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David Linden * 1886

Kroosweg 10 (Harburg, Harburg)

1939 KZ Sachsenhausen
ermordet 12.04.1940

David Linden, born 10/22/1886 in Koloman, died at Sachsenhausen concentration camp on 12/04/1940

Borough of Harburg-Altstadt, Kroosweg 10

David and Klara Linden (born 03/31/1891), née Stapelfeld, came from two Jewish families who left their Austro-Hungarian (now: Ukrainian) homeland and struck new roots in Harburg. Before the First World War, Klara Linden’s father had opened his "Möbel- und Manufakturwarenhaus Josef Stapelfeld” at the corner of Karlstrasse and Lindenstrasse (now: Kroosweg/Julius-Ludowieg-Strasse). When Joseph Stapelfeld died on October 30th, 1915 at the age of 50, his four children Klara, Rosa (see Rosa Abosch), Salka (see Salka Beer) and Siegmund inherited the store.

Rosa and Siegmund Stapelfeld left the management in 1921, respectively 1926, and their brothers-in-law David Linden and Robert Beer took over. Together with their business-minded wives, they enhanced the popular furniture and manufactured goods store in the 1920s; the large range of goods included furniture, ladies’ and men’s wear of all kinds s well as shoes. The five large shop windows were regularly decorated with the latest furniture and fashions. In the salesrooms, two saleswomen served the customers, often joined by David and Klara Linden as well as Robert and Salka Beer; large store rooms were located in the attic of the building at the corner of Karlstrasse 10 and Lindenstrasse and in an adjoining building. David and Klara Linden and their three children Anna (born 07/19/1913), Max (born 01/09/1916) and Julius (born 06/15/1922) lived in a 5 ½ -room apartment with upper middle class furniture including a grand piano, several leather-covered lounge chairs and two valuable Persian rugs.

Immediately after Hitler came to power, the new regime unleashed a comprehensive, vicious anti-Semitic campaign in all of Germany, to which the local Harburg leadership of the Nazi party actively contributed. At the latest on April 1st, 1933, David and Klara Linden must have realized that "the wind had changed”: SA storm troopers picketed the store with large placards urging passers-by to boycott Jewish-owned stores and buy German goods instead.

In spite of this and the following stigmatizing of the "Warenhaus Geschwister Stapelfeld", many regular Harburg customers still found their way to the store at Karlstrasse 10. Compared to the recent world economic crisis, the owners did not yet suffer a substantial decline in sales.

Neither was family life initially affected by major encroachments. On November 3rd, 1935, Anna Linden celebrated her marriage to Chaim Max Schwarz, who ran a textile store in the neighboring borough of Hamburg-Rothenburgsort
Three years later, the family’s protected space was shattered. On October 28th, 1938, Anna Schwarz and her husband were picked up by the police and deported to Poland the same day. They never saw their family again. Hardly two weeks later, in the pogrom night of November 9th, Harburg storm troopers smashed the shop windows of the store in Karlstrasse and completely devastated the salesrooms. From the dark windows of her home on the second floor, terrified and appalled, Anna Linden observed the mob running riot in front of and inside her store. After the pogrom, she had to contribute 1,547.91 RM ("levy on Jewish assets” – 5% of her asset) to the "atonement payment” for the restoration of the streetscape Hermann Göring demanded by decree from all German Jews, to be paid in five installments.

Officially, the destruction of the financial existence of the Linden family was initiated by the "First Decree for the Elimination of Jews from German Economic Life” published two days later that banned Jews from running retail and mail order stores and handicraft businesses after January 1st, 1939. All these enterprises were to either liquidated or transferred to "Aryan” ownership. In December, 1938, a state-appointed trustee took over the liquidation of the Linden business that was then deleted from the company register nine months later. The proceeds from receivables plus the sale of the business and home premises including the two pieces of real estate later went to the treasury.

During the collapse of the family’s economic and social existence, the sons Max and Julius managed to escape to Palestine and England at the last minute. Klara Linden had to have the authorization to emigrate extended several times because her husband, like many Jews of Polish origin, had been arrested at the beginning of the war and his release was not foreseeable; he had first been admitted to the Fuhlsbüttel police prison and then transferred to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp on February 24th, 1940. There, he was given the number 020396 and assigned to the inmates’ block 43. Seven weeks later he was entered as "attrition” in the camp’s Death Book. David Linden died on April 12th, 1940 at the age of 53, ostensibly of cellulitis of his left hand. The urn with his ashes was buried at the Jewish Cemetery in Ohlsdorf.

Neither his daughter Anna and her husband nor his sisters-in-law Rosa Abosch with her children Ruth and David and Salka Beer with her husband Robert and their daughter Hella survived the Holocaust.
Klara Linden died, deeply depressed, on August 22nd, 1941 at the Israelitic Hospital in Johnsallee, aged 50.


Translated by Peter Hubschmid
Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

Stand: March 2017
© Klaus Möller

Quellen: 1; 2 (F 105, R 1939/2869, R 1939/3071; V 206); 4; 5; 8; StaH, 351-11, AfW, Abl. 2008/1, 221086, Linden, David, 190713 Schwarz, Anni, 060700 Schwarz, Meyer-Chaim, 101196 Beer, Salka, 241294 Beer, Robert, 160622 Beer, Julius, 160923 Beer, Hella; StaH, 430-5 Dienststelle Harburg, Ausschal­tung jüdischer Geschäfte und Konsumvereine, 1810-08, Bl. 89ff.; Heyl (Hrsg.), Harburger Opfer; Heyl, Synagoge; Bajohr, "Arisierung", 2. Auflage, S. 372.
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