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Hugo Henle * 1883

Goernestraße 12 (Hamburg-Nord, Eppendorf)

HIER WOHNTE
HUGO HENLE
JG. 1883
DEPORTIERT 1942
THERESIENSTADT
ERMORDET 16.9.1942

further stumbling stones in Goernestraße 12:
Martha Hesse, Nathan Hesse

Hugo Henle, born 20.4.1883 in Heilbronn, deported to the Theresienstadt ghetto on 15.7.1942, died there on 16.9.1942

Goernestraße 12 (Eppendorf)

Hugo Henle was born on 20 April 1883 in Heilbronn on the Neckar, the son of the Jewish merchant Schlomo Henle, called Sigward, and his wife Lina, née Oppenheimer, who was also Jewish. Nothing is known about his childhood and education. He served as a lieutenant in the Reserve Infantry Regiment 256 during the First World War. He was spilled during his four years of service. He was awarded the Iron Cross Second Class, the Hanseatic Cross and the Front Line Fighter Badge.

After the war, Hugo Henle initially rented a flat at Schlüterstraße 16 in the Rotherbaum district of Hamburg. In 1922, he lived for a short time at Abendrothsweg 25, located in what is now the Hoheluft-Ost district, and then at Isestraße 52 in Harvestehude. He joined the Jewish community on 25 April 1922 and in the same year married Klara Erlanger, also from Heilbronn, born on 8 April 1886, who also came from a Jewish family and, like her sisters Martha, married Bloch, born on 26 February 1879, and Cäcilie (Zilli), divorced Lemberger, born on 15 November 1881, had lived in Munich.
Hugo and Klara Henle had a son, Kurt Siegbert, born on 18 February 1924.

In 1919, Hugo Henle founded an agency for shoe factories at Glashüttenstraße 16 in today's Karolinenviertel and shortly afterwards, together with Siegmund Hamburger, who was also Jewish, the company Henle & Hamburger, Schuhwaren-Großhandel und Vertretungen (footwear wholesale and agencies), which was entered in the commercial register in February 1920. The company was located at Alter Wall 44, later Alter Wall 60, near Hamburg City Hall. The company represented well-known shoe factories in Hamburg, e.g. Gebr. Neuberger AG in Bamberg, Hanauer Gummischuhfabrik AG in Hanau, Vereinigte Schuhfabriken Berneis-Wessels in Nuremberg, Silberstein-Neumann in Schweinfurt.

Hugo Henle's professional success was reflected in the family's economic circumstances, which allowed the family to move into a spacious 5 ½ room flat at Oderfelderstraße 13 in Harvestehude in 1924.

After the National Socialists came to power in 1933, the living conditions for the Jewish population in Germany changed drastically. The family now faced increasing discrimination and restrictions. In April 1933, the SA imposed a brutal boycott on Jewish businesses, which were then increasingly marginalised from economic life. Hugo Henle and Siegmund Hamburger's company was not unaffected by this. The two were able to maintain business operations largely as before until 1936, earning between RM 11,000 and RM 12,000 per year from 1934 to 1936. However, this changed when the shoe factories Berneis-Wessels and others cancelled the business relationship. Business results fell sharply in 1937 and 1938. For the 1938 financial year, which ended on 1 November, total net income was only around RM 3,340.

As a result, the Henle family had to downsize their living conditions. After a brief episode at Rehhagen 9 in Eppendorf (now Knauerstraße), they lived in a 3 ½ room flat at Goernestraße 12, also in Eppendorf, from April 1938.

Kurt Siegbert, Hugo and Klara Henle's son, attended the Thedsen public school at Jungfrauental 13 in Harvestehude from 1930 to 1934. As the parents feared that their son might soon have difficulties at a state school, he transferred to the Talmud Tora School in Grindelhof Street in the Rotherbaum neighbourhood in 1934.

Under the impression of increasing persecution, Hugo and Klara Henle took preparatory steps for their emigration to the USA. They intensified their efforts after the pogrom on 9 November 1938, but first ensured their son's safety. Fourteen-year-old Kurt Siegbert left Hamburg on 14 December 1938 on a Kindertransport to England.

The Henle & Hamburger company, whose address was still listed in the Hamburg address book as Alter Wall 60 in 1938, was no longer able to remain there. According to the address book, its last address was Goernestraße 12, the residential address of the Henle family. In 1939, the company was liquidated as a result of the ‘Ordinance on the Elimination of Jews from German Economic Life’.

Siegmund Hamburger, Hugo Henle's partner, and his wife Paula finally also lived at Goernestraße 12. It is unclear to what extent Siegmund Hamburger had to see the dissolution of the Henle & Hamburger company in Hamburg. He fled Germany with his wife in 1939. Siegmund Hamburger was born on 21 February 1894 in Mannheim and married Paula Fuchs, who was born on 1 April 1888 in Weingarten (a neighbouring town of Ravensburg). The couple had two children, Else, born on 14 August 1908, and Ernst, born on 14 December 1912, both born in Mannheim. The children probably left Germany before their parents, as they were not mentioned in connection with their parents' emigration. Siegmund and Paula Hamburger initially travelled to London on 28 April 1939. They were interned there as foreigners for three months. They left Great Britain in November 1940 and travelled to the USA. There the couple settled in New Jersey.

Hugo and Klara Henle lost control of their funds and assets in January 1939. By order of the Chief Finance President (Oberfinanzpräsident) of 26 January 1939, they were only allowed to dispose of these and their life insurance policy with an insured sum of around RM 30,000 upon application and with his approval. The giro and savings deposits totalled around RM 3,300, the assets invested in fixed-interest securities around RM 15,000 (nominal value). They applied for permission to withdraw RM 500 per month from their blocked credit balance for household and private use. RM 425 was authorised.

Hugo Henle had been physically disabled since June 1937 due to a stroke; his left arm was paralysed. The preparations for emigration, which intensified from March 1939, dragged on.

Since September 1937, the destitute Cäcilie (called Zilli) Lemberger, née Erlanger, a divorced sister of Klara Henle, had also been living with the Henle couple, officially employed as a ‘support’ (domestic help).Hugo Henle also endeavoured to find ways for her to leave the country.

Hugo and Klara Henle and Zilli Lemberger wanted to emigrate to the USA. The United States had waiting lists for visa quotas. As a result of the high waiting numbers allocated to the three of them, their initial goal of emigrating to the USA could not be realised. They therefore wanted to flee to Belgium with the support of relatives and wait there for their waiting numbers for the USA to be called up. However, the entry permit for Belgium was also a long time coming.

After relatives in the USA had undertaken to provide for the upkeep of the three and to provide a limited amount for travel expenses, Hugo Henle applied on 4 December 1940 for permission to pay for ship passages from Hamburg to Yokohama from his blocked assets, which still amounted to RM 10,200 in securities. The Chief Finance President refused to authorise ‘tickets to the Far East from the German border against payment in Reichsmarks’. It said: ‘Such travel passes may only be issued against payment in free foreign currency’.

In addition to the ban on disposing of their own money and assets and the disappointment over the ever-delayed departure, the housing office gave them notice to leave their flat at Goernestraße 12 on 30 April 1941. The Henle couple and Zilli Lemberger found accommodation at Mittelweg 89 with Dr Emma Schindler. (For a biography of Emma Schindler, see www.stolpersteine-hamburg.de).

The American Consulate General also informed Hugo Henle that he would not receive an entry permit for the USA due to his physical limitations. Klara Henle therefore wanted to try to leave the country without her husband.

Before then, both women also had to leave their accommodation at Mittelweg 89, probably when Hugo Henle was forced to move to the Jewish retirement home at Beneckestraße 6, which no longer exists today. Klara Henle's last address in Hamburg is listed in the files as Beim Andreasbrunnen 6, while Zilli Lemberger gave Hochallee 66 as her last address.

Like Beneckestraße 2 and 4, the building at Beneckestraße 6, which belonged to the Jewish community, was designated as a ‘Jews’ house’ in which the National Socialists crammed people together who they considered to be Jews. The ‘Jews’ houses’ were mostly buildings formerly owned by Jews, former collegiate houses and retirement and nursing homes. This concentration of Jews also functioned as assembly centres in preparation for deportations.

At the instigation of the Gestapo, the Reich Association of Jews in Germany, represented in Hamburg by the Jewish Religious Association, now concluded so-called home purchase contracts with Jews who were to be deported to the ‘old people's ghetto’ Theresienstadt and who still had a certain amount of assets, including Hugo Henle. In these contracts, the elderly Jews were guaranteed free accommodation, food and medical care for the rest of their lives. In return, they had to make advance payments, other levies, donations and property transfers. These contracts turned out to be a fraud, as the promises were not honoured in any way. The assets ultimately fell to the Reich Main Security Office (Reichssicherheitshauptamt). In this way, Hugo Henle was extorted a total of RM 9,990.42 in two instalments. Formal contracts were not even concluded because - as stated in a memo from the Reich Association of Jews - District Office of Northern Germany - dated 27 November 1942 to the ‘Head Office’ in Berlin - the conclusion of such contracts was not feasible in view of the short time available in July.

In July 1942, two transports left Hamburg for Theresienstadt, one on 15 July with 882 people and one on 19 July with 669 people. Hugo Henle was also assigned to the first transport. He only survived the arduous journey for a short time and died in Theresienstadt on 16 September 1942.

Klara Henle was able to escape from Germany. In August 1941, the Chief Finance President mentioned her intended departure to the USA via Lisbon, which she managed to do at the last minute, so to speak, in September 1941, as the USA declared war on the German Reich in December. We do not know the details of her escape. She reached New York and lived there until she died on 7 December 1946.

On 15 November 1939, the foreign currency office of the Chief Finance President noted about Zilli Lemberger: ‘Mrs Lemberger has no possibility of emigrating for the time being.’ She was still in Hamburg in August 1941, as can be seen from various personally signed declarations in connection with her endeavours to emigrate. Her fate remains a mystery.

Kurt Siegbert Henle initially attended a private secondary school in England. The school fees were paid by relatives and acquaintances. In May 1940, he was interned and transferred to Australia.

There, in the camp, he prepared for the School Leaving Certificate exam, which was taken in the camp itself by the University of Melbourne. He passed the exam in December 1941. Kurt Siegbert Henle returned to England in October 1942 and began studying medicine. He first attended a preparatory course in Lancaster. In Newcastle upon Tyne, he obtained a Bachelor's degree in Medicine and a Bachelor's degree in Surgery in 1948. He later reimbursed the tuition fees initially paid by the International Student Service. He received a free place to continue his education at Kings College in London. Relatives and friends provided for his living expenses. He contributed to his income through odd jobs, private lessons and translations. From 1950 to 1952, he served as an army doctor.

Kurt Siegbert Henle's application for DM 5,000 compensation for educational damage was rejected in the last instance by the Hamburg Regional Court because - as it stated - the interruption of his attendance at secondary school, which he had had to accept for reasons of racial persecution, had not led to damage in his vocational training or in his pre-vocational training. This was summarised as follows: Kurt Siegbert Henle had not suffered any loss of time that was not merely minor, nor had he had to incur any significant additional expenses in order to obtain his training. He had largely received free places and had therefore certainly not incurred higher costs overall as a result of his studies. Nor had he suffered any loss of time if one compares the course of education he actually took with the one he would have taken if he had not been persecuted in Germany, including the circumstances caused by the war. In Germany - according to the judgement of the regional court - Kurt Siegbert Henle would most probably have been called up for military service. But even irrespective of the question of military service, there would have been no significant loss of time, as Kurt Siegbert Henle would not have been able to study, at least in the summer of 1945 (and probably also in the previous semester), because the universities were not working at the time. If he had been able to stay in Germany, he would not have been able to complete his training as a doctor and obtain his licence to practise earlier than he did in England.

Kurt Siegbert Henle did not return to Germany. From then on, he called himself Keith Stewart Henley and worked at the University Hospital in Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA.

Stand: April 2025
© Ingo Wille

Quellen: Adressbuch Hamburg diverse Jahrgänge, StaH 314-15 Oberfinanzpräsident FVg 7626 (Cäcilie Zilli Lemberger), F0983 (Hugo Henle), F0880 (Siegmund Hamburger), R1939/0312 (Firma Henla & Hamburger), 351-11 Amt für Wiedergutmachung 6091 (Hugo Henle), 46615 (Keith Stuart Henley), 10114 (Siegmund Hamburger), 522-01 Jüdische Gemeinde 0992_b_21783 und 21785 (Kultussteuerkarteikarten Hugo Henle, 522-1_1031_028 Liste Heimeinkaufsverträge (Blatt 8). Stadtarchiv Heibronn (StadtA HN, A040B 11) Geburtsregister Nr. 199/1886 (Klara Erlanger), (StadtA HN A40B-8) Geburtsregister Nr. 262/1883 (Hugo Henle). https://wiki.genealogy.net/RIR_256 (Reserve-Infanterie-Regiment 256), Aufruf am 27.2.2025.