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Recha Lubelskys Anmeldekarte im Ghetto Lodz
© Archivum Panstwowe, Lodz

Recha Lubelsky (née Stern) * 1904

Löwenstraße 12 (Hamburg-Nord, Hoheluft-Ost)

HIER WOHNTE
RECHA LUBELSKY
GEB. STERN
JG. 1904
DEPORTIERT 1941
LODZ
1942 CHELMNO
ERMORDET

further stumbling stones in Löwenstraße 12:
Ruth-Olga Lubelsky

Recha Lubelsky, née Stern, born on 21 Nov. 1904 in Hamburg, deported on 25 Oct. 1941 to Lodz, deported further on 15 May 1942 to Chelmno and murdered there
Ruth Olga Lubelsky, born on 24 July 1931 in Hamburg, deported on 25 Oct. 1941 to Lodz, deported further on 15 May 1942 to Chelmno and murdered there

Recha Lubelsky came from a Hamburg Jewish family. Her father, Ephraim Stern, born in 1873 in Graetz (today Grodzisk) in what was then the Prussian Province of Posen, today’s Poznan in Poland, had come to Hamburg as a young man, working there as a retailer. He traded, among other things, in eggs, bread, magazines, and household goods. Occasionally, he also served as a shomer in the Paul Hempel bakery at Rutschbahn 18, i.e., as a "guardian” of the Hamburg Jewish Community seeing to it that the bread was kosher, which meant being prepared strictly according to the rules of the religious purity laws. Recha’s mother, Hanna (born in 1877), née Löbenstein, managed the household and tried to supplement family revenues with a modest trade in remnants, so-called lengths, measuring one or two meters (3.5 to nearly 7 ft) in length. She obtained the cloth material from a relative who owned a clothing factory in Berlin. One room of the apartment at Kielortallee 15, second floor, served as a salesroom and warehouse.

In the apartment at Kielortallee 15 – five rooms, a kitchen, and a cubbyhole – the Stern family lived from 1919 until 1933.

Recha, born on 21 Nov. 1904, was the oldest of five children. She was followed by Emil (on 27 Oct. 1906), Sara (born on 2 Apr. 1911), Emmi (born on 19 Sept. 1914, died on 11 Oct. 1921), and Jettchen (born on 16 July 1916). Emil already left the family when he was still a young man. He emigrated to Brazil in 1926, setting himself up as a merchant in Sao Paulo.

From 1911 until 1919, Recha attended the Israelite Girls’ School in Carolinenstrasse. This was the nine-grade school of the German-Israelitic Community, where the students in the senior grades were taught accounting, stenography, and machine sewing as well. Since 1910, classes in housekeeping were offered as well. Thus, this education was oriented toward practical skills, which proved useful to many of the former students, including Recha, especially in the difficult times approaching.

Immediately upon finishing school, in 1919, when Recha had just turned 15, she became a secretary in the office of the German-Israelitic Synagogue Association (Synagogenverband), a group within the Hamburg German-Israelitic Community with an orthodox orientation, located at Bornplatz 8. Once she came of age, she started a business of her own, opening a small stationary and bread store in 1925. In Hamburg, there were thousands of such small stores in the 1920s and even in the 1930s, as a look at the classified directories (keyword: bread) in those days reveals. Recha’s retail outlet seems to have been so modest that she was not mentioned in any of the directories after 1919, at least not under her maiden name of Stern or, after 1926, under Recha Lubelsky.

Indeed, in 1926, she married Haskiel Hemije Adolf Lubelsky (see corresponding entry, www.stolpersteine-hamburg.de), a Jewish man of Polish descent, born on 22 Jan. 1898 in Pabianice. This town, located near Lodz, belonged to Russia at the time of his birth and it was characterized by a textiles industry beginning to flourish in those days. Haskiel’s father was a tailor there, though emigrating with the family to the German Reich in 1898 – Haskiel had just been born – and eventually settling in Nuremberg. Luck was not on Haskiel’s side in terms of his private and occupational life, and his marriage with Recha failed as well. At the beginning of 1933, she separated from her husband, and at her persistent instigation, the marriage ended in divorce in 1934. Haskiel was found the sole guilty party.

The marriage had produced two children: Marcus, born on 4 Apr. 1931, and Ruth Olga, born on 24 July 1932. The children stayed with their mother. The father certainly visited the children and occasionally took them to stay with him in his apartment – much to Recha’s displeasure – but any additional support was not to be expected from him.

As it was, despite all of his efforts to make a living as an electrician, magazine and bread vendor, as an operator of a magazine subscription service, or of a tiny lending library, he barely managed to eke out an existence for himself. Moreover, the dreadful time for Jews in Germany had only just begun. Since 30 Jan. 1933, state-organized racism made survival more difficult every day.

For Recha, a Jewish woman, it was no longer possible to find an adequately paid permanent position in the occupation she was trained for, as a secretary, and by then she had given up the unprofitable bread shop. She tried anything to provide for herself and the children. In mid-1936, she vacated her apartment on Heinrich-Barth-Strasse and rented a place on Löwenstrasse (four rooms, one small side room). She rented out two rooms to subtenants. In the "house registration” card file (Hausmeldekartei), two single men aged around 40 are entered. Possibly, they were there for room and board. Recha stood in here and there, whenever an opportunity presented itself, as a temporary worker in offices, and she did sewing work. The machine sewing classes she had taken at school now proved useful.

The parents helped her in her struggle to survive with the meager resources they could just barely make available, and these funds became increasingly scarce for themselves, too. Her mother, Hanna, had gradually downsized her trade in remnants in the course of 1933, then giving it up entirely – due to the effects of the Nazi propaganda and ant-Jewish ordinances, the familiar customers stayed away, and the small circle of regular customers fell apart. The Stern couple gave up their apartment and moved to cheaper accommodation at Bornstrasse 5, on the ground floor. There, Ephraim took on minor janitorial work. However, he died as early as Dec. 1935 at the age of 62.

Recha applied for welfare assistance. This yielded for her and the children 17.70 RM (reichsmark) a week. She hoped for salvation in emigration and tackled the arduous and lengthy authorization procedure, initially for Britain. In a letter composed in English, she wrote in 1938, "…until a short while ago, there was work to do in my occupation, and during the last month, I was sewing linens and currently I am learning to mend linens in order to become more perfect in this field. I assume that I will find a suitable occupation abroad. Of course, I am familiar with any kind of housekeeping work and I am certain that I will be able to familiarize myself with different work very quickly. In terms of my knowledge of the English language, which I learned at school, I am currently striving to become more perfect in this respect, too...”

In fact, in spring of 1939, Recha finally received a tax clearance certificate (Unbedenklichkeitsbescheinigung) for departure to Britain, but this meant having met only part of the conditions. She was required to fill out a huge number of forms, obtain certificates, and all of this involved fees and expenses, paying the "Reich flight tax” ("Reichsfluchtsteuer”), and at any rate, the complete preliminary financing of the entire undertaking had to be covered and documented down to mark and pfennig. Recha allowed her tax clearance certificate to lapse.
One hope was fulfilled: Marcus got a spot on the "children transport” (Kindertransport) from Hamburg to Britain on 25 July 1939. This was, for the time being, a great stroke of luck. For this trip was one of the last ones taking Jewish children to safety. With the invasion of Poland by Germany on 1 Sept. 1939 and Great Britain’s entry into war two days later, these rescue operations ended.

Shortly afterward, however, Recha was dealt a heavy blow. On 19 Feb. 1940, the Gestapo suddenly arrested her directly in her apartment, without any judicial decision or court judgment and without any consideration for daughter Ruth Olga, left behind alone at the age of eight. Recha was a "protective custody prisoner” ("Schutzhaft-Gefangene”). She was taken to the Fuhlsbüttel Gestapo prison. What had she done wrong though, in what way had she aroused the displeasure of the Aryan masters? One clue is provided by the condition under which she was released again on 11 March: She, the Jewish woman, was "a substantial danger to Aryan men.” Therefore, she was to leave the country and immediately proceed with her emigration, the document went on. Someone must have denounced her, perhaps due to actual, perhaps though fabricated contacts to a non-Jew, be it because of envy, jealousy, or out of the everyday racist madness.

Apparently, daughter Ruth Olga was taken care of by the Paulinenstift in those weeks, the Jewish orphanage for girls at Laufgraben 37. In Recha’s Jewish religious tax (Kultussteuer) file card kept by the Jewish Community, the date of 30 Mar. 1941, i.e., shortly before her release from Gestapo detention, contains the following note: "Entirely destitute, was in the concentration camp for four weeks. During this time, various items were pawned according to pawn ticket on file.” We do not know just what these items were. What is certain, however, is that Recha was not able to redeem them.

All of Recha’s renewed efforts to get out of this Germany failed. She attempted the Philippines, Palestine, and Shanghai. To this end, she even obtained the tax clearance certificate in June 1940 – once again facing the unsolvable problem: financing the flight. This certificate, too, expired.

Recha was no longer able to afford the apartment on Löwenstrasse, despite renting out rooms to subtenants. In the 1941 edition of the Hamburg directory, we find her residing at Klosterallee 9, on the fourth floor. (This house no longer exists. It was located on the site of today’s Grindel high-rises). The entries for this fourth floor in the 1940 to 1943 editions give an idea of the fates, sufferings, and catastrophes that Jewish men and women had to experience in those years:

In 1940, only one occupant is listed for Klosterallee 9, fourth floor: Brinkmann.

In 1941, suddenly ten names are listed on the fourth floor, including Recha Lubelsky, now with the [compulsory] addition of "Sara.” Six further names with the addition of "Israel” are listed as well. Moreover, the place accommodated, somewhat surprisingly, a police sergeant (Wachtmeister) by the name of W. Spiering.

In 1942: Lubelsky, R. Sara; Rosenstein, O. Israel; Goldberg, W. Israel; Goldberg, K. Israel; Nathan, M. Israel; Frankenthal, S. Israel. And the already mentioned police sergeant W. Spiering.
We must assume that the Jews named had been driven from their apartments or no longer been able to pay their rents and that they were forced to seek shelter elsewhere and to move closer together. When one considers, moreover, that Recha had not found accommodation there just by herself but with her daughter, we must also assume that the other people mentioned were possibly accompanied as well, thus rendering the floor overcrowded, packed full with persecuted persons whose lives were threatened.

In 1943: The floor was vacated of Jewish men and women almost entirely: only one Goldstein, K. Israel, is still listed. Where did all of them go? W. Spiering was still there. He had risen to become a precinct senior police sergeant (Revieroberwachtmeister).

Recha Lubelsky and Ruth Olga left Klosterallee 9 for good on 24 Oct. 1941. According to orders from the Hamburg Gestapo headquarters, they had to report to the [former] Masonic Lodge building on Moorweide, for further processing of their deportation. The destination of the so-called "resettlement” ("Aussiedlung”) was not provided to them. On the deportation list, Recha received the consecutive number 573, Ruth Olga number 574. The occupation entered for Recha was seamstress.

On the morning of 25 October, the mother and daughter, along with 1,032 other Hamburg Jews, were taken to the Hannoversche Bahnhof train station in the harbor and transported from there to the Lodz/Litzmannstadt Ghetto.

In the register of residents of the ghetto, the data for 2 Nov. 1941 contains the entry: Recha and Ruth Olga Lubelsky moved into a room at Hohensteiner Strasse 43, apartment no. 7, together with five persons overall.

The card entitled "deregistration” dated 20 May 1942 recorded: Recha and Ruth Olga Lubelsky left their apartment in Hohensteiner Strasse on 15 May 1942, with the reason provided: Wysiedlenie. What sounds like a medical term is the Polish word for "resettlement”/expulsion. It means that daughter and mother Lubelsky were taken on the transport on 15 May from the ghetto to the Chelmno external camp, for immediate murder in the gas vans.

Recha had reached the age of 37, Ruth Olga the age of 10.

At that time, Recha’s former husband, Haskiel Adolf Lubelsky, was detained in the Bremen-Oslebshausen penitentiary. Since he had started a relationship with a non-Jewish German, he was arrested and sentenced to six years in prison for "racial defilement” ("Rassenschande”) in 1938. With the period of pretrial detention calculated against his sentence, he would have had to be released on 16 June 1944. However, according to an ordinance dating from 1942, all Jewish inmates of German prisons were to be taken out of prison and transferred to Auschwitz, i.e., to be murdered in a gas chamber. This is what happened to Haskiel as well. He arrived in Auschwitz on 14 Jan. 1943. By 10 February at the latest, he was no longer alive. He had reached the age of 45. He is commemorated by a Stolperstein at Ifflandstrasse 10/11 in Hohenfelde.

The killing program of the Nazis also cost the lives of Recha’s mother Hanna Stern, her sister Jettchen Stern, and the Aunt Toni Löbenstein (born in 1880), Hanna’s sister. In the latter years, the three women had lived together at Rutschbahn 38 and then at Grindelallee 178. They were deported to Riga on 6 Dec. 1941 and murdered there.

Recha’s meager belongings in Klosterallee were confiscated by the Nazi authorities and, along with other spoils, auctioned off by the "office for the utilization of confiscated assets" ("Dienststelle für die Verwertung eingezogenen Vermögens”) of the Chief Finance Administrator (Oberfinanzpräsident) in the court bailiff’s office, Drehbahn 36 branch, on 2 and 3 Jan. 1942. The highest proceeds were fetched by item 22, a sewing machine of the "Leifermann” brand. The auctioneer had noted the target price of 100 RM (reichsmark) in red pen. Recha’s sewing machine yielded 40 RM for the Nazi state.

Recha’s sister left Germany as early as 1933 via stopovers in Sweden and Denmark, where she worked as a domestic help and nanny. In addition, she also took preparatory courses (hachshara) there toward settling in Palestine. In 1936, at the age of 25, she arrived in Haifa. Initially, she worked in agriculture. She married the transport worker Simon Eschwege from Frankfurt, with whom she had two children.

Marcus, Recha’s son, was eight and a half years old when he was separated from his mother and sister. Like so many of the children taken to Britain, he had a very difficult time finding his way and getting on his feet professionally later on, not to mention coping with the pain of parting and the loneliness in a foreign setting. Despite constant financial distress, Marcus nevertheless succeeded in attending secondary school and learning a respected trade. He would have liked to become an architect. He had even already passed the admission exam to the Manchester Architect College with distinction but in the end he was unable to afford studying and therefore, he abstained, as bitter as that was for him.
He became a goldsmith and settled in London.


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

Stand: March 2017
© Johannes Grossmann

Quellen: 1, zu Ephraim Stern, Hanna Stern, Emil Stern, Sara Stern, Recha Lubelsky, Haskiel Adolf Lubelsky; 2, FVg 8133; 4; 5; 8; StaH 522-1 Jüdische Gemeinden, 992 e 2, Bände 1 (Litzmannstadt) und 3 (Riga); StaH 351-11 AfW, 3638 (Hanna Stern), 36438 (Sara Eschwege, geb. Stern), 49838 (Marcus Lubelsky); StaH 376-3, VIII C c, Zentralgewerbekartei 1915 – 1945; StaH 332-5 Standesämter, 1083 und 466/1935; 8807 und 248/1926; 840/1921, Nr. 457; StaH 213-8 Gefängnisverwaltung, Abl. 2, 451 a E 1, 1e; StaH 214-1 Gerichtsvollzieherwesen, Auktionen, 468; Archiwum Panstwowe, Lodz (Getto-Archiv), Melderegister, Recha und Ruth Olga Lubelsky, PL_39_278_1011_32554 und 32555 sowie 32564 und 32565; Adressbücher Hamburg 1900 bis 1945, Edition im Internet; StaH Meldewesen, Film 2355; Das Jüdische Hamburg. Ein historisches Nachschlagewerk, Institut für die Geschichte der deutschen Juden (Hrsg.), Göttingen 2000; Chabad Lubawitsch-Informationen zu Tora und Judentum, www.de.chabad.org/ Stand 15.1.2013.
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