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Abraham Salnik
© Susan Sugar

Kurt Abraham Salnik * 1894

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

1939 Flucht nach Riga verschollen

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

Kurt Abraham Salnik, born 17 Oct. 1894 in Riga, deported in July 1941 to Riga Ghetto

Dammtorstraße 28 (Opera House)

The Jewish singer Abraham Salnik was born in Riga in 1894, which at the time belonged to Czarist Russia. The year of his birth suggests that he may have served in World War I. He probably completed his classical voice training in Riga. After the founding of the independent Republic of Latvia at the end of 1918, he never returned to his homeland and thus became stateless.

As of June 1921 he was a member of the choir at the Hamburg State Theater. The German-Israelite Community of Hamburg listed him as a member as of 1924. His first residential address was in Hamburger Neustadt, in the vicinity of Abraham Salnik’s work place, at Drehbahn 25 III, as a lodger of the foreman Julius Barckhan. As of 1928 Abraham Salnik was then the main tenant at Juliusweg 17 III (Barmbek). The five-storey building belonged to the distiller Ernst Westphal, whose store was located on the ground floor of the building; of the 12 tenants in 1939, four were laborers, four white-collar workers and one a civil servant. By that time, Abraham Salnik had married Frieda Salnik, née Kurljantschick (born 2 Oct. 1896 in Raban, Lithuania) who was also stateless. His religion tax card at the Jewish Community also noted their daughter Ljuba Angela (born 18 May 1923 in Hamburg), who, like her parents, had the status of being stateless.

When President of the Reich Hindenburg handed over government business to the NSDAP in Jan. 1933, the antisemitism of the National Socialists gradually became binding for public administrative agencies and government institutions. At the end of the 1933/34 season, the Hamburg State Theater dismissed its Jewish employees due to their heritage. They lost their jobs as of 30 June 1934. Abraham Salnik’s annual income was 3,400 Reich Marks (RM) in 1933. The director of the State Theater covered himself in a letter to the NSDAP Senator Hans Nieland regarding the financial proceedings: "Dear Mr. Senator! As you know, we did not renew the contracts of five non-Aryan choir members. Of those five members, one went into retirement, two were paid out by the retirement fund and two were entitled to retirement but could not yet go into retirement because they had not reached the age of 40. The latter two are Mr. Salnik and Mr. Fischl. They would now like to remain voluntary members entitled to government subsidy. (…)”

According to his religion tax card of the Jewish Community, Abraham Salnik received monthly crisis support starting on 1 July 1934, but it was so small that he no longer had to pay any contributions to the Jewish Community as of the summer of 1934. During the years from 1935 to 1938, the family of three lived in Hamburg from a monthly pension of 121 RM (32 RM pension from the retirement fund, 89 RM state subsidy) and probably from savings; it was impossible for Abraham Salnik to find employment in his profession in antisemitic National-Socialist Germany, especially since he could not become a member of the Reich Chamber of Culture, which was obligatory for work in his field. His loss of prospects and growing ostracism in Germany led to their decision to leave National-Socialist Germany. In Nov. 1937, Hamburg Police Headquarters issued Salnik a so-called Nansen passport for stateless persons (named after the Norwegian explorer Fridtjof Nansen 1861-1930 upon whose initiative passports were issued for stateless individuals as of 1922). It was valid for two years. Salnik applied to the USA for visas for himself and his family. He purchased tickets on 17 Feb. 1939 for passage on 15 Aug. 1939 from Rotterdam to New York on the Holland-America Line. In Feb. 1939 he contracted the Hamburg branch of the moving company Schenker & Co. to ship a Liftvan (wooden container) from Hamburg to Baltimore. A relative of his wife, Samuel Krämer, was given power of attorney to receive the large transport box.

The visas for the USA, thought to be a certainty, did not arrive in time. The tickets for passage lapsed and the identity document became invalid in Nov. 1939. In that emergency situation, the Salniks decided to travel to Riga by train. In Latvia, which had been independent since the end of 1918, the autocratic regime of the "Leader” Ulmanis had ruled the country since 1934 with the support of the military. The Salnik Family had hoped to escape persecution and possible expulsion from Germany by moving to Latvia. In the beginning they lived at Marijas iela 56/58 dz. 11 in Riga while they continued to wait for their US visas.

The Jewish Community in Hamburg noted on their religion tax cards that Abraham Salnik had given written notice that he was leaving the Community due to his move abroad on 3 June 1939. The Memorial Book of the Federal Archive in Koblenz notes a different date, according to which he returned to his hometown Riga in Feb. 1939. In the census from May 1939, the name Salnik no longer appears.

When the visas for Abraham Salnik’s wife and his daughter finally arrived in Riga, on 5 Dec. 1939 and 30 Nov. 1939 respectively, his visa was still being processed. The family decided that the 42-year-old Frieda Salnik and their 17-year-old daughter Angela Salnik should go on ahead and Abraham Salnik would follow them later. Due to the outbreak of war in Sept. 1939 and Riga’s somewhat remote location, their departure became more difficult and more expensive: His wife and daughter flew by airplane from Riga to Stockholm. From Göteborg they took passage on a ship on 18 Jan. 1940, 3rd class to New York on the S.S. Drottningholm. Abraham Salnik who stayed behind now experienced the occupation of the Baltic States in the summer of 1940 by the Soviet Union and in the summer of 1941 by National-Socialist Germany.

During the latter part of July 1941, all of Riga’s Jews had to register at Latvian police stations by order of the German occupiers to be registered for assignment to a ghetto. Abraham Salnik is said to have moved into the territory of the future ghetto as early as July 1941 due to threats of sanctions.

The Latvian press published reports on the final completion of measures to wall off the ghetto on 23 Oct. 1941. The Gestapo had issued instructions to select an area in the Moscow suburb of Riga which served as a ghetto for Riga’s Jews once it was surrounded by a double barbed-wire fence and secured by guards. The mostly one or two-story wooden houses were shabby, often did not have a toilet or a connection to the sewer system. Roughly 30,000 people were herded together into the Riga Ghetto, three times the number of inhabitant prior to the fencing in. Riga’s city administration refused to be responsible for the maintenance of the ghetto. All ghetto residents who were able to work were obliged to work for the German occupiers. On 29 Nov. 1941 German police officers, Latvian police and Latvian firing squads forced their way into the ghetto and killed about 15,000 people on site and outside the ghetto over dug out mass graves until the following evening. In a second extermination operation of the SS on 8 Dec. 1941, 11,000 people were killed, most of them in mass graves in Rumbula Forest.

Abraham Salnik survived the massacre. Like all prisoners, he had to do forced labor, but we do not know what work gang he was assigned to. According to prisoner file cards of the Riga Security Police, he was deported on 9 Aug. 1944 from Riga (Gertrud Straße 83 Wb) to Stutthof concentration camp where he was given prisoner number 56689. The precise circumstances of his death in the terribly overcrowded and poorly supplied camp are not known, nor is the date of his death.

In 2007 a Stumbling Stone was laid for Abraham Salnik outside of his former place of work in Hamburg.

The spelling of his name varies at times in the researched archives. His first name was noted as Abraham on his religion tax card, in the Hamburg address book his first name was abbreviated as "A”, the Memorial Book of the Federal Archive in Koblenz shows him as Kurt Abraham. There were also two different spellings of his last name: Salnik and Salnick.

Translator: Suzanne von Engelhardt
Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

Stand: May 2020
© Björn Eggert

Quellen: 1; 5; StaH 351-11 (Amt für Wiedergutmachung), 16475 (Abraham Salnik); Adressbuch Hamburg 1928, 1930, 1933, 1935, 1938, 1939; Hamburger Abendblatt, Der Fall Abraham Salnik, 19.10.2006 (Abschrift des Schreibens an Dr. Nieland vom 3.11.1934); Heer/Kesting/Schmidt (Hrsg.): Stimmen, S. 50 (Kurzbiografie Abraham Salnik); Landeszentrale für politische Bildung Hamburg (Hrsg.): Hamburg im Dritten Reich, S. 97 (Hans Nieland); Press: Judenmord, S. 66, 68, 71, 73, 89, 90, 91 (Getto Riga); www.ancestry.de (Passagierliste der S.S. Drottningholm, Januar 1940; US-Grabindex 1. Mai 1985 South Hills Hebrew Cemetery, Frieda Salnik, eingesehen 17.10.2016).
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