Search for Names, Places and Biographies

Walter Seligsohn * 1928

Cremon 3 (vormals Nr. 24) (Hamburg-Mitte, Hamburg-Altstadt)

HIER WOHNTE
WALTER SELIGSOHN
JG. 1928
DEPORTIERT 1941
ERMORDET IN
MINSK

further stumbling stones in Cremon 3 (vormals Nr. 24):
Gertha Seligsohn, Ludwig Seligsohn, Hermann Seligsohn

Hermann Seligsohn, born on 8 Dec. 1922 in Hamburg, murdered on 23 Sept. 1940 in the Brandenburg/Havel euthanasia killing center

Ludwig Seligson, born on 31 Dec. 1883 in Altona, deported to Minsk on 8 Nov. 1941

Gertha Seligsohn, née Mendel, born on 8 Oct. 1890 in Hamburg, deported to Minsk on 8 Nov. 1941

Walter Seligsohn, born on 29 July 1928 in Hamburg, deported to Minsk on 8 Nov. 1941

Stolpersteine in Hamburg-Altstadt, at Cremon 3, in front of the Neptunhaus (formerly Cremon 24)

Hermann Seligsohn’s parents, Ludwig and Gertha Seligsohn, née Mendel, married on 15 Aug. 1922 and during the years of being married lived in an old warehouse building at Cremon 24 in Hamburg’s historic downtown.

Gertha’s mother, Julie Mendel, had acquired the building on Cremon after the death of her husband Nathan Seligmann Mendel in 1911 and continued the coal business located in Herrengraben 37-39. Gertha Seligsohn came from a large Jewish family in Hamburg’s Neustadt quarter, to which her sister Berta Mendel, born on 6 July 1903, belonged as well (see corresponding entry). Gertha and her siblings had received their vocational training in their father’s coal business. It is said that three sisters graduated from the girls’ high school (Lyceum) of Dr. Jacob Löwenberg. Her brothers attended the "Stiftungsschule von 1815” on Zeughausmarkt (later Anton-Rée-Realschule [a practice-oriented secondary school up to grade 10]; today Anna-Siemens-Gewerbeschule [a vocational school]), which was also open to Christian pupils.

Julie Mendel did not live to see her daughter Gertha marry Ludwig Seligsohn. She died in a sanatorium in Oberneuland near Bremen on 8 Mar. 1921 and was buried in the Jewish Cemetery on Ilandkoppel in Hamburg-Ohlsdorf, next to her husband.

Hermann’s father, Ludwig Seligsohn, born on 31 Dec. 1883, was a native of Altona, as was his older brother Paul, born on 13 Aug. 1882. Their parents, Hermann Seligsohn, born on 12 Mar. 1854, died on 15 May 1918, and Fanny, née Guttmann, born on 21 Feb. 1856, died on 23 Oct. 1936, came from Jastrow in West Prussia (today Jastrowie in Poland) and from Kempen in Silesia (today Kepno in Poland), respectively. Shortly after Ludwig’s birth, they moved from Altona to Hamburg-Neustadt to reside at 2nd Marienstrasse 18 (starting in 1943, Jan-Valkenburg-Strasse). Of their other eight children, only the sisters Helene Minna, born on 21 Jan. 1886 (died on 11 May 1938), and Hedwig, born on 23 Oct. 1892, reached adulthood. Ludwig’s parents then lived for several years at Valentinskamp 42 and at Kohlhöfen 39. In 1912, they moved to a "more upscale” residential area, to Heinrich-Barth-Strasse 6 in the Grindel quarter. In 1918, Ludwig Seligsohn took over the company of his father, who had passed away shortly before. He had also learned the profession of paperhanger and decorator.

Gertha and Ludwig Seligsohn had five children, of whom only two survived. Hermann, the oldest, was born on 8 Dec. 1922 and was given his first name in memory of his paternal grandfather who had died in 1918. Walter, the younger, was born on 29 July 1928. The siblings Ilse, born on 27 July 1926, Kurt, born on 21 May 1927, and Helga, born on 21 June 1930, died in infancy and childhood, respectively.

Hermann Seligsohn had developmental problems at an early age, learned to walk late and could not speak well either.

Around 1930, the Seligsohn couple and their two sons Hermann and Walter moved to the Marcus-Nordheim-Stift, a residential home at Schlachterstrasse 40/41, house no. 5, in the Neustadt quarter of Hamburg. At this location, 27 apartments were available for poor Jewish families. Ludwig Seligsohn had given up the paperhanging business on Heinrich-Barth-Strasse, presumably it was no longer profitable.

The living conditions of the family probably had a negative impact on the parents and the development of the children. The apartment was very cramped and the economic situation poor. Hermann was accommodated several times in the Jewish Wilhelminenhöh children’s home in Blankenese "for convalescence.” After initial attendance of the Talmud Tora School, he had to switch to the school’s kindergarten. He was then enrolled in the "special school” at Mühlenstrasse 4 in Hamburg-Neustadt.

On 18 May 1931, Hermann Seligsohn was admitted to the Johannes-Petersen-Heim, a children’s home in Hamburg-Volksdorf, and two days later transferred to the Landheim Besenhorst, a rural children’s home near Geesthacht. There were no advances at school to report.

Hermann represented a major strain for the home. He was therefore admitted to the Alsterdorf Asylum (Alsterdorfer Anstalten, today Protestant Alsterdorf Foundation [Evangelische Stiftung Alsterdorf]) on 18 Apr. 1932. After initially having been taught only in the "play” and later in the "work school,” his receptivity improved at the age of 13, so that he was successfully instructed in the second and first grade (at that time the highest grades). By this time, Hermann was described as diligent and attentive to the extent of his abilities. However, temporary "states of confusion and contemplation during classes” limited him. Order and cleanliness were criticized, and he was described as a "constant wetter out of laziness.” Reportedly, he was not capable of doing any practical work.

After 1933, the Alsterdorf Asylum developed into a Nazi model operation where eugenics ideas were supported and, associated with them, forced sterilization as "prevention of unworthy life” ("Verhütung unwerten Lebens”). It was only a matter of time before the persecution of the Jews in the German Reich also led to corresponding measures at the Alsterdorf Asylum. A ruling by the Reich Audit Office (Reichsfinanzhof) of 18 Mar. 1937 served as a pretext for preparing the discharge of all Jews from the Alsterdorf Asylum. Pastor Friedrich Karl Lensch, the director of the Alsterdorf Asylum, deduced from the verdict the danger of the loss of non-profit status under tax law if Jews continued to stay in the institution. A letter dated 3 Sept. 1937 to the Hamburg Welfare Authority contained 18 names of "Jewish charges who are accommodated here at the expense of the welfare authority,” including that of Hermann Seligsohn. On 31 Oct. 1938, together with 14 other Jewish residents from Alsterdorf, he was transferred to the Oberaltenallee care home (Versorgungsheim Oberaltenallee) and from there to the Farmsen care home. In Apr. 1940, the Alsterdorf Asylum was eventually able to rid itself of the last Jewish inmate.

In the spring/summer of 1940, the "euthanasia” headquarters in Berlin, located at Tiergartenstrasse 4, planned a special operation aimed against Jews in public and private sanatoriums and nursing homes. It had the Jewish persons living in the institutions registered and moved together in what were officially so-called collection institutions. The Hamburg-Langenhorn "sanatorium and nursing home” ("Heil- und Pflegeanstalt” Hamburg-Langenhorn) was designated the North German collection institution. All institutions in Hamburg, Schleswig-Holstein, and Mecklenburg were ordered to move the Jews living in their facilities there by 18 Sept. 1940.

Hermann Seligsohn arrived in Langenhorn on 18 Sept. 1940. On 23 September, he was transported to Brandenburg/Havel with a further 135 patients from North German institutions. The transport reached the city in the Mark (March) on the same day. In the part of the former penitentiary converted into a gas-killing facility, the patients were immediately driven into the gas chamber and killed with carbon monoxide. Only one patient, Ilse Herta Zachmann, escaped this fate at first.

We do not know whether, and if so, when possible relatives became aware of their deaths. In all documented death notices, it was claimed that the person concerned had died in Chelm or Cholm. Those murdered in Brandenburg, however, were never in Chelm/Cholm, a town east of Lublin. The former Polish sanatorium there no longer existed after SS units had murdered almost all patients on 12 Jan. 1940. Also, there was no German records office in Chelm. Its fabrication and the use of postdated dates of death served to disguise the killing operation and at the same time enabled the authorities to claim higher care expenses for periods extended accordingly.

Hermann Seligsohn’s aunt, Berta Mendel, was deported to the so-called "Brandenburg State Asylum” ("Landespflegeanstalt Brandenburg”) on 23 Sept. 1940, where he was murdered with carbon monoxide on the same day. It is not known whether Berta Mendel and Hermann Seligsohn knew each other. Berta Mendel’s biography can be found in this collection of biographies.

The other members of the Seligsohn family also died in the Holocaust. Ludwig and Gertha Seligsohn, who had last been admitted to the "Jews’ house” ("Judenhaus”) at what used to be Kleine Papagoyenstrasse 11 in Hamburg Altona, were deported with their 13-year-old son Walter to the Minsk Ghetto on 8 Nov. 1941 on a transport comprised of 968 persons and probably murdered there.

Ludwig Seligsohn’s sister Hedwig had married the Harburg clothing dealer Moritz Laser in 1914 and had sons Hermann and Werner with him. This family emigrated to Paraguay.

Hermann, Gertha, Ludwig, and Walter Seligsohn are commemorated by Stolpersteine in Hamburg-Altstadt at Cremon 3, in front of the Neptunhaus (formerly Cremon 24).

Translator: Erwin Fink
Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

Stand: March 2020
© Susanne Rosendahl

Quellen: 1; 4; 5; 9; AB; StaH 133-1 III Staatsarchiv III, 3171-2/4 U.A. 4, Liste psychisch kranker jüdischer Patientinnen und Patienten der psychiatrischen Anstalt Langenhorn, die aufgrund nationalsozialistischer "Euthanasie"-Maßnahmen ermordet wurden, zusammengestellt von Peter von Rönn, Hamburg (Projektgruppe zur Erforschung des Schicksals psychisch Kranker in Langenhorn); 332-5 Standesämter 653 Sterberegister Nr. 138/1911 Nathan Seligman Mendel, 924 Sterberegister Nr. 20/1927 Ilse Seligsohn, 970 Sterberegister Nr. 185/1930 Helga Seligsohn, 1053 Sterberegister Nr. 381/1936 Fanny Seligsohn, 2231 Sterberegister Nr. 4242/1890 Fanny Seligsohn, 3387 Heiratsregister Nr. 901/1920 Julius Nathan/Clara Mendel, 6230 Geburtsregister Nr. 84/1884 Hermann Seligsohn, 8046 Sterberegister Nr. 270/1918 Hermann Seligsohn, 8698 Heiratsregister Nr. 366/1914 Hedwig Seligsohn/Moritz Laser 351-11 Amt für Wiedergutmachung 43663 Inge Lusk, 19009 Jacob Heilbut, 8127 Franziska Rüdiger, 1181 Harry Mendel, 16954 Philipp Mendel, 352-8/7 Staatskrankenanstalt Langenhorn Abl. 1/1995 Aufnahme-/Abgangsbuch Langenhorn 26.8.1939 bis 27.1.1941; 522-1 Jüdische Gemeinden 922 e 2 Deportationslisten; Evangelische Stiftung Alsterdorf, Archiv, Erbgesundheitskarteikarte Hermann Seligmann, Aufnahmebuch. Ebbinghaus/Kaupen-Haas/Roth, Heilen und Vernichten im Mustergau Hamburg S. 63. Wunder, Michael, Auf dieser schiefen Ebene ..., 2016. Thevs, Hildegard, Stolpersteine in Rothenburgsort, Hamburg 2011, Familie Laser, S. 67ff. http://www.dasjuedischehamburg.de/inhalt/nordheim-marcus.
Zur Nummerierung häufig genutzter Quellen siehe Link "Recherche und Quellen".