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Mauritz Kapper *

Dammtorstraße 28 (Oper) (Hamburg-Mitte, Neustadt)

1934 Flucht nach Holland
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• http://www.verstummtestimmen.de/
  (Die Stolpersteine vor der Staatsoper wurden aus Anlass der Ausstellung 'Verstummte Stimmen' verlegt. Weitere Informationen finden Sie unter dem vorstehenden Link)

further stumbling stones in Dammtorstraße 28 (Oper):
Gustav Brecher, Dr. Max Fraenkel, Hermann Frehse, Camilla Fuchs, Jacob Kaufmann, Ottilie Metzger-Lattermann, Kurt Abraham Salnik, Joseph Schmidt, Magda Spiegel, Viktor Ullmann, Bruno Wolf

Mauritz Kapper, born on 19 Mar. 1882 in Amsterdam, survived

Dammtorstrasse 28 (Opera)

Maurits Kapper, who wrote his first name himself with an "s,” was born in Amsterdam in 1882 as the son of the Jewish Dutch citizens Meijer Kapper and Judith Kapper, née Leon. He went to school in Amsterdam and received singing lessons in his native town. After completing his vocal training, he obtained engagements at the Berlin-Charlottenburg opera, the Darmstadt Hoftheater, and the Koblenz Stadttheater (among other times, in 1911/12). Since 1 Sept. 1916, he appeared as a tenor in the choir of the Hamburg Stadttheater (city theater).

Maurits Kapper was listed in the Hamburg directory from 1919 to 1933 with the residential address of Marktstrasse 28 (St. Pauli) in Hamburg. In Sept. 1912, he had married Josina Cornelia van Diepenbeek (born on 25 Mar. 1883), who belonged to the Christian denomination. Maurits Kapper’s monthly income in 1931 amounted to 346 RM (reichsmark); in addition, he earned about 50 RM monthly as a choir singer of the "Neue Dammtorsynagoge” (at Beneckestrasse 4) dedicated in 1895. At the end of the 1933/34 season, employees of the Hamburg Stadttheater were also dismissed because of their Jewish background, which was communicated to them a quarter of a year earlier. These included the choir singers of the Hamburg City Theater, David Cantor (born on 28 Sept. 1896 in Grzymalow), Slamo Fischl (born on 15 Aug. 1895), Camilla Fuchs (born on 1 Feb. 1896 in Prague), Abraham Salnik (born on 17 Oct. 1894 in Riga), and the childless Maurits Kapper, who lived in a "non-privileged mixed marriage” ("nicht privilegierte Mischehe”) according to subsequent National Socialist "race criteria.” In Nazi Germany, he had no more prospects of a job as a singer and decided to return to the Netherlands.

In applying for funds to which he was entitled, in 1934 neither Maurits Kapper nor the Stadttheater mentioned a dismissal for "racial” reasons. On 28 Mar. 1934, the Administrative Director of the Hamburg State Theater wrote to the Finance Administration of the Hanseatic City: "Our choir singer Mauritz Kapper, born on 19 Mar. 82, will leave the Hamburg State Theater Association as of 1/8 1934 and will retire on that day. Mr. Kapper was born in Holland and has his mother living in his hometown, whose maintenance he has to cover. He therefore has the wish to move to the Netherlands as of 1 August of this year and asks that his pension be sent to Holland. Since a senate resolution is necessary for this, we join the request of Mr. Kapper and also politely ask for permission to send the pension to Holland. Heil Hitler!” On 14 Apr. 1934, Carl Werdermann (born in 1884, a member of the NSDAP since 1 May 1933), the head of the finance administration in charge, forwarded the letter to State Secretary Georg Ahrens (1896–1974, a member of the NSDAP since Dec. 1932) with his own supplementary consent. As head of the Hamburg State Office, the central administrative authority, Ahrens was also responsible for the political and anti-Jewish dismissals of state employees; he was also, among other things, a member of the supervisory boards of the later Hamburg State Opera and the Deutsches Schauspielhaus. On 20 Apr. 1934, "State Secretary Ahrens, as State Commissioner for the Hamburg State Theater” approved by way of ordinance "that the pension due to the choir singer Mauritz Kapper [...] be transferred to him when his residence is transferred to the Netherlands. The Senate reserves the right to revoke this approval at any time.”

Thus, the Kapper couple moved to the Netherlands, where Maurits Kapper received his pension from Hamburg. After the invasion of the neutral Netherlands by the German Wehrmacht in May 1940, Maurits Kapper was again exposed to Nazi persecution. From 15 May 1942, he had to wear the "Jews’ star” ("Judenstern”) clearly visible on his clothes. In the 1960s, he wrote to the Restitution Office (Amt für Wiedergutmachung) in Hamburg: "The two major raids against the Jewish population of Amsterdam took place in May and June 1943. Since I lived in so-called non-privileged mixed marriage and since in many cases Jewish persons of this category were arrested and deported as well, I [myself] escaped the fate threatening me by hiding in the town of Tenge near Apeldoorn in the house of Mrs. Harmsen from Jan. 1943 to mid-Dec. 1943. My illegal life at that time had both a prison-like and an inhumane character, since I had to hide, I was not allowed to enter the street, and I was cut off from any contact with the outside world. Only after my wife, who had stayed behind in Amsterdam, had managed (in mid-Dec. 1943) to get a so-called mixed marriage stamp [Mischehenstempel] for me, was I able to return to my apartment in Amsterdam.”

Maurits Kapper survived the persecution. He died in the Netherlands in 1984.

When the Stolperstein was laid in front of the former Hamburg City Theater in 2007, Maurits Kapper’s biography was still completely uncharted. The information on his Stolperstein was therefore formulated rather vaguely.

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

Stand: May 2020
© Björn Eggert

Quellen: StaH 131-10 I (Senatskanzlei – Personalabteilung I), 1934 Ma 2/1 (Versorgung des Chorsängers Mauritz Kapper bei Wohnsitzverlegung in das Ausland); StaH 351-11 (Amt für Wiedergutmachung), 5817 (Maurits Kapper); StaH 351-11 (AfW), 19186 (David Cantor); Stadtarchiv Koblenz, Bestand 623 Nr. 8547, S.43 (Gagenliste des Stadttheaters zu Coblenz 1.10.1911–27.3.1912); Adressbuch Hamburg 1919, 1920, 1923, 1927, 1930, 1933; Hamburger Abendblatt 11.8.2006, Hans-Juergen Fink: Verstummte Stimmen, Wer kennt die Schicksale?; Kopitzsch/Brietzke (Hrsg.): Biografie, Band 4, S. 18–20; Lohalm: über Georg Ahrens in: Hamburg im Dritten Reich, S. 97, 131.