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Gertrud Jachinski * 1918

Koppel 18 (Hamburg-Mitte, St. Georg)

HIER WOHNTE
GERTRUD JACHINSKI
JG. 1918
VERHAFTET
VERURTEILT MAI 1940
"SCHUTZHAFT" 1940
RAVENSBRÜCK
ERMORDET 5.3.1942
HEILANSTALT BERNBURG

Gertrud Jachinski, born on 13 Feb. 1918 in Hamburg, murdered by poison gas at the euthanasia killing center in Bernburg on 5 Mar. 1942

last residential address: Koppel 18

Gertrud Jachinski grew up as the second child (brother: Alfred, born in 1915) of the merchant Bernhard Jachinski and his wife Rosa, née Manasse, in Hamburg. The marriage, in which only the mother was of Jewish descent, already ended in divorce when Gertrud was still an adolescent. In 1935, Rosa Jachinski was committed to the care home (Versorgungsheim) at Oberaltenallee 60, while her daughter Gertrud was put in "an institution of the youth welfare office” that same year. Soon after the divorce, her father got married again and after that, he seems to have cared little for the children from his first marriage. The mother already passed away in Jan. 1939.

Probably Gertrud Jachinski never completed any vocational training. Since approx. 1938, she obviously was no longer in institutional care but spent her time in the demimonde of the St. Georg quarter. There, she worked as a chambermaid in hotels, as a "dancer” in nightclubs, and apparently also as a prostitute.

Starting in 1938, she was under constant observation by the welfare authority, which temporarily committed her to homes – to the "Langenhorn sanatorium and nursing home” ("Heil- und Pflegeanstalt Langenhorn”), among others – and had her examined by the public health department. In the course of one such physical, a sexually transmitted disease was diagnosed, as a result of which Gertrud Jachinski had to spend a few weeks in hospital. In the second half of 1939, she lived at various addresses in the St. Georg quarter, and in the very end, in Jan. 1940, just prior to her arrest for an offense against conditions by the public health department (Sec. 327 of the Criminal Code [Strafgesetzbuch – StGB]), at Koppel 18.

In May 1940, Gertrud Jachinski was placed in "protective custody” ("Schutzhaft”) and committed to the Ravensbrück concentration camp, with the main reason for imprisonment provided being "racial defilement” ("Rassenschande”). After the war, Gertrud’s brother, Alfred Jachinski, indicated that prior to her arrest, his sister had had "a steady relationship with a so-called Aryan for years.” Officially, the headquarters of the Hamburg Criminal Investigation Department informed the welfare authority that Gertrud Jachinski had died on 5 Mar. 1942 in the Ravensbrück concentration camp; however, the Ravensbrück Memorial Site assumes that she fell victim to the so-called "Black Transports” ("Schwarze Transporte”) in the spring of 1942 to Bernburg, in the course of which primarily women of Jewish descent were murdered using poison gas.

Translator: Erwin Fink

Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

Stand: October 2016
© Benedikt Behrens

Quellen: 1; 4; AfW, Entschädigungsakte und Fürsorgeakte; Schriftl. Mitteilung der Mahn- und Gedenkstätte Ravensbrück v. 5.7.2006.

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