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Horst Düring * 1930

Simon-von-Utrecht-Straße 65 (Hamburg-Mitte, St. Pauli)

HIER WOHNTE
HORST DÜRING
JG. 1930
DEPORTIERT 1941
RIGA-JUNGFERNHOF
ERMORDET 26.3.1942

further stumbling stones in Simon-von-Utrecht-Straße 65:
Josef Cohen, Max Düring, Kurt Düring, Elsa Düring

Max Düring, born 19.11.1893 in Cologne, 9.11.1938 imprisoned in Fuhlsbüttel police prison, 12.11.1938 to 15.12.1938 imprisoned in Sachsenhausen concentration camp, died on 1.6.1939 in Hamburg Israelite Hospital

Elsa Düring, née Ascher, born on 5.4.1895 in Hanover, deported to Riga-Jungfernhof on 6.12.1941, died in Riga on 26.3.1942

Horst Düring, born on 5.7.1930 in Hamburg, deported to Riga-Jungfernhof on 6.12.1941, died in Riga on 26.3.1942

Kurt Düring, born on 1.2.1937 in Hamburg, deported to Riga-Jungfernhof on 6.12.1941, died in Riga on 26.3.1942

Simon-von-Utrecht-Straße 65 (formerly Eckernförderstraße, St. Pauli)

The jewish couple Max and Elsa Düring had married in Cologne on 3 November 1916. Max Düring was born there on 19 November 1893 and his wife Elsa, née Ascher, on 5 April 1895 in Hanover. Their children Johanna, born on 11 January 1918, Egon, born on 5 January 1920, and Eleonore, born on 23 December 1920, were all born in Cologne-Kalk. The youngest child, Horst, was born in Hamburg on 5 July 1930.

The family settled in Hamburg in 1928. We know neither the reasons for this nor the family's first residence in Hamburg. The changing addresses on Max Düring's Jewish Community tax card can only be traced from 1935 onwards. The family initially lived at Schlüterweg/Rothenbaumchaussee 101/103, which was a footpath link between Rothenbaumchaussee and Schlüterstraße in the affluent neighbourhood of Rotherbaum. The family moved into a rear building at Wexstraße 38 in Hamburg-Neustadt in July 1936, probably as a result of the rapidly deteriorating income situation for Jews. In 1938 or 1939, they lived as subtenants in the basement together with F. Cohn at what was then Eckernförderstraße 65 (now Simon-von-Utrecht-Straße) in the St. Pauli district, and finally at Grindelallee 87.

Max Düring earned a living for his family as a merchant. We do not know what he traded in.

Egon Düring attended the Talmud Tora School until 1934 and then began a commercial apprenticeship with the company Theodor Gelles, Import/Export, on Hopfenmarkt. He had to break off his apprenticeship because his jewish master, who later emigrated from Germany, was forced to sell his business for far less than it was worth. Egon Düring then worked as an errand boy for various companies.

Horst Düring, of school age from Easter 1937, attended the Talmud Tora School. We do not know whether Eleonore and Johanna Düring attended the Israelite Girls' School.

After finishing school, Johanna Düring worked as an apprentice and then as a saleswoman at the company L. Wagner, ‘Kurzwaren, Webwaren, Trikotagen, Spielwaren’ at Elbstraße 70/84 in Hamburg-Neustadt. On 1 February 1937 she had a son, Kurt, whose father we do not know.

In 1937, Egon Düring was summoned to the Gestapo (Secret State Police) several times because he was suspected of listening in on a Moscow radio station. As a result of the abuse he suffered during the interrogations, he lost the hearing in one ear. In October 1938, he fled Germany with his sister Johanna, initially by train to Antwerp, from where they managed to travel on to the USA. Johanna's son Kurt stayed back in Hamburg with his grandparents' family.

According to the Jewish community's religious tax file, Eleonore Düring took a job as a domestic servant with the jewish Mularski family at Heinrich-Barth-Straße 1 (see www.stolpersteine-hamburg.de) after completing her vocational training.

Max Düring was arrested during the pogrom on 9 November 1938, initially sent to Hamburg's Fuhlsbüttel police prison (also known as KolaFu) and then transferred to Sachsenhausen concentration camp on 12 November. After five weeks in prison, he was released on 15 December 1938. It is not known whether his release was also linked to the regular requirement that he leave Germany immediately. According to his death certificate, he died of stomach cancer in the Israelite Hospital on 1 June 1939. Injuries caused by beatings or torture may have hastened his death. At this time, he was still living with his wife Else at what was then Eckernförderstraße 65.

After her husband’s death, Else Düring lived with her daughter Eleonore and probably also with her grandson Kurt at Grindelallee 87 in the Rotherbaum neighbourhood. According to family reports, Eleonore later raved about Grindelallee, where the small remaining family lived until December 1940. At this time, all the remaining family members in Hamburg, the widow Else, her children Eleonore and Horst and her grandson Kurt Düring, had to move to the ‘Jews’ house’ at Neuer Steinweg 78. There they received the order for the planned deportation to Riga on 6 December 1941, which was euphemistically called ‘evacuation’.

The 915 people from Hamburg (753) and Schleswig-Holstein (162) could not be admitted to the ghetto in Riga because a mass shooting of the local Jews was still taking place. The people therefore had to leave the train at the Šķirotava goods station and march to the Jungfernhof estate, six kilometres away. The dilapidated estate consisted of a manor house, three wooden barns, five small houses and cattle stables. Almost 4,000 people (in addition to the Hamburgers, people from transports from Nuremberg, Stuttgart and Vienna) were crammed together there. Many succumbed to the inhumane living conditions in winter. Between 1700 and 1800 of the survivors were shot on 26 March 1942 as part of ‘Aktion Dünamünde’. Those who remained were gradually sent to the Riga ghetto.

It is assumed that Elsa and Horst Düring were murdered on 26 March 1942. If Kurt Düring, who was five years old at the time, survived until then, he will also have been murdered on 26 March 1942. The exact circumstances are not known.

Eleonore Düring was one of the few who survived the horrors of Riga and later the Stutthof concentration camp. We do not know how she managed this. She married Kuba Markusfeld in the USA in 1951. He came from the small town of Volomin/Wolomin, not far from Warsaw. His first name was originally Kiwa. The couple had two daughters, Evelyn and Deborah.

Kuba Markusfeld, born in 1921, had endured a long ordeal in German camps when he was able to travel to the USA from a DP camp (DP - Displaced Persons) in Landsberg/Lech in 1949.

According to his reports, he was called up for forced labour in his German-occupied home town in September 1939 and was soon sent to the Volomin/Wolomin forced labour camp with his family (father and six brothers). From April to September 1942, he performed forced labour in the Warsaw-Wilanów camp. After a terrifying stay in the Majdanek extermination camp, he spent about a year of forced labour until around June 1944 in the Skarzysko-Kamienna camp north of Kielce, a HASAG (Hugo Schneider AG) munitions production site.

He was then sent to Buchenwald concentration camp (prisoner number 67965) on a railway transport of around 100 prisoners. Here, Kiwa Markusfeld reported for transfer to the Schlieben satellite camp in today's Elbe-Elster district, at that time a HASAG production site for anti-tank missiles. An explosion occurred here on 11/12 October, which Kiwa Markusfeld survived unharmed.

This was followed by a stay in the Bautzen concentration camp commando, which was part of the Groß Rosen concentration camp. Finally, he was sent to Nixdorf in what was then the Sudetenland (now Ikulášovice) in northern Bohemia (now the Czech Republic). Production for German armaments was also carried out there.

After liberation, Kuba Markusfeld first travelled to Prague, then to Pilsen and finally arrived in Landsberg/Lech. Here he met his future wife and followed her to the USA in 1949.

Kuba Markusfeld died in 2020, his wife Eleonore Markusfeld, née Düring, in 2010,

Johanna Düring married Arthur Whitehead in the USA. Their daughter Elsie was born from this relationship.

Egon Düring also founded a family in the USA with Florence Guller, from which their children Ellen, Marc and Diane were born.

Stand: January 2025
© Ingo Wille

Quellen: Adressbuch Hamburg 1920 – 1939 (verschiedene Ausgaben); StaH 332-5 Standesämter 1105 Sterberegister Nr. 343/1939 (Max Düring); 213-13 Landgericht Wiedergutmachung 20247 Max Düring, 351-11 Amt für Wiedergutmachung 15348 Egon Düring, 49293 Horst Düring; 522-1 Jüdische Gemeinde Nr. 992 e 2 Band 3 (Transport nach Riga, Listen 1 und 2. Beate Meyer (Hrsg.), Die Verfolgung und Ermordung Der Hamburger Juden 1933-1945, S. 64 ff., Göttingen 2006. Das nationalsozialistische Lagersystem, Zweitausendeins, 3. Aufl. Franfurt/M 1998 S. 690 Volomin/Wolomin, S. 324 (Zwangsarbeitslager für Juden Warszawa-Wilanów), S. 239/566 Außenlager Schlieben des KZ Buchenwald, S. 324/680/688 Skarzysko-Kamienna, S. 276 Bautzen (Außenlager des KZ Groß Rosen); Wolfgang Scheffler, Diana Schulle, Buch der Erinnerung, Die ins Baltikum deportierten deutschen, österreichischen und tschechoslowakischen Juden, München 2003, S. 509, 624.
Dank an Nicole Wines, Enkelin von Eleonore Markusfeld für Erläuterung der Familienbeziehungen.