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Siegfried Kleve * 1879

Bogenstraße 27 (Eimsbüttel, Eimsbüttel)

1942 Auschwitz
1941 KZ Fuhlsbüttel

further stumbling stones in Bogenstraße 27:
Else Bernstein, Kätie Bernstein, Rosa Heilbut, Gertrud Hess, Erna Kleve

Erna Kleve, née Lasch, born 26 Apr. 1889 in Berlin, deported to Auschwitz on 11 July 1942
Siegfried Kleve, born 30 Mar 1879, imprisoned in KZ Fuhlsbüttel in 1941, deported to Auschwitz on 11 July 1942

Bogenstrasse 27

Siegfried Kleve was born as the son of Saly und Pauline Kleve, née Victor, in Hamburg‘s neighbor city Altona. His parents had married in July 1878 and lived in the street Beim grünen Jäger 4 II. The choice of the first name Siegfried indicates that his parents saw themselves as nationally minded Jewish Germans. The name Siegfried was very much en vogue with Jews and between 1860 and 1938 was featured on the list of the most popular Jewish boy’s names.
Erna Kleve was born in Berlin; her parents were Ignatz and Marianne Lasch, née Philippson. Her mother died early. In 1892, her father in Berlin entered a new marriage, to Blanche, née Veitel, born 1868 in Belfast, Ireland. Erna Kleve spent her childhood in Berlin. In the Berlin address book of 1900, there is an entry for Ignaz Lasch, bank officer, Charlottenburg, Bleibtreustrasse 55 IV. Erna had two half-brothers, Herbert (born 1893) and Werner (born 1896).

Siegfried and Erna married in October, 1919. Siegfried Kleve’s parents were both dead, his father had died in 1913. The bride‘s father, a bank manager, now lived in Hamburg with his second wife at Isestrasse 139 and acted as a marriage witness. Erna had lived with him up to her marriage. Siegfried Kleve lived nearby in Oberstrasse 9, where he had moved in 1911; before, he had lived with his father Saly on the third floor of the house Feldstrasse 49. Joseph Kleve, who lived at Brahmsallee 7 and was presumably an uncle of the groom, was the second marriage witness.

The couple – both no longer all too young when they married, remained without children. The stumbling stones for Erna and Siegfried Kleve lie in front of the former Stift building and later "Jews‘ house” Bogenstrasse 5. In happier days, they had lived in noble apartment residences: first at Oberstrasse 9 and then, from the middle of the 1920s, on the 2nd floor of the building at Isestrasse 111.

Siegfried Kleve worked as a real estate agent, entering his father’s company as a young man. Their offices were at Grosse Bleichen 23 up until approx. 120, when they moved to the "Ludwigshof” at Hohe Bleichen 20. In World War I, Siegfried Kleve served as a soldier in Serbia in 1916.

In 1920 , the general partnership 1920 Saly Kleve was dissolved and Siegfried Kleve took over the business. But the real estate agency seems to have continued to operate under the name of "Saly Kleve”, as it is documented in a classified ad of August, 1922. Erna Kleve was given power of procuration. On January 13th, 1939, the company was forcibly liquidated. Irma Adler, née Lichtenstein, worked at the "Fa. Hausmakler Saly Kleve” from 1934 to February, 1936. Siegfried and Erna Kleve were related to the Lichtenstein family: Irma Adler’s mother, Rebecka Lichtenstein, was a cousin of Bertha Susmann, née Kleve.
In 1905, Siegfried Kleve had become a member of the sports club Eimsbütteler Turnverband; the building in Bundesstrasse did not exist at the time; Kleve belonged to the men’s section in Binderstrasse and took an active part in club activities. In 1909, he took the office as chairman of the ETV anniversary committee. But here at the sports club, too, everything changed after 1933: all Jewish members were forced to leave by 1935.
Siegfried and Erna Kleve were wealthy, and that meant that they were systematically robbed by the Nazi state in the course of persecution. They owned securities and real estate, but also jewelry and silverware. Siegfried Kleve paid the large sum of 100,000 reichsmarks (RM) as "levy on Jewish assets” in five installments and, above that, had to cede more 20,000 RM as an extraordinary contribution to the Jewish Religious Organization. On February 9th, 1939, Siegfried Kleve was subject to a "security order.” He sold his properties in 1939; from the end of 1939, he had to have an allowance approved every month. But he was not only deprived of his material possessions, but also of his dignity and his rights. On April 4th, 1941, the Gestapo took him into "protective custody” and detained him at the Fuhlsbüttel Police Prison. From there, he was taken to the Gestapo headquarters at the Stadthaus three days later; the (pretextual) reason for this is not evident in the preserved records.
It seems that the Kleves had endeavored to emigrate, as they took English and Spanish lessons. At the end of 1939, the lived at the May Stiftung in Bogenstrasse 29; that was before the building was turned into a "Jews’ house” where Jewish citizens were forced to move in. The stayed there until they received the deportation order in July, 1942. The transport went to Auschwitz. None of the deported survived.
Blanche Lasch, Erna Kleve’s stepmother, also lived at the May-Stiftung. She died on December 14th, 1942, when her daughter and son-in-law had already been deported. She was 74 years old. Officially, she died of a heart failure.

After the war, several pieces of real estate were restituted in the course of reparation proceedings – the Kleves had been forced to sell at least a part of their real estate to the second and third installment of levy on Jewish assets.
The records also contain a note about an auction: on November 10th, a piano that had belonged to Siegfried Kleve and had last been stored at Ihlandstrasse 68 was auctioned at Drehbahn 36. The gross result of the auction amounted to 400 RM, to the benefit of the German Reich.

Translated by Peter Hubschmid

Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

Stand: October 2016
© Susanne Lohmeyer

Quellen: 1; 2 (R1939/533; R1939/3314); 4; 5; 8; StaH 214-1 Gerichtsvollzieherwesen, 397; StaH 231-7, HRA 87/39; StaH 331-1 II, Abl. 15 vom 18.9.1984, Band 1; StaH 332-5 Standesämter, 8730 und 605/1919; StaH 332-5, 8179 und 612/1942; StaH 332-5, 6206 und 930/1879; Handelsregister Akte Nr. 87/39; StaH 332-8 Meldewesen, A 30, Meldekartei 1891-1925; StaH 351-11 AfW, Kleve, Siegfried 300379; Jürgen Sielemann, Nachforschungen; Sven Fritz, "… dass der alte Geist..", S. 111; Berliner Adressbuch 1900; Hamburger Familienblatt 25. Jg. Nr. 35 vom 28.8.1922; Grabstein Jüdischer Friedhof Ilandkoppel.