Search for Names, Places and Biographies

Erich Wilhelm Marcus * 1911

Schloßmühlendamm 32 (AOK) (Harburg, Harburg)

1941 Minsk

further stumbling stones in Schloßmühlendamm 32 (AOK):
Grete Marcus, Julius Marcus

Erich Marcus, born on 27 May 1911 in Harburg, deported to Minsk on 8 Nov. 1941, date of death unknown
Grete Marcus, née Mayer, born on 10 July 1880 in Ribnitz, deported to Minsk on 8 Nov. 1941, date of death unknown
Julius Marcus, born on 23 July 1876 in Güstrow, deported to Minsk on 8 Nov. 1941, date of death unknown

District of Harburg-Altstadt, Schlossmühlendamm 32

Julius Marcus was the owner of a yard goods store at Mühlenstrasse 9 (today: Schlossmühlendamm 32), where he lived with his wife Grete, also Jewish, and his two Harburg-born children Erich and Gerda (born on 10 Jan. 1914). Meanwhile, his two sisters, Ella Marcus (born on 5 Sept. 1874) (see Stolpersteine in der Hamburger Isestrasse, p. 194f.) and Rosalie Marcus (born on 12 Nov. 1880), both also born in Güstrow, had come to feel at home in Hamburg as well.

After 1933, the flood of anti-Jewish laws and ordinances increasingly restricted the life spheres of the Marcus family from day to day. Business revenues shrunk noticeably, barely sufficing to earn a living. More quickly and harshly than expected, the family saw itself confronted with the repercussions of the Nuremberg Laws [on race], when on 3 Aug. 1936, contrary to the truth, Gerda Marcus’ Jewish fiancé was accused of having committed "racial defilement” ("Rassenschande”) with an "Aryan” woman. He was sentenced to ten months in prison, and was thus considered as having a criminal record. Based on this fact, he was arrested again in the context of the so-called June Action (Juni-Aktion) in the summer of 1938 and transferred to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. Six months later, shortly before Christmas, he was released on the condition that he leave the country by 15 Feb. 1939 at the latest. On 20 Jan. 1939, he married his fiancé Gerda Marcus, but the eventual departure of the young couple dragged on until 17 Apr. 1939.

Julius and Grete intended to follow them, as one can surmise from the entry by the Hamburg Jewish Community on their Jewish religious tax (Kultussteuer) file card. What remains unclear is why they were unable to realize this intention, probably for financial reasons, since they were completely impoverished by then. After giving up the business, even the last reasonably profitable source of income had dried up. Julius Marcus was dependent on support from the Hamburg Jewish Community, which resulted in him being obliged to perform compulsory labor as a welfare recipient after the outbreak of World War II. By himself, he would never have been able to raise the funds necessary to emigrate to Shanghai – or anywhere else, for that matter. A temporary change of residence to the Grindel quarter in Hamburg did not help alter this situation fundamentally either, for after a short while, Julius and Grete Marcus returned to their old apartment on Mühlenstrasse.

After Julius Marcus’ older sister Ella had already left the Hanseatic City of Hamburg on the first large-scale transport for Lodz on 25 Oct. 1941, Grete and Julius Marcus were forced to relocate "their place of residence to the East” on 8 Nov. 1941. The terminus was Minsk, without any of the persons affected finding out about it earlier. In the same train were also their son Erich, his wife Elsi, and daughter Silvia, who had just turned five years of age.

The train journey from the Elbe River to the old Belarusian capital took three days, and shortly after the departure from Hannoversche Bahnhof train station in Hamburg’s harbor, it lead Julius and Grete Marcus one last time through Harburg, the city in which they had spent so many years of their lives together. Via Winsen (Luhe), Lüneburg, Stendal, and Berlin, the journey went on to Warsaw and Bialystok all the way to the final destination.

When the Hamburg transport reached Belarus, the extermination of the Jewish population in the Soviet Union through mass shootings was already fully underway. The Einsatzgruppen (task forces) of the Sicherheitspolizei (Security Police), operating in the rear of the four Heeresgruppen (army groups), were already practicing in the occupied territories what would subsequently be termed the "final solution.” This extermination policy also cost the lives of Jewish citizens of the German Reich who initially were still taken to the Minsk Ghetto in the winter of 1941.

While all of those deported to Minsk later were shot immediately upon arrival in the nearby killing site of Maly Trostenets (Maly Trostinez) or murdered in gas vans, those deported to today’s Belarusian capital earlier were liquidated in the ensuing period in the context of operations taking place over several stages in or outside the ghetto. Overall, very few people from the first transports to Minsk in Nov. 1941 evaded this fate. All of the other ones – including Julius and Grete Marcus as well as their son Erich, their daughter-in-law Elsi and their granddaughter Silvia – did not survive the Holocaust.

The same holds true for Julius Marcus’ sisters Ella, murdered in the Chelmno extermination site on 15 Sept. 1942, and Rosalie, who was deported to Theresienstadt on 9 June 1943 and entered into the death roll three months later.


Translator: Erwin Fink

Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

Stand: October 2017
© Klaus Möller

Quellen: 1; 4; 5; 8; Heyl (Hrsg.), Harburger Opfer; Heyl, Synagoge; StaH, 351-11, AfW, Abl. 2008/1, 100114 Wolff, Gerda.
Zur Nummerierung häufig genutzter Quellen siehe Link "Recherche und Quellen".