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Heinrich Schwarz * 1903

Weidenstieg 10 (Eimsbüttel, Eimsbüttel)

HIER WOHNTE
HEINRICH SCHWARZ
JG. 1903
DEPORTIERT 1943
THERESIENSTADT
ERMORDET IN 1944
AUSCHWITZ

Heinrich Schwarz, born on 18 Dec. 1903 in Hamburg, deported to Theresienstadt on 10 Mar. 1943, transferred to Auschwitz on 28 Sept. 1944, murdered

Weidenstieg 10

When the Hamburg Flottbek registry office issued a marriage certificate in Dec. 1945 to the names of Heinrich Schwarz and Ella Nöhren, retroactively valid from 29 Nov. 1944, Heinrich Schwarz had already been "missing” in Auschwitz for over a year, although not yet declared dead. Until the date inserted, the two had been married for eight years and had a six-year-old son.

After a law for restitution of National Socialist marital injustice, the "Law on the Recognition of Free Marriages of Racially and Politically Persecuted Persons” ("Gesetz über die Anerkennung freier Ehen rassisch und politisch Verfolgter”), had come into force on 23 June 1950, Ella Schwarz, née Nöhren, applied for the recognition of her free marriage to be backdated to 18 Dec. 1938, and this request was granted. The couple had not been allowed to marry during the Nazi era, as Heinrich Schwarz was "racially” persecuted. Although a member of the Lutheran Church through baptism, he was considered a "Jew by definition” ("Geltungsjude”) under the Nazi racial laws. As a result, his association with a "non-Jewish woman” was punished as "racial defilement” ("Rassenschande”).

Little is known about the childhood and youth of Heinrich Leopold Schwarz and his sister Helene Minna (born on 11 Aug. 1905), who was two years younger. The father, master butcher Wilhelm August Schwarz, born on 7 May 1873 in Bremerhaven-Wulsdorf (died in Jan. 1942), was baptized and belonged to the Lutheran Church. In 1898, he chose Hamburg as his permanent residence and on 4 May 1899, he married Eva, called Ida, Simonsohn, born on 28 Mar. 1872 in Osterholz-Scharmbek, who was of the "Mosaic” (=Jewish) faith. The father of Eva Ida Simonsohn had also been a butcher. He died in Bremen in 1879.
Of Heinrich Schwarz’s four grandparents, three were of Jewish descent, because even the family of father Wilhelm Schwarz, although baptized, was half-Jewish. Heinrich’s paternal grandmother, Minna Schwarz (born in Eidewarden, died in 1919 at the age of 66 years), bore the maiden name of Rosenberg and was Jewish. Her parents Marcus Rosenberg (1815–1908) and Rosalie Rosenberg, née Levy (1824–1916), are buried in the Jewish Cemetery in Bremerhaven-Lehe.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, Heinrich’s father Willy Schwarz, as he called himself by then, built a butcher’s shop and sausage factory with an adjoining sales shop at Steindamm 142. He owned the building at Steindamm 142 and he lived there as well. The profit of the business amounting to 5,500 marks in taxable income enabled the Prussian citizen by birth to make an "application for admission to the Hamburg Federation [Hamburgischer Staatsverband]” on 23 Dec. 1909. Since his application was accompanied by all the necessary papers and the police authority had no objections, the "supervisory authority for the registry offices” handed him the certificate of admission as early as 14 Jan. 1910.

Heinrich Schwarz followed his father professionally, also becoming a master butcher and working in his father’s business. In addition, a second shop was opened at Silbersackstrasse 21 in the St. Pauli quarter. Economically, the family was doing very well. A friendship with the brothers Otto and Heinrich Spethmann, whose father owned a fish processing company, dated back to this time.
Heinrich’s mother, Eva Ida Schwarz, was a member of the Hamburg German-Israelitic Community (=Jewish Community) eligible to vote since at least 1930, as the electoral register shows. (In contrast, her Jewish religious tax [Kultussteuer] card stated 9 June 1936 as the date of her joining). The children Heinrich and Helene, however, were baptized.

In the course of the year 1933, the business difficulties of Willy and Heinrich Schwarz began. They were no longer allocated slaughter goods, which affected their buying and selling so much that they had to give up the business at Steindamm. In St. Georg, it was known that theirs was a Jewish slaughterhouse, and immediately in 1933, rioting broke out and windows were smeared with anti-Jewish slogans. Willy Schwarz sold the building together with the property in 1935. In the directory, the Hamburg meat wholesaler Hinz, Schulze & Co. then appears as the owner of the company.

Father and son Schwarz were able to continue the business at Silbersackstrasse 21 for a while. In 1934, Heinrich Schwarz had taken over the business as a self-employed master butcher. From 4 Apr. 1935 to 7 July 1938, he was entered in the register of qualified craftsmen, then he returned the business to his father. Wilhelm Schwarz later sold it under duress; it survived the war.

In 1936, the Schwarz family moved to Eimsbüttel into a three-and-a-half-room apartment at Weidenstieg 10. Heinrich Spethmann employed Heinrich Schwarz in 1938 in his company, "Fischindustrie Hansa, Heinrich Rabe,” later renamed "Heinrich Spethmann sen.,” at Heidenkampsweg 86-92, as a "master marinader,” although he was considered a "half Jew,” and Spethmann also supported the Schwarz family to the best of his ability.

After the death of Wilhelm Schwarz in Jan. 1942, his widow was expelled from the apartment, since being Jewish, she was no longer entitled to an apartment. However, she was able to continue residing there, since her "half-Jewish” son acted as a tenant. In July 1942, she received the order to leave for the Theresienstadt "ghetto for the elderly” ("Altersgetto”). She was deported there on 19 July 1942 on the second large transport.

Heinrich Schwarz rented the then vacant room to the Spethmann company driver, Heinrich Schwien, who had been bombed out. Heinrich Schwarz lived in the apartment at Weidenstieg 10 on the second floor for about half a year with his fiancée and their son. On 17 Nov. 1942, he received a letter from the Gestapo that he was a "Jew by definition” ("Geltungsjude”) and that as such, he had to wear the "star” [of David]. He was to arrive at Beneckestrasse 2 the following day and was to leave the apartment by then. He took some household goods with him to his room on Beneckestrasse, which he was to share with a man who was a stranger to him. Heinrich Schwien completed the move with a company-owned truck and continued to reside with his family until his bomb-damaged apartment was restored. In fact, Heinrich Schwarz stayed with Ella Nöhren’s relatives, to whom she had moved with their son. At Beneckestrasse 2, he only remained registered with the police.

The Spethmann brothers’ friendly contact with Heinrich Schwarz was not without consequences for them. Otto Spethmann was summoned to the Gestapo on Rothenbaumchaussee by chief inspector Mecklenburg and threatened that if he continued to support Heinrich Schwarz, he would have to expect to "go to the East” as well. Despite a number of hostilities, Heinrich Spethmann continued to employ his friend until Mar. 1943. When Heinrich Schwarz’ deportation became inevitable, he lobbied, aware of the risk to himself, the Gestapo and the DAF (German Labor Front) to have Heinrich Schwarz "resettled” to join his mother in Theresienstadt.

On 10 Mar. 1943, Heinrich Schwarz was deported to Theresienstadt on a small transport of 50 people, and from there he was transferred to Auschwitz on 28 Sept. 1944, where all traces of his life disappear.

His mother Eva Ida Schwarz, on the other hand, experienced the liberation of the Theresienstadt Ghetto and returned to Hamburg.

Heinrich’s sister Helene Schwarz had married the non-Jewish Hermann Müller and survived the Nazi persecution in the "mixed marriage” ("Mischehe”). After her return from Theresienstadt, Eva Ida Schwarz lived in her daughter’s household on Hochallee, passing away on 25 Aug. 1949.

After the Schwien family moved out, there was a vacancy in the apartment at Weidenallee 10 until Pg. (Parteigenosse, i.e., party comrade of the Nazi party, the NSDAP) Paul Jürgens, DAF- Cell administrator (cell administrator was a political office. The cell administrator was superior to the block leader or block warden), moved into the apartment on his own authority after he had been bombed out on 27 July 1943. Together with two colleagues, he opened a hairdresser’s shop at Weidenstieg 10, which he registered but operated without a permit, as the necessary rededication of the living quarters for commercial use did not take place. Paul Jürgens defended his apartment in 1946 against Heinrich Schwarz’ widow’s claim toward moving back there by alleging Heinrich Schwarz’ membership in the NSDAP and the SA from 1932 to 1935 and by naming witnesses from his surroundings. The Office for Restitution (Amt für Wiedergutmachung) followed their affidavits. By the time inquiries to the Berlin Document Center about Heinrich Schwarz’ party membership were answered in the negative in 1954, the question of housing had already been settled: Paul Jürgens had died in 1947, and because his daughter got married, she was allowed to stay in the apartment and the hairdresser’s shop remained as well.

Ella Schwarz and her son were accommodated in a badly insulated small attic apartment in Bahrenfeld. In 1968, the Berlin Document Center confirmed that Heinrich Schwarz had not belonged to the NSDAP or any of its branches.

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

Stand: September 2020
© Susanne Lohmeyer

StaH 552-1 Jüdische Gemeinden, 992 e 2 Deportationslisten Band 5; StaH 332-4, 571; StaH 351-11, 1966; StaH 351-11, 2145; StaH 351-11, 40200; StaH 351-11, 27437; Hamburger Adressbücher 1900 ff.; StaH 332-7 Staatsangehörigkeitsaufsicht B III, 102983; http://db.yadvashem.org/deportation/transportDetails.html?language=de&itemId=509206; Beate Meyer, "Jüdische Mischlinge", Hamburg 1998, S. 363.
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