Search for Names, Places and Biographies

Max Ring * 1868

Immenhof / Ecke Uhlenhorster Weg (Hamburg-Nord, Uhlenhorst)

HIER WOHNTE
MAX RING
JG. 1868
DEPORTIERT 1942
THERESIENSTADT
TOT 20.9.1942

Max Ring, born 27 Dec. 1868 in Kattowitz (today Katowice, Poland), deported 15 July 1942 to Theresienstadt where he perished

Immenhof, corner of Uhlenhorster Weg (formerly Immenhof 28)

When Max Ring was born, today’s Polish city Katowice belonged to Prussia and was located in the industrial center of the Upper Silesia coal basin. Many of the Jews who lived in the city were founders of new enterprises and industrial facilities. The first synagogue was built in 1861/62. The year Max Ring was born, the Jewish community was also established, and Max Ring’s father Julius was an active member there. From the start he was involved in Chevra Bikur Cholim Kadischa, the "holy society” also founded in 1868 which organized care for the sick and ritual care for the dying. Max Ring’s mother was called Johanne and her maiden name was Grunwald. He also had at least one sister and a brother Wilhelm who was seven years his junior and born on 11 Sept. 1875 in Kattowitz.

Around 1909 Max Ring moved to Hamburg and found an apartment on Langen Reihe in St. Georg. At first he worked as a translator, and from 1911 onward he offered his services as an accredited books auditor (today called an auditor). As of 1915 he concentrated on this activity and advertised himself and his services with a rather large listing in the Hamburg address book.

Initially he found a lot of work as a books auditor. From 1925 however, his annual income was low, which might have been a result of the hyperinflation throughout the German Reich in 1923. In 1925 he became a member of the Hamburg Jewish Community, paying only minimal religious tax each year until 1940. In 1926 and 1927 he even earned so little that he was not required to pay any religious taxes.

Since he was self-employed, Max Ring worked from home or in his clients’ offices. He remained single his entire life and did not have any children. He only lived a short time on Langen Reihe. As of 1910 he had an apartment at Hansaplatz for roughly nine years. Then he left St. Georg and moved to Eilbek and Hohenfelde. He lived at various addresses in those neighborhoods, including am Lerchenfeld 9 and am Immenhof 8, which then still belonged to Hohenfelde. Then he gave up his apartment and from that time onward lived in sublet rooms. At that point in time he was already in his early sixties and was no longer able or did not want to provide for himself. His small income may have been a reason for deciding not to rent his own apartment. He continued to work as a books auditor, however the work brought in less and less income. After the transfer of power to the National Socialists in 1933, more and more self-employed Jews became destitute because their shops and businesses were "Aryanized” or they lost most of their customers to boycotts. "Aryan-run” businesses probably gave him almost no work.

In Nov. 1937, he finally was so destitute that he was taken in by the old-age home of the German-Israelite Community in the Grindel District at Sedanstraße 23. Today the building at that location houses the Franziskus College, a Catholic student dormitory. At the old-age home, elderly Jewish people were given room and lodging, and Max Ring was able to spend four years of his retirement there. Despite his advanced age, he continued to earn a little money during that time, possibly with activities connected to his past profession.

In June 1941, he and all the other residents of Jewish old-age homes who were not entirely destitute were required to help finance the upkeep of the residents who were completely in need as of 1 July 1941. To manage this, the existing residential contracts were turned into so-called home purchase contracts. The home residents had to pay a specific sum to the Reich Association which, among other things, was responsible for Jewish old-age homes. In return, they were guaranteed room and board for life.

On 15 July 1942 many of the residents of the old-age home on Sedanstraße were taken to Theresienstadt Ghetto on the first transport out of Hamburg (VI/I), including the now 73-year-old Max Ring. "Now the occupants of all Jewish hospitals, homes for the elderly and those wasting away in Germany and Austria [...] were being transferred to Theresienstadt. The arriving transports were heart-rending [...] instead of finding compassion and aid, they now were thrust into abject misery to die a wretched death from starvation and cold.” This was how Alice Randt, a nurse who worked in a Theresienstadt room for the dying, among other places, once described the conditions there.

Max Ring only managed to survive around three months in Theresienstadt. He died on 20 Sept. 1942 at 7:15 a.m. The physician Gerhard Aron who examined the body gave the cause of death as "intestinal disorder” – it was precisely the many elderly people in the ghetto who were unable to withstand the catastrophic hygienic conditions, the illnesses and epidemics resulting from them as well as inadequate nutrition, exacerbated by exhaustion and severe mental distress.

Max Ring’s brother-in-law Fritz Brauer was also in Theresienstadt. He had been deported there from Wroclaw on 27 July 1942. Fritz Brauer died about three months after Max on 18 Dec. His death was also intentional. The transport from Wroclaw on 27 July 1942 also included Max’ brother Wilhelm. Just a few days after Max’ death, on 26 Sept. 1942, he was deported to Treblinka extermination camp and killed.


Translator: Suzanne von Engelhardt
Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

Stand: December 2019
© Frauke Steinhäuser

Quellen: 1; 3; 4; 5; 8; 9; StaH 522-1 Jüd. Gemeinden 992 d Steuerakten Bd. 26; StaH 522-1 Jüd. Gemeinden 390 Wählerliste 1930; Hamburger Adressbücher; Lange, Jüdisches Altenhaus; Schellenbacher, Gesundheitswesen in Theresienstadt, S. 45 u. S. 97.
Zur Nummerierung häufig genutzter Quellen siehe Link "Recherche und Quellen".