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Gertrud Windmüller (née Friedländer) * 1891

Hirschgraben 58 (Hamburg-Mitte, Hamm)

1942 Theresienstadt
ermordet 11.07.1944

further stumbling stones in Hirschgraben 58:
Dr. Sidney Percival Windmüller

Gertrud Windmüller, née Friedländer, born on 24 Jan. 1891 Hamburg, deported to Theresienstadt on 15 July 1942, date of death there 11 July 1944
Dr. med. Percival Sidney Windmüller, born on 25 July 1865 New York, deported to Theresienstadt on 15 July 1942, date of death there 5 Nov. 1942

In 2006, the grandson of Percival Sidney Windmüller, Jan Percival Windmüller, reported that his grandfather, born in New York on 25 July 1865 and an "American,” came to Hamburg in 1892 to help as a physician combating the cholera epidemic. He was naturalized in Hamburg and was honored with a medal in recognition of his merits. According to this, Percival Sidney Windmüller was an inventor and a highly musical person living in his own world. In 1929, he published a study on amalgam as a dental filling. By that time, he had already been divorced from his wife Margarethe, a self-confident, extravagant woman from a wealthy family.

Percival Sidney Windmüller "came to Germany in 1874, attended school in Hamburg and Altona and studied medicine in Rostock, Berlin, and Göttingen, went to America in Aug. 1891 and has now returned here to practice as a dentist. The head of the Medical Colloquium [Medizinal Colloquium] has made his license to the practice here dependent on the local naturalization and for this reason, the application is being made. If the application is granted, said person renounces American citizenship.” Providing these explanatory remarks, he submitted an application for admission to the Hamburg Federation (Hamburgischer Staatsverband) on 13 Aug. 1892.

Percival Sidney Windmüller was awarded his doctorate as Dr. med. et chir. for a "contribution to the casuistry of tumors of the jaw” on 27 Oct. 1890 in Göttingen. He received his license to practice medicine shortly afterwards. The fact that his father was a Hamburg citizen and that relatives provided positive references concerning his reputation benefitted his application; on 7 Sept. 1892, he was naturalized.

As long as Percival Windmüller was single, he lived with his parents at Dillstrasse 2, later at Klosterallee 26, and evidently, he operated a dental practice at Esplanade 40 from 1894 onward. In 1901, he married Margarethe, née Simon, born on 11 Mar. 1883 in Hamburg. She came from an upper-middle-class family. The couple moved to Hagedornstrasse 25 and in 1904 to their long-standing family residence at Hochallee 57.

Kurt was born in 1903. He was followed by Lilly, born in 1904, Denny (= Harald), born in 1911, and Henning, born 1913. Kurt died already in 1918. The Windmüllers belonged to the Protestant Church.

The marriage was divorced around 1925. Percival Windmüller temporarily moved his practice to his residence on Hochallee, gave up the house around 1930, and moved to Colonnaden 47, where he also practiced until his medical license was revoked.

In 1938 Denny/Harald and Mathel Cohn married, and in 1939, their son Henning went to Finland as a war volunteer in order to avoid military service in Nazi Germany. In 1942, he was granted Finnish citizenship in recognition of his missions on the battlefield. He gave up his intention to return to Hamburg after the war because of the stressful socio-political situation in Germany in the 1950s and remained in Finland.

Lilly Windmüller lived as a trained infant nurse in changing households. Margarethe Windmüller worked as a craftswoman and photojournalist, sometimes under the pseudonym of Sundström, for various press organs.

Percival Windmüller’s second wife, Gertrud Windmüller, previous married name prior to divorce Moll, née Friedländer, born on 24 Jan. 1891, came from a wealthy family. She had lived in a "privileged mixed marriage” ("privilegierte Mischehe”). Gertrud Moll lived at Jordanstrasse 53, near her mother, who supported her and the children financially. Following the marriage in 1939, Percival Windmüller moved in with her. Shortly afterward, he was forced to join the Reich Association [of Jews in Germany] (Reichsvereinigung [der Juden in Deutschland]); his wife and their children were listed as members of the Jewish Religious Organization (Jüdischer Religionsverband). The children survived the persecution.

Percival Windmüller had meanwhile become completely destitute, as a letter to the Jewish Religious Organization in Hamburg shows, the only handwritten document of this remarkable doctor. It is not known whether he had ever tried to emigrate, especially to return to his native country.

After a short stay at the Langenhorn "sanatorium and nursing home” ("Heil- und Pfleganstalt Langenhorn”), his divorced wife Margarethe Windmüller fell ill with "hypothymic querulousness” and an orbital tumor, was transferred to the Berlin-Buch institution on 28 Sept. 1940, where she died on 11 Mar. 1941, probably as a result of a "euthanasia measure.”

With the first transport of Hamburg Jews to the East, on 25 Oct. 1941, Lilly, Dennis/Harald, and Mathel Windmüller were deported to Lodz Ghetto.

On 12 Feb. 1942, Percival and Gertrud Windmüller moved to a "Jews’ house” ("Judenhaus”) at Kielortallee 22. From there, they were deported to Theresienstadt on 15 July 1942. Percival Windmüller survived there for four months, during which he met his sister-in-law Paula Rehtz, a sister of Margarethe Simon, who had arrived in Theresienstadt on the next transport. Gertrud Friedländer lived to see her mother Martha, née Jacobi, arrive in Theresienstadt on 5 May 1943 and die there on 1 Sept. 1943. She herself perished in Theresienstadt on 11 Sept. 1944, six weeks after the visit of the Committee of the International Red Cross.

After her liberation from Theresienstadt, Paula Rehtz searched for her relatives. In 1949, she received a first letter from Henning Windmüller based in Finland and told him in her reply what she knew about the whereabouts of her relatives. That he was the only survivor of his immediate family put a heavy strain on him until his death.


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

Stand: May 2019
© Hildegard Thevs

Quellen: 1; 2; 4; 5; 9; Hamburger Adressbücher; Staatsarchiv Hamburg; 131-1 I Senatskanzlei, 33 w 757; 213-13 Restitution, 7750; 332-5, diverse Geburts-, Heirats- und Sterbeurkunden; 232-3 Testamente, H 11192, H 11441; 352-8/7 Langenhorn, Abl. 1, 1995, 26469; 522-1, Jüdische Gemeinden, 992 d Steuerakten Bd. 34; 992 e 2 Deportationslisten Bd. 5; Staatsangehörigkeitsaufsicht, B III N. 42918; Landesarchiv Berlin, ARep 003-04-01 Nr. 21998 (Aufnahmebuch HPA Buch), Nr. 115 (Verlegungslisten), Nr. 162 (Abrechnungslisten), von Dr. Hannelore Dege 2017 erforscht und dankenswerter Weise zur Verfügung gestellt; Ev.-luth. St. Johannis-Kirche Hamburg-Harvestehude, Taufregister 1914; www.juden-in-mecklenburg.de, Zugriff 21.1.2018, mit besonderem Dank an Sylvia Ulmer ; Enzyklopädie des Holocaust. Die Verfolgung und Ermordung der europäischen Juden. Hauptherausgeber: Israel Gutman. München Zürich. 2. Aufl. 1998, Band III, S. 1406; persönliche Mitteilungen von Angehörigen.
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