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Marie und Theodor Reichmann
© Privatbesitz

Theodor David Reichmann * 1897

Reeperbahn 15 (Hamburg-Mitte, St. Pauli)

HIER WOHNTE
THEODOR DAVID
REICHMANN
JG. 1897
FLUCHT HOLLAND
DEPORTIERT 1942
ERMORDET IN
AUSCHWITZ

further stumbling stones in Reeperbahn 15:
Anna Reichmann, Berta Reichmann, Markela Reichmann

Anna Reichmann, b. 2.24.1896 in Hamburg, deported in 1942 from the Netherlands, murdered on 9.30.1942 in Auschwitz
Berta (Bertha) Reichmann, née Klein, b. 1.12.1862 in Budapest, deported on 12.12.1942 from the Westerbork camp in the Netherlands to Auschwitz
Markela (Margarethe, Grete) Reichmann, b. 6.23.1892 in Budapest, deported on 12.15.1942 to Auschwitz
Theodor David Reichmann, b. 4.16.1897 in Hamburg, deported on 8.24.1942 from the Westerbork camp in the Netherlands to Auschwitz, murdered there on 9.30.1942

Reeperbahn 15 (Reeperbahn 14)

Shortly after Easter 1934, the siblings Markela, Anna, and Theodor Reichmann moved with their mother Berta from Hamburg to Holland in order to escape Nazi persecution. The Reichmann apartment was on the third floor at Reeperbahn 14 – this house was destroyed at the end of the war and now bears the house number 15. Contact was broken off with the relatives remaining behind (Theodor’s wife and daughter). Before their emigration, Berta had said: "As long as Hitler is in power, we will have no contact with one another,” and she gave expression to her fear that those remaining behind in Hamburg could be harmed if they had connections to Jews in Holland. The Reichmann siblings were all involved in the theater in Hamburg. They established a dancing school in The Hague, according to Aenni ter Muradian, Theodor’s daughter.

We know this about their earlier family history: the dancer Berta Klein got to know her later husband, a Czech dancer and actor, Emil Reichmann, in the vicinity of Pilsen (Plzen). They had four children together: Markela, Rudolph, Anna, and Theodor David. Markela and Rudolph were born in Budapest. At the beginning of 1896 by the latest, Berta Reichmann and her husband moved to Hamburg, where the two younger children, Anna and Theodor, were born. Emil Reichmann died, date unknown (but before 1922) in Prague.

In 1927, the widow Reichmann paid the relgious communal tax. Later she was not assessed for the tax. On 9 April 1934, she and her daughter Anna withdrew from the Jewish Community of Hamburg and moved to Holland.

Her granddaughter Aenni remembered fondly the times in the big apartment on the Reeperbahn, and the great security she felt there thanks to her grandmother. Berta "cooked and then said to both her girls: ‘Get out of the kitchen. You need beautiful hands for your men!’”

Markela initially appeared as an artist, but returned to her mother to help with the household, perhaps because she was not as successful as her sister Anna. She remained single. According to communal religion tax records, she moved abroad on 3 July 1934, emigrating with her family to Holland. Only two weeks before this date, on 21 June 1934, she had to make a small tax payment as an artist to the Jewish Community.

Berta had her second child between 1893 and 1896. Rudolph became a violinist. His niece said of him: "He could not dance but had a Hungarian orchestra!” She thought him lost, for he "lived finally on Davidstrasse and then vanished. He divorced his wife Lotte, and she never heard anything more about him.” He was the only one of Berta’s children not registered on her communal religion tax record.

Anna was also a dancer and lived "in sin" with Ludwig ‘Lazi’ Traube. She was listed as a clerk by the Jewish Community and assessed for taxation between 1929 and 1931. Her niece relates that she, together with her lover, ran the "Ballhaus Hell" and leased a circus variety show in the Zirkusweg district. After Anna emigrated to The Hague in 1934, she tried to create a livelihood. Her niece relates: "The Reichmann family had a dancing school, but I take it that my aunt, that is, Anna, was the driving force behind it. Friends, a dancing couple from South America, said after the war that Uncle Lazi and Aunt Anna had built the school in Holland but could not hold onto it.

Theodor was the youngest of the Reichmann children. He was a Czech citizen. In 1919 he married the Hamburg-born (1898), Evangelical baptized, Marie (Mia) Habrücker. They had two children, a son Rudolph who lived only a few days, and a daughter Aenni, who was born on 1 December 1922 in the Harbor Hospital. Theodor worked in 1920 as a manager at the Stage Operettenhaus in Hamburg "and later,” according to his daughter, "as the youthful hero and lover.” The communal tax records describe him first as an actor and later as a dispatch clerk. His wife suffered because of his affairs and the couple separated in 1933. The marriage was dissolved, however, only in 1938 on the grounds of "racial defilement,” according to the daughter. About the leaving of her father and his mother she says: "My father I saw for the last time at Easter 1934. I remember it exactly – I cried bitterly – and then my mother went back with me to Talstrasse, which was at that time a sweets shop. She said: ‘Don’t cry. Daddy and Granny will come back.’ And then she bought me great quantities of Easter eggs. That was the last time.”

After leaving Reeperbahn 14, Theodor Reichmann was registered at Elbstrasse 42, Altonaerstrasse 5, and Schluterblatt 106. He exited the Jewish Community several times; the first was 11 September 1934 by means of "Deregistration/Travel." Then a further time in September 1935 with the remark "traveling.” In 1936, he was classified finally as "withdrawn for unknown reasons.” Asked about the time after that date, his daughter remembered that all four family members left for Holland, but speculated: "Perhaps, he came back from Holland briefly. He was a real Hamburg lover.”

Aenni ter Muradian described her father as a lovable and entertaining man. "When Mommy scolded him, he kneeled before her, took off his straw hat and played a love song on it.” He was brought up "in the Mosaic faith” but was very tolerant in religious matters; he celebrated the Christian holidays. He agreed to have his daughter educated in the Christian faith. About her father’s side of the family, she had this to say: "Certainly, they had all sorts of Jewish acquaintances who would come to dinner on Fridays, with the candles and so on, but that was all kept within limits. They were theater people and had many relationships to those of other religions.”

In a letter from 31 July 1951, the Netherlands Tracing Mission declared: "Theodor David Reichmann, b. 14. April 1897 in Hamburg was deported on 24. August 1942 from Westerbork to Auschwitz. It is assumed that on 30 September 1942, he died there as a result of illness, exhaustion, or from gassing." That deportation train from Westerbork brought 519 people to the extermination camp.

The last reported address for Berta Reichmann-Klein is given by the Information Bureau of the Netherlands Red Cross as "Pieter v. d. Zahdestraat 38, The Hague." Further information comes in a record from 31 March 1948: "A list compiled by the Occupation or at its behest, labeled the ‘Jew-Transport from the Netherlands, Westerbork Camp,’ dated 12.12.1942, and on which the personal details appear on ‘page’ R 16. No. 241. Taking into account the fact that since the deportation nothing more has been heard or is known about the persons being sought after; and that furthermore in general all the people deported to Auschwitz were immediately gassed and then cremated, it can be stated that the aforementioned Bertha Reichmann-Klein on or about 15 December 1942, in or around Auschwitz, died in consequence of gassing.” On the deportation train from Westerbork on 12 December 1942 were 757 people. They arrived at Auschwitz on 14 December.


Translator: Richard Levy
Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

Stand: October 2018
© Christiane Jungblut

Quellen: 1; 4; 5; 8; Persönliche Gespräche mit Aenni ter Muradian am 30.3.2007 und am 12.11.2008; aus Privatbesitz: Geburtsurkunde Theodor Reichmann, Geburtsurkunde Anna Reichmann, Informatiebureau van het nederlandsche roode kruis, 31.03.1948, Netherlands Tracing Mission: Cables: "INFOREFUG" Arolsen, No.: 23287/I/1 A; Reichmann, Theodor David".
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