Search for Names, Places and Biographies

Jonny Joel Jaffé * 1910

Hoheluftchaussee 19 (Eimsbüttel, Hoheluft-West)

HIER WOHNTE
JONNY JOEL
JAFFÉ
JG. 1910
DEPORTIERT 1942
ERMORDET IN
AUSCHWITZ

further stumbling stones in Hoheluftchaussee 19:
Anneliese Jaffé, Ruth Jaffé, Tirza Jaffé, Alexander (gen. Süsskind) Moses, Jenny Moses

Anneliese Jaffé, née Röss, born on 5 Mar. 1911 in Kassel, deported on 11 July 1942 to Auschwitz, murdered there
Jonny Joel Jaffé, born on 28 Oct. 1910 in Hamburg, deported on 11 July 1942 to Auschwitz, murdered there
Ruth Jaffé, born on 24 June 1938 in Hamburg, deported on 11 July 1942 to Auschwitz, murdered there
Tirza Jaffé, born on 31 Oct. 1941 in Hamburg, deported on 11 July 1942 to Auschwitz, murdered there

Hoheluftchaussee 19

"Gravedigger” was the job designation of Jonny Jaffé on the deportation list for the transport on 11 July 1942 to Auschwitz. Otherwise, we know some details about more distant relatives but hardly anything about him, his wife, and the two daughters.

Even Jonny’s grandparents were already residents of Hamburg. In the summer of 1866, the grandfather, Jacob Jaffé, had married the native of Halberstadt, Rechel Riekchen Ruben, in her hometown. After that, she had followed him to the Hanseatic city of Hamburg, where he worked as a cigar dealer. A little over a year later, Jacob and Rechel Jaffé’s first child was born: Abraham Jacob was delivered with expert assistance by a midwife named Rinkel on 2 Aug. 1867. Ten years later, he got a sister, whom the parents named Betty. At that time, the family lived at Marktstrasse 25. Another five years later, Rechel Jaffé – 43 years old by then – became pregnant again. The second son, who was named Meyer, died in his parents’ home not even two weeks later.

Abraham Jacob, the oldest, worked as a merchant like his father. In the fall of 1903, at the age of 36, he married Henriette Friedlaender, three years his junior and from Stade. Until then, he had still lived with his family at Peterstrasse on Grossneumarkt. Two years later, his sister Betty got married as well, to the Hamburg real estate agent for houses and merchant Carl Norden.

On 31 July 1909, Abraham and Henriette Jaffé’s first son was born but he lived for only two days and had not yet been given a name when he died. About a year later, the second son was born. The parents named him Jonny Joel. The birth must have been very difficult, and the mother was obviously weakened to such an extent that she did not recover anymore. The child survived but Henriette Jaffé died, at the age of 37, nearly a month after the birth. The small boy probably got to know his grandfather. He passed away in 1915, when Jonny was six years old. After the death of her husband, grandmother Rechel Jaffé moved with her daughter Betty and her son-in-law Carl Norden to Hamburg-Neustadt, where she died in 1929 at the very advanced age of 90.

The Jewish religious tax (Kultussteuer) card file of the German-Israelitic Community indicates as "second wife” for Jacob Abraham Jaffé the widow Clara Jaffé, née Simon. Clara Jaffé was born on 15 Sept. 1877 in Friedrichstadt. In the end, she lived at Klosterallee 24/raised ground floor and earned a living by renting out rooms. She probably had custody of adolescent Jonny Joel.

Jonny Joel Jaffé joined the German-Israelitic Community on 5 July 1934. He was unmarried. For a while, he lived at Hammerbrookstrasse 38, and then with his stepmother on Klosterallee. There is a clue that he worked as a commercial clerk at the time. For the duration of eight months, an income was recorded for the tax years 1934/35, then the note about his gainful employment was deleted and replaced by the entry "agricult. laborer.” Since there would not have been any means to earn a living in Hamburg in this occupation – except for gardening work on the rural or urban estates of the propertied Jewish middle classes – Jonny Joel Jaffé left Hamburg. Originally, he seems to have intended to go north (East Friesland). However, this place was deleted again on the Jewish religious tax file card and replaced by Borghorst in Westphalia.

No information is available about what he did in Borghorst. Did he pursue gainful employment there as a farmhand? Was it no gainful employment but rather agricultural training that he was looking for there, aiming to prepare for emigration from Germany and to start a new career in a foreign country? The Jewish religious tax file card shows a note, though deleted again, about Jonny Joel Jaffé residing in Blankenese. There, the Hamburg Jewish Community and the local Zionist organizations maintained agricultural and horticultural training workshops – had he already received training there and then gone to Borghorst?

In 1938, the Jewish Community again noted Hamburg as his place of residence on a second Jewish religious file card, assessing him for taxes again since Mar. 1938 – he worked at the Israelite cemetery nursery, headed then by master gardener Walter Rosenbaum. At the same time, Rosenbaum also directed precisely the horticultural course that the Jewish Community had set up to train its adolescents. Jonny Joel was gainfully employed there until Oct. 1941.

For Jonny Joel Jaffé, the year 1938 brought the direct confrontation with the anti-Jewish attitude of German society. In the course of the Pogrom of November 1938, he was arrested. The documents of the Fuhlsbüttel concentration camp reveal that he was detained there for two days, on 11 and 12 Nov. 1938.

However, an event also fell in this time that would change his life in a different way. Jonny Joel Jaffé and Anneliese Röss had met.

Anneliese Röss was born in Kassel on 5 Mar. 1911. Her parents were Christoph Röss (who was entered in the Jewish religious tax card file as being of the Protestant faith) and Adele, née Süssmann. According to Nazi terminology, Anneliese was deemed a "full Jew” ("Volljüdin”). The available information does not reveal when she came to Hamburg; it is certain, however, that she worked for the Hamburg-based Rappelt & Söhne men’s outerwear store (at Mönckebergstrasse 11) in 1937. Starting on 1 Oct. 1938, she became unemployed, which may be connected with the birth of her first child, Ruth.

Jonny Joel Jaffé and Anneliese Röss were almost the same age. They were married on 3 Mar. 1940. The marriage produced two children. On 24 June 1938, Ruth had been born. She was entered in the card file as Ruth Röss and was thus born as an illegitimate child. Her sister Tirze was born on 31 Oct. 1941.

After the wedding, the family lived at Hoheluftchaussee 19 for a short time. Just prior to their deportation, they were forced to move to the "Jews’ house” ("Judenhaus”) at Durchschnitt 8. The deportation took place on 11 July 1942 to the Auschwitz extermination camp. Jonny Joel Jaffé’s stepmother, Clara Jaffé, had been deported the year before, on 6 Dec. 1941, to Riga.

Translator: Erwin Fink

Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

Stand: October 2016
© Peter Offenborn, Frauke Steinhäuser

Quellen: 1; 4; 5; 8; StaH 552-1, Jüdische Gemeinden, 390 Wählerliste 1930 u. 552-1 Deportationslisten; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 3005 (1104/1903), 7997 (325/1909), 8003 (546/1910), 129 (3060/1882), 8025 (412/1915), 882 (283/1924), 1907 (2416/1877), 8124 (44/1934), 8094 (572/1928), 3042 (741/1905); StaH 332-3 Zivilstandsregister A Nr. 35 (4048/1867); StaH 351-11 AfW, 2761 u. 3507; StAH 213- 8 Staats­anwaltschaft Oberlandesgericht-Verwaltung Abl. 2, 451, A e 1, 1c; Ab.; Peter Offenborn, Jüdische Jugend; Björn Eggert, Franz Rappolt/Charlotte Rappolt, in: Stolpersteine in Hamburg-Winterhude, S. 203–210; Jürgen Sielemann, Der Zielort.