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Gertrud Carsch (née Sollmar) * 1884

Gneisenaustraße 35 (Eimsbüttel, Hoheluft-West)

HIER WOHNTE
GERTRUD CARSCH
GEB. SOLLMAR
JG. 1884
DEPORTIERT 1941
ERMORDET IN
MINSK

further stumbling stones in Gneisenaustraße 35:
Max Carsch

Johanna Koppel, née Carsch, born on 15 Sept. 1883 in Emmerich/Rhein, murdered on 23 Sept. 1940 in the Brandenburg/Havel euthanasia killing center
Gertrud Carsch, née Sollmar, born on 25 Apr. 1884 in Hamburg, deported on 8 Nov. 1941 to Minsk
Max Carsch, born on 10 Nov. 1880 in Emmerich, deported on 8 Nov. 1941 to Minsk
Stolpersteine in Hamburg-Hoheluft-Ost, at Gneisenaustrasse 17

Sophie Cohn, née Koppel, born on 25 Dec. 1891 in Hamburg, deported to Theresienstadt on 19 July 1942, deported to Auschwitz on 12 Oct. 1944, murdered
Stolperstein in Hamburg-Neustadt, at Grossneumarkt 38 (planned)

Johanna Koppel, née Carsch, was born on 15 Sept. 1883 in Emmerich/Rein as the daughter of the Jewish married couple Jacob Carsch and Julie, née Rhée. Jacob Carsch, born on 8 Sept. 1838 in Mühlheim/Ruhr, held the office of principal teacher and cantor in Emmerich. He was a respected man in his community. His wife Julie was born on 9 Feb. 1847 in Preussisch Oldendorf, a small town in today’s Detmold administrative district in North Rhine-Westphalia.

In addition to Johanna, Julie and Jacob Carsch had eight other children: Helene Carsch, born on 13 Feb. 1872 in Borgentreich near Höxter in East Westphalia; Bertha Carsch, born on 14 June 1876; Hermann Carsch, born on 23 Dec. 1877, Emma Carsch, born on 1 May 1879; Max Carsch, born on 19 Nov. 1880; Simon Carsch, born on 3 Mar. 1882; Frieda Carsch, born on 13 June 1887; and Hugo Carsch, born on 26 Nov. 1890, all in Emmerich. Hermann, Simon, and Frieda died in infancy.

Johanna Carsch left her hometown for the first time in Oct. 1900, when she, at the age of 17, notified the authorities that she was moving to Barmen, today part of Wuppertal. She returned at the end of Jan. 1901, but left Emmerich again on 4 February. After many changes of residence, she finally went to Wilhelmshaven in 1909, and by then she was 26 years old. Her registration card for the city of Emmerich indicated as her occupation "Modistin” (an old term for milliner).

We do not know whether she already knew Oscar Koppel, a Hamburg merchant born in 1887, or how and when she met him. Oscar Koppel, the son of the Jewish married couple Meyer Koppel and Emma, née Blogg, was born on 11 Mar. 1887 in Hamburg-Neustadt, at 1st Elbstrasse 28. He had an older sister, Sophie, born on 25 Dec. 1891.

Oscar Koppel and Johanna Carsch married in Hamburg on 12 Apr. 1912. According to the marriage register, Johanna Carsch was unemployed at the time of her wedding.

The childless couple lived in Hamburg-Neustadt, then for many years at Gneisenaustrasse 17 in Hoheluft-Ost. Johanna’s brother Max Carsch also resided there for several years.

Max Carsch initially lived in Hamburg as a traveling salesman for tailoring supplies. He had been married to Gertrud, née Sollmar, born on 25 Apr. 1884 in Hamburg, since 1909. In 1910, when daughter Edith was born, the couple moved into an apartment at Gneisenaustrasse 35. In addition to his happy family life, Max Carsch’s professional career was also very promising. He rose from a traveling salesman to a wholesaler for tailor’s supplies. In the mid-1920s, the Carsch family moved to the Grindel quarter, first to Isestrasse 30 and later to Grindelallee 100.

The initial residential proximity of the Koppel and Carsch families to each other suggests that there was a close bond between them. This was important for Johanna Koppel when her husband died on 2 Oct. 1937 at the age of 50. Only four months later, on 10 Jan. 1938, she was admitted to the Hamburg-Friedrichsberg State Hospital (Staatskrankenanstalt Hamburg-Friedrichsberg). Johanna Koppel was transferred from Friedrichsberg to the Hamburg-Langenhorn State Hospital (Staatskrankenstalt Hamburg-Langenhorn) as early as 18 Jan. 1938. She stayed there until 23 Sept. 1940.

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. After all Jewish patients from the North German institutions had arrived in Langenhorn, they were taken to Brandenburg/Havel on 23 Sept. 1940, together with the Jewish patients who had lived there for some time. On the same day, they were killed with carbon monoxide in the part of the former penitentiary converted into a gas-killing facility. Only one patient, Ilse Herta Zachmann, escaped this fate at first (see corresponding entry).

It is not known whether, and if so, when relatives became aware of Johanna Koppel’s death. In all documented death notices, it was claimed that the person concerned had died in Chelm or Cholm. On the birth register entry of Johanna Koppel it was noted that the records office Chelm II had registered her death on 30 Jan. 1941 under number 331/1941. Those murdered in Brandenburg, however, were never in Chelm (Polish) or Cholm (German), 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.

Johanna’s siblings Hermann, Simon, Frieda, and Hugo died a natural death. Helene Carsch married the Dutch baker Meyer de Zoete and moved to Arnhem with him. She was murdered in Auschwitz on 3 Dec. 1942. Emma Carsch became the wife of the brush manufacturer Ernst Kirner from Bollschweil in the Black Forest Hexental Valley, not far from Freiburg. We have no details about her fate. Bertha Carsch lived in Berlin. She was deported to Theresienstadt on 5 Aug. 1942. She died there on 27 Jan. 1943.

In 1941, Johanna Koppel’s brother Max Carsch and his wife Gertrud, née Sollmar, had to leave their apartment at Haynstrasse 20 in Hamburg-Eppendorf, which they had moved into in 1938, and live in very cramped conditions in the so-called "Jews’ house” ("Judenhaus”) at Haynstrasse 7. There, in Nov. 1941, the deportation order reached them. They were among the 968 Jewish people deported to Minsk on 8 Nov. 1941. Max and Gertrud Carsch were killed there.

In 1919; Johanna Koppel’s sister-in-law Sophie Cohn, Oscar Koppel’s older sister born 1891, married the tailor Samuel Cohn from Adelnau (today Odolanow), 120 kilometers (about 75 miles) south of Posen (today Poznan in Poland). Her address at the time of her marriage was Glashüttenstrasse 36 in the St. Pauli quarter. For many years, the couple lived in the Lazarus-Gumpel-Stift, a residential home, at Schlachterstrasse 46 in Hamburg-Neustadt. Samuel Cohn died on 26 Mar. 1942 at the age of 68. Sophie Cohn, now widowed, received the order for the transport to Theresienstadt, which left Hamburg on 15 July 1942. On 12 Oct. 1944, she was deported to Auschwitz and perished there.

Johanna Koppel is commemorated by a Stolperstein at Gneisenaustrasse 17, while for Gertrud and Max Carsch, Stolpersteine are to be laid at Gneisenaustrasse 35. A Stolperstein is planned for Sophie Cohn at Grossneumarkt 38 (formerly Schlachterstrasse 46).

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

© Ingo Wille

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); 332-5 Standesämter 2150 Geburtsregister Nr. 1261/1887 Oscar Koppel, 2261 Geburtsregister Nr. 5233/1891 Sophie Koppel, 3132 Heiratsregister Nr. 717/1909 Max Carsch/Gertrud Sollmar, 8151 Sterberegister Nr. 90/1937 Oscar Koppel, 9545 Heiratsregister Nr. 190/1912 Oscar Koppel/Johanna Carsch; 351-11 Amt für Wiedergutmachung 36203 Edith Carsch, 352-8/7 Staatskrankenanstalt Langenhorn Abl. 1/1995 Aufnahme-/Abgangsbuch Langenhorn 26.8.1939 bis 27. 11941; UKE/IGEM, Archiv, Patienten-Karteikarte Johanna Koppel der Staatskrankenanstalt Friedrichsberg; Stadtarchiv Emmerich a. Rh., Standesamt Emmerich Geburtsregister 219/1883 Johanna Carsch; Stadtarchiv Emmerich a. Rh., Meldekartei Emmerich Mikrofilm 2/78, Meldekarten der Familie Carsch. Brocke/Pelzer/Schüürmann, Juden in Emmerich, S. 234f. Böhme/Lohalm, Wege in den Tod, S. 14, 44ff.
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