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Fred Sally Hockenheimer * 1881

Mansteinstraße 15 (Eimsbüttel, Hoheluft-West)

1944 Theresienstadt
28.10.1944 weiter deportiert nach Auschwitz

Fred Sally Hockenheimer, born 25 Aug. 1881 in Bruchsal/Baden, deported 19 Jan. 1944 to Theresienstadt, deported 28 Oct. 1944 to Auschwitz

Mansteinstraße 15 / Eiffestraße 123/125, Hamm

Fred Sally Hockenheimer’s father Karl was born in 1847 in the town Hockenheim, which explains the origin of the family name. The merchant Fred Sally Hockenheimer was born in Bruchsal. His mother was called Frieda, née Meyer. His father was a merchant and ran the malt factory Hockenheimer & Hilb and a grain and feed business. Fred Sally was the youngest of five children. He had three sisters and one brother.

Since the middle of the 19th century, the Jews of Bruchsal were of great economic significance for the city. The tobacco and hops wholesale industry was almost exclusively in their hands. Several important industrial operations were founded by Jewish entrepreneurs. In 1880 there were 730 Jews in Bruchsal, 6.4 percent of the 11,373 residents.

In 1922 Fred Sally Hockenheimer founded his own company in Hamburg, registered under the name "Waste Products House" in the commercial register. It specialized in the import and export of rags and waste products. According to the address book from 1927, the registered office was located at Hopfensack 17 and in 1938 at Hammerdeich 28/34. During the NS time, the company was renamed "F. S. Hockenheimer – Rohproduktenhandel (raw product business)". On 21 Sept. 1926 Sally Hockenheimer, now 45 years old, married Helene Ida Dorothea Stöver (born 11 Nov. 1904) who was twenty years his junior. Their son Karl Heinz was born on 17 May 1927. Fred Sally’s wife came from Harburg and was of non-Jewish background. Fred Sally Hockenheimer left the Jewish Community in 1924. Presumably his religion no longer meant anything to him. When Fred Sally and Helene wed, Fred Sally Hockenheimer lived at Hammer Landstraße 62. They then moved into an apartment together at Dimpfelsweg 26 in Hamm. They still lived there during the time of the NS. The street no longer exists today. It connected Hammer Landstraße and Eiffestraße. Since the 1960s, a Dimpfelweg exists elsewhere which, just like the old Dimpfelsweg, refers to the merchant family Dimpfel.

"For the time being, their emigration is hampered by the difficulties for Jews to immigrate to other countries, and by the financial question, since he is penniless." With this explanation, the regional finance director forwent a "security order" on 1 Nov. 1938 against the company owner Fred Sally Hockenheimer, residing at Dimpfelsweg 26. Since foreign currency restrictions were introduced in 1935, he had to limit himself to domestic trade. His sales dropped so severely that he had to dissolve the company on 30 Sept. 1938. His wife was forced to work to ensure upkeep of the family. Fred Sally Hockenheimer planned to immigrate with his family to the USA. The authorities had set up a number of bureaucratic hurdles to make it difficult for Jews to emigrate and to rob them of their assets. With the suspicion of capital flight, tax arrears and unreported property, their emigration was delayed and ultimately prevented, particularly since Fred Sally Hockenheimer was penniless and in debt after the loss of his company, as he himself gave resignedly to protocol. His wife alone earned a living for them as an office worker in Harburg. Fred Sally Hockenheimer was, for the time being, protected from deportation by his "privileged" mixed marriage.

The series of air raids from "Operation Gomorrha" in Juli/August 1943 turned into a personal catastrophe for Fred Sally Hockenheimer. During the night from the 27th to the 28th of July 1943, as large parts of the city were laid to waste and a fire storm raged in the areas east of the Alster, his son and wife perished. Karl-Heinz Hockenheimer was only 17 years old. During the bombing, Fred Sally Hockenheimer was not in his apartment. It is not clear whether at that point in time he might have already lived with the Rothgiesser Family at Mansteinstraße 15 to protect his non-Jewish wife and son or whether he first moved to Hoheluft-West after his apartment on Dimpfelsweg was destroyed. In Sept. 1943 Fred Sally Hockenheimer went to the police to investigate whether his wife and son had been found and registered. The police record stated: "I myself was not at the house the night of the bombing. My wife and my son always went into the air-raid shelter when the alarm sounded. During the night in question, they were also in the shelter, according to surviving residents. There is no doubt that my two specified relatives also lost their lives. Among the objects found directly on the bodies are a platinum watch, a pearl necklace, 1 brooch (resembling a spider), 1 breast pin, property of my wife. I couldn’t find anything belonging to my son since he never wore anything. However he must certainly have perished since he never left his mother. From the surviving residents I also learned that my wife had suffered a nervous breakdown during the attack and that she had begged Karl-Heinz not to leave her in that state, which the boy certainly will have done. I ask that the items I have named be handed over to me." The belongings were handed over to him.

At Mansteinstraße 15 he found accommodation in the apartment of the painter Richard Rothgiesser. We do not know whether the two were personally acquainted or whether Rothgiesser had to make a room available for people who had been bombed out. Richard Rothgiesser also had a Jewish background for Fred Sally Hockenheimer would not have been allowed to live with an "Aryan" family. Richard Rothgiesser survived and after the war still lived in the house on Mansteinstraße which was still standing. He was protected by the "privileged mixed marriage" to his wife Margarethe and "only" harassed and shut out of the Reich Chamber of Fine Arts (Reichskunstkammer). However he suffered severe health problems due to persecution. He died in 1950.

Fred Sally Hockenheimer was deported on 19 Jan. 1944 from Mansteinstraße 15 to Theresienstadt. Since his wife had "fallen", as it was officially called, his "privileged mixed marriage" no longer protected him. The last trace of him was a postcard he wrote in Theresienstadt on 9 July 1944 to Juda Elias Katz. It said, "I have become the manager of the opera and this fills my time well. I was particularly pleased with the jam and shaving soap (in your package)." Just shy of four months later, on 28 Oct. 1944, he was taken to Auschwitz within the framework of the autumn transports (Herbsttransporte) and presumably killed immediately.

Fred Sally’s sister Anna Joseph, née Hockenheimer, was, like him, a victim of the Shoah. Deported to Theresienstadt in 1942, she was killed in Auschwitz in 1944.

Translator: Suzanne von Engelhardt

Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

Stand: October 2016
© Stefanie Antoniadis-Wiegel / Susanne Lohmeyer / Hildegard Thevs

Quellen: 1; 2 (FVg 4263; R 1938/3442); 4; 5; StaH 332-5 Standesämter, 3538 und 606/1926; StaH 552-1 Jüdische Gemeinden, 992 e 2 Deportationslisten Bd. 5; StaH 552-1, Abl. 1993, Ordner 15; Volkszählung 1939; HAB II 1933 und 1942; Maike Bruhns, Kunst in der Krise, Bd. 2, S. 332; Stadtarchiv Bruchsal; mündliche Mitteilung von H. V.