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Bertha Oppens (née Schreyer) * 1883

Am Ochsenzoll 62 (Hamburg-Nord, Langenhorn)

HIER WOHNTE
BERTHA OPPENS
GEB. SCHREYER
JG. 1883
DEPORTIERT 1943
THERESIENSTADT
1944 AUSCHWITZ
ERMORDET

further stumbling stones in Am Ochsenzoll 62:
Paul Oppens

Bertha Oppens, née Schreyer, born on 15 Oct. 1883, in Lissa/Leszno, deported to Theresienstadt on 24 Mar. 1943, further deported to Auschwitz on 12 Oct. 1944, and murdered

Dr. Paul Oppens, born in Hamburg on 21 Jan. 1883, deported to Theresienstadt on 24 Mar. 1943, further deported to Auschwitz on 12 Oct. 1944 and murdered

Am Ochsenzoll 62

Paul Siegmund Ernst Oppenheim was born on 21 Jan. 1883 as the youngest son of Emilie, née Wolfers, and Julius Oppenheim at An der Koppel 94 in the St. Georg quarter near the Outer Alster. He was a late arrival, as his mother was already 40 and his father 54 years old.

His father Joseph/later Julius Oppenheim, born on 27 Sept. 1828, came from Echte/Harz and was the son of Ester, née Marcus, and Isaak Oppenheim. Like his older brother Martin, he had attended the Jacobson School in Seesen, the first official interdenominational school in Germany since 1805. At the age of 22, Joseph Oppenheim went to Hamburg; since Nov. 1854, he belonged to the Hamburg German-Israelitic Community and acquired Hamburg citizenship. He lived in Hamburg-Altstadt at Schauenburgerstrasse 13. His brother Martin, ten years older than he and formerly called Meyer Oppenheim, had also settled in Hamburg and received Hamburg citizenship three years after him. Martin Oppenheim had been married to Rosalie, née Behrmann, from Koblenz since 1857 and he ran a commission business dealing in leather cloth and rubber goods. Julius Oppenheim, after having been employed with Jacob Friedländer and the Saalfeld & Israel Company, had worked for him and co-managed the business at Bohnstrasse 19.

After a few years, the brothers went their separate ways, Martin Oppenheim then ran the warehouse for leather cloth and rubber goods, Panama hats and foulards (silk scarves) at Alterwall 28 and Julius Oppenheim a men’s article, leather cloth and rubber goods warehouse in the neighborhood at Alterwall 43. In Jan. 1862, Julius Oppenheim took the Friedberg-born Hamburg citizen and merchant Joseph Rappolt into his business as a partner. The company continued to develop successfully as "Oppenheim & Rappolt.”

On 27 May 1863, Emilie Wolfers and Julius Oppenheim were married in Minden. Emilie, born on 12 May 1842 in Minden, came from a respected merchant family. Her father, Salomon Philipp Wolfers, had a business trading in yard goods at Honstrasse 93 and was a member of the Minden City Council. Her mother Betty Wolfers, née Heine, came from the line of the Heine family from Bückeburg, which also included Salomon Heine and the poet Heinrich Heine.
Several relatives of the Wolfers family had moved to Hamburg: Emilie’s cousin, Eduard Wolfers, had founded the Schönfeldt & Wolfers trading company for linen and carpets together with Moses Salomon Schönfeld in 1869. Her brother Ernst Wolfers also set up a company in the Hanseatic city after getting married around 1890.

Emilie and Julius Oppenheim had four sons: Paul Oppenheim grew up with his three considerably older brothers in Hamburg, Richard, born on 17 Mar. 1866, 16 years older; Georg Wilhelm, born on 1 July 1871, eleven years older; and Franz Johann, born on 7 Mar. 1876, six years older. They were born in Hamburg-St. Georg, just like Paul.

The Oppenheim sons officially separated from the German-Israelitic Community: On 17 Apr. 1891, the oldest brother Richard declared his withdrawal from the German-Israelite Community. The eight-year-old Paul and his brother Franz were baptized Protestants on 25 Oct. 1891 by Pastor Rode (presumably Friedrich Rode, politician and later main pastor of St. Peter’s Church) in the Holy Trinity Church, St. Georg. Their cousin Rudolph Oppenheim served as witness to their baptisms.

At the beginning of 1892, Paul’s father Julius Oppenheim left Oppenheim & Rappolt and the paternal business was transferred to the partner Joseph Rappolt. His oldest sons Paul and Arthur Rappolt, who had already been granted power of attorney in 1879, took over as co-owners. The respected company was later renamed "Rappolt & Söhne.”

Paul’s family moved from Koppel to the detached house at Hamburgerstrasse 97, and the time the family lived there together lasted only about two years. Paul was just 12 years old when he lost his father. The retiree Julius Oppenheim died at the age of 66 as a result of a cerebrovascular condition on 9 Mar. 1895 during a visit to his nephew, District Judge (Amtsrichter) Rudolph Oppenheim, son of his brother Martin Oppenheim.

Paul’s oldest brother Richard, who like his father had chosen the merchant profession, became co-owner of "Oppenheim & Co, M. Rosenstirn Nachf. [Succrs.]” In Nov. 1896, he married the Lutheran Ida Zimmermann. By then, Richard Oppenheim described himself as "without confession.” In 1898, he was the sole owner of the "Richard Oppenheim” Company, agency and commission.

Paul’s brother Georg, after passing the high school graduation examination (Reifeprüfung) in 1889 at the Academic School of the Johanneum high school (Gelehrtenschule des Johanneums), had begun his studies as an engineering student (cand. rer. techn.) in Hannover in the winter semester of 1891/92. At the end of 1892, he moved to Munich to study at the Technical University, where he earned the title of engineer in Sept. 1896. The following winter, he studied philosophy in Zurich; in 1898, he moved to Paris.

Paul’s brother Franz had also attended the Academic School of the Johanneum high school and had passed the high school graduation examination there in early 1894. He studied law in Munich, Leipzig, and Kiel. After his final state law examination, he worked for the Hamburg tax authorities.

Paul Oppenheim, like his brothers Georg and Franz, was a student at the Academic School of the Johanneum high school; he successfully passed the high school graduation examination there in the fall of 1901. He completed his military service as a one-year volunteer in Munich from Oct. 1902 to Oct. 1903.

After studying law – before his military service at the Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich, then one year each at the Humboldt University in Berlin and the Christian Albrecht University in Kiel –, being a certified candidate of law, he was sworn in as a Hamburg citizen on 1 Dec. 1905.

His mother did not live to see this: Emilie Oppenheim died at the beginning of the year, on 2 Jan. 1905, of nephritis and meningitis. The physician Rudolf Borgzinner (for his biography, see www.stolpersteine-hamburg.de) had been treating her since Christmas 1904. She was 62 years old.
Her gravestone with her bronze portrait in the Ohlsdorf cemetery was designed by her son Georg Oppenheim, called "Artaval.”

By this time, Paul’s brother Georg Oppenheim worked as a sculptor under the artist’s name of "Artaval” (compound of King Arthur and Parzival [Percival]), which he had chosen in 1902 during a stay in Rome. Georg had been under the spiritual influence of Ludwig Derleth, a poet from Munich, who had studied theology in Rome and wanted to found his own order of the temple. Apparently, Georg was sent by Derleth to a monastery in Jerusalem for two years. He had also gained spiritual experience on a trip to Tibet, from which he had returned as a Buddhist lama. Afterward, he stayed in Paris among artist circles, often at the Café du Dôme, a well-known meeting place at the time. Among his friends were artists of the Academie Matisse, as well as the well-known Hamburg painter Friedrich Ahlers-Hestermann, member of the "Hamburg Artists’ Club of 1897” and co-founder of the "Hamburg Secession.”

Paul Oppenheim passed his first law examination on 24 Nov. 1905 in Kiel. During his legal traineeship in Hamburg starting on 1 Dec. 1905, he lived with his brother Franz Oppenheim at Lübeckerstrasse 49a on the second floor. From Mar. to Sept. 1907, Paul Oppenheim worked as a legal trainee at poor relief services (Allgemeine Armenanstalt). He received his doctorate from the University of Leipzig on 17 Mar. 1908. His dissertation was entitled Die Aussteuer nach dem Bürgerlichen Gesetzbuch für das Deutsche Reich ("The Dowry according to the Civil Code for the German Reich”). The following year, he passed the second law examination at the Hamburg Higher Regional Court (Oberlandesgericht) and he was appointed assistant judge on 30 June 1909.

Thus, the prerequisites for earning a livelihood were met. The "probationary judge doctor juris” ("Gerichtsassessor Doctor juris”) Paul Oppenheim married Emma Charlotte Helene, née Behrend, born on 26 Nov. 1888, in Berlin-Schöneberg on 2 Oct. 1909. The 21-year-old bride Helene had not trained in any profession and she was, like him, baptized a Protestant and of Jewish descent. She was the daughter of Elise, née Schiff, and the merchant Ludwig Behrend. Paul Oppenheim asked the "Hochlöbliche Senatskommission für die Justizverwaltung Hamburg,” the Hamburg senate commission for judicial administration, for a month’s vacation to be able to go abroad on his honeymoon with his bride, but not without adding, "... If, during my vacation, the opportunity should arise to work at the district court, the public prosecutor’s office, or the administration, I would of course be prepared to immediately cancel my vacation and place myself at the disposal of the "Hochlöbliche Senatskommission für die Justizverwaltung Hamburg…” However, the honeymoon went without interruption. In Hamburg, the young couple first resided at Mundsburgerdamm 61.

Paul’s brother Franz Oppenheim, who also held a doctorate, had married in 1909. His wife Elisabeth, née Friedrichs, came from Springe. With her, he had two children, Kurt, born in 1910, and Gisela, born in 1912, both natives of Hamburg.

Paul Oppenheim was appointed notary in 1910. For a while, he worked as a notary public for the law firm Asher & Becker, located at Börsenbrücke 2a, Sauernheimerhof, on the raised ground floor. After the retirement of Heinrich Asher, he became a partner in the law firm of J.O.A. Becker.

The Oppenheim family decided to change the last name pointing to their Jewish descent and submitted the corresponding applications to the Senate.
The Senate allowed the use of the family name of Oppens by a Senate decision dated 9 May 1911. His brothers and his cousin Rudolph then also assumed the name of Oppens (his brother Georg did so as well, though not until May 1920).

Paul Oppens had meanwhile moved with his wife Helene to Woldsenweg 8 on the third floor. Financially, they were doing well, and in the summer of 1911, they spent a vacation abroad.

After the retirement of the partner Becker, Arnold Heineberg joined Paul Oppens’ firm as a partner in Feb. 1914. Shortly thereafter, Paul Oppens suffered a heavy blow of fate: After only four years of marriage, his wife Helene died on 5 Apr. 1914 in her parents’ home at Bambergerstrasse 18, Berlin-Schöneberg, as a result of an ectopic pregnancy. Helene Oppens was 25 years old.

A few months later, Paul Oppens enlisted in the military and participated in World War I starting in Sept. 1914, first as a lieutenant in the territorial reserve (Landwehr), and by the end of the war as machine gun company leader (M.G.K. Kompanie Führer). Together with his law partner Arnold Heineberg, holder of the Iron Cross, he was awarded the Hanseatic Cross in June 1916. Two months later, he received the Iron Cross Second Class. After the war, Paul Oppens and several comrades founded the "Verein ehemaliger Angehöriger des L.I.R. [Landwehr-Infanterie-Regiment, i.e., territorial reserve infantry regiment] 86 und 382 e.V.” As a member of the board and secretary, he belonged to this association until the Nuremberg Laws [on race] were enacted.

Five years after the death of his first wife, Paul Oppens married in Breslau (today Wroclaw in Poland) Bertha, née Schreyer, of the same age, widowed name Perl, on 3 Dec. 1919. His brother Franz from Hamburg and the 45-year-old merchant Leon Mendel from Beuthen/Upper Silesia (today Bytom in Poland) served as witnesses to the marriage.
Bertha, née Schreyer, was born in Lissa/Leszno at Reisnerstrasse 265 on 1 Oct. 1883, the daughter of Marie, née Mankievicz, and the merchant Moritz Schreyer. Her first husband, attorney Leo Perl, born on 2 Sept. 1870 in Beuthen, had been killed as a lieutenant in the Landwehr in World War I in 1915. She lived in Breslau at Menzelstrasse 82 (today ul. Sztabowa). Her father Moritz Schreyer, banker and honorary city councilor, had been a member of the Navy League as a "fleet warden” (Flottenwart) until his death in 1918. Her mother Marie Schreyer, née Mankievicz, also lived in Breslau. Like Paul Oppens, Bertha was of Jewish descent and baptized a Lutheran. She had always been active in social relief work, during the First World War in the National Women’s Service in Breslau. In recognition of her commitment, she had received honorary certificates and the Cross of Merit.

Paul Oppens’ brother Georg Oppenheim, who had been taken prisoner of war in France during the First World War, returned to Hamburg for some time. The Hamburg painter Friedrich Ahlers-Hestermann, a friend of his, created a well-known portrait of him in 1919, the oil painting "Artaval.”

In 1920 Georg, who by then also went by the name of Oppens, was entered in the residents’ register as a medical student residing at Wedelerchaussee 97. He belonged to the "Association of former high school graduates” of the Johanneum. At the end of 1921, he moved to Munich. In the police registration form there, he is registered as a Catholic. In Apr. 1922, he graduated from the Technical University of Munich with a degree in engineering. In the same year, a letter dated May 1914 from the painter Rudolf Levy, a friend of his, entitled "My dear Artaval” appeared in the marginalia of the Flechtheim Gallery. In it, he described the Parisian artists’ life with Georg Oppenheim "Artaval,” and one learns that he had posed for him in front of a palm tree with tailcoat and bouquet of flowers or white farmer’s suit. In other editions, renowned artists such as Fritz Westendorp, Jules Pascin, and Rudolf Grossmann immortalized "Artaval” in their drawings.

At that time, Bertha and Paul Oppens lived in Hamburg-Harvestehude at Jungfrauenthal 26 on the fourth floor. As can be seen from the description in the passport records from 1922, both were of moderate height, had dark hair and brown eyes.

Like Paul Oppens, his brother Franz tragically lost his first wife early on. Elisabeth Oppens, née Friedrich, was found dead in the Altona Heuhafen (hay harbor) at 4:00 p.m. on 17 Mar. 1922, her thirty-second birthday. It was suspected that she had taken her own life. Their children Kurt and Gisela were twelve and ten years old. In the following difficult time, his brother, the civil engineer Georg Oppens, spent some time with him at Elbchaussee 48a in Nienstedten.

On 20 Feb. 1925, Bertha and Paul Oppens boarded the steamship "Antonio Delfino” of the Hamburg-Südamerikanische Dampfschifffahrts-Gesellschaft in the Port of Hamburg for a vacation trip to Santa Cruz de Tenerife. On board were the lawyer Albert Wulff and his wife Clara, née Arnstedt, as well as several merchants from Hamburg and Bremen.

The following year, Paul’s brother Georg Oppens died in Munich shortly before his fifty-fifth birthday on 19 June 1926. Three days later, his urn was transferred to the nearby Dornach cemetery and buried. Three years earlier, in 1923, Pflüger Publishers in Munich had published Vcevolod Garschin’s novellas Von Tieren Blumen und Engeln ("Of Animals, Flowers, and Angels”); Georg Oppens had translated them from Russian.

Bertha and Paul Oppens decided to adopt a child. The placement occurred through the Red Cross in Berlin. They decided on Heinz Arthur Karl Sander, born on 13 Feb. 1919 in Allenstein. Since he had been neglected by his biological parents in East Prussia, Pastor Klapp from Mewe (today Gniew/Poland), West Prussia, had first arranged for Heinz to be fostered and then arranged for him to be put up with the Red Cross in Berlin for adoption. The first meeting took place in Marienwerder. Shortly after his eighth birthday in Feb. 1927, Heinz then moved in with Bertha and Paul Oppens in Hamburg. After a probationary period, they adopted Heinz on 2 July 1928 as their child. The adoption was confirmed by the Hamburg District Court (Amtsgericht) on 12 Mar. 1929. As can be seen from the court records, Bertha and Paul Oppens had quickly grown fond of their son, and Heinz settled in well to the changed circumstances. After only a few months, Heinz addressed his parents of his own free will as "mother” and "father.” Bertha and Paul Oppens supported their son very much: They had him take private lessons, so that he passed the entrance examination for the first grade (Sexta) at Eppendorf Oberrealschule [a secondary school without Latin] at Easter 1930. The trainee teacher Max Klüver gave him private lessons. He was the state leader of the Nordmark state association, to which the strictly national "Jungsturm” association was subordinate. Heinz had been a member of this association since 1931 and continued to be so when the "Jungsturm” became part of the "Hitler Youth” in 1933. Heinz spent the vacation weeks together with other boys playing games and sports on the Hallig Süderoog and later on the Island of Sylt in the Puan Klent camp.

After the Nazis came to power, Paul Oppens had to fill out the "Questionnaire for the Implementation of the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service dated 7 Apr. 1933” in June 1933. From this emerges that he had been a member of the (left-liberal) German Democratic Party (DDP) for several years, from 1920 to 1923.

Paul Oppens’ brother Richard did not have to endure the increasing humiliation by the Nazi rulers any longer. He died on 5 Apr. 1934, at the age of 68 years in St. Georg General Hospital of cardiac insufficiency and araugislativus ileus (intestinal obstruction). In the following years, Franz and Paul Oppens supported his widow Ida, née Zimmermann, financially.

With the passing of the "Reich Citizenship Law [Reichsbürgergesetz] dated 1 Oct. 1935,” the social segregation of Jews in Germany intensified and persecution increased sharply. This had tragic consequences for the Oppens family.

Paul’s brother Franz Oppens, who had been appointed to the Reich Finance Councilor in Munich in Jan. 1933, was forced to retire at the end of 1935. Through his non-Jewish wife, the widow Elsa, née Scharnberg, whom he had married in 1931, he was initially protected to a limited extent from the persecution by the Nazi rulers.

Paul Oppens and his partner Arnold Heineberg were forced to resign from their office as notaries on 14 Nov. 1935. The letter, signed by Senator of Justice Rothenberger, reached Paul Oppens in his apartment at Lehnartzstrasse 9. In letters, he and his partner tried in vain to stress the necessity of their work, in order to regain their license. Although Paul Oppens had belonged to the Lutheran Church since 1891, he was nevertheless considered Jewish by the Nazi rulers because of his "racial descent.” When he had to give up his notary’s office on Börsenbrücke in the following year, he was able to use a room at Klosterallee 5 as his "office” with Mrs. Blanke, for whom he worked as executor of the will. During this time, Bertha and Paul Oppens moved to Hudtwalckertwiete 2 on Winterhuder Marktplatz.

They were friends with the married couple Hedwig and Alfred Islar. District Court Director (Amtsgerichtsdirektor) Alfred Islar had also been dismissed because of his Jewish descent. His marriage to his non-Jewish wife Hedwig, née Rahn, also offered him a certain protection from persecution. The two jurists had known each other since the end of the First World War and had often walked together from Eppendorf to the law firm or the district court.

The Islar family had moved from Eppendorfer Landstrasse 54 to Am Fossberg 107 (in 1941 Baltikumstrasse, today Fibigerstrasse) in Hamburg-Langenhorn. They had been able to purchase their house in 1933 through the mediation of the architect Felix Ascher. Bertha and Paul Oppens frequently visited their friends in Langenhorn. They liked it out there in the countryside so much that they decided to build a house very close by. At the northern border of Hamburg, at Ochsenzoll 62, where Schleswig Holstein begins on the opposite side of the road, Bertha and Paul Oppens were certainly looking for the possibility to live undisturbed by the persecution of the Nazi rulers.

On 23 July 1936, Paul Oppens submitted a building application for a single-family house on the property of the Siemers Foundation in Hamburg-Langenhorn. (Since 1925, his cousin Karl Wolfers had lived with his family also in Langenhorn, on a property belonging to the Siemers Foundation, in a private home at Dobenplatz 8). Before Christmas 1937, Bertha and Paul Oppens and their son Heinz moved into the attic floor of their new building. Actually, the house was not yet ready for occupancy, so they furnished themselves provisionally for the time being.

The son of the Islar couple, Hans-Peter Islar, remembered as a contemporary witness a sociable time with bridge evenings together with "Beechen,” as Bertha was affectionately called, and Paul Oppens. They felt comfortable outdoors in the greenery. Paul Oppens liked to keep himself busy in the garden. The families met on Sundays and they were also well known for their membership in the "Paulus League [Paulus-Bund]. Association of Non-Aryan Christians.” Alwin Gerson, district doctor in Wohldorf, and lawyer Richard Robinow were also members of the Hamburg district group. This association had been founded in 1933 as the "Reich Association of Christian-German Citizens of non-Aryan or not purely Aryan Descent” ("Reichsverband christlich-deutscher Staatsbürger nichtarischer oder nicht rein arischer Abstammung”). The Paulus-Bund had to change its name several times, submit its membership lists to the Gestapo, and exclude the "fully Jewish” members, so that by the time it was banned in 1939 under the name "Association of 1937,” only "Jewish crossbreeds” ("Mischlinge”) belonged to it. Paul Oppens had made his workspace available for the young people, among whom his son Heinz and Hans-Peter Islar also were.

At Easter 1936, Heinz Oppens had completed Eppendorf Oberrealschule with the school-leaving certificate for grade 11 (Obersekunda) and begun an apprenticeship as an export merchant at H.A. Sierau & Co. In his free time, he devoted himself to sailing on the Alster and Elbe rivers, undertook deep-sea cruises, and passed the examination for offshore game fishing. Bertha and Paul Oppens enabled him to join the Norddeutsche Regatta Verein, a sailing club.

Increasingly, persecuted Jews from the Oppens’ milieu fled abroad when there was an opportunity to be admitted.
Franz Oppens’ children also managed to escape: Daughter Gisela, married name Hess, fled to Britain in Aug. 1938 and later, in 1943, via Lisbon to New York. Son Kurt Oppens, together with his wife Edith, née Hirsch, managed to emigrate to the USA via Austria, Prague, and Romania in Dec. 1938, eventually by ship from Trieste to New York.

Paul Oppens’ cousin, the retired District Court Director (Amtsgerichtsdirektor) Rudolph Oppens, born on 12 June 1860 Hamburg, took his own life on 14 Nov. 1938, burdened by the pogrom experiences, as emerges from later statements by his daughter Edith. In the death notice, however, the cause of death was indicated as "arteriosclerosis, apoplexy.” He had also been baptized a Protestant and married to non-Jewish Hermine, née Wehrhahn. His two daughters, Irene, born in 1901, and Edith, born in 1903, emigrated abroad.

For Bertha and Paul Oppens, the situation came to a head. Like all Jews whose first names were not considered recognizably Jewish according to a list of the Nazis, they had to take on the additional first names of "Sara” and "Israel” starting in Aug. 1938. On 12 Dec. 1938, the customs investigation department issued a provisional security order (Sicherungsanordnung) concerning the assets of Paul Oppens. Bertha and Paul Oppens were still able to transfer their house located at "Am Ochsenzoll 62” to their then 20-year-old adopted son Heinz by means of a donation agreement dated 25 Jan. 1939. Permission for this had been granted by the Reich Governor (Reichsstatthalter), since the son was considered "Aryan” and was not subject to anti-Jewish laws. Previously, Heinz had had to be declared of age because he was not yet 21 years old at the time; for this, a statement from the state youth welfare office was required. This had disastrous consequences.

In Feb. 1939, the social administration, Hamburg State Youth Welfare Office (Landesjugendamt), applied on behalf of the Reich Governor for the annulment of the adoption based on Sec. 14 of the Reich Law on the Amendment of Provisions Pertaining to Family Law dated 12 Apr. 1938. Paul Oppens was not aware of this law, newly created by the Nazis. He and his wife Bertha protested against the annulment of the adoption and emphasized that they had distanced themselves from their Jewish roots and had raised Heinz in a German and national way. Heinz also declared, "I can definitely claim that my parents raised me along purely German lines and that any influence in the Jewish spirit is out of the question...” However, they all also declared themselves willing to accept the annulment of the adoption, if there was no other way.

The objection of the State Youth Welfare Office was rejected by order of the Hamburg District Court on 23 Aug. 1939, and the adoption remained valid. The written grounds, however, were marked by the pseudo-scientific inhuman racial concepts of the Nazis, which were humiliating and degrading for the Oppens. Passages read as follows: "However, further damage in this sense is usually no longer possible with an adult adopted child. The unfortunate environmental influence of his Jewish adoptive parents had an indelible effect on him. The process of bringing up the child is complete. The adult adoptive child caught in the dichotomy of the worlds is alienated from the life of his people. This misfortune cannot be remedied by the formal legal act of annulling the adoption relationship ... After lengthy discussions with him, the court has become convinced that at his mental and spiritual stage of development, a further undesirable influence by his Jewish adoptive parents on his milieu is no longer possible ... The gulf that Heinz feels today to his people is filled with sorrow, he would probably feel more bitter if the adoption relationship were to be dissolved.

After completing his two-year voluntary service in the German navy, Heinz Oppens was drafted into the Reich Labor Service (Reichsarbeitsdienst) on 1 Apr. 1939.

Paul Oppens was appointed as an executor of the estate of his former associate: Arnold Heineberg had collapsed on 27 Apr. 1939 on the Dammtorstrasse sidewalk. An ambulance had brought him to the Harbor Hospital. He had died on the way there. Chief precinct police sergeant (Polizeirevieroberwachtmeister) Peper of the 30th Police Precinct noted, after inquiry with the ambulance detachment and the Harbor Hospital: "Notary (retired) Heineberg suffered heart attack. Died during transport to the Harbor Hospital. The corpse remained in the Harbor Hospital.” A physician by the name of Knauer diagnosed half an hour later, "Death from internal cause.” Arnold Heineberg, who had been forced to sell his house at Gussau 8 in Hamburg-Volksdorf only a year earlier, left behind his 79-year-old single mother Julie Heineberg, née Rinteln, who died 16 days later.
Her second son Otto Heineberg, merchant and general agent for the established Guerlain perfume products from Paris, with whom Paul Oppens had confidential relations, had already emigrated to Britain with his wife and daughter in Feb. 1939.

Also in 1939, Paul Oppens’ cousin Karl Wolfers, his wife, and their two sons Ernst Klaus and Hans Peter emigrated to join relatives in Guatemala. Before that, they had been forced to sell their house at Dobenplatz in Langenhorn below value.

Paul and Bertha Oppens, too, had been contemplating emigration intentions for some time, although Paul Oppens had received permission from the presiding judge of the Regional Court (Landgericht) to work as a "legal auxiliary” from Aug. 1939 onward for the "legal adviser” ("Konsulent”) Zadik located at Rathausstrasse 16, who was licensed for serving Jewish clients only.
To finance the emigration project, he intended to sell his valuable stamp collection with an estimated value of 78,000 RM (reichsmark). On 1 Apr. 1939, he had started to send the stamps to Otto Heineberg, the brother of his longtime partner Arnold Heineberg, in Britain, who was to offer them to interested parties. This became Paul Oppens’ undoing. Seventeen of his letters, which he had sent to Britain labeled with a fictitious sender, were intercepted by the customs investigation department. After extensive inquiries, Paul Oppens was identified as the sender, arrested on 10 Aug. 1939, and committed to the Hamburg pretrial detention facility.

This was followed by daily interrogations by the Ericus customs investigation department in Speersort, where Paul Oppens was massively pressured to plead guilty to the foreign currency offense. The procedure is recorded in detailed minutes amounting to many pages. Paul Oppens had to provide precise information about his financial circumstances. Great importance was attached to the point in time when he had transferred a certain gold watch to his son – whether before the decree of the Reich Office for Currency Control (Reichsstelle für Devisenbewirtschaftung) dating from Feb. 1939, which obliged Jews to surrender their gold and precious metals, or afterward. He was kept under pressure until the customs investigators received the answers they wanted to hear. Finally, Paul Oppens admitted that he had given the watch to his son after Feb. 1939. The golden Glashütte Lange & Söhne watch had been a gift from his deceased first wife Helene.

Bertha Oppens was also intensively interrogated and on 10 Aug. 1939, she was taken into custody due to "danger of collusion.” After detailed questioning, she was to admit that she had known about the dispatch of the envelopes with the stamps to Britain. She denied this to the very end. In the afternoon of the following day, she was released, but her movements continued to be closely monitored. Her friend Hedwig Islar also received a summons from the customs investigation department and she, too, was interrogated. It had become known that Bertha Oppens had deposited a savings book with her for safety reasons; it was confiscated. Former business partners were also interrogated and Paul Oppens’ activities as executor of Arnold Heineberg’s will were scrutinized. Even the effort and expenses of a trip to Kupfermühle/Tremsbüttel were undertaken by the customs investigators to interrogate Heineberg’s former fiancée, Annemarie Möller.

Eventually, the Hamburg District Court (Amtsgericht) deemed proven that Paul Oppens was guilty of a foreign currency offense by sending letters with collectable stamps to Britain, and sentenced him to a fine of 25,000 RM and to one year and ten months in prison. After more than seven months in the pretrial detention center, on 22 Feb. 1940 he was transferred to the men’s prison of the Hamburg-Fuhlsbüttel penal institutions, where he had to serve the remainder of his sentence. In his prison record, he is listed as a "Jew” with the profession of "legal auxiliary.” It is recorded in it that he was 1.68 meters (about 5 ft 6 in) in height, had brown eyes and grayish hair.

His son Heinz, meanwhile a Maat [approx. equivalent to petty officer second class] in the German navy, sent a petition for clemency by military mail. In his letter, he found only good and grateful words for his father: "... I feel obliged to show my deepest gratitude to my adoptive father for what I have become through him alone by submitting this petition for clemency.” The request for pardon was rejected on 13 Dec. 1940 by the chief administrative inspector of the Fuhlsbüttel prison: "The reasons given in the request are understandable from a human point of view, but they cannot exonerate the condemned man with regard to his offense. Since the emigration has not yet been clarified and is therefore not certain, this possible reason for release does not apply either. After all, there is no particular reason to advocate an early release.”

Based on the "security order” issued by the Chief Finance Administrator (Oberfinanzpräsident) on 2 Oct. 1940, most of Paul Oppens’ assets were confiscated. The couple had only 180 RM per month at their disposal for living expenses. During this time, Bertha Oppens had to live in very limited circumstances. She had to apply to the Chief Finance Administrator’s office for any extra expenses, such as a birthday or Christmas present for her son or the purchase of coal.

On 13 June 1941, Paul Oppens was released from the Fuhlsbüttel prison. The Oppens couple continued to reside at Ochsenzoll 62 under the most difficult conditions, with the numerous prohibitions and restrictions to which they were subject as Jews. Starting in September, they had to wear the "Jews’ star” (Judenstern) on their clothing.

As can be seen from the adoption file, Heinz Oppens then applied to the Hamburg District Court on 9 Mar. 1942, through the "Inspectorate of the Navy’s Education System” for the annulment of his adoption. The presumption is obvious that this would allow him to move up the career ladder, as he was Reserve Officer Candidate Petty Officer of the Reserve [Ob.[Ober] Btsm. [Bootsmann] d. R. [der Reserve]) in the navy. This second application to annul the adoption was also rejected, since the first application by the State Youth Welfare Office had already been turned down with legal effect on 23 Aug. 1939. What has been documented is the statement of Paul Oppens’ friend and trustee of the estate Paul Schmidt-Oesfeld that the adoptive parents fortunately did not live to see Heinz’ application anymore. Despite this application, Heinz remained very attached to his parents.

Paul Oppens’ brother Franz had been forced to give up his first name, which was classified as non-Jewish according to the official lists of names, and accept the first name of "Dan” instead if he wished to avoid having "Israel” in his papers. Starting in Apr. 1942, he had to live separately from his non-Jewish wife in the "Jews’ house” ("Judenhaus”) at Rappstrasse 15.

By this time, Bertha Oppens’ mother, the city councilor’s widow Marie Schreyer, resided in Dresden. On 25 Aug. 1942, at the age of 81, she was deported to Theresienstadt. She died there a few months later, on 11 Nov. 1942.

Bertha and Paul Oppens were both deported to the Theresienstadt Ghetto on 23 Mar. 1943, along with 48 other persons affected, on Transport VI/5, No. 38 and No. 39. The couple’s assets were confiscated to the benefit of the German Reich by order of the Reich Governor in Hamburg on 1 Dec. 1943.

Paul Schmidt-Oesfeld, the oldest friend of Paul Oppens from his childhood days, sent the couple regular messages and parcels to Seestrasse 015/4 in the Theresienstadt Ghetto.

Their son Heinz, whom Bertha and Paul Oppens had wanted to give a secure home and a good, secure future, was killed in action on 1 Mar. 1944, serving as a First Lieutenant at Sea in the 7th submarine flotilla, "U 358.” British warships had sunk his submarine in the North Atlantic north of the Azores. It was a tragic combination – the war power also fighting for the liberation of Bertha and Paul Oppens had killed their beloved son. Bertha and Paul Oppens received this sad news of their son’s death obviously in the ghetto. A few sentences on a last handwritten card from Paul Oppens from the ghetto, XI b Theresienstadt, Seestrasse 015/4, dated 12 Sept. 1944, addressed to Paul Schmidt-Oesfeld allow this conclusion. In it, he confirms mailings from his friend and asks that he and Karen, the fiancée of his son Heinz, continue to support him and his wife (from his own property).

On 12 Oct. 1944, Bertha and Paul Oppens were further deported in one of the last deportation trains, "EQ,” along with 1,498 other Jews from the Theresienstadt Ghetto to the Auschwitz concentration camp and murdered, three days before Bertha Oppens’ fifty-ninth birthday. Paul Oppens was also 59 years old.

Paul’s brother Franz Oppens had been deported from Hamburg to Auschwitz and murdered on 28 July 1944. Stolpersteine commemorate him at Lohmühlenstrasse 1 and in front of the Haus der Gerichte ("house of the courts”) on Lübeckertordamm in Hamburg-St. Georg.

Stolpersteine at Hofweg 31 in Uhlenhorst commemorate the son of Paul Oppens’ mother’s cousin, Hugo Wolfers, and his wife Olga, née Oppenheimer. They had been deported to Riga on 6 Dec. 1941and murdered.

Paul Oppens’ cousin Karl Wolfers had had to work hard on a farm in Guatemala after his emigration in order to feed his family. He was murdered there in 1948. His wife and two sons emigrated to the USA. Paul Oppens’ grand cousin Claude (formerly Ernst Klaus) Wolfers lives in Denver, Colorado. He turned 93 years old in Sept. 2017.

The children of Paul Oppens’ brother Franz continued to live in the USA after the war. Paul’s nephew Kurt Oppens, who briefly worked as a lawyer, then switched to musicology studies and worked as a music writer, regularly took on the work of a piano technician at the Aspen Music Festival in Colorado. His wife Edith taught piano at New York City’s Mannes College of Music. Their daughter Ursula Oppens, Paul Oppens’ grandniece, born in 1944, is a well-known piano virtuoso today.

Edith Oppens, the daughter of Paul Oppens’ cousin Rudolph Oppens, who had emigrated to Chile and later to Switzerland, returned to Hamburg after the war and became a well-known author with the books entitled Hamburg zu Kaisers Zeiten and Der Mandrill, among others. In these books, she sketches a picture of bourgeois life in the Hanseatic city, in which the entire Oppens family was once firmly established.

The house at Am Ochsenzoll 62 of Bertha and Paul Oppens, which they had transferred to their son Heinz, was to revert in the first instance to his parents Paul and Bertha Oppens, together with the entire property, according to his last will (testament, written "In the West” on 10 Oct. 1943) when they returned from Theresienstadt. In the second instance, in the event of the death of his parents, the house was to pass to his fiancée Karen Bendtzen of Aalborg, Lykkeseye Estate in Denmark, along with the furnishings and 20,000 RM. Reportedly, when Karen Bendtzen took on the inheritance after the war, she chose for herself the jewelry of Bertha Oppens, which Heinz Oppens had been able to bury in the garden.

Being Danish, she did not wish to accept the house on Ochsenzoll. The person that became heir of the house, who was then to benefit in the order in the will, was the daughter of Paul Schmidt-Oesfeld.

Eleven silver cake forks with the engraving "O” owned by Bertha and Paul Oppens, acquired from Brahmfeld & Gutruf, the oldest jeweler’s house in Germany existing since 1743, were found after the war by the tax authorities among the "Schellenberg Silver Treasure.”

Also owned by Bertha and Paul Oppens, 274 pieces of silverware had been listed and confiscated to the benefit of the Chief Finance Administrator (Oberfinanzpräsident), including a large number of silver ice cream spoons. They bring to life the image of a family that in summer liked to socialize with friends on Sundays to enjoy a serving of ice cream together.

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

Stand: December 2020
© Margot Löhr

Quellen: 1; 4; 5; 7; 8; StaH 213-11 Staatsanwaltschaft Landgericht Hamburg, 4596-41 P.Oppens; StaH 213-13 Landgericht Hamburg, Z 3013; StaH 231-3 Handelsregister, A 6 Bd 24 Nr. F 6027, A 6 Bd 61 Nr. F 14968, A 7 Bd 42 Nr. P 10437, A 7 Bd 42 Nr. P 10438; StaH 233-2, Notare, 76, 78; StaH 241-2 Justizverwaltung-Personalakten, A 2849, P 1179; StaH 242-1 II Gefängnisverwaltung II, Abl. 13, Gefängniskartei Männer, Gefängnisverwaltung II, Abl. 16, Untersuchungshaftkartei Män-ner; StaH 311-3 I, Abl. 1989 Finanzbehörde I, 305 -2 -1 / 175 Nr. 4413, Nr. 4570 (Kartei Silberge-schirr);StaH 314-15 Oberfinanzpräsident, R 1938 – 3493 Oppens, Paul, R 1940 - 440 Oppens, Paul, R 1939-2514 Oppens Hermine, R 1941-138 Oppens Franz, Abl. 1998-1 J11-35, Oppens, Heinz, Abl. 1998-1 J11-36, Oppens, Heinz; StaH 314-15 OFP, Str. 620; StaH 331-5 Po-lizeibehörde-Unnatürliche Sterbefälle, 3 Akte 1939-888; StaH 332-3 Zivilstandsaufsicht, A 5 Nr. 449, A 113 Nr. 4036; StaH 332-4, IV D 10, Austritt aus einer staatlich anerkannten Religionsge-meinschaft; StaH 332-5 Standesämter, 1869 u. 957 / 1876, 2039 u. 407 / 1883, 6812 u. 407 / 1895, 6407 u. 672 / 1896, 6860 u. 5 / 1905, 5346 u. 555/ 1922, 1020 u. 576 / 1934, 9896 u. 763/1938; StaH 332-7 Staatsangehörigkeitsaufsicht, AIf Bd.105 Nr.1388, AIf Bd. 216 Nr. RI 981, BIa 1854 Nr. 1388 Julius Oppenheim, BIa 1857 Nr.169 Martin Oppenheim; StaH 332-8 Meldewe-sen A24 Bd. 200 Nr. 19886, A24 Bd. 268 Nr. 11016, A24 Bd. 287 Nr. 15108, A24 Bd. 319 Nr. 1364, A24 Bd. 319 Nr. 1363; StaH 351-11 Amt für Wiedergutmachung, Abl. 2008-1 EG 070376 Oppens Franz, Abl. 2008-1 160512 Hess, Gisela, 5549 Heineberg, Arnold, 7259 Heineberg, Otto, 27975 Oppens, Edith, 44784 Heymann, Maria; Amt für Wiedergutmachung, 070410 Kurt Oppens, 170388 Bruno Loeser; StaH 352-5 Gesundheitsbehörde-Todesbescheinigungen, 1895, Sta 21, Nr. 407, 1905 Sta 21 Nr. 5, 1934 Sta 1a Nr. 576, 1938 Sta 3a Nr. 763; StaH 362-2/1, F 4, F 14; StaH 522-1 Jüdische Gemeinden 702a-702e, Nr. 47, 1857, Nr. 25, 1863, 382 Austrittserkärungen; StaH 741-2, 1 Oppenheim; StaH 741-4 Fotoarchiv, K 2510, K 7461, K 6691; Hamburger Adressbücher 1862–1943; Landesarchiv Berlin, P Rep.160, 465; LAB, P Rep. 161, 9; LAB, P Rep. 161, 275; LAB, P Rep 809; Archiv Kirchengemeinde St. Georg-Borgfelde, Taufbücher der Heiligen Dreieinigkeitskirche, St. Georg, Nr. 968/1891 Franz Johann Oppenheim, Nr. 969/1891 Paul Sig-mund Oppenheim; Adressbuch Minden 1857 http://wiki-de.genealogy.net/w/index.php?title=Datei:Minden-AB-1857.djvu&page=26, eingesehen 11.1.2014; Auskünfte: Marion Berg und Viola Schulz, Landesarchiv Berlin; Auskünfte Dr. Dagmar Bickelmann, Landesarchiv Schleswig-Holstein; Auskünfte Margret Dick, Deutsche Nationalbibliothek, Deutsches Exilarchiv 1933–1945; Auskünfte Petra Hesse, Universitätsarchiv Leipzig; Auskünfte Carmen Kobbert, Standesamt Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf von Berlin; Auskünfte Karin Krug, Stadtarchiv Dresden; Auskünfte Frau Lehnert, Deutschen Dienststelle WASt; Auskünfte Gudrun Pahl, Lange Uhren GmbH, Glashütte; Auskünfte Karin Paulat, Standesamt I Berlin; Auskünfte Dr. Andreas Heusler, Brigitte Schmidt, Stadtarchiv München; Auskünfte Dr. Claudius Stein, Archiv der Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München; Auskünfte Sandra Weiland, Landeshaupt-stadt München, Referat für Gesundheit und Umwelt, Städt. Friedhöfe München; Auskünfte Nicolai M. Zimmermann, Bundesarchiv Berlin-Lichterfelde; http://www.illustrierte-presse.de/en/the-magazines/werkansicht/cache.off?id=7171&tx_dlf%5Bid%5D=71897&tx_dlf%5Bpage%5D=120, eingesehen 11.1.2014.Der Querschnitt, Bd. 2. 1922 Jahresband, S. 75 Rudolf Levy, Mein lieber Artaval, S. 97–98; Fritz Westendorp, Zeichnung "Bildnis Artaval" S. 99, Querschnitt, Bd. 2. 1922 Weihnachtsheft, Jules Pascin "Artaval", Rudolf Großmann, Zeichnung "Artaval kehrte in den Dôme zurück", Bd. 4, 1924,H. 1 S. 81; Stolpersteine in Hamburg-Isestraße, Christa Fladhammer, S. 87/88 Bruno Loeser; Stolpersteine in Hamburg-Winterhude, Björn Eggert, S.189 Hugo Wolfers und Olga, geb Oppenheimer; Ausstellung Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Juni 2012, Haspa, Köpfe der Zwanziger Jahre, Friedrich Ahlers-Hestermann, Ölgemälde 1919 "Artaval"; Christine Behrens, Ohlsdorf – Zeitschrift für Trauerkultur, Ohlsdorfer Porträts, Mai 2010, Nr. 109, II. Jutta Braden, Juden im hamburgischen Notariat 1782–1967, 2010; Heiko Morisse, Ausgrenzung und Verfolgung der Hamburger jüdischen Juristen im Nationalsozialismus, Band II Beamtete Juristen, Göttingen 2013; Vielen Dank dem Zeitzeugen Hans-Peter Islar für Telefongespräche im Juli 2010; Vielen Dank der Zeitzeugin Dr. Helga Oehlrich für Gespräche und Photos im März 2015.
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