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Fred Stern, 1937
© Privatbesitz

Fred Stern * 1911

Revaler Straße /Ecke Stiftstraße (Hamburg-Mitte, St. Georg)

HIER WOHNTE
FRED STERN
JG. 1911
GEDEMÜTIGT / ENTRECHTET
FLUCHT IN DEN TOD
23.3.1944

Fred Stern, born 13.5.1911 in Altona, humiliated, disenfranchised, escaped to his death on 23.3.1944

Revaler Straße/ corner of Stiftstraße (Hamburg-Mitte, St. Georg)

Fred Stern was born as the third child of the Jewish widow Rosa Stern, née Gumpel (see www.stolpersteine-hamburg.de ) on 13.5.1911 in Hamburg Altona in the apartment and practice of the Christian midwife Dorothea Jensen. Since he was born out of wedlock, he was given his mother's maiden name as his surname and his full name was Richard Fred Gumpel. On his birth entry 966/1911. Altona 1 it is noted with the date April 10, 1926 that he was allowed to bear the name "Stern" by decision of the Senate Commission for the Administration of Justice, as his mother and his older siblings Hans and Greta Stern also did.

Hans (1900) and Greta (1902) Stern were the offspring of Rosa Stern's marriage to the merchant Moritz Stern, who had died in Hanover in 1907 and after whose death she had returned to Hamburg with her two children.

Rosa Stern, born 17,6,1870 in Hamburg, probably never entered into a long-term relationship, but according to a maintenance certificate issued by the Hamburg District Court on Sept 24, 1940, her Protestant father, 14 years her junior, paid alimony for several years, but never officially acknowledged paternity.

Rosa Stern was now a single mother of three children and earned a living as a self-employed seamstress. At the time of Fred's birth, the family lived at Grindelhof 81, right next door to the passageway to the Grindelhof 83 terrace houses, where Rosa's stepfather Schmay Liebreich lived with his daughter and Rosa Stern's younger sister, Mary Liebreich. They also lived door to door with Jeannette Ascher, with whom Rosa Stern shared apartments for a total of 15 years until her death in 1925. Jeannette Ascher's son, Alfons David Ascher (born 10.7.1888 in Hamburg, died 15.12.1942 in the Auschwitz concentration camp) later married Fred Stern's older sister Greta, but the marriage was divorced after 3 years.

Fred Stern was a sickly child who, on a doctor's recommendation, was sent to "Sommerpflege," a children's spa, in 1922. His mother received subsidies for the spa costs in the amount of 800 RM from the Jewish Community and the rest from the state welfare office, since she could not raise the amount herself.

Fred Stern received his school education as a "free pupil" (= exempt from school fees) of the Anton Ree School at Zeughausmarkt, which he left, however, before graduating from high school in order to start an apprenticeship as a plumber. On April 1, 1927, the 16-year-old began his apprenticeship with master plumber Carl Müller in Buxtehude. He stayed registered with his mother, who in the meantime lived with Jeannette Ascher and her son Hans Stern at Schlüterweg 6. His mother did his laundry when he came home on weekends.

His mother was "abandoned" from the apartment at Schlüterweg 6 on August 14, 1931, after she could no longer pay the rent after Jeanette Ascher's death and had fallen behind for several months. Fred Stern had not found work after his apprenticeship and rented a room as a sublet in Schenkendorffstraße. His mother initially found accommodation with her sister Olga Wolf, and his brother Hans Stern lived as a subtenant on Isestraße.

Fred Stern probably still did not find a job; from the entries in his mother's restitution file, we see that he was still unemployed at the end of 1933 and registered for voluntary labor service. However, he soon suffered an accident and had to be sent to the Barmbek hospital for 7 weeks, from where he was released on February 15, 1934.

On February 23, 1935, Fred Stern married the daughter of an office servant from Barmbek; his mother Rosa Stern was - in addition to the bride's father - maid of honor. The first son of this marriage, Eugen, born 30.8.1935, died soon after birth, but already in June 1936 a second son was born, whom the couple had baptized. One of the witnesses to the baptism was Fred's Jewish brother Hans Stern.

After the National Socialists promulgated the "Reich Citizenship Law", i.e. the race laws, in September 1935 and Fred Stern was considered a "half-Jew", the marriage was divorced "guilty on both sides" by the Hamburg District Court (11R / 151 / 38) at the instigation of an action for annulment by the public prosecutor, with effect from August 1, 1938. Despite repeated applications for permission to remarry, the couple was not allowed to enter into a new marriage with each other. However, they continued to live together and in May 1939 moved from Oben Borgfelde to Revalerstraße 29. When the census was conducted on May 17, 1939, Fred Stern was living at this address.

In June 1939, he worked for the plumber Schlemann on Dorotheenstraße. Officially, he also had to pay alimony for his son, although he lived with his wife and son.

In May 1940, Fred Stern was drafted into the Wehrmacht, but was deferred from July 24, 1940. In August 1940, another son was born, but due to the forced divorce, he was considered illegitimate and had to bear his mother's maiden name as his last name. Fred did not acknowledge paternity until 1942, however, for reasons we do not know. From Sept 2, 1940 dates a new recognition stamp of the Wehrmacht, on Sept 24, 1940 Fred Stern tried to prove who his father was. On Nov 2, 1940 the Wehrmacht certified his "dishonorable departure", and from December 1940 he was registered on his mother's cultural tax card at the Jewish Community of Hamburg, where since her registration there in 1915 only the "purely Jewish" children Hans and Greta from her first marriage were noted.

The reason for this sequence of events was that "half-Jews," who were considered "Mischlinge of the first degree," were to serve in the Wehrmacht and were initially called up. Shortly thereafter, however, Adolf Hitler decided that they were not worthy of military service, and those who had not participated and distinguished themselves in the French campaign were discharged. In Fred Stern's case, however, there was another factor: the National Socialists had stipulated in the implementing ordinances for the Reich Citizenship Law that the illegitimate child of a Jewish woman was to be considered Jewish. Thus he was registered in the index of the Jewish community.

From September 1941 his mother had to wear the "Jewish star", and on July 15, 1942 she was deported to Theresienstadt ghetto with her siblings Betty Worms and Siegfried Liebreich.

At the time of the bombings in 1943, Fred Stern was already living in a room on Eppendorfer Landstraße, while his wife had remained at Revalerstraße 29 with their two sons. His oldest son, who is still alive, remembers that they often visited his father there and that he had a motorcycle in the room.

At the time of the Allied air raids (Operation Gomorrah), he urged his wife to follow the evacuation calls and flee with the sons to the east, which she did after some hesitation.

Fred Stern was able to continue working under the protection of his employer during his family's absence and also occupied a room there. On March 23, 1944, the Gestapo showed up there to arrest him, but initially left empty-handed, as they did not find him. Upon returning to his place of work, he was immediately informed and took his own life. On his death certificate, the cause of death is listed as "carbon monoxide poisoning." He left a short handwritten will:

Lever doot as slave
23/3/44, 2:45 pm
Fred Star
Last Will and Testament.
Owner of all my belongings is my son (name not mentioned here for privacy reasons) in West Prussia.
Hamburg, the 23/3/44
Fred Stern

We do not know how his wife learned of her husband's death. However, she traveled by train to Hamburg while heavily pregnant and attended the funeral at Ohlsdorf Cemetery on March 29, 1944, which his brother Hans Stern had organized. She was also given some documents during her stay, including his identity card and a savings book at the Postbank. She also sold his motorcycle and returned to her sons as soon as possible, where she gave birth to their daughter a few days later. Fred Stern was never able to acknowledge paternity for this daughter.

His wife and their three children survived and returned to Hamburg shortly before the end of the war, severely traumatized. The children, even if claimed as non-marital, were awarded orphans' pensions in the course of reparations.

It should be noted that on his death record it is stated that Fred Stern was a protestant of the Evangelical Lutheran religion. However, a baptism could neither be proven in Hamburg, nor in the church districts in the surrounding area.

Translation Beate Meyer

Stand: February 2023
© Carmen Fernandez

Quellen: Staatsarchiv Hamburg: Wiedergutmachungsakte Rosa Stern geb. Gumpel 351-11_1566; Wiedergutmachungsakte Fred Stern 351-11_36583; Wiedergutmachungsakte der Ehefrau (Datenschutz); Heiratseintrag Fred Stern 67/1935; Todesanzeige 332-5_64341; 522-1 Jüdische Gemeinden: Kultussteuerkarte Rosa Stern; Sterbeeintrag 496/1935, Eugen Stern; Standesamt Hamburg Altona: Geburtseintrag Fred Stern 966/1911; Grabregister Friedhof Ohlsdorf, 1944, Nr. 1186; Deutsche Dienststelle WASt, Aktenzeichen II B 219; Adressbücher Hamburg; Deportationsliste 15.07.1941 Theresienstadt; Unterhaltsbescheinigung Amtsgericht Hamburg 111 G 2552; Erinnerungen der noch lebenden Kinder des Fred Stern.