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Paula Kaczar (née Salomon) * 1888
Isestraße 57 (Eimsbüttel, Harvestehude)
1938 Zbaszyn / 'Polen-Aktion'
further stumbling stones in Isestraße 57:
Salomon Kaczar, Hertha Müller, Marianne Müller, Otto Müller, Sophie Müller, Wilhelm Müller, Kurt Holger Schmahl
Paula Kaczar (Kaczer), called Katz, née Salomon, born on 9 May 1888 in Hamburg, deported to Zbaszyn on 28 Oct. 1938
Salmen Kaczar (Kaczer), called Salomon Katz, born on 20 Nov. 1882 in Brody, deported to Zbaszyn on 28 Oct.1938
Paula and Salomon Katz were the first persons on Isestrasse to be forced out of their home. They became victims of the so-called Polenaktion: On 28. Oct. 1938, without any advance warning, 17,000 persons from across Germany were transported to Poland overnight. Their "crime”: They had missed a deadline pertaining to a decree by the Polish government dating from Sept. 1938 that ordered all Poles living abroad to confirm their Polish citizenship. Anyone not having applied for that confirmation by 1 Nov. 1938 would be declared "stateless.” This in turn prompted the Reich Security Main Office (Reichssicherheitshauptamt), headed by Reinhard Heydrich, to expel the Polish Jews shortly before this date had passed. Many of them, having lived in Germany for decades, felt so integrated in their new home that they simply ignored or missed the deadline set at short notice, as did Salomon Katz in all likelihood.
He came from Galicia, and his parents were Betty and Osias Katz. He had been living in Hamburg for 30 years. His wife Paula, née Salomon, on the other hand, was a native of Hamburg. They both joined the Jewish Community in July 1924. Since Mar. 1933, they lived on Isestrasse.
Their marriage was an "arranged match,” i.e., Paula and Salomon were "promised” to one another by the relatives. They had no children. The partners in the marital union were apparently very different. From her parents’ home, Paula Katz brought along varied intellectual interests and she loved art. She was an excellent piano player. Her pride and joy was her "Biedermeier room.” Within the Jewish Community, she worked in the social area in an honorary capacity.
Salomon Katz operated the "Norddeutsche Papier-Manufaktur Salmen Katz,” a small paper mill that earned enough to support the couple.
Paula and Salomon Katz owned an imposing German shepherd, called "Prinz.” Giving it some thought, today Mark Lissauer, a friend of the family, wonders whatever became of the pets when the owners were expelled. (In the course of the subsequent large-scale deportations, the Gestapo offices ordered that the animals had to be dropped off at specified locations. At this early time, however, no provisions for this issue existed yet.)
On 28 Oct. 1938, the couple shared the fate of approx. 1,000 Jewish residents of Hamburg with Polish citizenship. They were seized directly from their homes or their workplaces and were hardly allowed to take along even the bare essentials. They were transported on trucks to Altona station, and that same evening, the train set out for the Polish border. The journey ended in Bentschen on the German side. From there, the arrivals had to walk for 7 kilometers (approx. 4.5 miles) on foot to the border.
Dreadful scenes took place in the no man’s land, because the Polish authorities at first refused to permit entry. Many of the "German” Poles had to camp outdoors in the cold, while others found provisional accommodation in the Polish border town of Zbaszyn. Most of them were subsequently transported further to the interior, and for many of them the Warsaw Ghetto became the end of the line.
Some of the expellees were allowed to return to Germany one more time to settle their affairs there. This number also included Paula and Salomon Katz. However, they were not permitted to return to their own house. Either the apartment had already been cleared out or the two had to carry out this painful task themselves within a very short time. Their entire possessions were stored with a shipping company. Paula and Salomon Katz were quartered in the "Jews’ house” ("Judenhaus”) at Dillstrasse 15.
They attempted immediately to make arrangements for emigrating to the USA. Since they did not have any assets, the German authorities would likely have let them go but probably they lacked the necessary funds and documents, and most of all, connections, to obtain visas to the USA. Instead, Jan. 1939 saw the definitive expulsion of Salomon Katz to Poland.
His German wife stayed in Hamburg for the time being to organize the move and the necessary formalities. She compiled an exact list of the moving goods, which did not include any valuable items, though a state-appointed expert nevertheless meticulously estimated it, from the fur coat down to the garter.
On 14 Aug. 1939, two weeks before the Second World War started with the German invasion of Poland, Paula Katz received the notification that she had only one week left until her passport was invalidated. She left her 75-year-old mother Dora Salomon behind in the retirement home at Sedanstrasse 23 and followed her husband to Poland. There they were caught in the chaos of the beginning war in Warsaw and lost all of their belongings.
From the efforts of Dora Salomon to send her daughter and son-in-law parcels with the essentials, we know that Salomon and Paula Katz were taken to Tarnow, some 100 kilometers (approx. 62 miles) east of Cracow. Until Sept. 1941, they were still registered there as "residents” of Lemberger Strasse 37. After that, all of their traces disappear.
Prior to the Second World War, about 25,000 Jews lived in Tarnow. At the beginning of the German occupation and the establishment of the General Government (Generalgouvernement) of Poland, many of them fled further eastward, while others arrived in the city from the West, including persons expelled from Germany. Immediately, violent repressive measures by the occupational forces started.
As an executive body for implementing the German orders, a "Jews’ council” (Judenrat) was set up. In 1941, the measures were escalated, and, among other things, Jews had to surrender all of their valuables. Violent attacks and killings took place on a regular basis. Those who survived were crowded in cramped surroundings under dreadful conditions, having to perform forced labor.
Starting in June 1942, approx. 13,500 Jews were deported from Tarnow to the Belzec extermination camp. Even on the way there, many of them fell victim to massacres committed by the SS in the city itself or the immediate vicinity. There are estimates that during the Second World War, about 20,000 were killed in Tarnow or murdered in the extermination camp after their deportation. Two of them were Paula and Salomon Katz from Hamburg.
Dora Salomon was deported on 15 July 1942 to Theresienstadt and, on 23 Sept. 1942, from there to Treblinka, where she was murdered.
Translator: Erwin Fink
Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.
Stand: October 2016
© Christa Fladhammer
Quellen: 1; 2; 4; 8; Berichte per E-Mail von Mark Lissauer, Juni 2008, Rosa und Koppel Friedfertig aus Hamburg, Bericht über ihre Abschiebung aus Hamburg, in: Beate Meyer, Die Verfolgung und Ermordung der Hamburger Juden 1933–1945, Hamburg 2006, S. 115; de.wikepeda.org: Tarnow; de.wikepeda.org/ wiki/polenaktion.
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