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Jacob Lübeck, Photo aus Kennkarte 1941
© Privatbesitz

Jacob Lübeck * 1881

Talstraße 47 (Hamburg-Mitte, St. Pauli)

HIER WOHNTE
JACOB LÜBECK
JG. 1881
VERHAFTET 1937
MEHRERE KZ
ZULETZT 1941 DACHAU
"VERLEGT" 17.2.1942
HARTHEIM
ERMORDET 17.2.1942

Jacob Lübeck, born on 13 Feb. 1881 in Hamburg, detained from 1938 until 1940 in the Hamburg penitentiary, in 1941 in the Neuengamme concentration camp, transported to the Dachau concentration camp, murdered on 17 Feb. 1942 in the Hartheim Castle euthanasia killing center near Linz

Talstrasse 47

The Jewish plumber and mechanic Jacob Lübeck was born on 13 Feb. 1881 as the son of the furrier Bernhard Lübeck and his wife Julia, née Delmonte, in Hamburg. He grew up with three sisters as well as an older brother and attended the Anton-Ree-Realschule [a practice-oriented secondary school up to grade 10], founded as an Israelite Free School, though admitting Christian students as well since the mid-nineteenth century. According to the brother, Louis Lübeck, the parents "always struggled with poverty.”

At the age of 14, Jacob Lübeck started an apprenticeship to become a plumber, mechanic, and roofer, as he explained in his curriculum vitae: "At Easter of 1899, I was pronounced journeyman and after that, for another six years, I continued to work as a journeyman for various companies to perfect my skills. After having taken several state examinations, passing them with a grade of ‘good,’ I started a business of my own in Dec. 1905. I operated this company until the end of 1938, employing on average five to six persons, including apprentices.”

In about 1903, Jacob Lübeck married the young widow Paula Unkelhäuser, who was a Christian and brought a little daughter named Johanna into the marriage. The couple had three children together: Julia (in 1904), Bernhard (in 1907), and Paula (in 1910), all of whom were entered on the tax file card as being "Protestant” ("ev.”). Julia’s oldest daughter spent a lot of time at her grandparents’ house and still has many memories of the grandfather, whom the family often called "James.” Many a time, "Miss Margot” (Frl. Margot”), as the plumber lovingly called his granddaughter, accompanied him to his workplace: "He had a lot to do on Reeperbahn, working for many local restaurants and bars, delivering, among other things, carbonic acid there for the beer pumps. Moreover, he took care of the gas lights on the Hamburg Cathedral when there was no electricity yet.” According to the information by the granddaughter, the household of Jacob Lübeck hosted both Jewish but mostly Christian festivities, and "he was in on everything, magnificent Christmas celebrations with a gigantic Christmas tree, eating pork and going to the synagogue only rarely if at all.”

Until the mid-1930s, Jacob Lübeck’s craft business, relocated from Schmuckstrasse to Talstrasse 47 in about 1916, must have gone rather well according to the tax contributions paid. However, by 1937 at the latest, he also clearly experienced firsthand the marginalization and persecution measures against the Jewish population. For instance, the "Club Kolophonium,” which in its statutes emphasized the cultivation and promotion of "friendship, loyalty, and cooperativeness in the honorable plumbing trade,” informed him in a brief letter in Oct. 1937 that he "was deleted from the membership list … because of the circumstances.” At this point, Jacob Lübeck was already imprisoned in the pretrial detention facility awaiting his conviction, which was in store for him due to the pending trial for "racial defilement” ("Rassenschande”). It is not possible to identify the offense of which he was accused specifically, because the criminal case record no longer exists. On 21 Jan. 1938, the Hamburg Regional Court (Landgericht) sentenced him to "three years and six months penitentiary because of racial defilement.” After deduction of the time spent in pretrial detention, he was released on 23 Feb. 1941 from the Bremen-Oslebshausen penitentiary, where he had been transferred on 5 Apr. 1940.

After his release from prison, Jacob Lübeck intensively pursued his plans for emigration. As he put it in his curriculum vitae, "In accordance with the distress of the times, I would now like to seize upon a new sphere of activity in a different country.” Furthermore, he also composed his "Last Will,” in which he specified the distribution of his small fortune to his wife, children, and grandchildren.

Even during his prison term, he had already transferred the two properties at Schmuckstrasse 9 and Stuhlmannstrasse 7 to his wife Paula. On 16 Apr. 1941, the Hamburg police authority issued a certificate of good conduct to him, "valid for the purpose of emigration.”

Just why the Jewish plumber eventually did not emigrate after all can probably not be clarified after all. On 3 May 1941, he was initially taken to the Fuhlsbüttel concentration camp and shortly afterward to the Neuengamme concentration camp, from where he wrote a letter to the family in June. The letter makes it clear that he continued to hope for the possibility of emigrating and "for a reunion soon … and that everything will take a turn for the better.” His hopes would not be fulfilled, for on 14 Sept. 1941, Jacob Lübeck was transferred to the Dachau concentration camp. From this camp, too, a letter to his family is preserved. Based on the deviating handwriting, he apparently only formulated the letter but did not write it himself. Thus, passages of the letter dated 13 Nov. 1941 read:

"My beloved wife! With this, I am sending you all the best, hoping that all of you are in good health and that you are doing well considering the times. I am in good health, too, and we must endure our fate with patience, and you, my beloved wife, also carry a heavy burden but one ought to hold one’s head high … I hope, my beloved wife, that our sons-in-law return healthy and in one piece from the front. That is my Christmas wish and all of ours …” In this letter, he also addressed all of his children and grandchildren with Christmas greetings, expressing the wish for mail and messages from his family.

This letter is the last sign of life from Jacob Lübeck. On 17 Feb. 1942, he was taken on a so-called invalids’ transport from the Dachau concentration camp to the Hartheim Castle euthanasia killing center near Linz in Austria and gassed. Since the spring of 1940, the former institution for mental patients saw the murder of more than 18,000 inmates of hospitals and nursing homes as well as retirement homes. Starting in Jan. 1942, thousands of prisoners, predominantly from the Dachau and Mauthausen concentration camps, suffered the same fate.

The family of Jacob Lübeck received a death certificate dated to 15 May 1942, as well as an urn, but the family doubted whether it actually contained his ashes. Nevertheless, according to the granddaughter, the family was thankful to accept this urn as a memento of their "James.” Jacob Lübeck’s brother Louis, who lived in Eimsbüttel as a merchant and to whom he did not have any close contact, died on 11 May 1943 in Auschwitz. His sister Luise, two years his junior, was deported to Theresienstadt on 19 July 1942, living there until her death in Jan. 1943.


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

Stand: March 2017
© Gunhild Ohl-Hinz

Quellen: 1; 4; 8; StaH 242-1 II Gefängnisverwaltung II, Abl. 13 Gefangenenkartei für Männer; StaH 242-1 II Gefängnisverwaltung II, Abl. 18, Aktenzeichen 923/39 Louis Lübeck; StaH 242-1 II Gefängnisverwaltung II, Abl. 16, Untersuchungshaftkartei für Männer; StaH 314-15 OFP, R 1939/2216; StaH 331-1 II Polizeibehörde II, Abl. vom 18.09.84, Band 1; Interview mit der Enkelin von Jacob Lübeck, Margot Düwel, im November 2007; Informationen aus der Datenbank der Gedenkstätte Neuengamme.
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