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Mathilde Zuckermann * 1905

Poolstraße 12 (Hamburg-Mitte, Neustadt)

HIER WOHNTE
MATHILDE
ZUCKERMANN
JG. 1905
EINGEWIESEN 1939
HEILANSTALT LANGENHORN
"VERLEGT" 23.9.1940
BRANDENBURG
ERMORDET 23.9.1940
"AKTION T4"

further stumbling stones in Poolstraße 12:
Chaim Moses Zuckermann, Liba Zuckermann, Ruchla Zuckermann, Miriam Zuckermann

Mathilde Zuckermann, born on 25.4.1905 in Tereblestie/Romania, murdered on 23.9.1940 in the "State Hospital Brandenburg” ("Landes-Pflegeanstalt" Brandenburg) at the river Havel
Moses Chaim Zuckermann, born on 30.6.1884 in Olkusz (Olkuski district /Poland), fled from Germany in April 1938, deported from Olkusz to Auschwitz in June 1942, murdered
Liba (Chajafrajne) Zuckermann, née Majteles, born on 21.10.1886 in Wolbrom (Olkuski district/Poland), fled to Poland in April 1938, deported from Olkusz to Auschwitz in June 1942, murdered
Ruchla Zuckermann, born 1912 in Olkusz (Olkuski district/Poland), fled to Poland in April 1938, deported from Olkusz to Auschwitz in June 1942, murdered
Miriam Zuckermann, born 1917 in Olkusz (Olkuski district /Poland), fled to Poland in April 1938, deported from Olkusz to Auschwitz in June 1942, murdered.

Poolstraße 12, Hamburg-Neustadt

Rifka (Rosa) Zuckermann, née Rosenstock, born on 5.4.1879 in Proworokie (not far from Sereth/Galizien), suicide 13.4.1937 in Hamburg-Altona

Behringstraße 12, Ottensen

In the following, people from three families with the surname Zuckermann are described. Their paths touched in Hamburg-Neustadt in the 1930s. Whether they were related, however, cannot be proven. Their stories are presented here together, because they temporarily lived at Poolstraße 12 in Hamburg-Neustadt at the same time.

They are: Mathilde Gusta Zuckermann, who immigrated with her family from Galicia to Altona. She was murdered on 23 Sept. 1940, together with another 134 Jews in the Brandenburg an der Havel murder facility.

The family of the merchant Herbert Chaim David Zuckermann, with whom Mathilda Gusta Zuckermann lived for a short time.

The family of the merchant Moses Chaim Zuckermann, which included his wife Liba, daughters Ruchla and Miriam, and son David. Only David Zuckermann survived persecution and deportation.

Mathilde Gusta Zuckermann's birthplace, Tereblestie, is located in northern Bukovina, a stretch of land in Galicia that is now part of Ukraine and borders Romania. The former Jewish population was strongly oriented towards German culture. Here lived the couple Sruel Zuckermann, born on 30 June 1877 in Sereth, and Rifka, née Rosenstock, born on 5 Apr. 1879 in Proworokie, a village not far from Sereth. They were probably married according to the Jewish rite. On 25 Apr. 1905, Rifka and Sruel Zuckermann had their first child, Mathilde Gusta, in Tereblestie, and on 27 Jan. 1906, their son Moses Chaim was born, who was later named Max. After their immigration to Altona, their third child, daughter Salie, was born on 17 May 1910.

Towards the end of the 19th century, the economic situation in the Bukovina region worsened. As a consequence many people decided to emigrate, including Sruel Zuckermann's family. Between the beginning of 1906 and spring 1910 they settled in the then Prussian city of Altona. This period of time is derived from the birth dates of Moses Chaim and his sister Salie, who was born in Altona on 17 May 1910. Sruel and Rifka were married in a civil ceremony on 8 Oct. 1912. The children, who had been born until then were considered illegitimate by the authorities, were now formally legitimized according to German law. It was noted on Sruel and Rifka Zuckermann's marriage certificate: "the spouses [...] declared that they hereby recognize the following children 1: Gusta, born on 25 Apr. 1905 in Sereth in Bukovina; 2: Moses, born on 27 Jan. 1906 in Sereth and 3: Salie, born on 17 May 1910 in Altona Ottensen, birth certificate of the registry office Altona II Ottensen No. 481 for 1910 as jointly accepted by them."

The family was initially considered stateless, but later Austrian and Romanian citizenship was assigned. Possibly as an act of adaptation to the prevailing non-Jewish environment, but also to local spellings, Sruel and Rifka changed their first names and those of their children. Sruel became Israel, Rifka was now called Rosa, Gusta became Mathilde, Moses became Max, and Salie was henceforth called Sophie. The new names can be found on various cult tax cards of the Jewish Community (= records of taxes that the Jewish Community, as a corporation under public law, could collect from its members). However, the name changes were not formally made. This is evident from the death certificates of Sruel/Israel and Rifka/Rosa Zuckermann, in which the original first names Sruel and Rifka are found.

The family apparently remained in Altona for a long time. They lived at Kleine Rainstraße 10 at the time of Sruel’s and Rifka's civil marriage in 1912, and later settled at the neighboring Bahrenfelder Straße 201. Israel Zuckermann ran a furniture store there, which did well. However, he died already on 3 Febr. 1921 at the age of 43 in the Hamburg Israelite Hospital.

Rifka/Rosa Zuckermann now had to care alone for her three children, who were not yet of full age. She ran the furniture store, which extended over a large window front with three large display windows. In the 1930s, Rifka/Rosa Zuckermann downsized the business as a result of rapidly declining sales due to the National Socialist boycott measures and moved it to the corner of Friedensallee and Roonstraße (today Behringstraße). On 13 June 1937, she took her own life. According to her daughter Sophie, she had no longer felt able to cope with the increasing discrimination and the associated material worries. As a result, the business was discontinued.

Mathilde Gusta Zuckermann contributed to the livelihood of her family as a stenotypist. She had lived with her mother first in Bahrenfelder Straße and then in Roonstraße 12, probably until her mother died. The unmarried Mathilde Zuckermann had belonged to the Altona's Jewish community since 1928. In the economic crisis of 1929, like so many, she lost her job. However, the Jewish community assessed her for cult tax in the following years until 1937; Mathilde seemed to have found employment again after all. Probably after her mother's death, she moved to Poolstraße 12 in Hamburg's Neustadt district.

Two families also named Zuckermann lived at Poolstraße 12. Both had immigrated to Hamburg from Poland. It is possible that these families were related to each other and probably also to Mathilde Zuckermann. However, evidence for this could not be found.

Mathilde Gusta Zuckermann, who had moved from Altona, initially lived with the family of the merchant Herbert Chaim David Zuckermann, born on 10 May 1886 in Lukow north of Lublin. The family included the wife Mathilde, née Elias, born on 23 Febr. 1892, and the daughter Ruth, born on 3 Jan. 1922. Herbert Zuckermann was listed in the Hamburg address book at Poolstraße 12 since 1931, initially with a sewing shop, then supplemented by the note "bed linen".

Mathilde Gusta Zuckermann's subtenancy here was short-lived, as Herbert Chaim David Zuckermann fled from Germany to South America in March 1938 together with his wife Mathilde and daughter Ruth. He had to leave behind properties and a well-run bedding business. In Sao Paulo, the family lived in poor conditions.

Probably Mathilde Gusta Zuckermann now lived with the second Zuckermann family at Poolstraße 12. This family included Moses Chaim, his wife Liba and their children Ruchla, Miriam and David Zuckermann. This family left Germany in April 1938 and went to Poland. The fate of this family is described below.

We do not know whether Mathilde Zuckermann was able to stay in the apartment in Poolstraße 12 after her landlords fled. On 11 May 1939, she was admitted to the Oberaltenallee care home (Versorgungsheim) and then transferred to the Farmsen care home. The reasons for her admission there are unclear. The threat of homelessness may have been a contributing factor.

In the spring/summer of 1940, the "euthanasia" headquarters in Berlin, Tiergartenstraße 4, planned a special action against Jews in public and private sanatoriums and nursing homes. It had the Jewish people living in the institutions registered and gathered together in so-called collective institutions. The Langenhorn sanatorium and nursing home was designated as the North German collective institution. All institutions in Hamburg, Schleswig-Holstein and Mecklenburg were ordered to transfer the Jews living in their institutions to Langenhorn by 18 Sept. 1940. On 18 Sept. 1940, Mathilde Zuckermann was transferred to the Hamburg-Langenhorn Sanatorium and Nursing Home together with the other Jews living in the Farmsen care home.

As soon as all Jewish patients from the North German institutions had arrived in Langenhorn, they were taken together with the Jewish people, who had already been living there for some time, to Brandenburg at the river Havel on 23 Sept. 1940, in a transport of 136 people in total. On the same day, they were killed with carbon monoxide in the part of the former penitentiary that had been converted into a gas killing facility. Only one patient, Ilse Herta Zachmann, initially escaped this fate (for her biography, see www.stolpersteine-hamburg.de).

It is not known whether and, if so, when relatives became aware of Mathilde Gusta Zuckermann's death. In all documented communications it was claimed that the person concerned had died in Chelm (Polish) or Cholm (German). However, those murdered in Brandenburg had never been in this town northeast of Lublin. The former Polish sanatorium no longer existed there after SS units had murdered almost all of the patients on 12 Jan. 1940. There also was no German registry office in Chelm. The invention of the registry office and the use of later than actual death dates served to disguise the murder operation and, at the same time, to claim correspondingly longer boarding costs.

Mathilde Gusta's brother, Max Zuckermann, who worked as a merchant, had married the Protestant Frieda Buck, born on 5 June 1907 in Coburg. The couple had three children: Ingrid, born on 9 Febr. 1932, Peter, born on 2 Jan. 1934, and Ralf, born on 10 Nov. 1938. On 21 May 1937, Max Zuckermann was taken into custody for "offenses against the decree of 20 Dec. 1934." This probably referred to the so-called treachery act (Heimtückegesetz), according to which, among other things, anyone who insulted the National Socialist leadership or "deliberately made or spread an untrue or grossly distorted allegation of a factual nature [...]" was punished. The charge and the length of imprisonment had not been handed down. Max is said to have left Germany in 1938. His wife Frieda Zuckermann was still living in Hamburg during the census in May 1939. We do not know their further fates. Peter and Ralf Zuckermann lived at Wikingerweg 11 in Hamburg-Borgfelde. They were killed in an air raid on 28 July 1943. Ingrid Zuckermann survived the Second World War.

Sophie Zuckermann was a trained clerk and typist. In 1938, she married Ludwig Paul Lubascher, a Jewish locksmith born in Hamburg on 14 Jan. 1913. The Lubascher couple left Hamburg in November 1938, sailing from Le Havre to Montevideo on the steamer "Belle Isle." After a few days in Uruguay, the couple entered Argentina illegally. It received the residence permit in 1941.

The aforementioned Zuckermann family, which fled from Germany to Poland in April 1938, included the merchant Moses Chaim Zuckermann, his wife Liba, their daughters Ruchla and Miriam, and their son David, born in 1924. This family was listed in the Hamburg address book at Poolstraße 12 since 1934. At the beginning of the war, they lived in Olkusz, the birthplace of the three children, not far from Krakow. Olkusz was occupied by the German armed forces (Wehrmacht) in September 1939 and initially renamed Olkusch. From 1941 to 1945 the German name Ilkenau was given. The Jews in the small town were obliged to perform forced labor. Moses Chaim, the father of the family, was conscripted to do clean-up work. Liba, his wife, had to do cleaning work in German offices. In June 1942, the parents and daughters Ruchla and Miriam were deported to Auschwitz. The son David received a last sign of life from them in January 1943. These four people were murdered in Auschwitz. They were later declared dead.

David, the then fifteen-year-old son, first had to do forced labor in the construction of a small railroad. From March 1941, he spent more than a year in the Gogolin forced labor camp south of Opole, then until February 1945 in the Bunzlau concentration camp, a subcamp of the Groß-Rosen concentration camp. From there he was ordered on a foot march to Nordhausen to the Dora command of the Buchenwald concentration camp. Eventually, he was liberated by the British Army on his way to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. David Zuckermann first lived in Hamburg after the war and then emigrated to the United States.


Translation Elisabeth Wendland

Stand: November 2023
© Ingo Wille

Quellen: 1; 4; 5; 9;
Zu Mathilde Zuckermann: StaH 332-5 Standesämter 840 Sterberegisterauszug Nr. 64/1921, Sruel Zuckermann, 1174 Sterberegisterauszug Nr. 1344/1943 Peter Zuckermann, 1174 Sterberegisterauszug Nr. 1345/1943 Ralf Zuckermann, 5095 Sterberegisterauszug Nr. 407/1937 Rifka Zuckermann, 5807 Heiratsregisterauszug Nr. 400/1912 Sruel Zuckermann/Rifka Rosenstock; 351-11 Amt für Wiedergutmachung 4167 Rifka Zuckermann, 38803 Ludwig Lubascher; 332-8 Meldewesen K 4590 Meldekarte Zuckermann;
Zu Herbert (Chaim David), Mathilde geb. Elias und Rosel (Ruth) Zuckermann: StaH 332-5 Standesämter 2283 Geburtsregister Nr. 837/1892 Mathilde Elias, 351-11 Amt für Wiedergutmachung 45302 Zuckermann Ruth Berger Rosel Ruth Elias Mathilde, 8818 Zuckermann Herbert Chaim;
Zu Moses Chaim, Liba, Ruchla, Miriam und David Zuckermann:
StaH 351-1 Amt für Wiedergutmachung 46311 Zuckermann David.
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