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Leonhardt Hymans * 1898

Loogestieg 4 (Hamburg-Nord, Eppendorf)

1941 Minsk
ermordet

further stumbling stones in Loogestieg 4:
Elli Adele Hymans, Franziska Lewek

Elli Adele Hymans, née Dinkelspiel, born on 16 June 1905 in Hamburg, deported on 8 Nov. 1941 to Minsk, died there on 29 Sept. 1942
Leonhard Hymans, born on 26 Feb. 1898 in Hamburg, deported on 8 Nov. 1941 to Minsk, death there by shooting in Apr. 1943.

Loogestieg 4

Leonhard Hymans was born on 26 Feb. 1898 in Hamburg. His parents were the merchant Albert Hymans and his wife Recha Hymans, née Minden. Both were of the "Mosaic,” i.e., Jewish, faith and lived in Hamburg. They enrolled their son Leonhard in an Oberrealschule [a secondary school without Latin].

In 1913, Leonhard Hymans left school after finishing his one-year graduating class ("Einjähriges”) in order to participate in World War I a few months later. Afterward, he was employed at an exporting firm for two and a half years. In 1928, he worked as an authorized signatory at the Otto Dinkelspiel Company in Hamburg. There he met his boss’ daughter, Elli Adele Dinkelspiel, and married her. Their son, Alfred Hymans, was born on 31 Aug. 1929. As a small boy, he attended the preschool run by the Lehmann sisters ("Schwestern Lehmann”) on Heilwigstrasse (see corresponding entry). Afterward, he transferred to an Oberrealschule located in the St. Pauli quarter.

Alfred Hymans survived the Holocaust and took up residence in the USA after the war. He described the circumstances of his family’s life as follows: "My parents were well off. As an authorized signatory of the Dinkelspiel Company, my father had a good position for life and a considerable income. As I was their only son, my parents strove to fulfill my intention to take up an academic job, and they were definitely in a position to do so. For my part, I had the strong wish to become a physician, specifically, a surgeon.”

At first, the family lived at Bogenstrasse 22, later at Loogestieg 4 in Hamburg-Eppendorf. The solid middle-class three-and-a-half-bedroom apartment on the fourth floor featured nice furniture and was well appointed. Elli Adele Hymans worked as a homemaker and mother. Due to the father’s good position, until 1939, the Hymans family lived in secure circumstances. With the "Aryanization” of the Jewish Dinkelspiel Company in 1939, the father lost this position. His last annual income had amounted to some 7,000 RM (reichsmark). Until his deportation, Leonhard Hymans was unable to find any new employment.

In 1961, the father-in-law, Otto Max Dinkelspiel, who had managed to emigrate to Britain, wrote about Leonhard Hymans to the Restitution Office (Amt für Wiedergutmachung) in Hamburg: "From Mar. 1904 until the end of Jan. 1939, I was the sole owner of Dinkelspiel & Co in Hamburg. The main operation, specializing in processing foods of all types, was located at Holländischer Brook 3. A branch operation, concerned with the dipping of plums and packing of mixed fruit for third-party accounts, was located at Catharinenstrasse 42. My son-in-law, Mr. Leonhard Hymans, acted as the head of this operation and the authorized signatory of the company from Sept. 1928 until Jan. 1939. The enterprises passed into the ownership of Messrs. Ockelmann & Cons, Kehrwieder, in Jan. 1939, and they dismissed Mr. Hymans in connection with the National Socialist persecution of Jews. His salary was 6,000 RM [reichsmark] plus a ten-percent share of profits, which amounted to approx. 300 to 400 RM.”

After the dismissal of the sole earner, the Hymans family also found themselves forced to lend money on their valuables, e.g., a big diamond ring. The files of the holding "Oberfinanzpräsident" ("Chief Finance Administrator”) reveal that Leonhard Hymans sought to escape further persecution, planning to emigrate to the Netherlands with his family.

To begin with, he intended to go on a 14-day preparatory trip there, for which he had to apply with the Chief Finance Administrator in Hamburg for a so-called tax clearance certificate (Unbedenklichkeitsbescheinigung) on 3 Feb. 1939. To this end, he was obliged, among other things, to submit an exact inventory of contents of his suitcase. He also had to hand in a list of his wife’s jewelry prior to his planned orientation tour. Leonhard Hymans planned to practice his occupation as an authorized signatory or at least as a commercial clerk.

However, the German occupation of the Netherlands in May 1940 shattered these plans. Leonhard, Elli Adele, and their son Alfred Hymans were deported together from their apartment on Loogestieg to the Minsk Ghetto. Elli Adele Hymans starved to death there, perishing on 29 Sept. 1942. Her husband Leonhard was shot dead in Minsk in Apr. 1943.

Alfred survived the time of camp detention and was able to testify in the course of restitution proceedings he initiated. Following the deportation to Minsk, he was deported further to Krasnik. From there, he was probably taken to Budzyn and Wieliczka near Cracow, where the Heinkel Works used 4,000 forced laborers to build aircraft in underground salt mines. The camp was evacuated in May/June 1944. The prisoners, including Alfred Hymans, arrived in the Flossenbürg concentration camp near Weiden in the Upper Palatinate on 4 June 1944. Initially, they were placed under quarantine. Alfred, registered there as a "trainee mechanic,” had prisoner number 15,054 and was quartered in Block 19, the "youth block.” On 20 Apr. 1945, the SS evacuated the Flossenbürg concentration camp and drove the prisoners on a long march to the Dachau concentration camp, in the course of which sick persons were left behind.

Two days later, Alfred Hymans was liberated by Allied troops in Flossenbürg. At the time, he was 16 years old and an orphan.

"After my release, the US Army temporarily took me under their care, and with their help I emigrated to Britain in the year 1945. There, I was employed as an apprentice in a hotel for the time being, until 1948. Then I emigrated to the USA, where I worked as a sales assistant. In July 1950, I was drafted to the US Army as a soldier, and I served there until 1953. After my discharge from the US forces, I received training in the photographic trade, and I am now working as a photographer.”

Translator: Erwin Fink

Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

Stand: October 2016
© Claudia García

Quellen: 1; 2; 4; 6; 8; StaH 351-11 AfW Abl. 2008/1, 310829 Hymans, Alfred; StaH 314-15 OFP, Fvg 3059; StaH 522-1 Jüd. Gemeinden, 992e2 Band 2; Bajohr, "Arisierung", 1997, S. 353; Auskunft Johannes Ibel, KZ Gedenkstätte Flossenbürg an Beate Meyer v. 10.8.2010.
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