Search for Names, Places and Biographies

Anton Welzin * 1880

Bieberstraße 12 (Eimsbüttel, Rotherbaum)

HIER WOHNTE
ANTON WELZIN
JG. 1880
VERHAFTET 10.2.1940
KZ FUHLSBÜTTEL
1940 ZUCHTHAUS
BREMEN-OSLEBSHAUSEN
TOT 18.12.1940
KRANKENHAUS BREMEN

further stumbling stones in Bieberstraße 12:
Bertha Turbahn

Bertha Turbahn, born on 15 Mar. 1902 in Hamburg, on 4 Nov. 1940 detained in "protective custody” ("Schutzhaft”) in the Fuhlsbüttel concentration camp, on 28 Dec. 1940 transferred to the Ravensbrück concentration camp and in 1942 to Bernburg/Saale "euthanasia” killing center, murdered there on 1 Mar. 1942

Anton Welzin, born on 8 Nov. 1880 in Hamburg, on 10 Feb. 1940 detained in "protective custody” in Hamburg, imprisonment from 4 May 1940 in Hamburg, from 17 May 1940 in the Bremen-Oslebshausen penal institutions, died on 18 Dec. 1940 in a Bremen hospital.

Bieberstrasse 12

Bertha Turbahn, a German Jewish woman, was transferred from "protective custody” in the Fuhlsbüttel concentration camp to the Ravensbrück concentration camp on 28 Dec. 1940. She had been targeted by the Gestapo when her non-Jewish fiancé Anton Welzin was arrested for "racial defilement” ("Rassenschande”), charged, and sentenced to a penitentiary term on 29 Mar. 1940. Under the Nuremberg Laws, women could not be charged with "racial defilement”; legal proceedings were stipulated only for men, but for women such a charge meant arrest by the Gestapo and transfer to a concentration camp.

Bertha Turbahn had been born in Hamburg as the daughter of Rosa and Henry Turbahn on 15 Mar. 1902; her brothers Hans (on 23 June 1894) and Erich (on 21 July 1899) had still been born in Altona. There the parents, Rosa Turbahn, née Gutmann (on 1 Oct. 1861), and her husband of the same age, Henry (on 25 Dec. 1861), had resided until they moved to Hamburg, without belonging to the Jewish Community there.
They both came from families with many children. Although Henry Turbahn was the youngest of six siblings, the role of the one who held the family together fell to him.

Bertha Turbahn was the youngest among her cousins. Some of them, who lived abroad, she never met. On her mother’s side, the family of her aunt Bertha Gutmann, née Gutmann, that of her uncle Hermann Gutmann with his wife Ida, and her unmarried aunt Marianne, who eventually became a victim of "euthanasia” on 23 Sept. 1940, due to a "mental illness,” still lived in Hamburg (see www.stolpersteine-hamburg.de). Except for two aunts, Sophie Breuell, née Turbahn, and Adele Turbahn, née Christiansen, Bertha Turbahn did not get to know any more relatives on her father’s side when she was growing up.

Henry Turbahn earned a living as a sales representative. In 1908, the family moved to Vereinsstrasse 11 in Eimsbüttel, where they lived until the end of the First World War. For the next 12 years, Eichenstrasse 23 was their family residence.

Bertha’s oldest brother Hans left Hamburg at an early age. His traces lead to Berlin and Tapiau in East Prussia (today Gwardeisk in Russia), the residence of his wife Henriette, née Lewithal, born on 9 Jan. 1894 in Königsberg/Prussia (today Kaliningrad in Russia). Hans completed an apprenticeship as a dental technician and then trained as a dentist. After the First World War, he visited his parents and siblings on Eichenstrasse once again until he left for Tapiau. Without having visited Hamburg again, Hans and Henriette Turbahn emigrated to Palestine.

Details known about Bertha’s school years are that she attended the private Dr. Loewenberg secondary school for girls and subsequently a commercial school. This qualified her for her later jobs as an accountant, bookkeeper, telephone operator, and stenographer.

The beginning of her professional life coincided with the inflationary period in the early 1920s. After only one year, she lost her job and could no longer contribute anything to the family income. Henry Turbahn managed to support the family thanks to his long-standing business connections, even if the income was very low at times. It was not until 1929 that Bertha again found employment; by then, her father was drawing a pension and receiving occasional commissions.

On 3 Feb. 1930, Bertha’s mother Rosa Turbahn died in the St. Georg Hospital. She was buried in the Jewish Cemetery in Langenfelde. Bertha, who had lived in her parents’ household since 1920, continued to care for her father and, when she found a new job, contributed to the apartment rent.

At this time, Henry and Bertha Turbahn ran a joint household. Due to of the world economic crisis, Bertha lost her job again on 1 June 1931, and then received a weekly crisis allowance of 11.70 RM (reichsmark). When this expired on 31 Aug. 1932, without her having found new employment – despite several applications – her father and she were forced to move. They found a new apartment at Scheideweg 27 in Hamburg-Hoheluft West.

Since the two of them could not live on Henry Turbahn’s income, Bertha again turned to the welfare authorities and applied for the maximum rate of crisis support. Her willingness to work was recognized, since she had paid into the Reich salaried employees’ insurance (Reichsangestelltenversicherung) and was a voluntary member of the Hanse Krankenkasse, a health insurance scheme. Her renewed application for assistance was approved, but she was advised to find a room of her own so that her father could rent one out. She succeeded in convincing the welfare officers that the father needed her support. On the grounds that "the old man was being well looked after by the daughter,” she was able to stay and received small ongoing allowances.

In May 1935, Bertha Turbahn took a new job, albeit at a low salary. Apart from that, things became lonely for her: Her brother Erich, who had married Erna Levy in 1928 and lived with her in Barmbek, had moved "abroad” at the end of 1934, as indicated on their Jewish Community tax file card. In Dec. 1935, Henry Turbahn also emigrated. He went to Palestine, moved in with his son Hans in Haifa and left the furnishings of the apartment, along with the piano, to Bertha. Of the closest relatives, only aunt Sophie Breuell, the younger of her father’s two sisters, still lived in Hamburg.

Bertha provided Heidestrasse 16 as her postal address for the Jewish Community in 1936, but she was possibly already living as a subtenant with Anton Welzin at Bieberstrasse 12 in Rotherbaum.

Even before Henry Turbahn emigrated, Bertha had met Anton Welzin, an accountant 20 years her senior. He was the son of the cigar dealer Johannes Welzin, born on 5 Apr. 1847, and his wife Sophie, née Eddelbüttel, born on 27 Feb. 1853, both of the Lutheran faith. They had married on 16 Apr. 1877 in Hamburg, where they had lived since birth. Anton, born on 8 Nov. 1880, remained their only child and became a Lutheran as well.

Anton Welzin had married Elisabeth Stender, on 14 Nov. 1906. The marriage apparently remained childless, and the couple separated around 1932. Since 1915, they had lived in Hamburg-Hamm at Dobbelersweg 7, after that their traces are initially lost during the course of several subtenancies. Anton had his own address again in 1936/37 at Brahmsallee 69 and moved from there to Bieberstrasse 12.

In Bertha’s Turbahn family, Anton Christian Eduard Welzin, as his full name was, called Kurt, was accepted as her fiancé and loved by her father. The couple was aware that they were not allowed to marry because of the Nuremberg laws [on race] and that even a love affair was under threat of punishment. Presumably, for this reason, Bertha Turbahn withdrew from the Jewish Community and had the urgent note entered on her Jewish religious tax (Kultussteuer) file card to use only neutral envelopes for future letters. Apparently believing that this step would protect her from suspicion, Bertha Turbahn declared her resignation from the Jewish Community on 20 Apr. 1937. Whether the date (Hitler’s birthday) was intentional or coincidental could not be determined. In the available letters, which she wrote to her father in Haifa starting on 2 June 1937, there is no direct reference to her leaving the Community.

Bertha Turbahn also evaded registration in the May 1939 German national census. In the meantime, she had changed jobs and on 15 May 1938, after two years of employment, instead of an expected salary supplement, she received her notice of termination because the company was downsizing. After just one week, she was placed again with an import and export company, but had a long commute there to Hammer Deich. Eventually, however, she found a better-paid job with a silk merchant in Raboisen in Hamburg-Altstadt. There she was laid off as of 31 Jan. 1940.

In their letters to the father, Bertha and Kurt reported a low-key life: They went about their work, took care of the graves in the cemetery in Langenfelde, spent their free time overhauling their sailboat and yacht, taking trips on the Alster and Elbe, and cultivating contacts. In particular, they mentioned in their letters the eightieth birthday of their aunt Sophie Breuell. The last of the extant letters to their father in Haifa is dated Sept. 1938.

On 10 Feb. 1940, Anton Welzin was placed in pretrial detention in Hamburg for "racial defilement.” It is not known who denounced only him and not Bertha Turbahn as well. Bertha Turbahn then moved to Grindelallee 88 with Hirschfeldt and after a short time to Schleidenstrasse 4 with the widow Frieda Dannenberg, who in turn lived there as a subtenant.

The trial for "racial defilement” against Anton Welzin on 29 Mar. 1940, ended with his being sentenced to a four-year prison term, with the three months of pretrial detention calculated against his sentence, and four years of loss of civic right. His court and prisoner personnel files have not been preserved.

After the verdict became final on 24 April, Anton Welzin began serving his sentence on 4 May 1940. In accordance with the usual Hamburg procedure for penitentiary sentences, he was transferred to the Bremen-Oslebshausen penitentiary on 17 May 1940. Soon falling ill, he was transferred to a Bremen hospital for treatment, which was counted as an interruption of imprisonment. There he died on 18 Dec. 1940, at the age of 60, of anemia resulting from complete failure of forming new blood cells in the bone marrow (panmyelophthisis).

We do not know what Bertha Turbahn learned of her fiancé’s fate, nor whether she had knowledge of the ‘transfer’ of her aunt Marianne Gutmann to the Brandenburg "euthanasia” killing center.
She herself was arrested on 4 Nov. 1940 in the apartment at Schleidenstrasse 4 and committed to the Fuhlsbüttel concentration camp as a "protective custody prisoner” on charges of "racial defilement.” Unlike Anton Welzin, she was not legally prosecuted, but was transferred by the Gestapo without trial to the Ravensbrück concentration camp on 28 Dec. 1940. There she was registered under the number 5320/2941 "R. Schande” ("racial defilement”).

Whether she was transported to the Bernburg killing facility as a female prisoner incapable of work or due to her Jewish descent as part of the 14f13 euthanasia program cannot be verified. Fourteen days before her fortieth birthday, on 1 Mar. 1942, she suffered the same death there as her aunt Marianne had earlier in Brandenburg: She was murdered by means of carbon monoxide and her body was cremated.

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

Stand: May 2021
© Hildegard Thevs

Quellen: 1, 4, 5, 8, 9; Hamburger Adressbücher; StaHH 332-5, 13790/720/1902; 351-11, 16719; 351-14, 1956; Melderegister; Staatsarchiv Bremen, 4,60/5 Bremen-Mitte Reg.-Nr. 4879/1940 http://www.hamburger-euthanasie-opfer.de/suche.php?nachname=Turbahn&vorname= Berta&ursprungseinrichtung=&verlegungsort=&sterbeort=&sterbedatum=&absenden=Suchen#ls-found.
Zur Nummerierung häufig genutzter Quellen siehe Recherche und Quellen.