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Familie Gottschalk
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Otto Gottschalk * 1876

Schellingstraße 86-88 (Wandsbek, Eilbek)

HIER WOHNTE
OTTO GOTTSCHALK
JG. 1876
DEPORTIERT 1941
RIGA
ERMORDET

Otto Nathan Gottschalk, born on 11 Mar. 1876 in Aken/Elbe, deported on 6 Dec. 1941 to Riga

Schellingstrasse 86–88 (Schellingstrasse 62)

Thirty-six years after the tailor Otto Gottschalk had moved into the apartment at Schellingstrasse 62 in Eilbek, he was forced to leave his home within a very short time. Although he was already 65 years old and retired, he was summoned for transport to Riga to participate in the supposed "Development in the East” ("Aufbau im Osten”). He left Hamburg on 6 Dec. 1941 and has been missing since then.

Otto Nathan Gottschalk came from a family of assimilated Jews in Aken/Elbe with many children. His father, the merchant Levy Gottschalk, had settled there in about 1860. A document preserved is a passport indicating "photographer” as an occupation and dating from 1862 for a stay in St. Petersburg. The reason for this trip is unknown.

In his first marriage, Levy Gottschalk married Pauline Gottschalk. Between 1867 and 1876, she gave birth to the children known to us, Karl (born on 4 Nov. 1867), Alfred (born on 10 July 1869), Paul (born on 21 June 1871), Richard (born on 23 Dec. 1872), and Otto (born on 11 Mar. 1876). In his second marriage, Levy Gottschalk was married to Pauline Haupt. This union produced sons Albert and Felix, born in 1884 and 1888.

All of the sons learned a trade. Five of them moved to Hamburg at the turn of the nineteenth to the twentieth century, Paul being the first to do so in 1896. He was followed in 1899 by Richard, in 1903 by Otto, in 1905 by Alfred, and in 1908 by the half-brother Albert. Between 1904 and 1917, they were naturalized together with their families. Paul, a plumber by trade and married to Ida Holland from Rappenau in Baden, had a son, Julius, and a daughter, Erna, subsequent married name Martinelly (see brochure on Stolpersteine in Hamburg Billstedt-Horn-Borgfelde). Richard, an assistant typesetter at M. Lessmann Publishers, entered into a "mixed marriage” ("Mischehe") with Copenhagen resident Lea Sterll, which produced one son. Alfred, a fitter with the Ottensen Eisenwerke, also married a non-Jewish woman, Marie Preusser from Wiesbaden. Their marriage produced five sons and two daughters. Albert, a women’s tailor by trade, married the Christian woman Emma Krietsch in Aken, and in 1908, he moved with her and son Albert to Hamburg, where son Fritz was born later that year. They also lived in Eilbek, at Seumestrasse 18.

Otto Gottschalk completed training as a tailor, and he, too, entered into a "mixed marriage.” His wife Frieda, née Eesemann, born on 3 May 1877 in Plön (District of Schleswig), was "Aryan” and belonged to the Lutheran Church. By the time they got married, Frieda Eesemann’s father and mother had already died. Otto Gottschalk’s father, Levy Gottschalk, did not travel to attend the wedding, and none of the sons living in Hamburg represented him as a witness to the marriage; instead, a brother-in-law of his [Levy Gottschalk’s] son Paul took on this duty.

After their wedding on 1 Apr. 1905, Frieda and Otto Gottschalk moved to Schellingstrasse 62 in Eilbek. In 1909, Otto Gottschalk got a job with the "Beamten-Vereinigung zu Altona” [a consumer cooperative for civil servants operating a department store] in the branch office for men’s clothing at Steindamm 148 in St. Georg. The fixed income made it possible for him to obtain Hamburg citizenship, which he was awarded on 21 Aug. 1911. The marriage remained childless. Different from his brother Paul, he did not join the Jewish Community.

Very little is known about the lives of Otto and Frieda Gottschalk in the years up to 1939. In early 1939, Frieda Gottschalk fell ill with pneumonia. When her condition worsened, she was admitted to St. Georg General Hospital on 20 February. She died on the way there of cardiac insufficiency. With the end of the marriage, Otto Gottschalk lost the protective status of the "mixed marriage,” but his landlord did not make use of his right to give him notice to leave the apartment. On 1 Aug. 1940, Otto Gottschalk he was forced to join the Jewish Religious Organization (Jüdischer Religionsverband).

He was now destitute, receiving welfare benefits from the Jewish Religious Organization as of Jan. 1941. The deportation order, euphemistically designated by the Gestapo as summons to "outmigration” ("Abwanderung”) reached him in his familiar surroundings. He was granted no time to dissolve his household. Otto Gottschalk was deported to Riga along with 752 other Jewish men and women on 6 Dec. 1941.

In May 1942, the Hamburgische Elektrizitäts-Werke [the Hamburg electricity company] sent an invoice of 2.34 RM (reichsmark) to the Administrative Office for Jewish Assets with the Hamburg-Dammtor Tax and Revenue Authority for arrears in utility payments. By this time, Otto Gottschalk was probably already dead.

On 2 Dec. 1942, Otto Gottschalk’s brother Karl, who had remained in Aken with his wife Ida, confined to a wheelchair, was deported from Magdeburg to the Theresienstadt Ghetto. Ida died there six days after their arrival, and Karl perished seven months later. This transport also included Marta Gottschalk. On 25 Aug. 1942, a relative living in Berlin, Fanny Gottschalk, had already been deported to Theresienstadt, where she died on 12 Nov. 1943. Alfred, Albert, and Felix, along with their families, survived the "Third Reich” owing to their "privileged mixed marriages” ("privilegierte Mischehen”). Today (2012), Felix’ descendants operate a printing company in Aken.

Status as of Feb. 2014

Translator: Erwin Fink

Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

© Hildegard Thevs

Quellen: 1; 4; 5; 6; 7; 9; AB; StaH 314-15 OFP Oberfinanzpräsident 29 (HEW); 332-5 Standesämter 1108-500/1919, 3035/225-1905; 332-7 Staatsangehörigkeitsaufsicht B III, 77823, 79793, 109 952, 130 215; 332-8 Meldewesen K 6144; 552-1 Jüdische Gemeinden 992 e 2 Deportationslisten Band 3; Stadtarchiv Aken, Chronik; Stolpersteine in Billstedt-Horn-Borgfelde; Mitteilungen der Familie Schmidt aus Aken.
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