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Max Jacob * 1882

Hasselbrookstraße 23 (Wandsbek, Eilbek)

HIER WOHNTE
MAX JACOB
JG. 1882
DEPORTIERT 1944
THERESIENSTADT
ERMORDET 1944 IN
AUSCHWITZ

further stumbling stones in Hasselbrookstraße 23:
Hans Kirsten

Max Jacob, born on 7 Dec. 1882 in Kamen, deported on 19 Jan. 1944 to Theresienstadt, deported further on 28 Oct. 1944 to Auschwitz, murdered there on 1 Nov. 1944

Hasselbrookstrasse 23

Max and Margaretha Jacob got married twice; once in peace time in 1921; the other time in absence of the husband and amidst uncertainty whether he was still alive at all, in 1945, backdated to 24 Oct. 1944. In the meantime, the marriage, a so-called "mixed marriage” ("Mischehe”), had been divorced in 1941.

Max Jacob came from a Jewish family in Kamen (Westphalia). He was the fifth of six children of the livestock dealer and butcher Jacob and his wife Bertha, née Jacoby, the children being Hermann (born on 24 May 1875), Theodore (born in 1877), Rosalie (born in 1878), Johanna (born in 1880), Max (born in 1882), and Otto (born in 1884), who already died when he was a child. In the year Otto was born the father died. The mother provided for the children as a "sexton in a synagogue” ("Synagogendienerin”) [shammes]. All of the children subsequently left Kamen. Whereas the daughters stayed in Westphalia, the sons moved to the Elbe River. Hermann Jacob became a butcher, marrying the Protestant non-Jewish woman Martha Dabelstein, and settled as a merchant in Altona in 1928. He represented the father’s family as a witness to the marriage of his brother Max.

On 29 October 1921 Max, working as a merchant, married Margaretha Vogt, former married name prior to divorce Poitz, born on 18 Jan. 1892 in Hamburg, of the same age and also a non-Jewish woman. Her parents, Catharina Vogt, née Drescher, and the shipping agent Ernst Vogt lived at Papenstrasse 21 in Eilbek on their own property, where they also operated their enterprise. Ernst Vogt owned a second property at Papenstrasse 27 on which was built a multi-story apartment building. Margaretha had lived with her first husband at Hasselbrookstrasse 23, where Max Jacob was also registered with the authorities, and stayed there after her divorce.

She brought two children into the marriage, Käthe and Ernst. The first son they had together, Max-Berthold, was born on 3 July 1922, and on 27 Nov. 1924 followed Hermann, on 30 Nov. 1929 Margrit, and finally, on 16 June 1938, Barbara. Almost nothing is known about their biographies. Käthe and Ernst became sales assistants, Max-Berthold a merchant, Hermann a delicatessen dealer, and Margrit attended secondary school.

In 1928, Max Jacob joined the Hamburg German-Israelitic Community. His income as a textiles sales representative was not taxed because it was too low or it was below the assessment basis. On 17 July 1935, he registered a trade as a commercial representative, paying a deposit of 10 RM (reichsmark) toward the stamp duty of 40 RM. As early as the beginning of 1936 (on 13 February), he had to give back the trade license on orders of the industrial inspection authority and cease operations. It is not known how the family covered their livelihood after that.

In 1938, the couple separated, though staying in touch. Max Jacob moved into a furnished room. As early as one day after the Pogrom of Nov. 1938, he was enlisted to perform forced labor duties in structural engineering and road building in Harsefeld, not far away from Stade, and he had to live on site in the labor camp at Wohlerst (today: Stade Administrative District). This two-year deployment was followed by additional ones, in the course of which he was not quartered in a camp, for instance, doing excavation work in Kattwyk in the Port of Hamburg, for which he was paid 30 RM a week. On 23 June 1941, the marriage of Max and Margaretha Jacob was officially divorced. Max Jacob’s brother Hermann was found dead in his apartment on 3 Oct. 1941, he had hanged himself.

For 1942, an address of Max Jacobs is documented for certain on Schlump and after that, the last address at Rendsburger Strasse 14 in the St. Pauli quarter. The respective employers treated him as a regular employee, for whom they made contributions to the Reich Insurance Company for Workers (Reichsversicherungsanstalt für Arbeiter). Margaretha Jacob was bombed out in Eilbek.

Until 18 Jan. 1944, Max Jacob worked for a company specializing in garden design; the next day, he was deported on a small transport comprised of 60 persons to the ghetto in Theresienstadt. The Gestapo seized his personal effects left behind in Hamburg and had his work clothes auctioned off on 21 Aug. 1944. Winter coat, loden coat, a hat, and two pairs of boots yielded 79 RM. This sum, minus the auctioneer’s fee of 5 RM, was transferred to the treasurer’s office with the Chief Finance Administrator (Oberfinanzkasse).

Following Max Jacob’s deportation, contact to his wife did not cease. The last postcard Margaretha Jacob received from her husband showed a postmark of 28 Nov. 1944 from Prague and dated from 24 October of that year. At the end of 1945, the marriage of Max and Margaretha Jacob was retroactively entered in the register of marriages before the Hamburg-Eppendorf Records Office as having been concluded on 24 Oct. 1944. Thus, Margaretha Jacob was reinstated in her rights as a married wife. The fact that she had already been widowed in Oct. 1944 was not known to her. On one of the so-called death transports (Ev 1655), her husband was deported to Auschwitz on 28 Oct. 1944. Fewer than 10 percent of deportees survived these transports. Max Jacob’s date of death was officially set to be 1 Nov. 1944. He had reached the age of 62. Apart from him and his brother Hermann, who had died by committing suicide, the other siblings died a natural death.

On 11 May 1945, Max Jacob’s son Hermann died as a soldier in a military hospital in Valona in Albania as a result of injuries sustained from an exploding mine.

Max Jacob’s nephew, Hermann Jacob jun., the son of Max’ brother Hermann, fought in World War II as a member of the 11th Motorized Artillery Regiment 297 (11. motorisiertes Artillerie-Regiment 297), which was re-formed in 1943 after the defeat at Stalingrad, and at the end of the war, he was deployed in Albania.

Status as of Feb. 2014

Translator: Erwin Fink

Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

Stand: October 2016
© Hildegard Thevs

Quellen: 1, 4, 5, 7, 9; AB; StaH 214-1 Justizverwaltung I 369; 332-5 Standesämter 6595-609/1921, 7305- 65/1949; 351-11 Amt für Wiedergutmachtung 5581, 5582, 40591; 376-3 Zentralgewerbekartei VIII C c 1, K 3846; 522-1 Jüdische Gemeinden 992 e 2 Bd. 5 Deportationslisten; Stadtarchiv Kamen, Geburtsregister 1882; Goehrke, Klaus, Stolpersteine in Kamen, Kamen 2008.
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