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Wilhelm Jotkowitz und Familie Gumprecht
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Wilhelm Jotkowitz * 1877

Lehmweg 44 (Hamburg-Nord, Hoheluft-Ost)

HIER WOHNTE
WILHELM JOTKOWITZ
JG. 1877
DEPORTIERT 1941
ERMORDET IN
MINSK

Wilhelm Jotkowitz, born on 7.8.1877 in Hamburg, deported on 8.11.1941 to the ghetto Minsk, murdered

Lehmweg 44

Wilhelm Jotkowitz, born on August 7, 1877 in Hamburg, was the first of nine children of the Jewish couple Marcus Jotkowitz (1853-1926) and Betty Jotkowitz, née Schwabe (1851-1918). He quite patriotically bore the name of the then Prussian King and Emperor of the German Empire Wilhelm I.

Marcus Jotkowitz, the father, came from the village of Miechowitz near Beuthen in the then Prussian province of Upper Silesia (now Polish), had come to Hamburg in 1876 at the age of 22 and joined the firm Seligmann & Goslar in Mühlenstraße in Hamburg's Neustadt as a wine merchant. Wilhelm's mother, Betty, came from Moisling near Lübeck.

For a few years, the rapidly growing family lived in Lübeck, where Marcus Jotkowitz now ran a commission business and a book printing store. Wilhelm (*1877) was followed by the children Dorothea (*1879), Leopold (*1880), Jenny (*1883), Julius (*1885), Olga (*1886) and Benno (*Hamburg 1892). Two children died in their birth year: Nathan (1888) and Dina (1890).

In 1887, Wilhelm's father purchased a printing shop for sale at Am Alten Steinweg 13, again in Hamburg's Neustadt. Competition in the printing trade was enormous and growing: the Hamburg trade directory for 1887 lists 132 book printers, and for 1900 more than 200.

Marcus Jotkowitz therefore specialized more and more in the production of "extra sheets" with sensational reports of murder and manslaughter, misfortune and scandal in town and country, which he had written himself. They were one sheet thick, printed in large numbers and sold by criers in the streets for 10 Reichs-Pfennige each, some days up to 2000 copies. This repeatedly led to legal conflicts with the established Hamburg daily newspapers, but it was profitable.

In September 1908, his son Wilhelm Jotkowitz took over the print shop, which had meanwhile moved a few steps away to Steinweg-Passage 24, where his brother Leopold was already based with a stationery business. This was of practical use to both of them. However, Wilhelm was not a suitable writer for morality tales and sensational reports. He again limited himself to printing jobs. In the face of stifling competition, he had to work hard to get them, and the orders (advertising slips, labels, menus, etc.) were modest and received in small numbers.

In the same year, on August 23, 1908, Wilhelm Jotkowitz married Hedwig, née Freund (*31.7.1888 in Prague), a Jewish woman eleven years younger than him. As a religious man, Wilhelm remained faithful to his Orthodox congregation throughout his life; Hedwig Jotkowitz was more secularly oriented. The marriage produced three daughters, all born in Hamburg: Edith Elfriede (15.4.1910 – 6.1.1982), Jette Gertrude (7.9.1913; she died of diphtheria on 30.10.1917), and Ruth (25.9.1919 – 8.7.2005).

Edith and Ruth Jotkowitz grew up healthy and received a good school education. Edith attended the lyceum and became a secretary and bookkeeper. Ruth learned the profession of a saleswoman and became a clerk at the fashion house of the Robinsohn brothers on Neuer Wall at the corner of Schleusenbrücke. The family lived at Lehmweg 44, 2nd floor.

With the First World War at the latest, things became more difficult economically for Wilhelm Jotkowitz and family. Although he returned to Hamburg decorated with the Iron Cross First Class because of his "courageous combat service," his legs were shot through, and this also hindered him in carrying out his profession. Standing at the machine was just as difficult for him as visiting customers.

In the meantime, Hedwig Jotkowitz's health also declined noticeably, and she increasingly suffered from various illnesses, especially joint inflammation, which made her increasingly immobile. Since about 1933 she needed two crutches to walk, she contracted bone fractures and finally became more and more bedridden. The elder daughter Edith temporarily gave up her job as a clerk, managed the household and cared for her mother.

Despite everything, Wilhelm Jotkowitz does not seem to have lost his sense of humor: As his granddaughters, daughter Edith's children, fondly recalled decades later, he enjoyed entertaining them during visits by parodying soldier life. So he crawled in the hallway or under the living room table through muddy terrain, crossed under barbed wire entanglements or overcame other obstacles.

But all the courage and good humor and small printing jobs were of no use in the long run. The machines, a high-speed press and a platen press, were outdated and not suitable for more complicated and more qualified printing. He could not think of purchasing modern equipment. Thus, in 1926, the family had to take advantage of welfare benefits from the state and the Jewish community for the first time.

With the Nazi takeover on January 30, 1933 and the increasing anti-Semitic actions, the difficulties increased and rent debts for the print shop also accumulated. Finally, at the end of 1938, the Chamber of Crafts prohibited him - like all Jewish tradesmen - from continuing the business and ordered it to be closed down by December 31 of that year.

The couple now tried to alleviate the worst of the hardship and make Hedwig Jotkowitz's illness somewhat more bearable by subletting rooms and with the financial support of their two daughters, who had already left their parents' home - Edith had been married since December 1930 and had small children.

Beyond this misery, Hedwig and especially Wilhelm Jotkowitz's last years of life show impressively how much Jewish people became lonely during this time, as the following data show on Wilhelm Jotkowitz's siblings and children show:
Wilhelm Jotkowitz's sister Dorothea (*1879), who had lived in Munich since 1922, fled to Cuba in 1938. His brother Leopold (*1880), imprisoned and severely mistreated in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp after November pogrom in 1938 until the end of the year, escaped to Australia in January 1939. His sister Jenny (*1883) moved to Berlin in 1914 with her husband Eduard Jammer, he was murdered in the Buchenwald concentration camp in September 1941, she made it illegally across the border first to Belgium, then to France and survived. His brother Julius (*1885), who had run a kosher restaurant in Hamburg, Gerhofstraße, emigrated to London in 1936, followed in 1938 by his wife and their three children. Wilhelm Jotkowitz's sister Olga (*1886) and her husband Israel (called Max) Brand (*1886), who had owned a flourishing paint and interior decoration business in Hamburg, Gosslerstraße 19, were deported to Lodz on October 25, 1941. He died there, ruined by forced labor, on September 12, 1942.

Wilhem Jotkowitz's sister Olga was murdered in the Chelmno extermination camp on July 6, 1944. (There are Stolpersteine for both of them at Kremper Straße 2/ Hoheluft-Ost). His brother Benno had already left Hamburg in 1924 and moved to Düsseldorf, then to Cologne. From there he emigrated with his family first to Palestine, then on to Australia.

Hedwig and Wilhelm Jotkowitz's daughter Ruth escaped to Manchester/England on May 3, 1939. She first worked as a domestic helper, then as a saleswoman in a department store. In September 1944 she immigrated to the USA, and in 1945 she married the businessman of Polish origin Paul Kestenbaum (3.12.1909 – 25.4.1992) and settled with him in Queens /NY. The marriage produced son Harold William (14.11.1946 – 14.7.2017) and daughter Ruby Hedy (22.11.1950).

The daughter Edith, her husband Werner Gerhard Gumprecht (23.12.1905 – 23.2.1980) and the three daughters Marion (*1932), Karen (*1936) and Renate (*1937) escaped in July 1941, at almost the last moment and under traumatizing circumstances, on the completely overcrowded cargo ship "Navemar", which had been converted into a passenger steamer, via Spain, Portugal, Bermuda and Cuba to the USA, where they finally disembarked in New York on September 12. The family later settled in Cleveland/Ohio and continued to develop happily, with today eleven grandchildren, 32 great-grandchildren and already a small band of great-great-grandchildren.

The descendants of Hedwig and Wilhelm Jotkowitz live all over the world, in a total of twelve countries between North and South America, New Zealand, Israel and Australia, etc. Two of the daughters, Karen and Renate, are still alive today (2021). They have visited Hamburg several times. The oldest, Marion, died on 2.12.2018.

Back to Hamburg: On Aug. 7, 1941 - the Gumprecht family was still fleeing across the Atlantic and, passing submarines and floating mines, still feared for their survival - Hedwig Jotkowitz died in Hamburg. She was buried in the Jewish Cemetery in Ohlsdorf according to Orthodox rites.

Wilhelm Jotkowitz was now completely alone.

In a letter to his daughter Edith's family in the USA dated 22.10.1941 - it is his last letter ever – he wrote:
"My dear children! After an agonizing time, my nerves are so tense that I went to sleep at 8 o'clock, it is now 2 o'clock in the morning when I get up and write you these lines. First of all, until today I have waited daily for mail from you and I assume that it still reaches me. I am not traveling yet, nor is Leo Brand, but Max, Olga, Rainowitz and so many others are leaving on Friday the 24th. You can imagine that my thoughts are with you, but what can one do, everything is in G'd's hand. Also Riesenfelds, Mr. Chassel etc....Where will your father go? I have already written to you that Eduard is dead. For the time being, write here to my address. How are the children? I hope they are all healthy, including you. Olga is unrecognizable. Children, I can no longer write. I have written you four/five letters. Be sure to write Ruth about the above.
1000 kisses from far away
Your father"

With the phrase "many are leaving" he meant the first deportation from Hamburg on October 25, 1941. At the beginning of November1941 Wilhelm Jotkowitz also received the deportation order: He was to report to the former lodge house on Moorweidenstraße on the morning of November 7 for his "resettlement" next day. A destination was not mentioned. The household effects would be confiscated when he left the apartment and would go to the German Reich. The fact that he had been awarded the Iron Cross in World War I for his service in the fight for the so-called German fatherland and Kaiser Wilhelm II and had since been disabled was no longer of interest.

With 960 Hamburg Jews, the deportation train left the Hanseatic city on the morning of November 8 from the Hanover train station in today's Hafencity and reached its destination on November 11 after a three-and-a-half-day journey: the Minsk ghetto in occupied White Ruthenia, today's Belarus. The Minsk ghetto was one of the most horrific camps: of the nearly 2,000 Bremen and Hamburg Jews who were deported here, only 50 survived the constant hunger, freezing cold, unspeakable filth, disease, torture and repeated acts of murder.

Wilhelm Jotkowitz did not survive. His exact date of death is not known. Another survivor thought he remembered January 13, 1942. Officially, the date of death is considered to be 8 May 1945, the day of Germany's surrender. Wilhelm Jotkowitz lived to the age of 64.

Translated by Deepl/Beate Meyer

Stand: January 2021
© Johannes Grossmann

Quellen: StaH 351-11 Amt für Wiedergutmachung (AfW)_3523 (Wilhelm Jotkowitz); StaH 351-11 AfW_3371 (Wilhelm Jotkowitz); 351-11 AfW_35379 (Edith Gumprecht); StaH 213-13 Landgericht Hamburg, Entschädigungskammer_32117 (Edith Gumprecht, Ruth Kestenbaum); ebd. 23438 (Edith Gunprecht); StaH 314-15 Oberfinanzpräsident/Devisenstelle_FVg 8606 (Werner Gumprecht); StaH 522-1 Jüdische Gemeinden, 992b Kultussteuerkartei der Deutsch-Israelitischen Gemeinde (Jotkowitz, Wilhelm; Jotkowitz, Ruth); 522-1 Jüdische Gemeinden 992 e 2, Bd. 2 (Deportationsliste Minsk 8.11.41); Hamburger Adressbücher und Branchenverzeichnisse 1876-1942; Hamburger jüdische Opfer des Nationalsozialismus/Gedenkbuch, Hamburg 1995; Leo Baeck Institute/New York, Gumprecht Family Collection, https://archives.cjh.org/repositories/5/archival_objects/1065126; Komar, Karen: Eulogy for Wilhelm Jotkowitz, Unveröffentlichtes Manuskript, 2016; Komar, Karen: Summary of my family history and flight, Unveröffentlichtes Manuskript, o. J.; Komar, Karen: mündliche und schriftliche Auskünfte an den Autor, 2016-2021; Sielemann, Jürgen: "Extrablatt! Extrablatt!", Aus der Geschichte der Familie Jotkowitz in Hamburg, in: Liskor – Erinnern/Magazin der Hamburger Gesellschaft für jüdische Genealogie, 015/Sept. 2019; Sielemann, Jürgen: Aus der Geschichte der Hamburger Familie Gumprecht, in: Liskor, 016/Dez. 2019; Bajohr, Frank: "Arisierung" in Hamburg, Die Verdrängung der jüdischen Unternehmer 1933-1945, Hamburger Beiträge zur Sozial- und Zeitgeschichte, hrsg. von der Forschungsstelle für Zeitgeschichte in Hamburg, Band 35, 2.A. 1998; Meyer, Beate (Hrsg.): Die Verfolgung und Ermordung der Hamburger Juden 1933-1945, Hamburg, 2.A. 2007; Meyer, Beate: Bremer und Hamburger Juden im Ghetto Minsk, Vortrag, 2017; Heinz Rosenberg, Jahre des Schreckens/…und ich blieb übrig, dass ich Dir’s ansage, Göttingen 1992.