adjacent each other in the in school building. The Israelitische Höhere Mädchenschule was only minutes away in a villa at Bieberstraße 4 and would have corresponded to the religious orthodoxy of the parents but as only girls of wealthy Jewish families attended this school it is more probable that the girls attended the Israelitische Töchterschule in Karolinenstrasse. Here girls from all social strata received an eight-year secondary school education reflecting a modern educational philosophy with a broad, academic syllabus.       Arthur and Jonny, the elder brothers, attended the Talmud Tora School for boys, which was situated in Kohlhöfen, a street in the inner city, during the initial years of their schooling. When, in 1911, the new school building in Grindelhof was inaugurated it was only a stone's throw away from Bornstraße.       On 8 October 1922 the mother Male died at the age of fifty-two. Three months later Isaak Hirsch Wohlmuth dedicated a commemorative plaque for his wife in the New Dammtor synagogue. After the family had moved into their new accommodation at Bornstraße 22 the, 1895 inaugurated, New Dammtor synagogue in Beneckestraße became his place of worship. The family remained members of this association even after the larger Bornplatz synagogue - today Joseph Carlebach Platz - was inaugurated in 1906. Four years after the death of his wife Isaak Hirsch died. The married couple Wohlmuth were spared the National Socialist persecution that began seven years later. Their four children were able to depart Germany in time. The Regulation of Accommodation of Jews in Hamburg during the National Socialist Regime The aftermath of the 1938 November pogrom was there for all to see; the policy of discrimination and persecution of Jews in Germany no longer remained a secret to anyone. In spring 1939 Jews were deprived of their tenant's rights and a new special tenants' law was introduced which permitted landlords to evict Jewish tenants without notice. As this law reflected popular opinion the law was readily put into practice by landlords. Numerous tenants of integrity who had occupied their accommodation for years were suddenly forced to vacate their accommodation. Jews could likewise be forced to accept other Jews as subtenants because following the "law relating to tenancy conditions for Jews" of 30.4.1939 Jews were only permitted to live with other Jews. More than two years before the compulsory removal into specified "Jew houses" this was the first step in spatially segregating the Jews in Hamburg.       This tenancy policy also enabled the Nazis to quickly rehouse bombed out non-Jewish citizens in Hamburg. The housing department and social services worked hand in hand with the Gestapo in reallocating the urgently required dwellings to "Aryans". The registered housing need influenced the number of people who were deported on the next transport to a concentration or extermination camp. People were also imprisoned in Hamburg's concentration camps Fuhlsbüttel and Neuengamme or in one of Neuengamme's ten satellite camps. The rapid succession of deportation transports meant that by the end of 1941 in Hamburg nearly 1,000 dwellings were made available to "Aryans". In July 1942 1,900 such "available" flats had been registered. Up to this time 5,159 individuals had been deported to Lodz, Minsk, Riga, Auschwitz and Theresienstadt. 4,940 of them were murdered.       Jews were not only driven from their accommodation through deportation but also through imprisonment in Hamburg. Many did not suffer and die in the "East" but within the immediate environs of Hamburg in the concentration camps Fuhlsbüttel and Neuengamme or one of the latter's ten satellite camps situated in various parts of the city or in the prisons of the city. Jewish Housing Trusts became "Jew Houses" Jews, still living in Hamburg in the winter of 1942, were to be concentrated together in one part of the city. The "Jewish Grindel quarter" was chosen. The Gestapo intended to achieve three goals with this ghettoisation: a strict segregation from non-Jewish neighbours - which made it difficult for the few courageous citizens to render support -, the vacating of additional dwellings and a more efficient organisation of the deportations. The main assembly building for the transports was the Masonic "Provincial Lodge for Lower Saxony" in Moorweidenstraße adjacent the main building of the university which was in direct proximity to the Jewish housing trusts intended as "Jew houses". These designated "Jew houses" lay in close proximity to one another in the Grindel quarter: Grindelallee 21/23, former Beneckestraße 2 and 4, Dillstraße 15, Rutschbahn 25a and Bornstraße 22. They were now "free" because the previous tenants had already been deported in 1941 with the first four transports from Hamburg to the extermination camps.       The first candidates, in April 1942, were the "compulsorily labelled" Hamburg Jews who had to wear the yellow star, the so-called "full Jews" as defined in the 1935 Nuremberg "race laws". They had to move into the former Jewish housing trusts which were administered by the Gestapo controlled "Reich Federation of Jews in Germany" to which all Jewish communities and organizations were compulsory federated. Individuals were allocated a mere 6 square meters of floor space and, independent of size, each room had to accommodate at least two persons. Most of those forced to move into one of these "Jew houses" in the Grindel quarter in the first years hardly remained more than three months before being deported. In 1943 three houses were deemed sufficient to accommodate the few Jews remaining in Hamburg as further deportations were planned. "Aryan" tenants moved into the other three houses. The former Jewish housing trusts at Dillstraße 15, Rutschbahn 25a and the Louis Levy Trust at Bornstraße 22 remained "Jew houses" until the end of the war.       In August 1942 further "star wearers" were compelled to move into one of these houses, usually within a period of two weeks. Among these were Jews married to non-Jews, their children and many elderly people. The Gestapo assigned the organization of these obligatory removals to the Hamburg Jewish Religious Federation, which formally still held this name, but which was in reality only a branch of the "Reich Federation of Jews in Germany" with its head office in Berlin under the control of the Gestapo. Individuals received written instructions from this authority to report to the office of the Religious Federation. Here they were informed of their notice of eviction and had to complete an "application form for accommodation" containing irrelevant questions. "Are you a full Jew?" was asked, although only such - alone or with their non-Jewish spouse - were forced to move into a "Jew house". The question regarding location and number of "required rooms" was simply deceiving. Following this summons the individuals received a written eviction notice together with the allocation of a room in a "Jew house". The removal had then to take place within the next few days.       Like all anti-Jewish measures a feigned legality was established. In this case a "tenancy agreement" with two weeks notice was submitted for signature to the involuntary tenants. Evicted from their accommodation they had to immediately inform their former landlord of the vacation of their flats so that the later could immediately inform the housing office and the accommodation be allocated to an "Aryan".       The Hamburg office of the Jewish Religious Federation, under the direction of Gestapo appointed Dr. Max Plaut, not only implemented the compulsory removal into the "Jew houses" on behalf of the Gestapo but also the organization of the deportation transports to the extermination camps with the use of lists of persons the Gestapo compiled with the help of the Religious Federation.       Almost all those employed by the Religious Federation were themselves deported in June 1943. Max Plaut's deputy Leo Lippmann took his own life, together with his wife, in June 1943, prior to their impending deportation. The administration was not dissolved as initially planned by the Gestapo but reconstituted. Jews living in "mixed marriages" now had to implement the administrative tasks. In 1944 the Gestapo facilitated the emigration of Max Plaut, the executive director, alone responsible to the Gestapo, and his mother, to Palestine. In 1943 the office of the Religious Federation at Beneckestraße 2 was destroyed in an air-raid. The office was reopened in a flat, only a stone's throw away, in the "Jew house" at Bornstraße 22, following the last deportation in 1943. On 21 June 1943 in a room in this house Mechel Hesslein took his own life, two days before his announced deportation. ... sometimes only for a few months residence - Bornstraße 22 Between 1941 and 1945 at least 185 individuals were compelled to live in one or other flat at Bornstraße 22. In October 1941 the deportations began in Hamburg. Some of the voluntary trust tenants already living in the Louis Levy Trust were deported on the first deportation transports to the death camps of Lodz, Minsk and Riga. Jews evicted without notice by landlords, simply because they were Jews, had to move into the accommodation of the deported. In the spring of 1942 the Gestapo declared the Louis Levy Trust, like the other Jewish housing trusts, which were already subject to Gestapo surveillance, a so-called "Jew house", into which Hamburg Jews were forcibly removed. Individuals were forced to live crowded together in these "Jew houses" prior to their deportation. As in the other houses, the Jewish Religious Federation, on instructions from the Gestapo, had to accommodate more than one family in one of the small three-room flats or in one of the shops on the ground floor at Bornstraße 22. The inhabitants had to share kitchen, washing facilities and toilets and get along with one another in spite of everything. They rarely had time to get accustomed to, or to get to know, one another because usually the deportation order arrived after a few weeks or months. Nobody knew how individuals were chosen for a deportation transport. The personally addressed notice of deportation could arrive to anyone at any time. Then the list of names for the next transport was usually hung up in the hallway of the house. Even if one was aware of the transports to the East or of the so-called "evacuations" or "migration", as they were described in the benign jargon of the National Socialists, it was nevertheless a shock to personally receive a deportation order and be confronted with imminent departure. Having been evicted from their accommodation and forced to live in a "Jew house" individuals were now forced to depart Hamburg; the city in which they had spent their lives and which was familiar to them. The unknown destination was an additional uncertainty. Some hoped they could believe in the propaganda that they were destined for temporary war work or the retirement home. Few suspected or admitted the fear that they would never return. Even those who had experience the terrible persecution and harassment of the preceding years did not conceive that they would become victims of a planned genocide.       The deportations could be observed by non-Jewish neighbours and passers-by. They could observe how hundreds of people were transported in open lorries from the assembly buildings to the Hannoverische goods station. From Bornstraße 22 alone, 65 people were deported within one week on three deportation transports: twelve on 11.7.1942, on a Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath, to Auschwitz; forty-eight on Wednesday 15.7.1942 to Theresienstadt and five on Sunday 19.7.1942 again to Theresienstadt. 1,697 Hamburg Jews were deported on these two transports to Theresienstadt. 305 Hamburg Jews were deported to the Auschwitz death camp on 11.7.1942.       There was not much to pack as nearly everything had to be left behind and only hand luggage was permitted. A few personal belongings, memento photos, perhaps a book and essential medicines were packed before reporting to the office of the Jewish Religious Federation at the Beneckestraße 2. The former Beneckestraße was a continuation of Bornstraße, on the other side of Grindelhof. The road no longer exists but is today a part of the university campus, Von-Melle-Park 13. The staff of the Jewish Religious Federation or Reich Federation of Jews in Germany was responsible to the Gestapo for the bureaucratic process of deportation. They checked names, issued regulations and rules of behaviour and when necessary supplied people with provisions. Finally, in the assembly buildings prescribed for the respective deportation transports Gestapo officials took control. All those registering here with their "evacuation order" had to attest that their "capital subversive to the people and state" was seized. The money they had with them was confiscated.       1,034 Hamburg Jews were summoned to present themselves for the first transport on 25 October 1941. As rarely more than three days separated deportation order and departure it is not difficult to picture how the people, herded together, frightened and agitated, queued for their registration - for an involuntary transport into a completely uncertain future. Their names having been confirmed on the deportation list and the Gestapo having completed their bureaucratic tasks and confirmed that the house keys had been delivered at the local police station not much time remained before deportation. Often the last night before deportation had to be spent in the Masonic Lodge or the respective assembly building. There were no beds.       The lorries awaited the deportees in the square in front of the Masonic Lodge, left of university main building. The invalid, the ill, mothers with children, men and women had to scramble up onto the open lorries; benches either side allowed some to perch close together. Most had to stand. Accompanied by Hamburg police officers the lorries drove, singly or in convoy, to the Hannoverische goods station into the Grasbrook area of the docks, south of the central station, where, apart from the first transports, goods wagons awaited them. Individual deportees were occasionally badly maltreated. Herded together, only a few found a corner or wall to lean upon. There were no seats, no windows, no toilets. A bucket located in a corner served as toilet for all. The people suffered terribly during these journeys over several. The transports from Hamburg to Minsk and Riga in November and December 1941 were additionally plagued with icy cold weather. It was not unusual that ill and elderly people died on the journey. Rail track leading away from where the Hannoversche goods station once stood       The chief rabbi of the Bornplatz synagogue, Dr. Joseph Carlebach, his wife and four of their children were among those who were deported to Riga on 6 December 1941 and, all but the son, murdered a few months later.       From a total of 5,848 people deported from Hamburg in three and a half years, 2,129 were deported to concentration camps, of whom 2,081 were murdered, in the months of November and December 1941 alone. 5,173 Jews were deported from Hamburg on the first seven mass transports. Almost all were murdered. It is possible that 139 individuals survived as their deaths were not certified by any concentration camp. The Geistlich Family - Victims of Gestapo Despotism The large Geistlich family lived in Wexstraße, in the new town, before, in autumn 1942, they were forced to move into the "Jew house" Bornstraße 22. Eight family members were quartered in the shop, with flat at the back, on the right side of the building.       The Gestapo did not always deport all members of a family on the same transport, often men were separated from their wives; children, parents and grandparents appeared on different lists intended for different transports. Helpless, fearful and sorrowful they had then to take leave of each other. Often they strove nevertheless to be courageous and hopeful in order to ease the burden of the others.       Ruth Geistlich, then 15 years old, still remembers how Arnold Himmel, the boyfriend and love of her aunt Lieselotte, did not want to release his girlfriend from their parting embrace. Arnold cycled beside the lorry as it carried away 23 year old Lieselotte with her sisters Asta and Esther and her nieces Ruth and Dorrit. For a short distance the lovers still managed to hold hands. Lieselotte wept and Arnold tried to comfort her and called out ever louder: "Be strong, stick it out. We'll see each other again", until he could no longer be heard. He tried to keep up with the accelerating lorry but was increasingly left behind. He cycled to the Hannoverische goods station as fast as he could so as to be able to take the love of his life in his arms again. But nobody was allowed to approach the deportees and he could not identify her among the crowd of people. Lieselotte Geistlich Arnold Himmel       On 10 March 1943 this tenth transport from Hamburg deported 51 Jews and - as in the case of the Geistlich family - so-called half-breeds to Theresienstadt. Most were elderly people born in Hamburg like Jenny and Josef Goldstein. The Gestapo had taken them from the home for the elderly in Schäferkampsallee. Jenny was 90 years old, her husband Josef 77. They had been married for decades. Now, old and frail, they were shipped like cattle to their deaths. Others were 80 years and older who, after the death of their marriage partner, had had to confront the years of persecution and harassment alone but who despite everything felt at home in Hamburg. Banished from their hometown and country of birth they were sent to their deaths with the deceitful expectation of accommodation for the elderly in Theresienstadt. Only a few people of middle age were on this transport. Most of this age group had already been deported to concentration camps with the first transports immediately following Hitler's deportation order in autumn 1941. From 1943 on a further 10 deportation transports left the city, one to Auschwitz, the rest to Theresienstadt. The journey always took several days as the trains made stops on the way where wagons with Jews from other places were coupled.       The five members of the Geistlich family were the youngest members of the deportation transport that left Hamburg for Theresienstadt on 10 March 1943. Asta was 30 years old, her sisters Lieselotte and Esther were 23 and 20, Dorrit was only 8 years old and her sister Ruth 15. Arnold Himmel, who had know Lieselotte less than a year, took the last photo of the two girls and three young women, on Bornplatz, before their deportation. Lieselotte, Asta with Dorrit, Esther and Ruth Geistlich, from left, on the day of their deportation       The numerous letters, postcards and parcels Arnold sent to his beloved Lieselotte in Theresienstadt, which, in contrast to other camps, were usually delivered to the recipients when always censored, he wrote under the sender name "Arnold Geistlich" as the second of the Nuremburg Laws of 1935, the Law for the Protection of German Blood and Honour, prohibited, among other things, marriages and extramarital intercourse between Jews and "Aryans" which was punishable by imprisonment or concentration camp. The ardent love letters and postcards the alleged brother Arnold Geistlich sent to his sister Lieselotte were delivered uncensored. Post card from Arnold Himmel, as Geistlich, to his alleged sister Lieselotte Geistlich in Theresienstadt, 1944       One week after their separation Arnold wrote Lieselotte a long letter. Over six pages he related his sorrow but confidence that both would see each other again: " ... it is already more than a week ago that we were torn apart. The 10 March, my dearest, is a day I cannot forget. I have already seen and experienced so much. But never have I been so affected. (...) I know how you suffer. (...) However everything will turn out well, the sun will shine for us again, and together we will be happy again. (...)"       According to the Nuremberg Laws, Elcka Geistlich and her non-Jewish husband Paul, with their seven children Asta, Lieselotte, Esther, Ursula, Vera, Kurt and Werner, lived in a so-called non-privileged mixed marriage. The definition "non-privileged" was applied because three of their children attended a Jewish school, i.e. were being brought up as Jews. These laws actually excluded Elcka and her "half-Jewish" children from deportation. That all seven children and two grandchildren were nevertheless deported - Werner, in 1941, on one of the first transports to Minsk, where he was murdered, the female family members in 1943 -, demonstrate that the Gestapo interpreted the anti-Jewish laws arbitrarily. Also the son Kurt was arrested in 1941 and imprisoned in Fuhlsbüttel concentration camp from where he was deported to other concentration camps. He survived but suffered the rest of his life not only psychologically but also from the pain caused by a broken off needle in his arm. The needle had broken off in his arm while he was being tattooed with his prisoner number in Auschwitz.       Two sons, four daughters and two grandchildren of Elcka and Paul Geistlich had already been transported to concentration camps when she received notice of the deportation of their daughter Vera. The parents gave Vera, their youngest child, a Christian baptism in the attempt to shelter her from the Nazi persecution. Nevertheless, Vera's name was not taken off the deportation list. Elcka Geistlich's last resource was to divorce her non-Jewish husband. By doing this she relinquished her privileged status and now, as Jewess, was herself, like her daughter, a candidate for deportation. In June 1943 both arrived in Theresienstadt to join Elcka's other daughters and grandchildren Ruth and Dorrit were. Letter from Paul Geistlich to his wife and children in Theresienstadt, with appendage from Arnold Himmel to Lieselotte       The fact that the children and grandchildren came from a "mixed marriage" did not protect them from deportation but as prisoners in Theresienstadt they were preferentially treated as they were able to remain together as a family which normally only applied to a few prominent families. All had to do forced labour and lived under abject conditions, sleeping on plank beds, in crowded conditions, often changing barracks. They were nevertheless happy to be together. The mother not only protected her youngest daughter Vera she was also an important support for the other children.       Eight members of the Geistlich family were deported in three separate transports from Hamburg to Theresienstadt. Very few of the other deportees survived their imprisonment. Elcka Geistlich, four of her daughters and the two grandchildren returned to Hamburg in 1945, after two and a half years, enfeebled, emaciated and traumatised. The Theresienstadt documents indicate that Ursula survived the liberation of Theresienstadt on 10 May 1945, however, the family relate that she voluntarily joined someone on a deportation to another camp. Her fate is unknown.       The economic circumstances of the Geistlich family were representative of many Jewish and half-Jewish Hamburg worker families. Paul Geistlich's wages were barely enough to support the large family. The family had no close relationship with the Jewish community but as amatter of course both Christian and Jewish traditions were a part of the everyday life. Both Christmas and Passover were celebrated. Three of the daughters and the granddaughter Ruth attended the Jewish community girls' school in Karolinenstraße. Family life was determined by circumstances and needs and not by religious considerations. Ruth Geistlich - a life When Ruth was born, in 1928, her mother Asta was still at school and too young to take responsibility for the care her daughter alone. The family considered the Jewish Paulinen Trust children's home and orphanage for girls at Laufgraben 37 the best place for the child. Here Ruth Geistlich was raised in the Jewish tradition. She spent the first 14 years of her life in this children's home and was happy there. The clear-cut institutional routine gave her security. Due to her beautiful voice Ruth was allowed to sing a prayer on the Sabbath evening. Her grandfather arrived Sundays to take her back to the family for the day. On the Feast of Tabernacles she, together with the other Paulinen Trust children, was invited by Chief Rabbi Dr. Joseph Carlebach to his home at Hallerstraße 76. She had friends and a warm relationship with the staff.       The children's home was oriented on the most modern pedagogical methods of the time: the children lived in small family-like groups, were afforded scope for development and an independence and sense of responsibility was promoted. Ruth Dräger née Geistlich, today       Ruth Dräger née Geistlich also has fond memories of the Jewish community girls' school in Karolinenstraße which she attended until the Nazis closed all Jewish schools in 1942. However, she also has unpleasant memories. From 1938 onward, Jewish school children on their way to and from school were often insulted or had stones thrown at them by adults and children in the neighbourhood. Ruth can never forget the fear and shock she experienced when on her way back to the children' home alone, wearing the compulsory yellow star, after visiting the family one Sunday, when crossing Kaiser-William-Straße an SS man threatened her with: "Are you, Jew sow, still here!"       Ruth's childhood experience repeatedly forced her to protest her existence. From the feeling of being unwanted and undesired Ruth developed strength, vitality and the will to live. This has helped her throughout her life to master the many difficulties she has been confronted with.       On 25.10.1941 the Gestapo deported some children from the children's home for girls on the very first deportation transport from Hamburg to the Lodz death camp. Ruth was not among them and was not on the next two deportation lists for the next two transports on 8.11 and 18.11.1941 to Minsk as were some of the other children. The girls still remaining in the home, mostly so-called half-breeds, had to move into the boys' orphanage at Papendamm 3. Laufgraben 37 temporarily became a Jewish home for the elderly and nursing home until these elderly people were transported on three transports to Theresienstadt on 19.07.1942, 10.03.1943 and 24.03.1943.       In July 1942 the deportation order arrived for all children and staff of the Papendamm boys' orphanage. They were on the deportation list for the transport to Auschwitz on 10.7:1942. Ruth was on the list.       She has a vivid memory of the evening of 9 July 1942. The bags were packed with necessities for the children. Suddenly after darkness had fallen Ruth's grandfather arrived with a hand barrow. A caring member of staff had asked him to take Ruth home before the deportation. In order to cover up tracks in the home he not only placed her belongings and the suit-case packed for the deportation but also her bedstead and bedding on the hand barrow and hurried home with his 14 year old granddaughter.       Even though the grandparents took care of Ruth they had mixed feelings. Family life was strange to her, she was unable to form a close relationship to her mother or to her now seven-year-old sister, who had grown up in the family, and missed her friends from the orphanage and especially Miss Gramm, who had been deported with the girls from the Laufgraben orphanage.       Nearly all the children from both homes, the Paulinen Trust for girls and the Papendamm boys' orphanage were murdered. Ruth knows that her grandfather saved her life even when it was difficult to so suddenly leave the surrogate family of the children's home and its familiar environment.       Ruth lived with her family in Wexstraße for only a few weeks before the Gestapo ordered their obligatory removal into the "Jew house" at Bornstraße 22 and assigned the large family one of the two shops on the ground floor as accommodation.       It was an emotional moment for Ruth Dräger née Geistlich, when 58 years later, in the summer of 2000, she re-entered the house again. She remembered that the family had to perform forced labour in what is today the art gallery. They had to fill packets with washing powder. The whole space was full of bags and packets; the workbench stood in front of the window. As it was forbidden for Jews to use public transport the material was delivered and the filled packets collected. In the two small rooms to the rear of the shop stood beds for five family members, the others shared the area of the shop.       Ruth had little opportunity to get accustomed to the new environment and to living in a family. In early March 1943, after only having lived about six months at Bornstraße 22, she and four other family members received a deportation order. She was now faced with the immanent separation from her grandparents, her psychological parents.       After days of stressful travel in a cattle wagon to Theresienstadt concentration camp the train stopped at Bohusovice station, 2 kilometres from Theresienstadt. The exhausted people had to walk to the large hall where they had to sleep on the bare ground.       The 15 year old Ruth also had to perform forced labour here. She had to lay drainage pipes. She became ill from the strain of the work. Finally she was allotted to agricultural work. Her days consisted of work and sleep. There was no time left for thoughts or feelings. Her happiest day was when her grandmother arrived on a transport.       Ruth spent two and half years, during which time she became a young woman, in Theresienstadt. She, like the others, lived in constant fear that her situation could worsen from one day to the next. She saw how prisoners were torn from their sleep and transported to Auschwitz. She saw people die and be removed on carts. She had fear of beatings and is thankful that she was not maltreated in any way.       Of the almost 140,000 people deported to Theresienstadt only around 13 percent survived. Ruth, and nearly everyone of her family are among the few Hamburg Jews who survived the Holocaust. They returned to Hamburg where Paul Geistlich, Ruth's grandfather, awaited them. As "Aryan" he had to move out of Bornstraße 22 after his family was deported. In Hamburg the family were again separated as there was no accommodation large enough for them all. They found accommodation with relatives or friends sleeping on sofas or kitchen floors until the re-established Hamburg Jewish community allocated them an apartment in a house restored to it.       Ruth lived, later together with her husband, nearly 30 years in the house at Kielortallee 22/24 until, again blameless and against her will, she was forced to move out because the Jewish community sold the building.       Ruth Dräger née Geistlich is a woman who challenges life's adversities. She found a new apartment for herself and her husband. Later she conquered a serious illness. She lives free of resentment despite disappointments and discrimination. An application for a compensation allowance, because of her rheumatism and depressions, was rejected as the authorities saw no connection with the Nazi persecution. Only since 1993 has she received a small additional pension from a trust in addition to her widow's pension - her husband died in the meantime. At the time this book was published she was hoping for an imminent payment of, repeatedly deferred, compensation to former forced labourers - 56 years after she had to perform hard labour under concentration camp prison conditions. Simon and Ida Krim - futile protest On 3 February 1943 Simon Krim received a letter from the Jewish Religious Federation Hamburg, in which he read: "on instructions from the Gestapo Hamburg you are requested to appear in room 9b, Beneckestraße 2 at 10 a.m. on Friday, 5 February." Simon Krim, 1955       He and his non-Jewish wife Ida knew that they were to be evicted from their six-room apartment in Andreasstraße and removed to a "Jew house". Simon Krim was a reputable tradesman who had owned a car business in Ferdinandstraße up to the "Arysation" of all Jewish businesses in 1938/39. He had been married to the 33 years younger catholic Ida Massanet for over ten years. The couple enjoyed life of affluence until their economic ruin, which included the control of bank accounts and assets. Ida Krim was determined to fight to remain in their apartment with all her courage and energy and immediately visited the Gestapo office before appearing at the Religious Federation. The secretary of the Jewish community Berta Hirsch recorded the following on 5 February 1943: "Mrs. Krim appeared and explained: I visited the Gestapo yesterday and informed Mr. Stephan and Mr. Mecklenburg that I am going to drive to Berlin regarding this affair. I must report back to the Gestapo on my return and inform them of the result. I will drive to Berlin on Monday the 8th and will report back to you on Tuesday the 9th."       A renewed summons dated 12 February 1943 indicated that she did not keep this appointment. Her journey to the Reich Security Main Office was fruitless because all requests and personal consultations were rejected as a matter of course. On 16 February, the Gestapo appointed Jewish director of the Religious Federation, Max Plaut wrote to the property department regarding Simon Krim: "Please see that Krim has moved by 28 February at the latest. Please consult me in this regard." Simon Krim obviously refused to appear in the office of the Jewish Religious Federation in Beneckestraße. The application form, with pro forma questions, for the compulsory move into the "Jew house" Bornstraße 22 was filled out and signed for Krim by a community worker on 24. 2.1943. His wife added "Mrs. Krim". It is to be presumed that Ida Krim refused to answer the absurd question as to whether her husband was a full Jew. The disconcerted writer registered a question mark.       Normally, only 14 days elapsed between the summons and the removal. However, it appears that the couple succeeded in protracting the compulsory removal for three months because only in May 1943 was a lease, for two rooms on the fourth floor at the front of Bornstraße 22, signed by both.       In the summer of 2000 Ida Krim, a recipient of home care, lived alone in Hamburg. Years of solitude had left her silent and only after several visits did her memory return. The 91 year old Ida spoke of her first meeting with her future husband Simon Krim, when she was a 20 year old model, of journeys with him to Berlin staying at the Adlon Hotel, of their apartment in Andreasstraße and that her husband Simon Krim was an "important businessman". The degrading two years of the compulsory accommodation in the "Jew house" in Bornstraße seemed to have been completely erased from her memory. The Krims had had to move into Bornstraße 22 in May 1943. They were still living there in May 1945 when the war ended. Ida Krim on her 91 birthday on 3 August 2000       Ida Krim lived for nearly 40 years alone without contact with relations or others. Later she was visited by a home care four times a day. On 3 August 2000 she was 91 years old. As normal someone visited her on this day with whom she could not or would not speak. She died in October of the same year. The Schwarzschild Family - sorrow but also hope through assertion Schlomo Schwarzschild was born in 1925. He is the only survivor of his family and has lived for more than 60 years in Haifa, Israel. He has many memories of his childhood and youth in Hamburg. Schlomo Schwarzschild, Hamburg 1998       The Schwarzschild family lived openly as a religious Jewish family in a cooperative apartment house in Schlankreye in a non-Jewish neighbourhood. The father Ignatz Schwarzschild was a cantor, first in the synagogue of the Kelilat Jofi association at Hoheluftchaussee 25, and later, until his deportation, in a synagogue in Altona, where he was also active as a community worker. He also worked as an accountant. Ignatz Schwarzschild as cantor in Altona, 1939       The mother Kela Schwarzschild earned additional money as a housekeeper. Up until the Nazis came to power in 1933 they lived, with their sons Salomon (Schlomo) and Leopold (Poldi), known to their neighbours as a Hamburg Jewish family, free from discrimination. Apart from their religious belief, which played an important role in their lives, nothing differentiated them from their neighbours. Many Jews were members of trade unions and were socialists. Ignatz Schwarzschild was a socialist. Their conduct was little different to their non-Jewish neighbours, e.g. a pronounced correctness and sense of order. Schlomo Schwarzschild therefore describes his parents as "quite German". The Schwarzschild family were nevertheless not assimilated Jews, but emphasized their Jewish identity. They regarded themselves as Jews living in Germany and not as Germans and conveyed this to their sons. Kela Schwarzschild with her sons Poldi and Schlomo       Schlomo and Poldi entered the Talmud Tora School in Grindelhof in 1931 and 1930 respectively. During the early years of their primary school education they were able to walk to school, untroubled, from Schlankreye via Grindelberg and Grindelallee to Grindelhof. Schlomo was eight years old when he was confronted with anti-Semitic aggression. He remembers this well: "Soon after the Nazis came to power, we Talmud Tora pupils experienced what it meant to grow up as a Jew in Hitler Germany. On the way home we were often jostled by young Nazi rowdies, they insulted us, attempted to throw us to the ground, kicked us and snatched our schoolbags. Adult passers-by rarely intervened." Poldi Schwarzschild on the day of his Bar Mitzvah, 1937       Jewish schoolchildren were strongly advised to behave as inconspicuously as possible. They were advised to make their way directly home from school and not in groups but alone. In contrast to his brother Poldi, Schlomo found it difficult to follow the advice and not retaliate when attacked. On the contrary once when a Hitler youth took his ball with the comment: "Jews are not allowed to play ball" he retaliated aggressively. Sometimes Schlomo came to blows with those who attacked him and his brother.       When Schlomo was eleven years old his parents divorced. He was sent to relatives into Switzerland for a year. In 1937 he returned to Hamburg, attended the Talmud Tora school again and lived with his mother in a room in Hansastraße. In the meantime his father lived with his second wife Betty, Poldi and Abraham, born in July 1937, in a small apartment in the Louis Levy Trust at Bornstraße 22. Betty and Ignatz Schwarzschild lived with their children in cramped conditions but still with unconstrained tenants. In September 1938 the daughter Sara was born, into a world in which the discrimination and persecution of the Jews were established by hundreds of laws, regulations, decrees and orders. Abraham and Sara in the yard at Bornstraße 22       Following the pogrom of 9/10 November 1938 when synagogues, businesses and apartments of Jews were destroyed and ransacked and many Jews murdered, the violence against the Jews became public knowledge. Schlomo Schwarzschild remembers: "As I arrived breathless at Bornplatz I saw the terrible sight. A crowd had accumulated. The younger ones seemed amused. Most of the others stood in silence looking grave. Some grinned gleefully. Thick, black smoke poured from the windows of the destroyed synagogue. Torn Torah rolls and prayer books lay among the piles of broken glass. This was the traumatic end of my childhood. It was clear me that there was no future for us Jews in Germany."       Schlomo's mother Kela and her second husband Max Bundheim immediately tried everything to flee, together with Schlomo, to relatives abroad. All their efforts were unsuccessful. In November 1941 Kela and Max Bundheim were deported to Minsk and murdered there. Ignatz Schwarzschild's family was deported, on one of the first transports in 1941, from Bornstraße 22 to Riga and killed there. Schlomo's brother Poldi was 17 years old, his brother Abraham 4 years old and his sister Sara 3 years old.       Schlomo Schwarzschild's parents and siblings were among the 3,162 Hamburg Jews deported in less than two months, between 25 October and 6 December 1941, to the death camps in the East where they were killed.       Schlomo succeeded in escaping to Palestine and did not experience the deportation of his two families. Having left the Talmud Tora school in 1939 he succeeded, against his parent's wishes; in attending the HeChaluz's (pioneering youth movement) Hachshara (pioneer training) for emigration to Palestine. Schlomo enjoyed the hardy agricultural training and weapons training but also the thought of contributing to a pioneering project. It was painful for Kela to let her 14 year old son emigrate alone. However, she knew that this was his chance to escape the grave situation in Germany.       Schlomo's emigration to Palestine succeeded through circumstances, character and luck. Because he had not reached the minimum age of 15 for entry to Palestine an uncle in Palestine took care of the formalities. The documents were originally issued for Poldi but he now exceeded the age limit. Schlomo's courage, assertion and adventurousness also played a part. Today, in Haifa, lsrael, he can look back on a long life which brought him much sorrow but also much happiness. His 43 working life was spent at sea and in the port of Haifa. He fought voluntarily with the Royal Navy against Nazi Germany, sailed the oceans for two years on cargo ships and crewed tug boats in the port of Haifa for 35 years. In 1958 he married Aviva. They have two sons and a daughter and run an hospitable, lively household, not only when the six grandchildren are visiting.       Schlomo Schwarzschild closely observes developments in Germany. His speech on the Bornplatz in 1998, 60 years after 1938 November pogrom, closed with the following: "I am still attached to the city but can never again 'return home'. I feel like an amputee who still feels pain in the amputated limb. A phantom pain. (...) Only when the resurgence of Nazism is fought actively and consistently does hope for a better future exist." The Bari Family - separation from the children Both Jewish and non-Jewish neighbours did their shopping in Abraham Samuel Bari and Betty Bari's grocery shop in Bornstraße. The ostracism and statutory legitimated victimisation of the Jews was not experienced until the mid-thirties. Abraham Samuel Bari and his wife Betty were liked, customers asked after their three sons Mosche, Menachem and Sally and their four daughters Fanny, Rebecka, Sulamith and Mirjam. In 1936 Mosche, the oldest, passed his A-levels at the Talmud Tora school. Being a Jew he was not allowed to study at university and a qualified training was also prohibited. He therefore decided, like his sister Fanny one year later, to emigrate to Palestine. Abraham Samuel Bari and Betty Bari with their children Sally, Fanny, Mosche, Rebecka, Menachem, Sulamith and Mirjam, September 1935, in their apartment at Bornstraße 22       The explicit persecution of the Jews in Germany began with the destruction of the synagogues on the pogrom night of 9/10 November 1938. For the Bari's this meant their economic annihilation. In accord with the so-called Aryanisation program all Jewish retail shops were closed before 31.12.1938. The Bari's did everything possible to get their children out of Germany. Sally, Rebecka and Sulamith departed Germany shortly before the outbreak of war. In order to save their children Abraham Samuel and Betty Bari had to part from them.       14 year old schoolgirl Sulamith arrived in Palestine in 1939 together with 24 other children from various cities in Germany. She had had to prematurely leave the Talmud Tora upper school. Sulamith Bari had to pursue the next stages of her life alone: school, work on a Kibbutz and finally training as children's nurse in Jerusalem. During these eight years she had no news of the whereabouts of her parents and youngest brother and sister, Menachem and Mirjam, who were 10 and 12 years old when she departed. They had been deported to Theresienstadt in 1942, where Mirjam and Menachem were accommodated separately from their parents and later transported on the sixty-seventh transport to Auschwitz and from there to Buchenwald.       In 1947 Sulamith heard from the Red Cross that her parents and brother and sister were among the few survivors of the death camps. She postponed her wedding until it was possible to celebrate together with her parents and brothers and sisters who all survived the Holocaust.       On the 15 May 1948, one day after the founding of the state of Israel, six months after Sulamith Bari and Zwi Cahn were married, war broke with the neighbouring Arab states. Sulamith was 23 years old when she became badly wounded. In November 2000 she wrote from Kvar, Pines in Israel: "One day a bomb landed on our house and I was badly injured. My right knee was completely shattered and fragments of the bomb penetrated my lung. I could not breathe for three days and nearly asphyxiated. But thanks to the loving God a miracle occurred and I lived."       The Bari family survived the Holocaust. With active or passive participation of their non-Jewish neighbours they were robbed of their civic rights, human rights and their human dignity before being deported to their intended deaths. Without being able ever to forget this, all family members found the strength to rebuild their lives. The father Abraham Samuel Bari was very weakened by what he had gone through and died in Israel in 1958. After the death of her husband Betty Bari went to live with her daughter Sulamith. They lived in mutual care and affection, without however being able to retrieve the years of separation in Sulamith's childhood, until the mother died in 1972 at the age of 84. Today, nearly 60 years after this catastrophe, Sulamith, Rebecka and Mirjam live in Israel. Otto and Helene Ruben - persecution of an old-established Hamburg family Otto Ruben was 63 years old when he and his non-Jewish wife Helene were compelled to move into the "Jew house" Bornstraße 22 in August 1942. The compulsory removal from Hansastraße 55 into two tiny rooms of an apartment, which had to be shared with others, can be regarded as the lowest point in the history of this respected and influential Hamburg family. The Ruben family did not only play an important role in the Hamburg Jewish community, among other things Otto Ruben's ancestors founded the Talmud Tora school, but also in the economic life of Hamburg as owners of the Ruben Elias Ruben Bank, which was liquidated in 1929. Due to unfortunate circumstances only debts remained from the erstwhile fortune which, as co-heir, Helene Ruben had to pay off from her income as employee. The elder brother Paul Ruben was a reputable private scholar and a close friend of Aby M. Warburg. Only in 1937 did Paul Ruben publish his life's work: "Entstehung von Textvarianten und Interpolationen im Alten Testament". Paul Ruben and his wife were ejected from their apartment in Klosterstern as early as 1939. It is unknown what happened to the around 10,000 volume academic library. He died before his deportation to Theresienstadt. Gravestone for Paul Ruben and Paul and Helene Ruben in the Jewish cemetery in Ohlsdorf       On moving into Bornstraße 22 Otto and Helene Ruben were forced to leave their entire household belongings behind because there was no space to accommodate their luxury furniture. Despite this they did not succeed in moving in within the prescribed two weeks because it was impossible to find a remover within this short time. With a feeling of powerlessness Otto Ruben wrote to the Religious Federation asking for a postponement. "I ask your permission to vacate my apartment at Hansastraße 55 on the 23rd of this month.".       Having to share the kitchen washbasin with the other tenants for the purpose of washing was particularly unpleasant for those who had previously enjoyed the comfort of a bathroom. A room on the fourth floor contained a bath tub and coal stove for heating the water but as the room was also the wash kitchen it was difficult to use it as a bathroom.       The Rubens tried to make the best of the oppressive living situation and applied for permission, "to install a bath tub and bath stove in the room adjacent the kitchen". This improvement was finally permitted but Otto Ruben enjoyed it for only few months. He died in May 1943, around three years after he had had to vacate his apartment and move into this "Jew house" and shortly before he was to be deported.       After the death of her husband Helene Ruben, being a non Jew, had to vacate the "Jew house" and find other accommodation. On 24 November 1955 she wrote to the geographer Carl August Rathjens, who, as a private scholar, retained contact with Jewish academics during the Nazi period, thanking him for his support and described the humiliating situation under which she had had to live during the Nazi period and in the post-war period: "I live in one tiny room. Not a Pfennig remains of the fortune. (...) My elegant household and entire silver is burned or stolen. We had to move into a tiny hole in a "Jew house". (...) It is terrible to be old and to have lost everything."       Like so many others who had suffered ostracism, humiliation and persecution Helene Ruben was awarded only a very small sum for damages. The remuneration in no way corresponded to what she had lost.       Helene Ruben died in Hamburg in 1964. Alfred and Emmy Pein and Rachel Süss - dashed hopes of survival Alfred Pein's daughter Inge, who today lives in Hamburg with her husband, still remembers the smell of the sole leather emitted from the large roles stored in the wholesale warehouse of her father's company. It was a great pleasure for her and her sister to be allowed to visit their father in the company because he took them around and showed them the different sorts of leather. The carefree, protected childhood of the sisters first came under strain when, with the seizure of power by the National Socialists in 1933, the father had to give up the business for economic reasons. The Nazi propaganda against Jewish businessmen and entrepreneurs was a reason for the ruin of Alfred Pein's company. He continued to support the family with the help of relatives and friends. Alfred Pein with his daughter Inge, May 1942       As the repression increased against the Jews Alfred Pein came to the notice of the authorities. In June 1938 in connection with the "Work-shy" action between 1,000 and 2,000 Jews were also arrested for pseudo offences. Alfred Pein was arrested and taken to Fuhlsbüttel concentration camp. In compliance with a directive those older than 50 years were soon released, often only temporarily. The 48 year old Alfred Pein counted among the younger and was retained in detention longer. Shortly after his release from Fuhlsbüttel he was rearrested by the Gestapo and transported to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. During the severe winter of 1938/39 the prison conditions were so terrible that he returned to Hamburg in January with frostbitten fingers and had to spend three weeks in hospital.       The marriage failed under the pressure. As the mother converted to Judaism in marrying the daughters Inge and her sister were not fully Jewish and were thereby exempted from the worst repression. Inge courageously strove to help her father and asked the Gestapo about possibilities of emigration for him. She succeeded in getting him a passage on a ship from Genoa to Shanghai. Alfred Pein took the train to Italy and on 30 August 1939 in Genoa boarded the ship which was to bring him to safety. Fatally, war broke out on 1 September 1939 directly before the ship was to sail. All passengers were returned to their homelands, and Alfred Pein returned to Hamburg in despair.       Here he met Emmy Süss and despite everything hoped to be able to start a new life together with her. In 1941 after marrying the pair moved in with Emmy's mother Rachel Süss in the "Jew house" Bornstraße 22, second floor. On 8.11.1941 two rooms in a small three room apartment had become "free" after Mr and Mrs Laupheimer and their son Rolf were deported to Minsk. Alfred and Emmy Pein lived several months there with Emmy's mother and did their best to come to terms with the ominous situation.       As the first transports had already left Hamburg they anticipated their "evacuation" to pretended work "in the East". Alfred Pein's daughter remembers visiting her father at Bornstraße 22, in the winter of 1941, and meeting his second wife and her mother who were knitting socks and gloves in preparation for the cold winter in eastern Europe.       On 11 July 1942 Alfred and Emmy Pein and her mother Rachel Süss, with nine other tenants of Bornstraße 22, were deported to Auschwitz. A total of 305 people of all ages, children with their parents, single people and elderly people were transported in the cattle wagons from Hamburg to the death camp. 292 of them were murdered in Auschwitz including Alfred and Emmy Pein and Rachel Süss. Selma Isenberg and Frieda Mendel - documents and memories On 11.7.1942 Selma Isenberg was deported to Auschwitz together with Alfred and Emmy Pein, Rachel Süss and other tenants of the "Jew house" Bornstraße 22. Three letters, with the return address Bornstraße 22, survive - letters to her son in Palestine who, together with his wife, had escaped in time. These are the letters she wrote with the maximum permitted 25 words, through the Central Prisoners of War Agency in Geneva, of the International Committee of the Red Cross, in March, May and on the day before her deportation in July 1942. The correspondence was censored several times, obviously in Hamburg but also in Palestine.       Selma Isenberg knew of the censorship and only indirectly mentions her immanent deportation. She wrote: "Journeying to aunt Minna." Minna Schack, née Isenberg, was her sister-in-law, who had been transported to Riga on 6.12.1941 with 752 Hamburg Jews. She was one of the 726 victims of this death transport.       The Memorial Book for the Hamburg Jewish Victims of the Holocaust lists 8,877 names. The name Isenberg appears twelve times - Selma Isenberg is among them. She was murdered in Auschwitz. Her sojourn in the "Jew house" Bornstraße 22 was only a temporary stage on her journey of suffering. Probably only after a few months of tenancy, her name, together with 11 other tenants, appeared on the list of those who had to be ready for transport on 11.7.1942.       Frieda Mendel née David was another tenant of Bornstraße 22 who, prior to transport, had to appear in the former Jewish community centre Hartungstraße 9,-11. Here the names were registered for the two transports to Auschwitz. The registration for the other 15 transports from Hamburg took place in the Masonic Lodge in Moorweidenstraße, in the elementary school in Schanzenstraße, in the office of the Religious Federation initially in Beneckestraße and after 1944 in the Talmud Tora school in Grindelhof.       Frieda Mendel, who had come to Hamburg from England many years previously, was deported from Hamburg to Auschwitz on 11 July 1942 to her certain death. She was born and grew up in Liverpool. We do not know what brought her to Germany or when she married Adolf Mendel. Uri Katzenstein, now in Israel, remembers that her accent betrayed her English origins, and that Frieda Mendel often cooked the Sabbath meal for Jacob Katzenstein's, a teacher at the Talmud Tora school, large family and guests. Documented Injustice The existing documents furnish information about additional individuals who were compelled to move into the "Jew house" Bornstraße 22.       Bruno Otto Fries and his wife Elsa lived at Grindelallee 153. On 16 September 1942 they were summons to appear in the office of the Jewish Religious Federation. Like other non-Jewish wives Elsa Fries tried to resist the compulsory removal into a "Jew house" and submitted a request to the authorities to remain in their accommodation. She did not know that as a matter of principle all such requests were rejected. Following numerous summonses to the office of the Religious Federation the couple were assigned a room on the third floor at the front of the house, which they had to move into on 26 October 1942. On 5 January 1943 Bruno Otto Fries and imprisoned in Fuhlsbüttel concentration camp "because he had shopped in a shop not permitted to Jews", as Max Plaut, director of the Religious Federation, wrote to the property department under the heading "detainee". Elsa Fries, who had three months earlier been capable of protesting against the compulsory move to various authorities was now described, in this letter from Plaut, as being "mentally ill" and "feeble minded". Evidently it was assumed her husband would not return from the concentration camp because she received notice of termination of tenancy and had to move out on 28 February 1943. The apartment of Adolf Sommer and his wife Franziska at Lokstedterweg 36 was made "free" for her, her father, daughter and grandchild, they being designated as "Aryan": The Sommers, another so-called "mixed marriage" couple, had to move into this vacated room in the "Jew house" Bornstraße 22".       Bruno Otto Fries in fact did not return. Four weeks after his arrest, on 8 February 1943, he was deported from the Fuhlsbüttel concentration camp to Auschwitz where he was murdered on 24 August 1943.       In July 1942 the middle apartment dwelling on the third floor became "free". Six Dugowski siblings, who were between 65 and 75 years old, were allocated this apartment as transit stage on their way to an extermination camp. Two transported directly to Auschwitz and murdered there, the other four were deported to Theresienstadt. Two months later they were transported to Minsk and murdered there.       Two couples, who did not know each other before and whose age differences so large that they belonged to two generations, were now forced to share this three room apartment. Hugo Cohrs and his wife Emilie had lived at Bornstraße 6 prior to their compulsory move. They were assigned the two back rooms. Alexander Lewy and his wife Auguste were 25 years younger than the Cohors. They were assigned the front room. There were problems with having to share a kitchen because Hugo Cohrs wrote to the Religion Federation asking for the installation of a gas line to connect an oven of their own. The monthly rent was increased by 2 RM to cover the 40 RM.       The rent for a single room at Bornstraße 22 was often little less than for the previous apartment. The total rent for an apartment in the "Jew house" Bornstraße 22 was above the average.       The 79 years old, former bank clerk, Raphael Philipp and his wife Anna succeeded in remaining in their house, with its three large and two small rooms, at Vereinsstraße 12 until 1942. Anna Philipp also fought to prevent the move. A note dated 16.9.1942 reads: "Mr. Phillip is instructed to move into the home for the elderly in Schäferkampsallee on 18.9.42. Mrs Phillip tried to let a floor so as to retain the house." Raphael Philipp succeeded in resisting having to move into the home for the elderly in Schäferkampsallee and so remained with his wife. However, she did not succeed in keeping the house. One month after the order of compulsory removal, on 29 September 1942, both had to share a room in an apartment in the "Jew house" Bornstraße 22.       Sally Rosenthal already occupied a room at Bornstraße 22. For unknown reasons he had to vacate the room on 8 May 1943 as someone else in the house was allotted his room. He was informed: "as alternative apartment you are assigned Miss Herz's former room in the rear apartment at Bornstraße 22, with the use of the kitchen. The room will be obtainable as soon as Miss Herz vacates it. In the meantime you are to move into a small room with the Rothenburg-Loszcynskys in House 1, Rutschbahn 25a."       Meta Herz was 48 years old. She "vacated" the room and was deported, almost seven weeks later, on 23 June 1943, to Theresienstadt from where she was further deported to Auschwitz where she was murdered.       We can assume from this that the Jewish Religious Federation sometimes knew weeks before the transport who was to be deported. Felix Epstein - recorded evidence of injustice Felix Epstein, an esteemed member of the Hamburg Jewish community, was also one of the many individuals who were evicted from their accommodation and compulsorily moved into the "Jew house", Bornstraße 22. He remained the administrative director of the Jewish Hospital (Israelitische Krankenhaus) and was personally committed to its interests right up to the time when in 1942 it was closed by the Nazis. Felix Epstein, 1970       He had to vacate his apartment for "Aryans" and share a tiny apartment in the "Jew house". On 19.7.1942 the widower Felix Epstein was deported together with his sister Rosa Redelmeier, and other tenants. A total of 771 people were deported from Hamburg to Theresienstadt in bolted goods wagons on this transport.       Thersienstadt was a so-called "model Jewish settlement". The Nazis did everything to camouflage the real circumstances by establishing fake shops, a cafe, a bank with its own ghetto bank notes, kindergartens, a school, and flower gardens. The Nazis even made a propaganda film showing how the Jews were leading a new life under Hitler's protection. Each individual received 100 crowns of camp money for forced labour. Felix Epstein was assigned to work in the "bank". This occupation allowed him an overview of the number of transports to Theresienstadt, the exact number of deportees to and from Theresienstadt, their dates of birth, details of death and other details. Perhaps for him it was a way to cope with this inconceivable situation. In addition it was perhaps his aim to collect evidence of the injustice. Due to lack of paper Felix Epstein made his observations of the Theresienstadt ghetto on innumerable pieces of paper of various sizes, torn-off printed sheets, on postcards and in letters to acquaintances in Germany and abroad. He registered 2,377 people deported from Hamburg to Theresienstadt of whom 529 remained there on 10 May 1945. His private statistics corresponded almost exactly with the official statistics.       In July 1945 he returned to Hamburg and immediately to re-establish the Jewish community. In the autumn 1945 the new Jewish community was founded. He also succeeded in re-establishing the Jewish hospital.       Felix Epstein died in 1981 at the age of 99.       A total of 75 tenants were deported to Theresienstadt from Bornstraße 22. The Nazi propaganda described it as a "model ghetto". Even when Theresienstadt was not an extermination camp, and the building of an underground gas chamber did not begin until February 1945, of the 139,654 individuals deported here between 1941 and 1945 only 17,472 (approximately 13%) remained in May 1945 when the Red Army liberated the camp. Almost 34,000 individuals died in the three and a half years of Theresienstadt's existence and more than 87,000 were deported from there to Auschwitz and into other extermination camps. Each number represents a human life, fear, hope, suffering and indescribable terror.       Of the 75 tenants deported to Theresienstadt from Bornstraße 22, 14 died there mostly within a few weeks or months after their arrival. Another 40 were deported from this transit and assembly camp to other concentration and extermination camps where they were murdered. Sophie Borchardt - deportation to a "home for the elderly" Sophie Borchardt was 81 year when she was deported to Theresienstadt on 15.7.1942. On this day 48 tenants of Bornstraße 22 were deported to Theresienstadt together with 878 other Hamburg Jews. Sophie Borchardt, and other elderly Jews, were assured the ghetto was a residence for the elderly for which she paid for a so-called home purchase contract securing her accommodation, food and medical care. Relatives report that, in this faith, she was relieved to escape the persecution in Hamburg. Sophie Borchardt died in Theresienstadt four months after her arrival, like many other elderly people who had to live in barracks, blocks and other inhuman conditions in this camp. Isidor and Sophie Borchardt, 1934       Sophie Borchardt came from an eminent family. She lived together with her husband Isidor Borchardt, a wealthy businessman, two daughters and a son in an affluent household. Her granddaughter, who at that time was nine years old, remembers her as a very elegant woman. The fact that in addition to the persecution, deportation and abject conditions she suffered in Theresienstadt at her advanced age she had to move out of her accommodation into a tiny room in the "Jew house" Bornstraße 22 is especially painful to imagine. 1945 Survivors return to Hamburg In March 1945, prior to the announced visit of International Red Cross officials, Adolf Eichmann organised the "beautification" of the Theresienstadt concentration camp. In April, when the war was seen to be lost, the SS hasty attempted to erase all traces of their machinery of murder in the extermination camps and deported the prisoners to other camps including Theresienstadt. Within two weeks 13,000 people arrived in Theresienstadt in an abject state. Ruth Geistlich was at that time 17 years old and had been more than two years there. The sight of these wretched individuals is deeply entrenched in her memory.       When, on 10 May 1945, the Red Army liberated Theresienstadt among the survivors were 21 former tenants of the "Jew house" Bornstraße 22. The prisoners were free but, due to the typhus epidemic and the respective quarantine regulations, were not allowed to leave the camp.       The release of the survivors from the concentration camps dragged on to the end of August. A private relief organisation organised the return transport for those who wished to return to Hamburg from Theresienstadt. Police and Red Cross workers made two journeys with lorries, equipped with petrol coupons from the British occupation force, to bring back individuals to their north German hometowns of Hamburg and Bremen. After repeated overnight stops in shelters, schools and in the open air they arrived in Hamburg exhausted but happy. They had to pick up their lives again in their devastated hometown or try their luck elsewhere. Their former houses and apartments were occupied by others. The former "Jew house" Bornstraße 22 was occupied by couples whose non-Jewish partner had saved them from being deported. The people who returned to Hamburg from the concentration camps had difficulty in finding accommodation. Some were in despair Independent of the death of the majority of those deported to the camps the mortality rate among the Jews in Hamburg during the Nazi period was notably higher than that among non-Jews. This was not entirely due to the age structure, which did however drastically change following the first transport on which above all Jews under 65 were deported, but also by the large number of suicides. The suicide of 319 Jews in Hamburg during the Nazi period was directly contributable to the Nazi persecution. Four people, who were tenants at Bornstraße 22 during this period, saw no other way out than by taking their own lives.       Clara Weil did not live to experience the Louis Levy Trust as a so-called "Jew house" and transit station for many Hamburg Jews on their way to the extermination camps. She was 72 years old when, on 16.1.1939, she took her own life. On 11.7.1942, the day of his deportation to Auschwitz, Henny Levy also chose this way out. Three days later, the day before 926 people were deported from Hamburg to Theresienstadt, Wilhelm Polak also saw no other possibility to retain his dignity than to take his own life. Mechel Hesslein also saw suicide as a more tolerable solution and took his own life two days before his impending deportation to Theresienstadt on 23.6.1943. All four tenants were approximately the same age. They had lived in Hamburg for more than 60 years of their lives. Over many years they had had to suffer the ostracism, persecution and threat of deportation from their hometown. They had no hope left for a life of dignity. Their suicide was an expression of this hopelessness but may also be seen as a desperate resistance against those who were planning to take their lives. A house is a house When, on 3 May 1945, British troops occupied Hamburg, around 650 Jews still remained in the city. Only 13 of these had survived as so-called full Jews i.e. without the "protection" of a non-Jewish partner. In 1933 when Hitler came to power approximately 20,000 Jews lived in the Hamburg. Over 19,000 Hamburg Jews were expelled, imprisoned or deported, 8,877 did not survive the Nazi terror. All Jewish schools, synagogues, hospitals, children's homes, the home for the elderly and private houses were destroyed or expropriated. A Jewish community no longer existed.       On 8 May 1945 the administrator Moritz Schönmann calculated the rents received for May 1945 for the former "Jew house" Bornstraße 22. 32 tenants are listed. Those concerned were almost exclusively Jewish men of whom most were exempted from deportation due to their non-Jewish wives. Nevertheless, in February 1945, eight people from Bornstraße 22 had to assemble in front of the Masonic Lodge in Moorweidenstraße to be driven by lorry to the Hannoverische goods station. This seventeenth deportation transport from Hamburg took 186 men and women as labour to Theresienstadt. Even at this late date, shortly before end of the war, four of these deportees died.       All Nazi descriptions of buildings are stigmatising and therefore questionable. This applies to a home for the elderly, a hospital or a "mental" home, and in particularly a "Jew house". This latter term was Nazi jargon which became part of the colloquial language, taken over without being conscious of its segregating nature. Nazi expressions and idioms disappeared but slowly from the German vocabulary. Officialese is a good example. Thankfully today the term "Jew house" provokes irritation or disgust.       A house is a house in which human beings live, e.g. Bornstraße 22. Comment Between 1941 and 1945 around 185 people lived in the apartment house Bornstraße 22. Apart from those already living in the Louis Levy Trust when it was designated a "Jew house", all the others were compulsorily moved. 125 Hamburg Jews were deported from this house to the concentration camps, 94 of them were murdered, 4 took their own lives and the fate of one a person is unknown. 30 former tenants survived the concentration camps and at least 32 tenants survived in the "Jew house" Bornstraße 22. They were among the around 650 individuals from Hamburg, who were "Jews" according to the Nuremberg Race Laws, who survived the Nazi persecution.       All measures concerned with the systematic murder of the Jews were coordinated, "administered" and precisely documented by the authorities. Shortly before the end of the war the perpetrators and those involved destroyed practically all evidence. In addition, in 1943, the Hamburg registration of address office was destroyed in an air-raid and all the documents with it. For this reason it is difficult to exactly determine the number of people who were compulsorily moved into the "Jew house" Bornstraße 22, deported from there and murdered. Postscript As a result of my internet search for the former tenants of Bornstraße 22 or their relatives, the day after I had delivered the manuscript to the publishing house, I was contacted by the daughter of Gisela Feilmann, and granddaughter of Ludwig Feilmann and his wife Gesine.       Gisela O'Regan née Feilmann now lives in England. In a long telephone conversation it became clear that her family history and her vivid, detailed memories of the Nazi period would have appeared in the main section of the book. Gisela Feilmann's experience of the last months of Nazi rule can only be précised here.       Gisela Feilmann, daughter of a non-Jewish mother, was deported as 19 year old on the last transport from Hamburg on 30 January 1945, to Theresrenstadt, probably as "substitute" for her seriously ill father. After years of persecution and ostracism, after forced labour and imprisonment in Hamburg, in Theresienstadt she was forced to lay the pipes which were to carry the gas to the underground gas chamber under construction.       After the liberation of Theresienstadt in May 1945 she did not wait for transport home, but, set out to walk the approximately 1,000 kilometres to Hamburg, together with a female friend and Günther Clement - both had been deported with her from Bornstraße 22 - with Ursula Neustadt, her father and another neighbour from Bornstraße 22. After long marches towards the American Zone, with occasional lifts in American or English military vehicles, compulsory delousing in halls, sleeping in the open, in barns and auxiliary accommodation, after ten days the small group arrived at the bridges over the Elbe. Here their identity papers, issued in Theresienstadt, were examined. They took the rapid-transit railway to Dammtor Station and were back in their residential area. Sadly, Gisela Feilmann's father died several days before her return. His desire to see the defeat of National Socialism was fulfilled.       Gisela O'Regan née Feilmann has many memories of other tenants and remains in contact with her friend who also lived with her family at Bornstaße 22. The history of the house Bornstraße 22 between 1941 and 1945 is not ended, perhaps additional information will come to light that must be added. Book List Bajohr, Frank, "Arisierung" in Hamburg. Die Verdrängung der jüdischen Unternehmer 1933-1945, Hamburg 1997. Baumbach, Sybille u.a., "Wo Wurzeln waren ...". Juden in Hamburg-Eimsbüttel 1933 bis 1945, Hamburg 1993. Baumbach, Sybille u.a., Rückblenden. Lebensgeschichtliche Interviews mit Verfolgten des NS-Regimes in Hamburg, Hamburg 1999. Chladkova, Ludmilla, Ghetto Theresienstadt, Gedenkstätte Theresienstadt 1995. Gillis-Carlebach, Miriam, Jüdischer Alltag als humaner Widerstand. 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Jüdische Schicksale, Alltägliches - Heutiges, Hamburg 1993. Walk, Joseph (Hg.), Das Sonderrecht für die Juden im NS-Staat. Eine Sammlung der gesetzlichen Maßnahmen und Richtlinien - Inhalt und Bedeutung, 2. Auflage, Heidelberg 1996. Wamser, Ursula/Weinke, Wilfried (Hg.), Ehemals in Hamburg zu Hause. Jüdisches Leben am Grindel, Hamburg 1991. Internet site by Struan Robertson: A History of Jews in Hamburg © Karin Guth TOP