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Hans Koetzer * 1915

Lattenkamp 84 (Hamburg-Nord, Winterhude)

HIER WOHNTE
HANS KOETZER
JG. 1915
EINGEWIESEN 1926
ALSTERDORFER ANSTALTEN
´VERLEGT` 1938
HET APELDOORNSCHE BOSCH
DEPORTIERT 1943
AUSCHWITZ
ERMORDET 25.1.1943

Hans Dorus Koetzer, born on 17.4.1915 in Amsterdam, admitted to the Alsterdorf Asylum ("Alsterdorfer Anstalten", now Evangelische Stiftung Alsterdorf) on 14.5.1926, deported to Holland on 19.3.1938, there admitted to the Apeldoornsche Bosch Asylum, deported to Auschwitz on 22.1.1943, murdered on 25.1.1943

Lattenkamp 84, Winterhude

Hans Dorus Koetzer was born in Amsterdam on 17 Apr. 1915. He was son of the Jewish merchant Bernard Koetzer, born in Amsterdam on 27 June 1880, and his wife Elisabeth, née Rudelsheim, born in Amsterdam on 3 Jan. 1881, who was also Jewish. Hans Dorus had two older siblings, both born in Amsterdam: Max Henri, born 21 June 1906, and Susanna Rosette, born 25 Oct. 1909. The family held Dutch citizenship.

The family moved their residence to Hamburg in 1923. Bernard Koetzer worked as an agent for Dutch and Danish cheese companies. After his school years, Max Henri Koetzer initially worked as a commercial clerk, until he opened his own store in the Lattenkamp 84 apartment, where he ran a wholesale food business.

The family was first mentioned in the Hamburg address book in 1926 with residence at Lattenkamp 84 in Winterhude. Hans Dorus' father was subsequently co-owner of the Koetzer & Merloo commercial agency, which had its headquarters at Gröningerstraße 21, later Gröningerstraße 14.

The little biographical information available on Hans Dorus Koetzer is taken from an index card that had been created for the Hamburg Health Passport Archive, which was set up from 1934 onwards for the purpose of the "hereditary-biological inventory" of the population. According to this, Hans Dorus Koetzer made his first steps only at the age of seven. In 1924, an attempt was made in Lübeck to improve his ability to walk by means of a tendon transplant. (In this operation, injured tendons are removed and replaced by healthy ones) Nothing is known about the success of this operation.

On 14 May 1926 Hans Dorus Koetzer was admitted to the Alsterdorf Asylum (Alsterdorfer Anstalten, now Evangelische Stiftung Alsterdorf). He often was a patient in the institution hospital. According to the records on the hereditary health card, he suffered, among other things, from bronchitis, eczema, angina, measles and furuncles. He was also suspected of having TB.

Hans Dorus Koetzer, as much can be gathered from the hereditary health card, received visits from his mother in Alsterdorf. During these visits, he pinched her and pulled her hair. He was said to have beaten his fellow patients and to have been very agitated if he had not his way.

After 1933, the Alsterdorf Asylum had developed into a model National Socialist facility in which eugenic ideas and, along with them, forced sterilizations as "prevention of unworthy life" were supported. It was only a question of time, until the persecution of the Jews in the German Reich led to corresponding measures also in the Alsterdorf Asyslum. A decision made by the Reich Finance Court on 18 March 1937, was taken as a pretext for preparing the dismissal of all Jews from the Alsterdorf Asylum. Pastor Friedrich Karl Lensch, director of the institution and a member of the SA, claimed this decision to be a danger of losing the non-profit status under tax law if Jews remained in the institution in the future. A letter of 3 Sept. 1937, sent to the Hamburg welfare authority, contained 18 names of "Jewish Residents (Zöglingen) who are housed here at the expense of the welfare authority," including that of Hans Dorus Koetzer. Beginning on 1 Febr. 1938 the Jewish residents were forced out of the Alsterdorf Asylum, until it finally got rid of the last Jewish Asylum resident in April 1940.

Hans Dorus Koetzer was the second person who had to leave the Alsterdorf Asyslum. As noted on his aforementioned hereditary health card, he was deported to the Netherlands on 19 March 1938 due to his Dutch citizenship. The asylum Apeldoornsche Bosch, located in the east of the city of Apeldoorn, registered him in the community on 12 Apr. 1938. This Jewish psychiatric institution had been founded in 1909 by the "Vereeniging Centraal Israëlietisch Krankzinnigengesticht in Nederland" (Association of Central Israelite Mental Hospital in the Netherlands) and had developed into a flourishing institution.

After the institution had remained relatively untouched by the German occupation and the negative effects of the Second World War for the first two and a half years, the situation changed drastically in spring 1942. On 1 Apr. 1942, the non-Jewish staff was dismissed. Hans Dorus Koetzer - as his mother reported - had to wear the "Jewish star" from 2 May 1942. From June 1942, Jews were no longer allowed to travel in the Netherlands, so that almost no visitors came to Het Bosch. On 19 Jan. 1943, SS commander Ferdinand aus der Fünten ordered the complete evacuation of the institution. In the night of 21-22 Jan. 1943 nearly 1,300 people, patients and staff alike, were transported to Auschwitz. None of them came back, not even Hans Dorus Koetzer. He was murdered in Auschwitz on 25 Jan. 1943.

Since April 1990, a monument in Apeldoorn commemorates the Jewish patients and staff who were deported on 21 Jan. 1943.

Hans Dorus Koetzer's sister had left Hamburg in August 1933 and moved to Eindhoven. The business activities of Bernard and Max Henri Koetzer deteriorated rapidly from 1937 onwards as a result of discrimination against Jews, and were finally made impossible in 1938. Hans Dorus Koetzer's parents and brother moved to their hometown of Amsterdam in May 1938, because - as Bernard Koetzer put it in his later application for restitution - "the condition in Germany with regard to political development was no longer bearable for us as Jews."

After the German invasion in the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg on 10 May 1940, the situation became increasingly dangerous for the Koetzer family in Holland as well. To escape deportation, Bernard and Elisabeth Koetzer hid until the end of the war in Laren, a small town near Amsterdam, with a German woman, Mrs. L. Stavorinus-Herr. Their daughter Susanne Rosette had married in the meantime. She also survived. We do not know more details, as well as we have no information how Max Henri Koetzer managed to escape deportation.

Translation: Elisabeth Wendland

Stand: July 2023
© Ingo Wille

Quellen: Adressbuch Hamburg; StaH 351-11 Amt für Wiedergutmachung 5202 Elisabeth Koetzer, 31181 Max Henri Koetzer, 40459 Hans Dorus Koetzer; Evangelische Stiftung Hamburg, Archiv, Erbgesundheitskarteikarte über Hans Koetzer, Aufnahmebuch Eintrag Nr. 5468; Mitteilung von NaamGezicht@kampwesterbork.nl vom 5.10.22 über Hans Koetzer und Familie. Cecile aan de Stegge, Mangelversorgung, Hungersterben und Mord in niederländischen Anstalten 1940-1945 in: "Euthanasie"-Verbrechen im besetzten Europa, Zur Dimension des nationalsozialistischen Massenmords, Hrsg. Jörg Osterloh, Jan Erik Schulte, Sybillle Steinbacher, S. 202 ff., Göttingen 2022. https://yvng.yadvashem.org/index.html?language=en&s_id=&s_lastName=Koetzer&s_firstName=Hans&s_place=&s_dateOfBirth=&cluster=true (Zugriff am 15.10.2022), https://www.apeldoornschebosch.nl/du/geschichte (Zugriff am 15.10.2022), https://www.genealogieonline.nl/genealogie-swaab-hoogland/I10632.php (Zugriff am 15.10.2022).