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Zerline Peritz (née Träger-Jacob) * 1889

Wandsbeker Chaussee 104 (Wandsbek, Eilbek)

HIER WOHNTE
ZERLINE PERITZ
GEB. TRÄGER-JACOB
JG. 1889
DEPORTIERT 1941
MINSK
ERMORDET

further stumbling stones in Wandsbeker Chaussee 104:
Hermann Peritz

Hermann Peritz, born 9/16/1882 in Hamburg, deported to Minsk on 11/8/1941
Zerline Peritz, née Jacob, divorced Träger, deported to Minsk on 11/8/1941

Wandsbeker Chaussee 104

Hermann Peritz was the son of the Jewish merchant and subsequent messenger Joseph Peritz, born 1856, and his Jewish wife Rike, née Moses. He was the eldest of at least six children.
Since their wedding in 1879, Hermann Peritz’ parents lived in the street named Kraienkamp (now Krayenkamp) Terrasse 18 house 3 in Hamburg’s Gängeviertel, an area with narrow alleys near St. Michael’s church. Joseph, Hermann Peritz’ father, had already lived at no. 1 in the same street with his parents before marrying.
Hermann Peritz and his five siblings were born at the apartment in Kraienkamp. Bis brother Siegfried, born 1887, died at the age of six. Nothing is known about the childhood of the other Peritz children. In 1908, the parents moved to Kielortallee near the Grindel quarter; Hermann, then 28, and his 19-year-old brother Paul with them. Both sons stayed with their mother in Kielortallee after their father died in 1910, Hermann until he married. Hermann Peritz’ younger brother Max, born August 15th, 1895, was killed in action in World War I at the age of 22. In the fighting in Flanders near Passchendaele (now Passendale), an artillery shell hit him in the head on October 26th, 1917.

In August 1921, Hermann Peritz married Frieda Brady from Ritzebüttel near Cuxhaven, born February 3rd, 1885, the daughter of a merchant. Both were members of the Hamburg Jewish Community. The young couple moved into an apartment at Wandsbeker Chaussee 104, where they remained until the mid-1930s. In 1935 or 1936, they moved to Hasselbrookstrasse 11. The information about Hermann Peritz’ professional career is sparse. His culture tax card at the Jewish Community reveals that he initially worked as a "traveling shoe salesman.” His business address was Heinrich-Barth-Strasse 8, in the basement, in Rotherbaum district. From around 1921, the business was named "Shoe Ware Shop.” Up until the late 1920s, his income at least temporarily was high enough that he was regularly assessed for culture tax since 1913. However, he repeatedly did not pay his dues on time. The financial situation changed from 1931/32. Due to the effects of the world economic crisis, he no longer had to pay the culture tax.

After the Nazis rose to power in 1933, the situation worsened due to the boycotting of Jewish-owned businesses. In the end, Hermann Peritz was expressly forbidden to run a shoe shop or even to work as a traveling shoe salesman. On the death certificate of his wife Frieda, who fell ill in the winter of 1939/1940 and died on January 19th, 1940 at the Jewish Hospital in Johnsallee 68, his profession was given as "worker.”
After Frieda’s death, Hermann Peritz married a second time in December 1940. His new wife Zerline, née Jacob, born August 16th, 1889, had also been previously married and was divorced from her first husband Berthold Träger in 1906. Hermann Peritz presumably met his second wife at Rappstrasse 2, where she for a time had an apartment of her own. At the time, he lived at the same address as a subtenant with Anna Sekkel, a widow who was deported to Riga on December 6th, 1941.
In 1941, Hermann and Zerline Peritz were forced to move to Heinrich-Barth-Strasse 8, a "Jews’ house” where Jews had to live in extremely confined quarters. On November 8th, 1941, Hermann and Zerline Peritz were deported to Minsk. They were never heard of again. The municipal power company Hamburgische Electricitäts-Werke contributed its part to the "orderly management” of the deportation of November 8th, 1941. In a letter to the Dammtor Finance Office – Administration of Jewish Assets - of January 13, 1942, it stated: "The Jews listed below, who have recently been evacuated, owe us money for the electricity used in their respective dwellings up to their departure […]. A list several pages long follows, on which Hermann Peritz, Heinrich-Barth-Strasse 2, is included. From him, the power company wanted 7.85 RM.

Besides Hermann and Zerline Peritz, further members of the large Peritz family fell victim to the holocaust. Selma Peritz, Hermann’s sister, born September 25th, 1891, was deported from Hamburg to the Lodz ghetto on October 25th, 1941 and perished there on February 21st, 1942. Hermann’s second sister Hertha, born September 18th, 1897, was deported from the Westerbork transit camp in Holland to the Sobibor extermination camp in Poland on May 25th, 1943 and murdered there on her arrival three days later.

Hermann Peritz’ brother Paul managed to escape from Germany to the USA in April 1940 with his wife. The three children Inge, Werner and Susi were taken to safety in England on one of the children’s transports in June 1939.

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

Stand: February 2018
© Ingo Wille

Quellen: 1; 4; 5; 9; AB; StaH 314-15 OFP Oberfinanzpräsident 29 (HEW); 332-5 Standesämter 2032-4109/1889, 2201-3487/1889, 2203-4408/1882, 2259-3948/1891, 2374-2714/1895, 6314-1603/1890, 8168-43/1940, 9584-624/1921, 13275-1636/1900, 13325-390/1900; 522-1 Jüdische Gemeinden 922e Deportationslisten.
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