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Jacob Merten * 1868

Michaelisstraße 18 (Hamburg-Mitte, Neustadt)

HIER WOHNTE
JACOB MERTEN
JG. 1868
VERHAFTET 1939
GEFÄNGNIS FUHLSBÜTTEL
1943 KZ FUHLSBÜTTEL
DEPORTIERT 1943
ERMORDET IN
AUSCHWITZ

Jacob/John Merten, born on 28 Nov. 1868 in Wandsbek, arrested on 2 Nov. 1938, deported on 25 Feb. 1943 to Auschwitz

Michaelisstrasse 18

Jacob Merten, called John, was born in Wandsbek as the only son of the Jewish married couple Mentzel Merten (born on 17 Dec. 1844) and Rahel/Rachel, née Massée (born on 5 June 1842). He and his younger sister Henny (born on 12 Feb. 1870) spent their first years, at Lübeckerstrasse 152 (today Lübecker Strasse). After their parents had moved to Hamburg-Neustadt via Wandsbeker Chaussee 98, sister Emma (born on 24 Jan. 1878) was born at Wexstrasse 13. The father, Mentzel Merten, who called himself Max, was a lottery vendor and came from Mewe (today Gniew in Poland). The mother, a native of Hamburg-Wandsbek, was the daughter of the merchant Jacob Massée and Merle, née Moses. Around 1880, the Merten family moved to former 3rd Marktstrasse 3 (later Marcusstrasse, today Markusstrasse). In 1887, they lived at Grossneumarkt 15.

Jacob Merten attended the Talmud Tora School and began commercial training in 1884. He remained with his training company Hertz & Benjamin, Tücher engros, a wholesaler of textile sheets, for 19 years as an employee, until he joined his father’s business as a lottery vendor in 1903. In 1911, he went into business for himself in the same line of work. On 24 Oct. 1907, Jacob Merten married the tailor Anna Maria Lammers (born on 2 Oct. 1870 in Neumünster), who converted to Judaism. The couple lived at Sillemstrasse 16 in Eimsbüttel. Jacob Merten did not take part in the First World War. He had been employed by the Hamburg tax office since 1914 and worked as a cigar merchant toward the end of the war. In 1923, he started his own business again as a lottery vendor. The year before, his father had died on 4 May 1922 in the "retirement home” of the German-Israelitic Community at Sedanstrasse 23, his mother on 28 June 1912.

On 2 Nov. 1925, Jacob Merten was widowed; his wife Anna, like her parents-in-law, was buried in the Jewish Cemetery on Ilandkoppel in Ohlsdorf. The marriage had remained childless.

In 1934, Jacob Merten moved to Lappenbergsallee 15. Since July 1936, he lived again in Hamburg-Neustadt at Michaelisstrasse 18, opposite the Catholic Church, the "Kleine Michel.” Jacob Merten ran his lottery business until 1937, when he became unemployed and received welfare support.

In 1938, Jacob Merten is said to have entered into a relationship with a non-Jewish young woman whom he had already met in 1934. He was arrested on 1 Nov. 1938. On 20 Aug. 1939, the Hamburg Regional Court (Landgericht) sentenced the 71-year-old man to four years in prison for "continued racial defilement” ("fortgesetzte Rassenschande”). The pretrial detention was not credited to his penalty because, as it was stated in the reasoning for the sentence, the "Race Defilement Law” did not provide for mitigating circumstances; however, the court refrained from detaining him in a penitentiary in this case.

Jacob Merten was transferred to the Fuhlsbüttel prison on 19 Sept. 1939. A plea for clemency was rejected at the beginning of 1941, although the period of imprisonment had been "very hard on” the man, 73 years old by then, as a public prosecutor wrote in his assessment. In his opinion, however, the remaining sentence was still too high to grant a "pardon.” Jacob Merten, who had become seriously ill with rheumatism during his imprisonment, was transferred to a single cell in consideration of his age. By order of a doctor, he was allowed to wear his private shoes and a woolen jacket.

Shortly before the end of his imprisonment, in Feb. 1943, his sister Emma Delfs turned to the Jewish Religious Organization (Jüdischer Religionsverband) in Hamburg with the request that her brother be accepted to stay in one of its retirement homes, which had long since become "Jews’ houses” ("Judenhäuser”). The syndic Max Plaut, appointed head of the former Jewish Community in Hamburg by the Gestapo, confirmed in a letter to the prison administration, "Admission can take place at any time.”

Jacob Merten should have been released on 24 Aug. 1943, but before his prison sentence ended, he was handed over from the prison hospital to the Gestapo on 6 Feb. 1943 and transferred back to the Fuhlsbüttel police prison. On 25 Feb. 1943, Jacob Merten was transported from there to Auschwitz by order of the Reich Minister of Justice in order to make prisons and penitentiaries "Jew-free” ("judenfrei”); he was probably murdered immediately after his arrival.

His married sisters Emma Delfs and Henny Stuhr survived, apparently protected by their non-Jewish relatives.

Translator: Erwin Fink
Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

Stand: May 2020
© Susanne Rosendahl

Quellen: 1; 4; StaH 351-11 AfW 17629 (Stuhr, Emma); StaH 351-11 AfW 1398 (Stuhr, Henny); StaH 351-11 AfW 1352 (Merten, Jacob); StaH 242-1 II Gefängnisverwaltung II, 4007; StaH 213-11 Staatsanwaltschaft Landgericht – Strafsachen 08260/39; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 671 u 464/1912; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 855 u 289/1922; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 1928 u 504/1878; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 2853 u 44/1895; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 3088 u 677/1907; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 3301 u 102/1917; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 8084 u 379/1925; StaH 522-1 Jüdische Gemeinde 710; diverse Hamburger Adressbücher.
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