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Porträt Reinhold Laski
© StaH

Reinhold Laski * 1887

Kleine Johannisstraße 9 (Hamburg-Mitte, Hamburg-Altstadt)

HIER WOHNTE
REINHOLD LASKI
JG. 1887
EINGEWIESEN 1940
HEILANSTALT LANGENHORN
"VERLEGT" 23.9.1940
BRANDENBURG
ERMORDET 23.9.1940
"AKTION T4"

Carl Reinhard (Reinhold) Laski, born on 11 May 1887 in Hamburg, murdered on 23 Sept. 1940 in the Brandenburg/Havel euthanasia killing center


Stolperstein in Hamburg-Altstadt, at Kleine Johannisstrasse 9

Carl Reinhard Laski was the youngest of five children of a Jewish merchant family in Hamburg. In his birth certificate, his first name was initially indicated as Carl Reinhold, but was then corrected to Carl Reinhard. His grandfather Arnold (Abram Blum) Laski came from Lubraniec in Poland (until 1942 Lubranitz, then until 1945 Lutbrandau) and around 1855 founded a company at Valentinskamp 81 as a house and insurance broker. Carl Reinhard’s father, Harry Laski, born in Hamburg on July 5, 1850, who initially worked as an authorized signatory at various companies in the grain industry, also set up his own business in 1876 as a "house and insurance broker.” The following year, he married Ida Wulffsohn, a native of Hamburg as well, on 22 Nov. 1854. The company was located at Ness 1 (in 1881), at Brodschrangen 15, at Grosse Reichenstrasse 44 (in 1900) and later, doing business as "Harry Laski & Sohn,” at Kleine Johannisstrasse 9.

In 1881, the Laski family lived at Osterstrasse 26, then at Heussweg 60 in Eimsbüttel, in the early 1920s, at Maria-Louisen-Strasse 90 in Hamburg-Winterhude, and finally, at Alsterchaussee 28 in the Harvestehude quarter. The family was obviously doing well economically.

Carl Reinhard Laski was born half an hour after his twin sister Wera on 11 May 1887. Wera died at the age of five on 1 Sept. 1892. Her grave is located in the Jewish Cemetery on Ilandkoppel in Hamburg-Ohlsdorf.

In Carl Reinhard Laski’s later medical record, he was diagnosed with "cerebral palsy, encephalitis (inflammation of the brain) in childhood, probably following [one] case a few weeks after birth” and "traumatic epilepsy (as a result of brain injury).” What made things more difficult for him was the fact that he already needed glasses at the age of six and went blind early in his youth after a failed operation. According to his own information, he had attended the private Wahnschaff School at Neue Rabenstrasse 15, a school preferred by liberal Jewish families.

When exactly Carl Reinhard Laski’s odyssey began through various institutions is not known. Until 1913, he was housed in the Silberbergsche Anstalt in Shelm, "a Jewish rural boarding house for mentally disabled boys” ("Landheim für geistigbehinderte Knaben”) near Elberfeld-Barmen. Afterward, he went to the special boarding school on Albertushof in Bremen. On 4 July 1922, Carl Reinhard was admitted to the former Alsterdorf Asylum (Alsterdorfer Anstalten, today Protestant Alsterdorf Foundation [Evangelische Stiftung Alsterdorf]). He was described as a quiet and tolerant person who integrated himself into his surroundings and the house rules and was capable of light housework and gardening. Carl Reinhard Laski spent 16 years of his life in Alsterdorf until he was transferred to the Langenhorn "sanatorium and nursing home” ("Heil- und Pflegeanstalt” Langenhorn) on 28 Oct. 1938 at the behest of Pastor Friedrich Karl Lensch, the director of the institution. Pastor Lensch allegedly feared that due to the Jewish "charges,” he would lose recognition as a non-profit institution.

One of the assessments concerning Carl Reinhard Laski in Langenhorn was as follows: "Is happy that he can find the toilet alone, he comes from the Alsterdorf Asylum because he is Jewish. Walks in the hall, feels his way along the beds. During the day in the observation room [Wachsaal – a room in which patients were immobilized and underwent continuous therapy] in the wicker chair, behaves calmly, takes part in the processes in the room by laughing or shaking his head when something is said. He is getting along pretty well. Listens attentively to the conversations of the surrounding area. Plays ‘Mensch ärgere Dich nicht’ [a board game similar to Parcheesi] with fellow patients. Also noted in the files is the visit of a nephew, "with whom he laughs and tells a lot of stories.”

On 24 Jan. 1940, Carl Reinhard Laski was transferred again, this time to the Strecknitz "sanatorium” in Lübeck. A note in his patient file indicates, "Two days in bed, then chair in the observation room, harmless and quiet patient, does not cause any problems in terms of care. Always responsive in the same way. He gets along fine despite his blindness.” At the same time though: "Speaks up brazenly for other sick persons. Is also cared for by other patients. Pushy toward doctor.”

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.

Reinhard Laski arrived in Langenhorn on 16 Sept. 1940. On 23 Sept. 1940, 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 that had been converted into a gas-killing facility, people were immediately driven into the gas chamber and murdered with carbon monoxide. Only Ilse Herta Zachmann escaped this fate at first (see corresponding entry).

We do not know whether, and if so, when relatives became aware of his death. In all documented death notices, it was claimed that the person concerned had died in Chelm (Polish) or Cholm (German).

Carl Reinhard Laski’s entry in the birth register contains the note indicating "Died no. 359/1941 Chelm II on 31 Jan. 1941 Generalgouvernement [General Government in Poland].” Those murdered in Brandenburg, however, were never in Chelm or 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.

The other members of the Laski family also lost their lives or had to flee Germany due to persecution by the National Socialist state.

Carl Reinhard’s brother Johann Walter Laski, born on 8 Oct. 1882, took over the "Harry Laski & Sohn” Company in 1925 after the death of his father. The mother had already died in 1918. In the summer of 1938, Walter Laski was arrested and accused of "racial defilement” ("Rassenschande”). The Hamburg Regional Court (Landgericht) sentenced him to two years imprisonment on 21 October. With this approach, frequently practiced, Jewish business owners were driven out of professional life and "Aryanization” was initiated. Walter Laski later suspected that his female employee was persuaded by her boyfriend, a member of the Nazi party (NSDAP), to report him to police. Already during his first interrogation, a senior Gestapo official said, "Even if we cannot prove racial defilement or currency racketeering and condemn you on those charges, we will send you to a concentration camp.”

With the help of his friend and business partner Albert Kruse, Walter Laski succeeded in obtaining a suspension of his sentence in Apr. 1940, albeit on condition that he leave the territory of the German Reich by 10 May at the latest. To prevent his company from falling into "National Socialist hands” after all, Walter Laski had it deleted from the company register in Nov. 1938. The attempt made just before his departure to pay a life annuity to his sister Elsa, born on 19 Aug. 1878, and her husband, the merchant Hermann Philipp, born on 15 June 1870 in Anklam, who no longer had any income or means of earning a living, failed due to the lack of permission from the Chief Finance Administrator (Oberfinanzpräsident). Walter Laski could no longer freely dispose of his assets. Elsa and Hermann Philipp committed suicide together in their apartment at Wandsbeker Chaussee 71/73 in Hamburg-Eilbek on 2 Nov. 1941. Their son Herbert, born on 16 Feb. 1903, who was first resuscitated, died two days later of the consequences of his carbon monoxide poisoning.

After the payment of the "Reich flight tax” ("Reichsfluchtsteuer”) and a "security deposit” ("Sicherungshinterlegung”), Walter Laski received a "tax clearance certificate” ("Unbedenklichkeitsbescheinigung”) and escaped to Shanghai, which at that time did not require a visa. His children had already left Germany by this time. Johann Arnold, born on 9 July 1917, fled to Argentina via Britain and the Netherlands. Annemarie, born on 18 Feb. 1913, had been residing in the USA since 1939.

Walter Laski was unable to take abroad his wife Mathilde, née Kallmes, born on 16 Nov. 1888 in Wandsbek, who had been mentally unstable for several years. She had suffered a breakdown after the arrest of her husband and was admitted to the "Psychiatric and Mental Hospital of the Hamburg Hansische University” ("Psychiatrische und Nervenklinik der Hansischen Universität Hamburg”) in Friedrichsberg. On 31 Mar. 1939, she arrived at the Langenhorn "sanatorium and nursing home” ("Heil- und Pflegeanstalt” Langenhorn) on a collective transport. From there, her family was able to obtain her discharge on 4 May. Since then, she was cared for as a private patient by a Jewish nurse. Together with her nurse Henriette Cohen, née Behrens, born on 17 Feb. 1885, Mathilde Laski was deported to the Litzmannstadt (Lodz) Ghetto on 25 Oct. 1941. In the Memorial Book entitled Hamburger jüdische Opfer des Nationalsozialismus ("Hamburg Jewish Victims of National Socialism”), Mathilde Laski’s date of death is indicated as 12 July 1942. Her family, however, was told by a nurse that she died shortly after being deported to the "camp” at the end of Nov. 1941.

Mathilde Laski and Henriette Cohen are commemorated by Stolpersteine at Woldsenweg 13 (see corresponding entry). For the Philipp couple and their son Herbert, Stolpersteine were laid in the Wandsbeker Chaussee 81 in Hamburg-Eilbek. Carl Reinhard (Reinhold) Laski is commemorated by a Stolperstein at Kleine Johannisstrasse 9 in Hamburg-Altstadt.

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

© 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); 314-15 Oberfinanzpräsident FVG 8045 Laski, Walter; 331-5 Polizeibehörde-Unnatürliche Sterbefälle 3 Akte 1941/1718; 3 Akte 1941/1733; 332-5 Standesämter 9022 Geburtsregister Nr. 2123/1887 Carl Reinhard Laski; 9022 Geburtsregister Nr. 2122/1887 Wera Laski, 7873 Sterberegister Nr. 1357/1892 Wera Laski, 7253 Sterberegister Nr. 1067/1941 Hermann Philipp, 7245 Sterberegister Nr. 793/1941 Herbert Philipp, 1922 Geburtsregister Nr. 3364/1878 Elsa Laski, 2578 Heiratsregister Nr. 1361/1877 Harry Laski/ Ida Wolffsohn, 9768 Sterberegister Nr. 3578/1918 Ida Laski, 8970 Geburtsregister Nr. 3753/1882 Johann Walter Laski; 352-8/7 Staatskrankenanstalt Langenhorn Abl. 1/1995 Aufnahme-/Abgangsbuch Langenhorn 26. 8. 1939 bis 27. 1. 1941; Abl. 1/1995, 25351 Laski, Reinhard; Abl. 2/1995, 25862 Laski, Mathilde; 522-1 Jüdische Gemeinden 922 e 2 Deportationslisten; Auskunft des Standesamtes Hamburg-Mitte über die Beischreibung auf dem Geburtsregistereintrag von Carl Reinhard Laski. Wunder, Michael/Genkel, Ingrid/Jenner, Harald, Auf dieser schiefen Ebene gibt es kein Halten mehr. Die Alsterdorfer Anstalten im Nationalsozialismus, Hamburg 1987. Das Buch der alten Firmen der Freien und Hansedtadt Hamburg, Leipzig ca. 1928, S. X15. Marien-Lunderup, Regina, Die Verlegung in die Lübecker Heilanstalt Strecknitz, in: Böhme/Lohalm, Wege in den Tod, 1993, S. 233ff. IGdJ (Hrsg.), Heinsohn, Kirsten (Redaktion), IGdJ (Hrsg.), Das jüdische Hamburg, Ein historisches Nachschlagewerk, Göttingen 2006, S. 226. Behm, Britta L./Heinrichs, Gesa/Tiedemann, Holger (Hrsg.), Das Geschlecht der Bildung – Die Bildung der Geschlechter, Opladen 1999, S. 74.
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