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Siegfried Liebreich * 1873

Hein-Hoyer-Straße 24 (Hamburg-Mitte, St. Pauli)

HIER WOHNTE
SIEGFRIED LIEBREICH
JG. 1873
DEPORTIERT 1942
THERESIENSTADT
ERMORDET 10.11.1942

Siegfried Liebreich (Gumpel), born 02/27/1873 in Hamburg, imprisoned at Sachsenhausen concentration camp from 06/23/1938 until 09/19/1938, deported to Theresienstadt on 07/15/1942, died there on 11/10/1942

Hein-Hoyer-Strasse 24 (Wilhelminenstrasse 24)

Betty Worms, née Gumpel, born 10/21/1871 in Hamburg, deported to Theresienstadt on 07/15/1942, died there on 12/01/1942

Hein-Hoyer-Strasse 63 (Wilhelminenstrasse 63)

The parents of Siegfried Liebreich and Betty Worms were Abraham Gottschalk and Julie Gumpel, née Beer. Abraham was a butcher. Julie was born on August 31st, 1845 in Hamburg. Her marriage produced six children. Her first child, Jette died immediately after her birth in 1886. Adolf followed in 1867, Olga one year later, Rosa in 1870, last Siegfried. Abraham Gottschalk died, and Julie in November of 1880 married the butcher and poultry merchant Schmay Liebreich, whom she had known for some time. Liebreich was born 1855 in Weigenheim in Bavaria, and had been a witness to her first marriage. Julie and Schmay had two children: daughter Mary, born 1882, and son Ely, born 1884.

In his genealogical study of the Isaac/Wolf family, Dieter Guderian devoted a chapter to Julie Beer, describing her as a markedly active, vivacious person: "It became evident that she was the center of the Beer, Isaac, Gumpel and Liebreich families, who were all very closely connected.” In 1924, James, Ludwig and Leopold Isaac officially assumed the family name Wolf to avoid the increasing anti-Semitic discrimination; Wolf had been the stage name under which they had gained fame and popularity as "Die Gebrüder Wolf”, the Wolf Brothers or Wolf Trio, musicians, comedians and variety artists. Olga Gumpel, the eldest sister of Betty and Siegfried, married Leopold Wolf, a member of the Trio.

Betty Gumpel married the Jewish bookkeeper – according to his culture tax card also a chartered accountant – Carl Worms. The couple first lived in Berlin Charlottenburg, where their daughter Johanna was born on November 15th, 1897, followed by her sister Claire on May 5th, 1900. We know that Johanna attended the Jewish secondary school for girls in Karolinenstrasse in Hamburg, so that we can assume her family came to Hamburg in the first decade of the 20th century.

The Worms family settled in Wilhelminenstrasse 63 – now Hein-Hoyer-Strasse. Carl Worms was appraised for Community taxes from 1913; in 1923, he left the Community, address unknown. According to their daughter Johanna, Betty and Carl were divorced before 1933. Around 1934, Betty worked as a waitress. Her income was so small that she had to pay no culture tax. From 1935 on, she was without a job.

In September of that year, she moved to a smaller flat. For a time, she lived at the Theodor-Wohlwill-Stift in Kielortallee 26. Her last Hamburg residence was the John-R.-Warburg-Stift at Bundesstrasse 43, where she met her widowed sisters Rosa Stern and Olga Wolf, who also lived there. Olga died on March 14th, 1941. Betty’s daughter Johanna succeeded in emigrating; she left her furniture with her mother in Bundesstrasse. Together with her sister Rosa and her brother Siegfried Liebreich, she was deported to Theresienstadt on July 15th, 1942, where she died on December 1st, 1942, three weeks after the death of her brother Siegfried. Her younger daughter Claire Möller, née Wolf, died during the war in an air raid on Hamburg.

Siegfried, the youngest among the descendants of Abraham Gottschalk, later assumed the name of his stepfather Liebreich. According to the information on his culture tax card, he was a photographer and travelling salesman. On the transport list to Theresienstadt, his profession is given as photographer. In the 1938 Hamburg address book, it is salesman. He had married Mathilde Bähr, born in October, 1875 in Hamburg, who was not Jewish. They had a daughter, Maria, born July 17th, 1897.

In 1905, Siegfried’s mother and her husband celebrated their silver wedding anniversary. Siegfried dedicated a table song to them, in which the anniversary couple and all their children are mentioned in short rhymes. Schmay’s love to Julie – called "Siegfried” and "Fanny” in the table song – seems to have begun already when they first met:

"Vor vielen, vielen Jahren, das ist jetzt schon lange her,
kam als Geselle ,Siegfried’ hier an bei Schlachter Beer,
und wie so oft im Leben sich so was wohl begibt,
hat er sich kurz darauf in ,Fanny’ schon verliebt.
Denn so wie sie ihm keine mehr gefiel,
sie zu erringen, das war sein höchstes Ziel."

-"Many, many years ago – it’s now a long time since,
‘Siegfried’ as a journeyman joined Beer the butcher,
And, how such things often occur in life,
shortly after he had fallen in love with ‘Fanny’,
and because no other girl could please him more,
to win her was from then on his foremost goal.”

These lines suggest an affinity to his stepfather Schmay that may have influenced him to assume his family name. He also made a rhyme about himself:

"Einst als ganz kleiner Junge ging Siegfried mit Papa
Die Kundschaft zu bedienen, nun hört, was dort geschah,
Er wurde plötzlich still und blass und eh’s Papa gesehen
War auf der Moorweid ihm o Graus schon ein Malheur geschehen.
Doch selbst später, Schwerenöter, ging er gern zur Eisbahn ‘naus.
Darum, hatte er mal Stellung, Flog er bald auch wieder raus."

-"Once long ago as a very little boy Siegfried went with Daddy
to serve the customers; now listen to what happened there,
he suddenly turned silent and pale, and before Daddy noticed,
a mishap, what horror, had occurred on the Moorweide.
But even later, he, the philanderer, enjoyed going to the skating rink.
That’s why, when he had a job, it was never long before he was fired.”

Julie Liebreich died two years after the big party at the silver wedding anniversary. In November, 1926, her daughter Maria, now named Leiser by marriage, moved to Berlin from her parents’ home in Wilhelminenstrasse.

Siegfried Liebreich – like Leo Silberstein and Arthur Krebs – fell victim to the operation "Arbeitsscheu Reich” (work-shy Reich – a roundup of jobless people) ". He was taken into "protective custody” at the Fuhlsbüttel concentration camp from June 16th to 24th, 1938. His name is also on the "List of work-shy individuals admitted on Thursday, June 23rd, 1938” of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. He was released not quite three months later, on September 19th.

From 1938 on, according to an entry on his culture tax card, Siegfried lived from support by his daughter Maria. His wife Mathilda died on August 2nd, 1939, his widowed daughter Maria Leiser on November 29th, 1941.

Four months before his deportation to Theresienstadt, Siegfried was forced to move out of his flat in Wilhelminenstrasse to the "Jews’ house” in Kielortallee 22.


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

Stand: March 2017
© Christiane Jungblut

Quellen: 1; 2; 3; 4; 5; 8; AB 1938, T. 1, 1941, T. 3. 4; 1942; AfW 151197 Kohn-Kelly, Johanna; ITS/ARCH/ Konzentrationslager Sachsenhausen, Ordner 97, Seite 31; ITS/ARCH/Konzentrationslager Sachsenhausen, Ordner 104, Seite 273; ITS/ARCH/Konzentrationslager Sachsenhausen, Ordner 105, Seite 91; StaH 213-8 Staatsanwaltschaft Oberlandesgericht - Verwaltung, Abl. 2, 451 a E 1, 1 c; StaH 314-15 OFP, Abl. 1998/1, W 591; StaH 351-11 AfW, Abl. 2008/1, 170670 Stern, Rosa; StaH 522-1 Jüd. Gemeinden, 992 e 1 Band 6; Bajohr, "Arisierung"; 1997, S. 267; Guderian, Hamburger Originale, 2006, S. 11, 141 ff; Telefonat mit Dieter Guderian am 12.1.2009.
Zur Nummerierung häufig genutzter Quellen siehe Link "Recherche und Quellen".
Hier abweichend:
(2) Bundesarchiv Berlin, R 1509 Reichssippenamt, Ergänzungskarten der Volkszählung vom 17. Mai 1939