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Wilhelm Rudolf Ochs * 1866

Borgesch 18 (Hamburg-Mitte, St. Georg)

KZ Fuhlsbüttel
ermordet 31.07.1935

further stumbling stones in Borgesch 18:
Bertha Bettelheim, Klara Hedwig Ochs

Klara Hedwig Ochs, née Schilbach, born 15 Oct. 1866 in Plauen, died 30 Oct. 1935 in Hamburg
Wilhelm Rudolf Ochs, born 5 June 1866 in Beckathen, Kreis Holstein, died 31 July 1935 as the result of maltreatment in Fuhlsbüttel concentration camp

Last residence: Borgesch 19

Wilhelm Ochs lived with his wife Klara, who was the same age as he, at Borgesch 19 in St. Georg. The couple had four daughters – Elisabeth (born in 1890), Emma (born in 1892), Agnes (born in 1898) and Lenchen (born in 1908). The family father was a shoemaker by profession, but once he retired he only worked from home for the company C. Lang, Neuer Wall 62. He was a member of the German Communist Party and apparently remained active in the group after the party was banned. As a consequence, he was arrested on 27 Mar. 1933 and taken into remand prison in Hamburg. He was sentenced to two years in prison for "high treason”, a term which he had to serve in Lübeck until 27 July 1935.

Upon his release from his penal sentence, he was immediately transferred to Hamburg-Fuhlsbüttel concentration camp where he died a few days later at the age of 69. The official version of Wilhelm Ochs’ death stated "suicide by hanging”, yet considerable doubt exists about this since after the war fellow prisoners declared under oath that the prisoner’s clothes were delivered to the prison laundry "drenched in blood”.

Following this blow, his wife Klara Ochs was dealt another in the form of notice being given on her apartment because the landlord no longer tolerated communists in his building. She was affected so severely by this that she died a mere three months after her husband.

In commemoration of Wilhelm Ochs, a stumbling stone lies at the address of his last apartment on Borgesch Street. An additional stone will also be laid there for Klara Ochs.

Translator: Suzanne von Engelhardt
Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

Stand: January 2018
© Benedikt Behrens

Quellen: AfW, Entschädigungsakte; Diercks, Herbert, Gedenkbuch "Kola-Fu", Hamburg 1987; AB 1933–35.