Search for Names, Places and Biographies

Louis Levin * 1864

Ifflandstraße 59 (Hamburg-Nord, Hohenfelde)

HIER WOHNTE
LOUIS LEVIN
JG. 1864
VERHAFTET 1942
KZ FUHLSBÜTTEL
DEPORTIERT 1942
THERESIENSTADT
ERMORDET 9.9.1942

Louis Levin, b. 7.31.1864 in Insterburg, East Prussia (today Chernyakhovsk, Russia), 1942 Fuhlsbüttel concentration camp, on 7.19.1942 deported to the Theresienstadt ghetto, killed there on 9.9.1942

Ifflandstrasse 59 (formerly, Ifflandstrasse 53)

Louis Levin was, during his professional life, a merchant. He dealt in, among other things, raw materials like metals and materials for light railways, such as narrow gauge tracks for the transport of agricultural and industrial raw materials. His parents were the merchant Leopold Levin and his wife Molly, née Neumann. Both died in 1900. In 1887, Louis wound up in Altona, at that time, still an independent Prussian city. From 1887 to 1888 and again from 1891 to 1894, he did military service with the Altona 31st Infantry Regiment. He was discharged as a senior NCO. He remained unmarried and had no children, "also no illegitimate children,” as he later specified during a police interrogation.

In 1894, after his discharge from the army, Louis Levin rented a small dwelling in Hamburg, at Bundesstrasse 28, and established himself as an export agent in the Old City at Gröningerstrasse 23. In 1901, he moved his office to Mattentwiete 10. He lived privately from about 1906 at the then Nollstrasse 14 in Hohenfelde in his own home, until 1928, afterwards as a sub-lessee with the widow Niemann. In 1933, he moved his firm and now worked at Brandstwiete 2–4, on the fifth floor, where many business people had office space. Four years later, he again changed his living arrangements, finding accommodations at Ifflandstrasse 53. Despite his advancing age, Louis Levin did not stop working. In 1941, when he was 77 years old, he was dealing in "foreign animal hair.” Nevertheless, since 1937, he earned so little that, in 1940, he urgently petitioned the Jewish Religion Association to waive his dues. As he grew older, Louis Levin became confused by the countless regulations with which the Nazi regime victimized Jews. First, without judicial monitoring, the Gestapo consigned him to nearly four weeks of "protective custody” to the police prison at Fuhlsbüttel, from 13 February to 9 March 1942. The grounds: "Addressing a German-blooded Woman.” Contrary to what was usual for Jewish prisoners in such cases, Louis Levin was not afterwards sent directly to a concentration camp, but rather, for the moment, released. After his release, he had to move from Ifflandstrasse to the "Jew house” at Bundesstrasse 35 in Eimsbüttel. He remained there for only a few days. He was then sent to one of the "Jew houses” on Rappstrasse in the Grindel quarter. On 7 April 1942, he was forced to resettle in the next "Jew house,” in the Jewish Lazarus-Gumpel Foundation at (the then still existing) Schlachterstrasse 46-47 near the Grossneumarkt.

By that time, it was well known that Jews, as of 1 May 1942, could no longer use public transportation. To get on foot from the Grossenneumarkt to the public soup kitchen, where he took his midday meal, and the nearest shopping places on "Ostmarkstrasse (until 1936 and after 1945, Hallerstrasse), it took Louis Levin around two hours, because he could no longer walk well. Therefore, it required of him four hours every day to make the roundtrip. For this reason, shortly after moving into the Gumpel Foundation, he wrote to the Gestapo with the request to be allowed to use the streetcar. Almost penniless, he included a stamped, self-addressed envelope, so that his effort would not fail. However, in his letter he forgot two regulations which already applied to Jews for some time: since 23 July 1938, they had "upon directing requests to state or party offices” to make known, "unsolicited, their Jewish identity, as well as providing the password and code number on their identification card.” In addition, since 1 January 1939, they had to include in their forenames "Israel” or "Sara." He had not remembered either of these matters in his letter. He remembered the second regulation after mailing the letter and wrote it over, this time with the compulsory Jewish name. But he again forgot the identity card number. Therefore, he was summoned to the 34th police precinct for "a thorough interrogation.” It was to be determined whether or not this was a case of an "intentional violation” of the rules. Louis Levin raised the matter of his advanced years as an excuse, to which the responsible senior station officer Beckmann responded by ordering that a doctor’s certificate attesting to this be submitted to the Gestapo. On 10 June 1942, he finally received two summary orders of punishment and was, on account of the violation of both regulations, ordered to pay a total of RM10, along with RM 2.50 in court costs.

Around four weeks later, on 19 July 1942, Louis Levin was sent to Theresienstadt. He was assigned to a house on the city square (Qu 418). Louis Levin died on 9 September 1942, in the hospital of the fourth district of the Theresienstadt ghetto. The hospital director, who had been deported from Prague at the end of 1941, the surgeon Erich Springer, signed the death notice, naming as the causes of death "lacerations of the head” and "cerebral concussion.”

At the beginning of November 1942, the Office of the Chief Financial Governor informed the Deutsche Bank in Hamburg, where Louis Levin had accounts, that his assets were confiscated. Thereupon the bank handed over to the Office of the Chief Financial Governor Louis Levin’s savings account amounting to around 335 RM, as well as the sum of 4200 RM in stocks, foreign bonds, and Reich Treasury bonds.


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

Stand: December 2019
© Frauke Steinhäuser

Quellen: 1; 2; 3; 4; 5; 7; 8; 9; StaH 213-11 Staatsanwaltschaft Landgericht – Strafsachen, 4696/42; StaH 314-15 Oberfinanzpräsident, Ablieferung 1998, J7/400; StaH 314-15 Oberfinanzpräsident Devisen- und Vermögensverwertungsstelle, R 1940/670; StaH 331-1 II Polizeibehörde II, Ablieferung 15 vom 18.9.1984, Band 2 ("Schutzhaft"); StaH 522-1 Jüd. Gemeinden 390 Wählerliste 1930; StaH 522-1 Jüd. Gemeinden 992 d Steuerakten Bd. 19; Hamburger Adressbücher; 3. Bekanntmachung über den Kennkartenzwang, RGBl I, S. 922, in: Walk (Hg.), Sonderrecht, S. 233; Zweite Verordnung zur Durchführung des Gesetzes über die Änderung von Familiennamen und Vornamen, RGBl I, S. 1044, in: Walk (Hg.), Sonderrecht, S. 237; Adler, Theresienstadt; Anna Hajkova, Mutmaßungen über deutsche Juden. Alte Menschen aus Deutschland im Theresienstädter Ghetto, in: Doris Bergen, Andrea Löw, Anna Hajkova (Hrsg.), Alltag im Holocaust. Jüdisches Leben im Großdeutschen Reich 1941–1945, München, 2013, S. 179–198; Todesfallanzeige Louis Levin, www.holocaust.cz/de/victims/PERSON.ITI.809433 (letzter Zugriff 19.3.2015); www.ghetto-theresienstadt.info/terezinstadtplan.htm (letzter Zugriff 19.3.2015).
Zur Nummerierung häufig genutzter Quellen siehe Link "Recherche und Quellen".