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Flora, geb. Löwenberg, und Willy Sänger mit ihrem ersten Sohn Jacob vor ihrem Wohnhaus in der Bundesstraße 95
© Privatbesitz

Erwin Sänger * 1935

Langenhorner Chaussee 560 (Hamburg-Nord, Langenhorn)

ERMORDET IN DER
"KINDERFACHABTEILUNG"
DER HEIL- UND PFLEGEANSTALT
LANGENHORN

ERWIN SÄNGER
GEB. 17.2.1935
ERMORDET 10.4.1943

further stumbling stones in Langenhorner Chaussee 560:
Gerda Behrmann, Uwe Diekwisch, Peter Evers, Elke Gosch, Claus Grimm, Werner Hammerich, Marianne Harms, Hillene Hellmers, Helga Heuer, Waltraud Imbach, Inge Kersebaum, Hella Körper, Dieter Kullak, Helga Liebschner, Theo Lorenzen, Jutta Müller, Ingrid Neuhaus, Traudel Passburg, Edda Purwin, Angela Quast, Hermann Scheel, Gottfried Simon, Monika Ziemer

Erwin Sänger, born on 17.2.1935 in Hamburg, killed on 10.4.1943 in the "children's specialist ward of the Langenhorn sanatorium and nursing home".

Asklepios Clinic North Ochsenzoll, Henny-Schütz-Allee, memorial site house 25, entrance Langenhorner Chaussee 560

Erwin Sänger was born in Hamburg on February 17, 1935. He was the second child of Flora, née Löwenberg (born July 12, 1895 in Hanover), and Willy Sänger (born May 26, 1893 in Buttenwiesen, Bavaria), both of Jewish faith. Erwin's grandfather Jakob and his great-grandfather Salomon Sänger were already from Buttenwiesen. The Sänger family had come to Hamburg through marriages: Erwin's grandfather Jakob Sänger (born April 27,1857 in Buttenwiesen) had married Röschen, née Friedburg (born May 14, 1871), who was born there, on June 16, 1892 in Hamburg - two years after the marriage of his brother Abraham, a slaughterer, to Rosa Friedburg, an older half-sister of Röschen, also in Hamburg. Röschen came from the second marriage of Gottschalk Friedburg with Johanna, née Rosenbaum, Rosa from his first marriage, concluded in 1867 with Sara, née Alexander, who had died in childbed.

Initially, Erwin's grandparents had remained in Buttenwiesen after their marriage. Erwin's father Willy and his three sisters, the twin sister Edith, Paula (born June 28, 1894) and Bertha (born March 13, 1896), had been born there. After the family moved to Hamburg, Erwin's father's youngest sister, Erwin's aunt Irma, had been born there on June 26, 1900. Erwin's grandfather, Jakob Sänger, had been granted Hamburg citizenship on March 7, 1912, and at that time, as a dealer in household goods, had an annual taxable income of 3000 marks. The family's residential address was Grindelberg 7a.

Erwin's father, Willy Sänger, had attended the Talmud Tora Realschule in Hamburg, completed a banking apprenticeship, and participated in World War I as a soldier beginning in February 1915. The following year his father, Erwin's grandfather Jakob Sänger, had died on February 12, 1916 at the age of 58. His grave can be found in the Jewish Cemetery Ilandkoppel, grave location ZY 11, No. 53.

Willy Sänger, only back from captivity at the end of 1919, had continued to work in the banking business of Moses Lewinsohn, then at Hamlet & Co Semmelhak & Wulf as an "office clerk" and since 1920 in the German-Israelite Community of Hamburg as bookkeeper and cashier.

Erwin's mother Flora had moved with her family from Hanover to Hamburg in 1904 at the age of nine. Her parents, Rosa Rebekka, called Babette, née Seewald (born June 18, 1865 in Frankfurt), and the house broker Michaelis Löwenberg (born Oct 20,1856 in Wunsdorf near Hannover) were married on May 6, 1891 in Babenhausen, Hesse. After moving to Hamburg, they had first lived in the Samuel-Levy-Stift in Bundesstraße 35 house no. 3, later in Rappstraße 26.

In their common hometown, Erwin's parents had married on March 20, 1931. The following year, their first son Jacob (born Jan. 9, 1932) was born at Bundesstraße 95. Three years later Erwin was born. His paternal great-grandparents had not been able to know him. They had died before his birth - Johanna Friedburg, née Rosenbaum (born Jan 13, 1842 in Horn, Lippe), daughter of Moses and Perla Rosenbaum, died on June 29, 1930 at the age of 88. Her husband, Gottschalk Gustav Friedburg (born Sept. 13, 1839 in Hamburg), son of Röschen, née Matthias, and Hebrew teacher Wolff Gottschalk Friedburg, died Feb. 4, 1932, at age 92. They had been married since July 4, 1867. Their wedding had taken place in Horn, Lippe. Their gravesites are next to each other in the Ilandkoppel Jewish Cemetery, grave site ZY 10, No. 576/577.

Erwin Sänger was born with Down syndrome. He received medical care from the pediatrician Dr. Kurt Freundlich, a friend of the family and related to Erwin's aunt Irma, née Sänger, the youngest sister of Erwin's father, the wife of Julius Freundlich. Erwin's development was delayed, he could not walk and eat independently until he was three years old.

Erwin grew up in the security of the family with his parents, his brother Jacob and his grandmother Röschen Sänger, née Friedburg. The family was a member of the German-Israelite community and lived at Bundesstraße 95, first floor, where his father had already grown up.

In the course of the restrictions and prohibitions for Jews, the family had to leave their home and was assigned to the "Judenhaus" Beneckestraße 4 at the end of the 1930s. Willy Sänger, who had previously worked in the office, was finally forced to take a job as a "warehouse worker." When the persecution of the Jews by the National Socialists became more and more threatening with the November pogrom, the parents had brought their oldest son Jacob to safety on a Kindertransport to England on December 14, 1938. The six-year-old arrived in Harwich via Hoek van Holland. From London's Liverpool Street, the train station, he first went to the reception camp Dovercourt. That same month, the Jewish family Charles and Sophia Black became his foster family in London.

For Erwin, as a child with disabilities, such a rescue was not possible.

His maternal grandfather, Michaelis Löwenberg, had tried to take his own life out of desperation on October 6, 1940. He died in the Israelite Hospital on October 13, 1940.

Erwin's grandmother Röschen Sänger was able to escape persecution on October 15, 1941, shortly before emigration was banned on October 23, 1941. She traveled by train from Hamburg via Berlin to Barcelona and from there by ship to Cuba. After a four-week stay, she continued by ship to Colombia and from there flew to Ecuador. The family of her daughter Bertha Gumpel, née Sänger (born 1896), and her husband Bruno Gumpel (born 1897 in Hamburg) had fled there in 1939. Actually, Röschen Sänger wanted to continue her journey to the USA. Her youngest daughter Irma Freundlich, née Sänger (born 1900), lived there with her husband Julius Freundlich, who had married in Hamburg in December 1922. Both were able to escape to California, USA. For Röschen Sänger, however, entry into the USA was not possible at that time.

Röschen Sänger's daughter Paula Löbenstein, née Sänger (born 1894), and her husband John Löbenstein (born 1894 Hamburg) were also able to emigrate to Argentina in 1941 - they had married in Hamburg in June 1919. They followed their son Jacob Daniel Löbenstein (born 1921), who had fled there via Paraguay in 1939.
They had to leave their daughter Inge Löbenstein (born 5.9.1923) behind in Hamburg; she had not received an entry permit. Inge Löbenstein married Leopold Rosenthal (born 21.7.1891 in Altona) on November 6, 1941 (for biography see www.stolpersteine-hamburg.de), two days before her deportation to the Lodz/Litzmannstadt ghetto. Both were murdered together with his family. Stolpersteine commemorate the Rosenthal family in Altona at Lerchenstraße 104.

At the instigation of the Gestapo, Erwin had to be taken from his parents to the "Heil- und Pflegeanstalt Langenhorn" at the age of seven on July 13, 1942 at 1:00 p.m. with the diagnosis "Mongolism". Flora and Willy Sänger had been forced to take this step before their own deportation. As a "handicapped person" Erwin was not allowed to stay with his parents, who had protected him day and night until then. They had to leave their child behind in uncertainty.

Flora and Willy Sänger were deported to Theresienstadt two days after Erwin was brought in on July 15, 1942, along with Erwin's grandmother, the widow Rosa Rebekka Löwenberg, née Seewald, and Erwin's aunt Edith, his father's twin sister. His aunt Henny Löwenberg (born 1892) (for biography see www.stolpersteine-hamburg.de), who had supported her mother as long as it was possible, had to start the deportation to death to Auschwitz already four days before.

Erwin Sänger was the only Jewish child known so far to have been killed in the "children's specialist ward of the Langenhorn sanatorium and nursing home" on April 10, 1943 in house M 10. He died at 2:00 am. In the death certificate, Dr. Knigge stated "Mongoloid idiocy bronchopneumonia" as the cause of death.

Knigge killed with Luminal injections, a sleeping pill. Fever and pneumonia were the result; the children suffered a slow and agonizing death. In most death certificates, as in Erwin's case, the addition of "bronchopneumonia" indicates this killing. No records have survived in Erwin's medical file.

The parents, who had long since been deported, were sent the news of their son's death by telegram to Beneckestraße 6, their last forced residence, a "Judenhaus" in Hamburg-Rotherbaum. When the death register was entered, it said of the parents "whereabouts unknown". Whether they received the news of the death of their son Erwin in the Theresienstadt ghetto from the Jewish community is not known.

Erwin was 8 years, 1 month, 3 weeks and 3 days old.

Erwin was buried by the Jewish Religious Association, as the community had to call itself by now, in the Jewish Cemetery Ilandkoppel, grave location M 1, No. 113a, not far from the grave of his paternal grandfather, Jakob Sänger, and his paternal great-grandparents Johanna, née Rosenbaum, and Gottschalk Friedburg.

Erwin's grandmother Rosa Rebekka Löwenberg, née Seewald, died in the Theresienstadt/Terezin ghetto on January 20, 1944, at the age of 78.

On September 28, 1944, Erwin's father Willy Sänger was deported to Auschwitz and murdered. One month later, on October 28, 1944, Erwin's mother Flora Sänger was also deported to Auschwitz and murdered. Stolpersteine for both, for the great-aunt Rosa Sänger, née Friedburg (born 1866), and Erwin commemorate them in Bundesstraße 95. Erwin's grandparents Rosa Rebekka and Michaelis Löwenberg and his aunt Henny Löwenberg are remembered by stumbling stones at Heymannstraße 6, Eimsbüttel.

After the end of the war, in May 1945, three medical students filed charges against the doctors, nurses and experts involved in the "Reich Committee for the Scientific Recording of Hereditary and Congenital Severe Suffering" and set in motion a preliminary investigation at the Hamburg Regional Court. Friedrich Knigge, questioned about the accusations of murder or euthanasia in the "children's ward" of the Langenhorn hospital, admitted in a letter of June 13, 1945 to the criminal police via Prof. Rudolf Degkwitz, chief official of the Hamburg health authority, only euthanasia of ten to eleven "mentally ill and deformed" children, which he considered justified by the order of the Reich Committee. He concealed the name of Erwin Sänger, whose admission form listed Jude in large print.

The former nurse Gerda Krohn testified as a witness in the criminal proceedings on January 21, 1948 against Dr. Knigge: "I remember in particular a 6 or 7 year old boy who was Jewish and who was admitted to us in about 1942 or 1943. The child's parents, both Jews, brought Erwin one day and said that they were admitting the child here on orders from the Gestapo. The child's mother told me that her husband had once held a good position and now had to work physically hard. The mother also told me that they had received orders from the Gestapo to be taken away into the unknown. The woman cried that she had to leave the child behind. The child's parents had been to the hospital only this one time. [...] I can't say whether I had free time or vacation when I was told one day that Erwin was dead."

Nurse Sophie Pertzel, as a witness in court on February 4, 1948, still remembered Erwin's mother saying, "Nurse, I entrust my child to you, I know he is in good hands there." Certainly Erwin's mother did not know what Sister Pertzel later shared: "Each child also received its emergency baptism upon admission, since many mothers apparently did not dare to be openly baptized. I also remember that we baptized the Jewish boy Erwin Sänger." According to this, his baptism would have been performed by Pastor Helmut Horn (born in 1897) in the institutional church of the "Heil- und Pflegeanstalt". He was pastor of the St. Jürgen Church in Langenhorn, which was built in 1938, and was also responsible for the institution church. Evidence of a baptism could not be found in the church archives of Anschar and St. Jürgen or in the district church archives.

Even before the verdict on the preliminary investigation was pronounced, Friedrich Knigge died of spinal polio in the St. Georg Hospital in December 1947. By decision of the Grand Criminal Chamber I of the Hamburg Regional Court of April 19, 1949, the defendants were suspended from prosecution "because, according to their unrebutted admission, they believed and were entitled to believe in the lawfulness of their conduct. As a result, there was no main hearing.

Erwin's maternal grandparents, his mother's sisters, his aunts and their families did not escape the Shoah. Erwin's aunt Elsa van der Walde, née Löwenberg (born 1893), who had married Max van der Walde (born 1890) in Hamburg on January 1, 1941 (for biographies see www.stolpersteine-hamburg.de), was deported to Minsk on November 8, 1941, together with him and his children Caroline (born 1921) and Simon (born 1924). Erwin's aunt Irma Schragenheim, née Löwenberg (born 1897), who had worked as a hostess in the home for Jewish girls on Innocentiastraße, and her husband Bruno Schragenheim (born 1899) (for biographies see www.stolpersteine-hamburg.de), who had married in Hamburg in 1926, also had to travel with the same transport. They were all murdered in Minsk. Stolpersteine commemorate them at Innocentiastraße 21 and Brahmsallee 13, Harvestehude.

Paula Kohorn, née Friedburg, the sister of Erwin's grandmother Röschen Sänger, née Friedburg, her husband Oskar and their son Heinz were able to escape from Hamburg to Birmingham in 1939. There her husband died. Therefore, Paula Kohorn had to make the planned journey into exile to Argentina alone with her son Heinz.

The grandmother's brother, Eduard Friedburg (born 1877), had also escaped to England. He died there in 1964 in Brighton, his wife Margret, née Simon (born 1890), eight years later in Nottingham.

It was not until 1945 that Erwin's grandmother Röschen Sänger and the family of his aunt Bertha Gumpel were able to enter the USA by plane to California. Later, Röschen Sänger lived in San Diego with her daughters Edith Schloss, Paula Löbenstein, Bertha Gumpel and Irma Friend (Freundlich). Edith Schloss, who had been deported to Theresienstadt along with Erwin's father, her twin brother, and his wife Flora, was one of the few Jews to escape to Switzerland in January 1945 through an exchange. She married Oscar Schloss in California.

Erwin's brother Jacob, now Jack Black, who was well received and greatly encouraged in London, wanted to remain with his foster parents after the war. A long letter written to him from San Diego, California, in the early 1950s by his 82-year-old grandmother, now called Rosa Sanger in the U.S., expresses that she would have liked to have had him in the family circle. But she also realized that he would be in good hands there and would be able to continue his professional career successfully. Her greatest wish was to be able to hold him in her arms once again.
After his school education in London, Jack Black had attended University College London as well as the Society's School of Law at the age of 16 and qualified as a solicitor for the Supreme Court. He remained in Britain, acquired British citizenship in 1948, and married Dora, an Englishwoman, in 1953; they had three children.

On a visit to England, Rosa Sanger gave her brother David Friedburg the watch that had once belonged to Erwin's father, Willy Sänger, who had once received it as a gift from his father. It had been a wedding present from Jakob Sänger's wife Röschen. The watch was saved from the Nazis and the obligation to hand it in to Hamburg. Today, Jack Black treasures it and will pass it on to his grandson Matthew, the son of his daughter Sophie Florence Sanger Black, in due course. His son Andrew Francis Sanger Black lives in Cambridge with wife Helen; the eldest son of the family, David William Sanger Black, tragically died young.

Stand: August 2023
© Margot Löhr

Quellen: 1; 2; 4; 5; 8; StaH, 213-12 Staatsanwaltschaft, 0013 Bd. 060 Sonderakte, Bd. 40 Schirbaum u. a. Knigge, S. 234–236, 0017 Bd. 001 Bayer u. a. Knigge, S. 151b, S. 189, 198, 234, 236; StaH, 213-13, Landgericht Hamburg, Rückerstattung, 13893 Sänger, Willy, 23436 Schragenheim, Irma, geb. Löwenberg, Erben; StaH, 314-15 Oberfinanzpräsident, FVg 5738 Edith Sänger, FVg 5739 Röschen Sänger, FVg 5486 John Löbenstein, R 1938/3368 Henny Löbenstein; StaH, 332-5 Standesämter, Geburtsregister, 1937 u. 5373/1878 David Friedburg, 2030 u. 3429/1882 Paula Friedburg, 2060 u. 5348/1883 Harriet Friedburg, 1909 u. 3296/1887 Eduard Friedburg; StaH, 332-5 Standesämter, Heiratsregister, 2758 u. 131/1890 Abraham Sänger/Rosa Friedburg, 2796 u.709/1892 Jakob Sänger/Röschen Friedburg, 8662 u. 50/1909 Oskar Kohorn/Paula Friedburg, 8729 u. 283/1919 John Löbenstein/Paula Sänger, 8767 u. 737/1922 Julius Freundlich/Irma Sänger, 3489 u. 293/1924 Bruno Gumpel/Bertha Sänger, 13628 u. 85/1931 Willy Sänger/Flora Löwenberg; StaH, 332-5 Standesämter, Sterbefallsammelakten, 64247 u. 447/1943 Erwin Sänger, 63123 u. 514/1940 Michaelis Löwenberg; StaH, 332-5 Standesämter, Sterberegister, 148 u. 3564/1883 Harriet Friedburg, 8032 u. 84/1916 Jakob Sänger, 8743 u. 236/1930 Johanne Friedburg, 993 u. 57/1932 Gottschalk Friedburg, 9942 u. 447/1943 Erwin Sänger; 8169 u. 514/1940 Michaelis Löwenberg; StaH, 332-5 Standesämter, Todesbescheinigungen, 1943 Sta 1b Nr. 447 Erwin Sänger; StaH, 332-7 Staatsangehörigkeitsaufsicht, B III 112690 Jacob Sänger; StaH, 351-11 Amt für Wiedergutmachung, 1875 Rosa Saenger, 16858 Paula Löbenstein, 18345 Bertha Gumpel, 23952 Irma Freundlich-Friend, 47754 Gerda Freundlich-Friend, 50096 Jack Black, 090132 Jack Black; StaH, 352-8/7 Staatskrankenanstalt Langenhorn, 86233 (früher Abl. 2000/01 Nr. 19 Akte 30111); Standesamt Babenhausen, Heiratsregister, 7/1891 Michaelis Löwenberg/Rosa Rebecca Seewald; Standesamt Hamburg 2a, Geburtsregister, Nr. 85/1935 Erwin Sänger; Deportationen Theresienstadt, Flora und Willy Sänger, https://www.holocaust.cz/hledani/43/?fulltext-phrase=Sänger&cntnt01origreturnid=1&cntnt01lang=cs_CZ, eingesehen am: 25.5.2022; Marc Burlon: Die »Euthanasie« an Kindern während des Nationalsozialismus in den zwei Hamburger Kinderfachabteilungen, Universität Hamburg, Diss., Hamburg 2009, https://ediss.sub.uni-hamburg.de/volltexte/2010/4578/pdf/Kindereuthanasie_Hamburg.pdf, eingesehen am: 16.3.2022; Ernst Klee: "Euthanasie" im NS-Staat. Die Vernichtung "lebensunwerten Lebens", Frankfurt am Main 1985; Inge Grolle, Christina Igla: Stolpersteine in Hamburg-Grindel I, Hallerstraße und Brahmsallee. Biographische Spurensuche, Hamburg 2016, S. 229-233, Jürgen Kühling: (Bruno Schragenheim und Irma, geb. Löwenberg); Friedemann Hellwig: Max von der Wald und Elsa, geb. Löwenberg, 2021, https://www.stolpersteine-hamburg.de/index.php?MAIN_ID=7&BIO_ID=1234, eingesehen 26.5.2022; Susanne Lohmeyer: Stolpersteine in Hamburg-Eimsbüttel und Hamburg-Hoheluft-West. Biographische Spurensuche, 2 Bde., Hamburg 2013, Bd. 1, S. 358–360 (Michaelis, Henny Löwenberg und Rosa, geb. Seewald), Bd. 2, S. 455–457 (Hans-Joachim, Ingeborg, Max Rothenburg und Paula, geb. Fryda); Hildegard Thevs: Stolpersteine in Hamburg-Rothenburgsort. Biographische Spurensuche, Hamburg 2011, S. 146 (Erwin Sänger); Deportationen nach Theresienstadt und von Theresienstadt in andere Konzentrationslager, www.ghetto-theresienstadt.de/pages/t/transporte.htm, eingesehen am: 16.3.2022. Vielen Dank an Jack Black!
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