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Haskel (Adolf) Lubelsky * 1898

Ifflandstraße 10 (Hamburg-Nord, Hohenfelde)

HIER WOHNTE
HASKEL (ADOLF) LUBELSKY
JG. 1898
VERHAFTET 1937
FUHLSBÜTTEL
1941 BREMEN-OSLEBSHAUSEN
DEPORTIERT
AUSCHWITZ
ERMORDET 10.2.1943

further stumbling stones in Ifflandstraße 10:
Hermann Kohn, Sidonie Kohn

Haskiel Hemije Lubelsky, called Adolf, b. 1.22.1898 in Pabianice, Poland, murdered in the Auschwitz concentration and extermination camp on 2.10.1943

Ifflandstrasse 10/11

"The propensity for higher learning was manifest in me in that I had no interest in the trades or business, but could be constantly found behind books; often having resorted to the floor, I sat and read everything published in all kinds of books concerning travels and peoples, simply captivated. Finally, I had to surrender to the threats of my mother and enter into working with a staff electrician she had met during some repair work.” This brief text is part of the life story that Haskeil Lubelsky wrote in 1939, after he had been sentenced to six years in prison on grounds of "racial defilement.” He acknowledges the conflict between his inclination toward learning and the need to earn a living and that, having met with no understanding for his interests, he sought to escape from reality.

Haskiel Hemije Lubelsky, who later called himself Adolf, was born in Pabianice, Poland on 22 January 1898. His mother Rosalie, née Rothkopf/Routkow, and his father Markus, a master tailor, soon moved to Breslau. In 1899, their son Leon was born. In the same year, they resettled in Nuremberg, where Markus Lubelsky registered his trade as master tailor. Of Haskiel Lubelsky’s other siblings, two sisters are known to have been born in Nuremberg in 1902 and 1903, Hella and Frania, both of whom lived only a few months. In June 1903, the now four-year old Leo also died, presumably in a traffic accident. A further brother, about whom nothing more is known, reached adulthood. Haskiel recalled later that his father had lung problems and had wanted to settle in Switzerland, but did not get beyond Nuremberg. He died there in 1905, at 72 years of age.

In Nuremberg, Haskiel for eight years attended a non-denominational public school, that is, one without religious instruction. His mother was illiterate. She did not have the means to send her son to a higher institution of learning and had him become an electrician. After he learned the trade, he would have gladly gone to the Royal Bavarian Technical School – a precursor of today’s Nuremberg Technical University – but the money was also lacking for this. "For the unskilled work of breaking through walls, working on ceilings with arms held high, and having to drag around heavy motors,” he was too weak. Thus, he decided on a change of profession. In 1916, he began working in Nuremberg as a gaffer; in 1917, he was at the Würzburg City Theater and in 1918 at the Sonneberger Theater in Thuringia. When, later, he was unable to find work in theaters, he was alternately a trainee in book printing offices or occupied with the book trade.

In 1923, in search of better pay, he settled in Altona – then still an independent Prussian city near Hamburg – and worked as a warehouse man at a large paper firm. Then he went to France and found work immediately, but, homesick, he returned to Hamburg in 1925. In Hamburg the AEG [German General Electric Co.] hired him for its major orders facility on the docks. Yet, once again, he was not up to the heavy physical labor, particularly because of an earlier accident in which his right index finger was paralyzed. So then he took a job in the bread shop owned by Hanna Stern, née Löbenstein, at Weidenstieg 5. She was married to Ephraim Stern, who ran a remnants business out of the family home at Kielortallee 15, named Coupons. Aside from this job, Haskiel occasionally worked as a kosher-shomer – a validater of correct kosher practices – in the bakery of Paul Hempel on Rutschbahn Strasse.

Hanna and Ephraim Stern had five children, one of whom died early. The oldest was Recha (s. www.stolpersteine-hamburg.de), born on 11.21.1904; there followed Emil (b. 1906), Sara (b. 1911), and Emmi (b. 1914, d. 1921). The youngest was Jettchen, born in 1916. Recha attended the Israelite Girls School on Karolinenstrasse and trained for office work. In 1919, she joined the office staff of the German Israelite Synagogue Association in Hamburg. Six years later, in 1925, she gave up this position and made herself independent by means of a small paper goods and sandwich shop. In the same year, Haskiel Lubelsky became a member of the German Israelite Congregation and joined the Synagogue Association.

On 2 December 1926, Recha Stern and Haskiel Lubelsky got married. Recha thereby received Polish citizenship. As before, Haskiel Lubelsky worked as a bread dealer and lived at Bornstrasse 22; Recha still lived with her parents on Kielortallee and helped in her father’s remnants business. Neither Ephraim and Hanna Stern nor Haskiel and Recha Lubelsky possessed trade licenses for their businesses. The young couple was apparently permanently dependent on the Welfare Commission for the Jewish Congregation. Their union remained childless for many years, until on 4 April 1931, a son, Marcus, was born. A year later, on 24 July 1932, Ruth-Olga came into the world.

Having made himself independent in 1930, Haskiel Lubelsky established a reading circle. In this he found his professional fulfillment. However, it led to the alienation of his wife. On 12 February 1933, Recha and Haskiel Lubelsky separated and began arguing about where the children should live. Haskiel fetched them daily because his reading circle was going badly. Thus, he had time for Marcus and Ruth-Olga, but no money. Recha received welfare support. In addition, she received help from her parents, until her father died in December 1935. There was no help from her siblings. Emil, who in 1926, at around 20 years old, had gone to Brazil, was again living in Germany, in Berlin, however; Jettchen, who was slightly mentally retarded, was in Cologne; and Sara, after a menacing run-in with "Nazi rowdies,” had fled to Denmark. Haskiel Lubelsky maintained that he could care for Marcus and Ruth-Olga, and when necessary bring them to a neighbor woman. Nevertheless, the children remained with their mother.

After a one-year separation, the marriage between Haskiel and Recha was dissolved in 1934; Haskiel was considered the sole party at fault. About two years later, Marcus was sent to the Talmud Torah school. Recha took a part-time job in an office and also earned something as a seamstress. She and the children, as well as Haskiel, moved frequently.

Haskiel Lubelsky’s business was progressing slowly. The driving force behind his work centered on lectures pertaining to his areas of interest – history, geography, travel, regional geography, the migration of peoples – which he gave at adult education centers and the university. As his customers gradually withdrew, he looked for a buyer for his reading circle. But he found none, a fact that played on his nerves. Even the friendly contact with his wife and children did not protect him from a nervous breakdown. He had cultivated practically no other contacts.

In 1937, he took a job in his learned trade as an electrician with the firm Fabke, at Alter Steinweg 42–43. This did not last long: on 12 November 1937, he was arrested on grounds of "racial defilement.” He had entered into a relationship with a non-Jewish woman, which was forbidden to him according to the "Law for the Protection of German Blood and Honor” of 9.15.1935. It took almost a year before judicial proceedings were opened against him. Three weeks after the Reich Minister of the Interior and the Reich Minister of Justice determined the penalty, at the end of October 1938, the proceedings were opened. The sentence pronounced on 16 December 1938 called for six years in prison. Deducting the six months of preventive detention, the termination of the sentence was fixed as 16 June 1944.

Haskiel Lubelsky at first was jailed in Hamburg-Fuhlsbüttel. Recha Lubelsky again diligently pursued the possibility of an emigration for herself and the two children. In the spring of 1939, she received a certificate of clearance for emigration to England, which however fell through. At least, she was successful a few weeks later in getting the now eight-year old Marcus onto a Children’s Transport for England on 25 July 1939, thereby bringing him out of danger.

From 19 February 1940 Recha Lubelsky was in Gestapo "protective custody” in the Fuhlsbüttel concentration camp. She was released in March 1940, on the condition that she pursue her emigration, "because she posed a serious danger to Aryan men.” During her absence, several household objects were pawned, which, upon her release, she was unable to redeem because she was totally penniless. Her daughter was apparently cared for in a Jewish orphanage. In March 1940, Recha gave as an emigration destination Manila or Palestine; in April it was Shanghai. She received a new certificate of clearance for the latter in June. Her flight foundered.

On 1 March 1941, Haskiel Lubelsky was transferred to the Bremen-Oslebshausen prison. Two years later, on 14 January 1943, his imprisonment was "interrupted” and he was sent to Auschwitz. By 10 February 1943, he was dead. He was 45 years old.

Recha Lubelsky and her now nine-year old daughter Ruth-Olga were deported on 25 October 1941, in the first transport from Hamburg to the East, bound for the Lodz ghetto. Her mother Hanna and her sister Jettchen were taken to Riga on 6 December 1941.

Haskiel Lubelsky’s effects – a total of 67 items – which he stored with a Mrs. Elias during his incarceration, were, under the name "Israel Lubelsky,” auctioned off on 2–3 January 1942 by the court bailiff in the Drehbahn Office. Possibly included were items belonging to his former wife, Recha, such as a sewing machine that brought RM 40 at auction. The total RM revenue was RM 433.40, of which the Chief Financial Authority took RM 406.35.

Commemorative stones have been placed for Recha Lubelsky and Ruth-Olga Lubelsky in Hoheluft-Ost, at Löwenstrasse 12.


Translator: Richard Levy
Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

Stand: December 2019
© Hildgard Thevs

Quellen: 1; 2; 5; StaH 213-8 Gefängnisverwaltung Abl. 2, 451 a E 1, 1 e; StaH 214-1 Gerichtsvollzieherwesen 468; StaH 314-15 OFP FVg 81334; 332-5 Standesämter 1083 u. 466/1935; 8807 u. 406/1926 StaH 351-11 AfW 3638 (Hanna Stern); 36438 (Sara Eschwege, geb. Stern); 49838 Marcus Lubelsky; StaH 522-1 Jüdische Gemeinden 390; 391; StaH 522-1 Jüdische Gemeinden 992 e 2 Bd. 1 u. 3; Stadtarchiv Nürnberg, Sterbeurkunden, Gewerbeanmeldung C 22/II Nr. 33/3578 (Schreiben vom 17.12.2012); Johannes Grossmann, Recha Lubelski, online unter: ww.stolpersteine-hamburg.de (letzter Zugriff 3.3.2015).
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