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Heinz Heymann * 1907

Rutschbahn 15 (Eimsbüttel, Rotherbaum)

1941 Lodz

further stumbling stones in Rutschbahn 15:
Jacob Blankenstein, Sophie Blankenstein, Elisabeth Silbiger, Hermann Silbiger, Frieda Warneck, Ruth Warneck

Heinz Heymann, born 17 Mar. 1907 in Friedrichstadt, deported 25 Oct. 1941 to Lodz, murdered

Rutschbahn 15

Heinz Heymann was born 17 Mar. 1907 to Leopold Heymann, a horse trader, and his wife Henriette Clara (Henny) Heymann, née Levy, daughter of the esteemed merchant of manufactured goods Joseph Levy, in Friedrichstadt. Five years later, his brother Kurt followed, born 6 Feb. 1912.
Both Henny and Leopold, whose families had resided in Friedrichstadt for generations, were active members of the left-leaning, liberal German Democratic Party. Despite recent passage of laws granting women the right to vote, this was very unusual behavior for a woman, particularly one from a village or small town. His parent’s political activism made a profound impression on their first born: As a teenager, Heinz joined the "Secret Society of Guttempler Youth in Husum” (Husumer Wehrloge der Guttempler-Jugend).
After finishing school, Heinz and Kurt trained to become commercial clerks. Heinz later managed a fabric business. Leopold Heymann died in 1931.

In Sept. 1935, Heinz was accused of racial defilement (rasseschänderisches Treiben) by the mayor of Friedrichstadt in a letter addressed to the Federal Police Office in Kiel. The letter claimed Heinz had appeared "in a provocative manner on the open street, accompanied by Aryan girls.” Moreover, "detainment in a concentration camp is […] advisable.” Heinz was consequently arrested but soon released again due to lack of evidence. However he was advised to leave Friedrichstadt.

He did indeed do this and was registered from 1937 in Hamburg where he sub-let at Rutschbahn 15 from the hairdresser David Levin who was born in 1869 in Kiel.
Kurt had lived in Hamburg since 1935. In 1938 Henny also followed her sons to the city on the Elbe.

During the November 1938 pogrom, Heinz Heymann was arrested and transported to the concentration camp Sachsenhausen. His imprisonment lasted nearly three months. When he was released on 31 Jan. 1939, he returned to Hamburg. In light of the increasing repression exerted over the Jewish population, he tried to emigrate to Shanghai in 1939, yet was unsuccessful.

Instead he spent the next two and a half years in Hamburg, until 25 Oct. 1941 when he was deported along with around 1000 other Hamburg citizens to Lodz, Poland’s second-largest city where the Germans had established a Jewish ghetto.
His widowed mother, who in the meantime had remarried, was also deported there under the name Henny Krause. Heinz is entered in the Gestapo’s list as having "voluntarily reported for evacuation.” Presumably this has something to with the fact that he did not want to let his mother go alone on the transport.

In the ghetto in Lodz, Heinz lived at Rungestraße 10/1. There, in May 1942, he received the order to "resettle” (Aussiedlung), meaning he was to be assigned to one of the transports to the nearby extermination camp Chelmno. His stepfather Fritz Krause submitted an application to be released from the planned "resettlement,” in the hope of being able to save himself, his wife and his son. However, his petition was denied since his reported war insignia was insufficient for release. Only those who fought in the World War and received the Iron Cross were eligible for release. Nor was his reported work sufficient. He would have had to have a permanent position in a business or factory whose employees were entitled to apply for release from "resettlement”.

It is assumed that all three went on the fourth transport on 7 May 1942, to which many citizens of Hamburg and Düsseldorf were assigned, and murdered on the same day in Chelmno.

Heinz’s brother Kurt, in the meantime, was sentenced to a term in prison which he served at the Brandenburg City Jail. In autumn 1942, he was to be handed over to Auschwitz. Kurt Heymann was deported to Auschwitz and murdered there on 18 Feb. 1943.

Heinz und Kurt Heymann are also commemorated by Stolpersteine in Friedrichstadt at Kirchstraße 2.

Translator: Suzanne von Engelhardt

Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

Stand: October 2016
© Johanna Thiess

Quellen: Staatsarchiv Hamburg, 522-1, Jüdische Gemeinden, 992b, Kultussteuerkartei der Deutsch-Israelitischen Gemeinde Hamburg, Kultussteuerkarte Heinz Heymann; Christiane Thomsen: Stolpersteine in Friedrichstadt. Ein Stadtrundgang. Flyer,hrsg. von der Gesellschaft für Friedrichstädter Stadtgeschichte;YadVashem, The Central Data Base ofShoaVictims; Bettina Goldberg: Abseits der Metropolen. Die jüdische Minderheit in Schleswig-Holstein, Neumünster 2011, S. 100 f., S. 233 u. S. 604; Gedenkbuch. Opfer der Verfolgung der Juden unter der nationalsozialistischen Gewaltherrschaft in Deutschland 1933–1945, Bd. II u. III, 2. Auflage, bearbeitet und herausgegeben vom Bundesarchiv, Koblenz 2006; http://www.akens.org/akens/texte/stolpersteine/Friedrichstadt.pdf (Zugriff: 18.09.2014); www.statistik-des-holocaust.de/list_ger_nwd_411025.html (Zugriff 28.5.2014); www.bundesarchiv.de/gedenkbuch (Zugriff 12.5.2014); Beate Meyer (Hrsg.): Die Verfolgung und Ermordung der Hamburger Juden 1933–1945. Geschichte. Zeugnis. Erinnerung, 2. Auflage, Hamburg 2007, S. 59–61; ArchiwumLodzi (CD).