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Erich Marcus * 1911

Schadesweg 24 (Hamburg-Mitte, Hamm)

HIER WOHNTE
ERICH MARCUS
JG. 1911
DEPORTIERT 1941
MINSK
ERMORDET

further stumbling stones in Schadesweg 24:
Elsi Marcus, Silvia Marcus

Elsi Marcus, née Singer, born on 25 July 1916 in Hamburg, deported on 8 Nov. 1941 to Minsk
Erich Marcus, born on 25 July 1911 in Harburg, deported on 8 Nov. 1941 to Minsk
Silvia Marcus, born on 24 Mar. 1936 in Hamburg, deported on 8 Nov. 1941 to Minsk

Schadesweg 24

On 8 Nov. 1941, Elsi and Erich Marcus, along with their five-year-old daughter Silvia and Erich’s parents, Julius and Grethe Marcus, were deported from Hamburg to the Minsk Ghetto, and on 18 November, they were followed by Elsi Marcus’ mother Adelheide Singer, née Gradenwitz, and Erich Marcus’ aunt, Anna Mayer.

Elsi Marcus’ family on her father’s side came from Bukovina, on the mother’s side from Hamburg, and Erich’s family was from Mecklenburg. He was the oldest of the two children of Julius Marcus and his wife Grethe, née Mayer, who after their wedding in Rostock in 1910 had established themselves in Harburg as traders in yard goods (see Stolpersteine in Hamburg-Harburg, p. 165–167). Erich was born in 1911 in Harburg, his sister Gerda in 1914. The immediate family also included the aunts Ella and Rosalie Marcus, natives of Güstrow residing in Hamburg, as well as Anna Mayer, a sister of the mother.

The siblings Erich and Gerda Marcus grew up in solid middle-class circumstances at what was then Mühlenstrasse 9, today’s Schlossmühlendamm 32. They lived in a three-and-a-half bedroom apartment, whose furnishings also included a piano. Gerda attended the private girls’ secondary school run by Dr. Löwenberg in Hamburg. We do not know which school Erich attended. He received training as a commercial clerk. Probably he worked in his parents’ company until the handing-over of power to the Nazis ruined the business.

In 1934, Erich Marcus moved to Hamburg, first to Bornstrasse 2 in the Grindel quarter, and from there to Hamburg-Hamm near his workplace, the Dr. Weigert GmbH chemical plant at Süderstrasse 294, which secured him a small, though regular income. Initially, he found accommodation as a subtenant of the commercial clerk Willi Saal, at Schadesweg 16. The apartment building was part of the ensemble at Schadesweg 4 – 38 owned by the Hammerbrook cooperative building association.

On 29 Oct. 1935, Erich Marcus and Elsi Menie Singer were married. Both their parents were Jewish. Elsi was the only daughter of the shoemaker Mendel Singer, born in 1888 in the Bukovinian town of Zadowa, and Adelheide, née Gradenwitz, born in Hamburg in 1886. With getting married on 23 Dec. 1914, Adelheide had received Austrian citizenship. When Elsi Menie was born on 25 July 1916, she too was German-Austrian. Just as Adelheide had received her unusual first name after her grandmother Adelheide Gradenwitz, née Guttenberg, she gave her daughter Elsi the second name of Mariem Menie after her grandmother. Elsi never got to know her grandmother.

During the first 13 years of her life, Elsi’s home was the basement apartment at Grindelberg 41. Her father had purchased the apartment in addition to the shoe store, expanding it by a workshop. Elsi got to know her father only when he returned from Italian captivity in Oct. 1919. Adelheide Singer had continued to operate the business with a hired journeyman, and by then it generated enough revenues for Mendel Singer to press on with "admission to the Hamburg Federation [Hamburgischer Staatsverband].” On 19 May 1920, he received the naturalization certificate for himself, his wife, and Elsi. In order to make his assimilation complete, he applied to the Hamburg Senate for a name change. Based on this body’s decision dated 14 Mar. 1923, he called himself Max Mendel Singer henceforth. About this time, Elsi began attending school.

The economic situation of Max Mendel and Adelheide Singer improved noticeably after the end of the inflationary period. However, then Max Mendel Singer died, apparently of pulmonary tuberculosis, in the Edmundsthal-Siemerswalde sanatorium in Bergedorf on 14 Jan. 1928, at the age of only 40.

Along with her daughter Elsi, only eleven years old, Adelheide Singer remained in the apartment and tried to continue operating the business, but it went bankrupt in 1929. She received a small war widow’s pension, complemented by a supplementary pension and a disability benefit, though this did not suffice to hold on to the two-bedroom apartment at Grindelberg 41 in the long term. Mother and daughter moved into a one-bedroom apartment with a makeshift kitchen at Hansastrasse 69. In 1933, their naturalization was reviewed. In this connection, the issue at first was only the legitimacy of the naturalization of Mendel Singer as an "East European Jew” ("Ostjude”), then that of their own as well. Since nothing unfavorable was known about either of them and they had both been born in Hamburg, their naturalization was confirmed to be perfectly legal.

After finishing school, Elsi Singer completed training as a sales assistant for shoes, moving to Rentzelstrasse. While still an apprentice, at the age of 18, she was registered with the Jewish Community as an independent member. She kept this status even after her marriage. Her employer was the Gustav Kohn jr. shoe store at Mönckebergstrasse 17 next to the Passage-Kino movie theater, after the "Aryanization” called the Jensen shoe store.

One day after their wedding, Erich Marcus registered with the authorities as residing, again as a subtenant, with the widow W. Otto at Süderstrasse 304. There, daughter Silvia was born on 24 Mar. 1936. On 6 June 1936, the family moved into the first home of their own, a cooperative apartment at Schadesweg 24.

After a period of unemployment or maternity leave, starting in Mar. 1937, Elsi Marcus worked in the Willy Rendsburg stationary store at Krayenkamp close to St. Michaelis Church. Her income fluctuated, though constantly remaining higher than that of her husband.

What moved the couple to leave the apartment on Schadesweg does not emerge from the existing documents. In the summer of 1938, Erich and Elsi Marcus moved with their daughter Silvia to reside as subtenants of the merchant Leo Rosenberg at Ostmarkstrasse/Hallerstrasse 72. Until the summer of 1939, they were doing only slightly worse in terms of finances than before, but then their income began fluctuating considerably.

Initially, the family members affected most dramatically by the anti-Jewish measures of the Nazi government were Erich Marcus’ parents, Julius and Grethe Marcus, who were forced to give up their business, eventually even becoming dependent on welfare assistance. Erich’s sister Gerda, too, suffered because her fiancé was detained on charges of alleged "racial defilement” (Rassenschande). On the condition that he emigrate immediately, he was released from prison. The two were married in early 1939, emigrating to Shanghai three months later. Julius and Grete Marcus intended to follow them there but their plans for emigration failed. It was not possible to find any clues about plans to emigrate entertained by Erich and Elsi Marcus.

In 1937, Adelheide Singer had moved from Grindelberg 41 to Grindelberg 12, the subsequent rallying point for four generations of the family. She took in her mother, Zerline Gradenwitz, to live with her, and in 1940, daughter Elsi with her family moved in as well. On the second to last day of that year began Erich Marcus’ deployment as a forced laborer, doing work as an excavator. Apparently, Elsi Marcus also performed forced labor. Silvia was probably cared for by her grandmother.

On 11 Mar. 1941, Zerline Gradenwitz died at the age of 84. She was buried next to her husband in the Hamburg-Ohlsdorf Jewish Cemetery. Seven months later, when the "resettlement” ("Aussiedlung”) of Hamburg Jews for the alleged "Development in the East” ("Aufbau im Osten”) began in the fall of 1941, the first one of the family to be deported was Ella Marcus, on the transport on 25 Oct.1941, which went to the ghetto in Lodz (see Stolpersteine in der Hamburger Isestrasse, p. 194f.). The following two transports were destined for Minsk. At first, primarily childless strong persons were transported off, frequently only the fathers of the families. They had to prepare the Minsk Ghetto for the subsequent transports of "Jews from the Reich” ("Reichsjuden”), after the previous occupants had been eliminated in a bloody operation. Thus, for the time being, only Erich Marcus and his parents received the order for "resettlement;” Elsi Menie, with the occupational designation of "laborer,” and her five-year-old daughter Silvia moved up from the list of replacement persons. One can assume that Adelheide Singer and Anna Mayer, who followed them with the transport departing on 18 Nov. 1941, lived together with their relatives in the ghetto, before they perished in circumstances unknown to us.

Erich’s aunt Rosalie Marcus was deported to the "ghetto for the elderly” ("Altersgetto”) in Theresienstadt in 1943, where she died three months after her arrival.

For Erich Marcus, a second Stolperstein is located next to the ones for his parents in Hamburg-Harburg, at Schlossmühlendamm 32.


Translator: Erwin Fink

Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

Stand: October 2017
© Hildegard Thevs

Quellen: 1; 4; 5; 7; Hamburger Adressbücher; StaH 332-5 Standesämter, 748 -355/1916; 2131-4471/1886; 8015-453/1913; 8173-120/1941; 8698-408/1914; 332-7 Staatsangehörigkeitsaufsicht, B VI 1753; 332-8 Melderegister, K 6146, 7107; 552-1 Jüdische Gemeinden, 391 Mitgliederlisten; 992 e 2 Deportationslisten, Bde 1, 2, 3, 5; 351-11 AfW 39704, 39705; Standesamt Hamburg-Nord, Heiratsregister StA 3, 461/1935; Stadtarchiv Bad Doberan, Melderegister; Stadtarchiv Ribnitz-Damgarten, Einwohnerverzeichnisse; Stadtarchiv Geesthacht, Sterberegister; Stadtarchiv Rostock, Heiratsregister; Fladhammer, Christa, Stolpersteine in der Hamburger Isestraße, S. 194f.; Möller, Klaus, Stolpersteine in Hamburg-Harburg, S. 165-167.
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