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Herbert Eyck * 1901

Marienthaler Straße 15 (Hamburg-Mitte, Hamm)

HIER WOHNTE
HERBERT EYCK
JG. 1901
DEPORTIERT 1941
ERMORDET IN
RIGA

Herbert Eyck, born on 19 Dec. 1901 in Berlin, deported to Riga, Jungfernhof on 6 Dec. 1941

Marienthaler Strasse 15

Herbert Eyck and his brother Kurt, seven years his senior, came from a Jewish family in Berlin and arrived in Hamburg after the First World War without their parents, the merchant Sally Eyck and Isabella, née Busch, attracted by the employment opportunities offered by the port. They went to sea; documented are voyages by Kurt in 1923 as a sailor on the "Arfeld” to New Orleans and by Herbert in 1924 as a stoker on the "Rödelheim” to Wilmington/North Carolina and Galveston/Texas.

In 1925, Kurt registered a peddling trade in raw products such as flowers, but also in pictorial works. In 1928, the brothers obtained a joint trade license for trading in fruit, toys, waste paper, etc. They lived at the Hammer Deich.

Both brothers married non-Jewish women. Kurt married Gertrud Riedrich on 24 Nov. 1925, Herbert five years later, on 21 May 1930, Frieda Leinung, born on 7 Nov. 1910 in Frankfurt/Main.

Kurt brought a daughter into the marriage, Else, born on 20 Aug. 1920; Herbert became father to two daughters: Edith, born on 30 Mar. 1931; and Frieda, born on 14 July 1932, named after her mother. Both children were baptized and belonged to the Lutheran Church like their mother. Herbert Eyck joined the Hamburg German-Israelitic Community on 3 Feb. 1936. Since he was considered unemployed, he paid no community tax.

Herbert and Frieda Eyck’s marriage was divorced on 24 May 1936. Herbert Eyck thus lost the little protection that a "privileged mixed marriage” ("privilegierte Mischehe”) offered him. It is not clear from the available documents with whom the children lived.

In 1938, the brothers had their trade license revoked. Kurt found a job as a messenger in the Gustav Welscher laundry. It is not known what work Herbert was doing.

With the Greater Hamburg Law of 1937, the Jewish communities of Altona, Harburg-Wilhelmsburg, and Wandsbek were also added to the Hamburg Jewish Community, which was renamed "Jewish Religious Organization reg. soc.” ("Jüdischer Religionsverband e.V.”) from 1938 onward. Anyone considered a Jew based on the Nuremberg Laws [on race] was forced to join it. Membership of the "Reich Association of German Jews” ("Reichsvereinigung der deutschen Juden”), which was under the authority of the Reich Security Main Office, was voluntary, on the other hand, for "Jewish crossbreeds” ("Mischlinge”) or Jews living in "mixed marriages” ("Mischehen”). It is not known why Herbert Eyck voluntarily chose this membership, perhaps because it provided him with information about orders and bans.

Herbert Eyck moved as a subtenant to Marienthaler Strasse 15, from there to Eschenstieg 3 in Eimsbüttel, and finally to Hegestieg 12 in Eppendorf. Apparently, he was obliged to work in Otterndorf and afterward received unemployment benefits, which enabled him to pay child support for his daughters.

In Oct. 1941, the deportations of Hamburg Jews began. Herbert Eyck was ordered to report for the fourth transport, which led to Riga on 6 Dec. 1941. Since the ghetto there was overcrowded, the 753 Hamburg deportees were first taken to the Jungfernhof, a derelict farming estate. All traces of Herbert Eyck’s disappear at that point.

Daughter Edith was registered with the authorities as residing at Hammer Deich 119 until July 1943. After the Hamburg firestorm, she was evacuated to Brockdorf/Wilster and worked as an agricultural domestic help for her guardian, Hermann Weuster.
Daughter Frieda emigrated to Sweden.
In 1950, her mother married a cousin of Kurt and Herbert Eyck, the merchant Harry James Eyck, born on 4 Apr. 1899 in Berlin.
Kurt Eyck emigrated to the USA with his wife Gertrud in 1950 and returned to Hamburg ten years later, where he passed away on 29 Dec. 1963.

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

Stand: September 2020
© Hildegard Thevs

Quellen: 1, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9; Hamburger Adressbücher, StaHH, 335-2 Personenstandsregister;
351-11 Wiedergutmachung, 14857, 16378, 25545; 376_2, Spz VIII C 1, Gewerbeanmeldungen; 522-1 Jüdische Gemeinden, Mitgliederzählung 1928, 390; Passagierlisten.
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