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Chaim Zloczower * 1878

Grindelhof 8 (Eimsbüttel, Rotherbaum)

HIER WOHNTE
CHAIM ZLOCZOWER
JG. 1878
"POLENAKTION" 1938
BENTSCHEN / ZBASZYN
1939 LEMBERG
SCHICKSAL UNBEKANNT

further stumbling stones in Grindelhof 8:
Lea Esther Zloczower, Betty Zloczower

Chaim Zloczower, born on 18 Oct. 1878 in Lemberg [Lwow]/Poland (today Lviv/Ukraine), deported on 28 Oct. 1938 to Bentschen/Zbaszyn, camp Zbaszyn, stayed in Lemberg in 1939, fate unknown
Lea Esther Zloczower, née Fruchter, born on 20 Nov. 1885 in Bolechow/Poland (today Bolekhiv/Ukraine), deported on 28 Oct. 1938 to Bentschen/Zbaszyn, camp Zbaszyn, stayed in Lemberg in 1939, fate unknown
Betty Zloczower, born on 4 Nov. 1921 in Hamburg, expelled on 28 Oct. 1938 to Bentschen/Zbaszyn, camp Zbaszyn, stayed in Lemberg in 1939, fate unknown

Grindelhof 8

The parents of Betty Zloczower, Chaim and Lea married in Lemberg in 1904. Afterward, the young couple lived in Lea’s birthplace, where the first three children were born: Cilli (in 1906), Samuel (in 1907), and Isaac (in 1910).

At the beginning of the twentieth century, many Eastern European Jews decided to leave their homeland and emigrate to the USA, including the Zloczower family. The father of the family traveled ahead, planning to have the family join him later. His first destination was the port of Hamburg, which had established itself as the starting point for the "New World.” Arriving in Hamburg, he made contact with the Jewish Community and stayed. There he also found work, initially as a translator for the Polish, Yiddish, and German languages. After careful consideration, he abandoned the idea of making the uncertain journey to the USA. Shortly afterward, his wife Lea followed him to Hamburg with their three children. The directory recorded entries of the family in Hammerbrook in the 1910s. In order to feed the growing family, Chaim Zloczower worked as a wood turner at the time.

Over the years, other children were born: Moritz (in 1911), Simon (in 1913), his brother Julius (in 1915), Edith (in 1919), Betty (in 1921), and Gunther (in 1924).

Chaim Zloczower then had the opportunity to acquire a shop dealing in used furniture in Eppendorf, and the family hoped for good income opportunities. However, due to the First World War and the economic crisis in the 1920s, sales stagnated and he gave up the business a few years later. Afterward, he tried to sell religious paintings and other small objects while traveling, mainly in Southern Germany. At that time, the family had already lived on Rentzelstrasse for several years until they moved to Grindelhof 8. The older children helped in the household as much as they could, as long as there was time for it besides school attendance. For the religious services, they went to the "Neue Dammtor Synagogue,” where the sons also sang in the choir.

Betty Zloczower attended the Israelite girls’ school on Karolinenstrasse from 1928 to 1937/1938, and she was considered an excellent student. According to her brother Samuel, she could not start an education, although she wanted to, as the Nazi prohibitions prevented this.

The financial situation of the family became increasingly difficult. The Nazis took their first "measures” shortly after coming to power at the end of Jan. 1933. By tightening regulations and laws, they gradually drove Jews out of economic and social life. This affected particularly Polish Jews like the Zloczowers. In their immediate surroundings, the family experienced the changes first hand. Lea Zloczower showed political foresight at a very early age and urged her children to leave the German Reich. In order to cover the travel expenses, she sold furnishings and borrowed money. The older children were able to leave, but the emigration of the two youngest, Gunther and Betty, was not successful.

In the early morning of 28 Oct. 1938, the couple and their daughter Betty were picked up from their apartment and taken to the Altona train station. Gunther was left behind alone because he was not yet 16 years old. In his memoirs, Gunther describes the following: "Desperately I ran into the street and found an equally desperate Jewish boy who seemed to be in the same situation. We decided to turn ourselves in to the police and ask for our arrest.” That is what happened and Gunther found his parents and sister in the swarm of people at the station.

Those affected by this deportation operation in Hamburg, approx. 1,000 persons, were left in the dark about what would happen to them. In the evening, they had to board a train that took them to the border town of Bentschen, near the Polish border. They walked several kilometers to the Polish border town of Zbaszyn, virtually in no-man’s-land. Gunther stated, "We found a farmhouse whose inhabitants were willing to accept us. We had the hope to be able to go quickly to Lwow (Lemberg), where an uncle lived. However, since Poland had declared all passports invalid, we were initially banned from continuing our journey.” The fact that Gunther was rescued was thanks to an English organization that organized "children transports” ("Kindertransporte”) across the Baltic Sea to Britain with the help of the local Jewish Community. This did not apply to Betty, as she was too "old” for this at 17 years of age.

In Aug. 1939, the Polish government finally allowed the Jews to leave the border town. The family set off for Lemberg. Gunther kept in contact with his mother by letters, from whom he learned about the precarious living conditions in Lemberg. At some point, contact broke off due to the beginning of the war on 1 Sept. 1939, and he learned nothing about the subsequent fate of Lea, Chaim, and their daughter Betty Zloczower. Even our investigations today did not yield any clues as to where and when they died.


What traces were found concerning the children of the family?
Cilli attended the Israelite girls’ school on Karolinenstrasse for nine years. This was followed by six months of training as a shorthand typist at a commercial school. From Apr. 1923, Cilli took up a job as a commercial clerk. As early as 1928, she emigrated to Palestine. Cilli, married name Schieber, passed away there in 2004.

Samuel attended the Talmud Tora Realschule [a practice-oriented secondary school up to grade 10] on Grindelhof from 1914 to 1922. After a three-year commercial apprenticeship as an accountant, he worked as a department manager starting in 1925. On 12 Aug. 1937, Samuel fled from Bremen to Southampton aboard the "SS Bremen.” In Britain, he changed his name to Robert Eden.

His son Isak, born in 1910, died in the Harbor Hospital in 1929 due to a traffic accident.

Moritz, not even seven years old, died in June 1918 in the Israelite Hospital, the cause of death is unknown. The graves of Isak and Moritz are located at the Jewish Cemetery on Ilandkoppel.

We found hardly any traces of Simon, born in 1913. He emigrated to the USA in 1933/34, where he changed his last name to Rice. He died there in 2008.

Julius, born during the First World War (in 1915), also attended the Talmud Tora Realschule. In 1929, he began an apprenticeship as a furrier, which he completed with the journeyman’s examination in 1933. He set up a small workshop area in his parents’ apartment. To what extent this was profitable is not known. At an unknown time, Julius Zloczower fled first to Palestine and later to the USA, where he died in Los Angeles in 1996. He also called himself Rice, just like his brother Simon had done before him.

From 1925 to 1936, Edith attended the Israelite girls’ school on Karolinenstrasse. At the age of 17, in 1936, Edith emigrated to Palestine. She married there. Edith upgraded her professional qualifications to work as an elementary school teacher later.

The youngest son, Gunther, attended the Talmud Tora Oberrealschule [a secondary school without Latin] up to grade 9 (Obertertia). He arrived in Britain from Bentschen in 1939 on a children transport. He learned the language and attended school, which he completed with the school-leaving exam. In 1947, he emigrated to the USA. There he began to study and was awarded his doctorate from the University of Chicago in 1955. He also changed his last name to Rice.

In memory of his parents Chaim and Lea and his sister Betty, Gunther Rice submitted Pages of Testimony at Yad Vashem.

We would like to thank the members of the family in Israel and the USA for the great cooperation on this biography.

Translator: Erwin Fink
Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

Stand: July 2020
© Sonja Zoder

Quellen: 1; 4; 5; 8; 9; StaH: 351-11 AfW 3804 (Zloczower, Chaim); StaH: 351-11 AfW 9753 (Zloczower, Lea); StaH: 351-11 AfW 44925 (Zloczower, Betty) jeweils am 15.11.2017; Meyer, Die Verfolgung und Ermordung der Hamburger Juden 1933–1945, S. 25–32, Hamburg 2006 am 23.7.2018; Rice, Gunther: Tell Everybody, Tell Everything: The Story of My Family & My Journey, Glencoe, Ill./USA 2014, am 3.6.2018; URL: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zbąszyń; https://dx.doi.org/10.23691/jgo:article-94.de.v1; https://www.bundesarchiv.de/gedenkbuch/zwangsausweisung.html.de?page=1; https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polenaktion, jeweils am 23.7.2018; http://www.passagierlisten.de/ Zloczower, Samuel am 31.3.2019; Jüdischer Friedhof Hamburg, Ilandkoppel am 14.5.2019.
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