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Max Samuel * 1924

Grindelberg 9 (Eimsbüttel, Harvestehude)

HIER WOHNTE
MAX SAMUEL
JG. 1924
DEPORTIERT 1941
RIGA
ERMORDET

further stumbling stones in Grindelberg 9:
Sara Selma Samuel

Sara Selma Samuel, née Stock, born on 31 July 1883 in Fliesteden near Cologne, deported on 6 Dec. 1941 to Riga, murdered
Max Samuel, born on 11 Apr. 1924 in Cologne, deported on 6 Dec. 1941 to Riga, murdered

Grindelberg 9

Sara Selma Samuel was born in 1883 in Fliesteden near Cologne as the daughter of Moses Stock and Rosina (Rosa), née Meyer. She married Albert Samuel (born on 16 Dec. 1885 in Cologne), the son of the butcher Moritz Samuel and his wife Wilhelmine, née Katz. Albert had attended the Mittlere Knabenschule, a middle school for boys in Cologne, later worked as a mechanic and lived at Röntgenstrasse 7 in about 1916. The married couple resided in Cologne-Ehrenfeld, where their children were born: Siegfried (in 1916), Carry Ruth (in 1920), and Max (in 1924). There they attended the municipal Catholic elementary school on Piusstrasse (Pius School). In 1958, the Synagogue Community (Synagogengemeinde) of Cologne wrote about the situation at public schools after power was transferred to the National Socialists: "Attendance at the secondary schools for Jewish children was disrupted from 1933 onward. As a result of the great harassment, it was no longer possible to speak of regular school attendance.” On the advice of the rector, Ruth and Max left the Pius School and changed to the Israelitische Volksschule (Jewish elementary school) in Cologne, located at Lützowstrasse 8/10.

After finishing school in 1935, Ruth attended a business college and took courses in bookkeeping, shorthand, and typewriting. The oldest son Siegfried became a butcher like his grandfather. In 1935, Alfred and Sara Samuel divorced and Sara moved with the three children to Hamburg; there she was on file as a member of the German-Israelitic Community starting on 7 June 1937. She worked as a "cooking woman” ("Kochfrau”) for kosher food preparation on special occasions such as bar mitzvahs and weddings. The Hamburg directories of 1940 and 1941 contain an entry for "S. Samuel, Grindelberg 9a,” which suggests that Sara Selma Samuel had her own apartment (on the fourth floor).

From Hamburg, Sara and her children made efforts to emigrate from Nazi Germany. Son Siegfried (1916–2005), by then of age, emigrated to Palestine in 1936. In Jan. 1939, the 18-year-old Carry Ruth Samuel (1920–1981) married Herbert Schein (born on 5 June 1916 in Wartenburg), whom she had met in Hamburg; both emigrated to Shanghai/China in Mar. 1939. There they were interned in a ghetto from 18 May 1943 until the end of the Second World War in May 1945 on the orders of the Japanese military authorities. For Sara Selma Samuel and her youngest son Max, the hoped-for emigration became more and more difficult due to the beginning of the war, the more restrictive entry regulations of possible host countries, and the systematic plundering of Jews willing to emigrate by the Nazi administrative apparatus.

Max Samuel also attended school in Hamburg, but, being Jewish, he was no longer allowed to commence any training. Instead, at the age of 16, he was enlisted for labor duty in Hamburg from 5 May 1940 to 13 June 1941. From Dec. 1938 onward, a decree issued by the head of the Reich Labor Administration (Reichsarbeitsverwaltung) gave towns and municipalities the opportunity to draft Jews for work in separate units. Starting on 19 Sept. 1941, Sara Selma Samuel and Max Samuel were also forced to wear a yellow "Jews’ star” ("Judenstern”) on their outer clothing, and they were denied the use of public transport as well. The systematic deportations from the German Reich began in mid-Oct. 1941.

On 6 Dec. 1941, 61-year-old Sara Selma Samuel and her 17-year-old son were deported from Hamburg to the Jungfernhof subcamp of the Riga Ghetto in occupied Latvia. Some of the deportees already died during the journey in the locked freight cars in the severe winter of 1941/42, a journey that took place without food and water. The poor living and sanitary conditions in the makeshift Jungfernhof camp, the scarcity of medical care, and the inadequate food rations soon led to a high mortality rate. In addition, a mass shooting operation was carried out in Mar. 1942. Only a few of those able to work were exempted and committed to the Riga Ghetto.

From the summer of 1943 to November of that year, German Wehrmacht soldiers cleared the ghetto, and the inmates were deported to the Kaiserwald concentration camp and the Auschwitz extermination camp. When and under what circumstances Sara Selma Samuel and her son Max Samuel perished is not known.

Sara Selma Samuel was declared dead in 1952 by the Hamburg District Court (Amtsgericht) "as of the end of 1945.”

Her divorced husband Albert Samuel remained in Cologne, eventually quartered in the "Jews’ house” ("Judenhaus”) at Thieboldsgasse 10/12, from where he was deported to the Riga Ghetto on 7 Dec. 1941.

Daughter Carry Ruth Schein, née Samuel, emigrated from Shanghai to the USA in 1947, became a US citizen, and passed away there in 1981.

Son Siegfried Samuel later emigrated from Palestine to the USA and lived in Santa Monica/California, where he died in 2005.

In Fliesteden near Cologne, today a district of Bergheim, six more victims of the Nazi terror were born with the maiden name or last name of Stock, who were presumably family members:
Helene Adams, née Stock (born on 21 May 1865), was deported from Solingen to the Theresienstadt Ghetto on 21 July 1942. A Stolperstein was laid for her in Solingen, at Wachtelstrasse 45.
Helena/Lena Stock (born on 17 Nov. 1885) and her father Josef Stock (born on 16 Jan. 1856) were also deported from Cologne to the Theresienstadt Ghetto on 15 June 1942.
Max Simon Stock (born 23 Dec. 1888), Susi Stock (born on 4 Aug. 1928), and Wolfgang Stock (born on 4 May 1927) were jointly deported from Cologne to the Minsk Ghetto on 20 July 1942.

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

© Björn Eggert

Quellen: 1; 4; 5; 8; StaH 351-11 Amt für Wiedergutmachung 6928 (Selma Sara Samuel), 43579 (Cary Ruth Schein geboren Samuel), 46544 (Max Samuel); NS-Dokumentationszentrum Köln (Angaben zu Albert Samuel und Familie); Yad Vashem, Page of Testimony (Albert Samuel, Selma Sara Samuel, Max Samuel); International Tracing Service (IST) Bad Arolsen (Deportationsdatum und -ort von Helena Stock); Press: Judenmord, S. 96–97, 111–112, 121, 122; Hamburger Adressbücher 1940, 1941; www.ancestry.de (zu Carry Ruth Schein: Sozialversicherungsindex der USA, Heiratsregister der USA, Aufruf: 11.4.2016).
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