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Paul Stiefel * 1893

Wandsbeker Stieg 41 (Hamburg-Nord, Hohenfelde)

HIER WOHNTE
PAUL STIEFEL
JG. 1893
DEPORTIERT 1943
ERMORDET IN
AUSCHWITZ

further stumbling stones in Wandsbeker Stieg 41:
Adele Mayer

Paul Benjamin Stiefel, born 14 June 1893 in Abterode, fled 22 Oct. 1936 to the Netherlands, captured 26 Jan. 1943 in Amsterdam and taken to Herzogenbusch concentration camp and from there to Westerbork police "transit camp” on 14 Sept. 1943, deported 21 Sept. 1943 to Auschwitz concentration and extermination camp, killed 24 Sept. 1943

Wandsbeker Stieg 41 (formerly: Wandsbeker Stieg 43)

Paul Benjamin Stiefel was born on 14 June 1893 in the former miners’ housing estate Abterode near Kassel. His parents were Hirsch Stiefel and Johanna, née Moses, and he had three siblings, Betty, the eldest, was born in 1885, Abraham in 1889, and Isaak, who called himself Julius as an adult, in 1895.

Abraham Stiefel later left Abterode and moved to the nearby small town Eschwege. He lost his life on 28 Dec. 1916 as a soldier in the 7th Regiment of the Reserve Infantry 257 during World War I. He was only 27 years old. A mere two years later in 1918, Paul Stiefel’s mother Johanna died, and his father remarried. His second wife’s name was Rosa Seelig. She also came from Abterode where she was born on 14 Mar. 1880. Hirsch Stiefel died in 1932 at the age of 74.

Paul Stiefel trained to be a merchant and moved to Hamburg where he first lived at Oberaltenallee 9. In Sept. 1935 he moved to Wandsbeker Stieg 43 where he lived on the 3rd floor with a "Miss Baumann, small retiree” in a sublet. He also became a member of the Jewish community. His religious tax card contains a note that he was divorced. A year later in late Oct. 1936, he fled the National Socialists’ antisemitic persecution and harassment in Hamburg and went to Amsterdam where he initially lived in the center of town at Wolvenstraat 7.

Fleeing Germany did not save him from further persecution, however. On 10 May 1940, the German Wehrmacht occupied the Netherlands. Many Jewish men and women were scared, some panicked. That was above all true for those who had fled the German Reich and the National Socialists after 1933 and settled in the Netherlands, like Paul Stiefel. Initially, to their relief, hardly anything changed in their daily lives and they returned to their normal routine.

Yet the calm was deceptive. After the "February strike” in 1941, a general strike in Amsterdam and some other cities against their German occupiers, the occupiers cracked down on the population. From then on, Jewish women and men in the Netherlands also lost their rights, were socially isolated and economically exploited. As of May 1942, they were forced to wear the yellow star with the word "Jood” (Jew) on it in public. In June of that year, Paul Stiefel moved to Nieuwe Kerkstraat 106 in Amsterdam. Shortly thereafter, in early July, the first deportations began. At first he was spared, and in Jan. 1943 he was able to move to another house on his street at number 119. Yet only a few days later on 26 Jan. 1943, he was arrested and taken to Herzogenbusch concentration camp (called Kamp Vught in Dutch) in the south of the Netherlands. It was the only concentration camp outside of the German Reich supervised by the SS Main Finance and Administration Office. All who were interred there had to do heavy labor in several subcamps.

On 14 Sept. 1943 Paul Stiefel was removed from KZ Herzogenbusch concentration camp and sent to the Westerbork "police transit camp” and one week later on 21 Sept. 1943 deported to Auschwitz concentration and extermination camp. Three days later he was killed. He was 50 years old.


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

Stand: December 2019
© Frauke Steinhäuser

Quellen: 1; 4; 5; 8; Hamburger Adressbücher; E-Mail-Auskunft von José Martin, Kamp Westerbork, vom 28.8.2013; E-Mail-Auskunft von Dr. Heinrich Nuhn, Jüdisches Museum in der ehemaligen Mikwe, Rothenburg/Fulda vom 7.4.2015; "Paul Benjamin Stiefel", auf: Joodsmonument. Digital Monument to the Jewish Community in the Netherlands, www.joodsmonument.nl/person/477790/en (letzter Zugriff 12.2.2015); www.alemannia-judaica.de/abterode_synagoge.htm (letzter Zugriff 1.4.2015); http://denkmalprojekt.org/Verlustlisten/rjf_orte_e-f_wk1.htm (letzter Zugriff 1.4.2015); "Paul Stiefel", stadsarchief Amsterdam, Archiefkaarten van Persoonskaarten, NL-SAA-4057849, PDF-Download von http://stadsarchief.amsterdam.nl/archieven/archiefbank/indexen/archiefkaarten/zoek/index.nl.html (letzter Zugriff 20.3.2015); Katja Happe, Die Judenverfolgung in den Niederlanden 1940-45, www.uni-muenster.de/NiederlandeNet/nl-wissen/geschichte/vertiefung/judenverfolgung/beginn.html (letzter Zugriff 12.2.2015)
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