Search for Names, Places and Biographies

Eveline Waschinsky * 1898

Zesenstraße 11 (Hamburg-Nord, Winterhude)

1943 Theresienstadt
1943 Auschwitz ermordet

further stumbling stones in Zesenstraße 11:
Melanie Peters

Eveline Waschinsky, born 22.7.1898 in Vienna, deported on 23.6.1943 to Theresienstadt, further deported on 6.9.1943 to Auschwitz, murdered there

Melanie Peters, née Waschinsky, born 28.4.1900 in Vienna, deported on 11.7.1942 to Auschwitz and murdered there

Zesenstraße 11 (Hamburg-Nord, Winterhude)

Eveline and Melanie Waschinsky were two of eight siblings from a Viennese Jewish family. Their father Sigmund Waschinsky, born in 1868, was a hairdresser and came from Galicia. He married Hanni Hermine Landau, who was one year younger and born in Vienna. Many of the couple's children were artistically or artistically gifted: for example, Gerda, born in 1901, who, inspired by her husband, the cabaret artist and man of letters Rudolf Weys, became an actress and author, or the artist and ballet master Stella Waschinsky, born in 1894.

Melanie and Eveline Waschinsky were also artists. They probably came to Hamburg in the 1920s, the reason may have been Melanie's marriage to the Protestant car dealer Eggert Nikolaus Peters. The marriage remained childless. The couple lived at Schrötteringksweg 10 in Barmbek-Uhlenhorst, and Eveline Waschinsky also lived with them for a time. The latter owned a store for "occasional purchases" at Schulterblatt 86. Whether this is identical to the jewelry store that, according to the family, was operated by both sisters remains unclear. Eggert Peters is also listed as a jeweler in the 1933 address book.

In 1927, Eveline became the mother of a daughter whose father was Eggert Peters. The child was given up for adoption to a Protestant family and grew up in Hamburg-Rahlstedt. Even though Eveline Waschinsky did not feel able to raise her daughter Ingrid herself, she remained present in the background: together with her father, she financed her attendance at a private school and also bought a house that Ingrid was later to inherit. From time to time she visited her daughter, whom she knew as "Aunt Eveline". Each visit was announced beforehand, usually by postcard, and she always asked to be alone with Ingrid and the adoptive mother. The daughter remembers her as a small petite person who was always very kind to her. Melanie Peters and her husband also occasionally participated in the visits.

The "mixed marriage" of Melanie and Eggert Peters did not withstand the manifold pressures after the National Socialist takeover and was divorced after 1933. Eggert Peters died around 1940, and the two sisters initially moved to the Grindelviertel: Melanie lived temporarily at Grindelallee 25, while Eveline lived at Hochallee 12.

In the 1930s, other siblings of the Waschinsky family also came to Hamburg for a short time; for them, the city was a transit station for emigration. For example, the sister Stella was in the city in 1933, but she did not go overseas, but settled in Zagreb. The brother Erwin, born in 1896, lived in Hamburg from 1932 to 1935. He represents some firms and probably had business connections with his sister Eveline, at whose business address at Schulterblatt 86 he was also registered. He emigrated to Palestine with his wife Bertha in 1935.

Towards the end of the 1930s, both sisters were registered at Zesenstraße 11; according to the address book, each had rented an apartment, one on the 3rd floor, the other on the 4th. By this time, they could no longer have owned the jewelry store: Jewish businesses had been "Aryanized" without exception, and in the Jewish community's card index in 1940 they are described as having no income or means.

In the 1940s, they had to perform forced labor: Melanie Peters worked in a canning factory in 1941, Eveline Waschinsky in a factory for ship stowage. Around this time, they also had to give up their apartments and move into "Judenhäuser." Melanie last lived at Großneumarkt 56, Eveline at Beneckestraße 2.

On July 11, 1942, Melanie Peters followed a deportation order and was probably taken to Auschwitz. She did not survive the Shoah.

Eveline Waschinsky was deported to Theresienstadt on June 25, 1943, and from there to Auschwitz on September 6, 1943. She too was murdered.


It was not until 1944 that Eveline's daughter learned who her mother was and that she also had her Slovakian citizenship. Until then, she had always calmly described herself as "purely Aryan and German" when asked about this. When she was to be drafted into the labor service, this was checked for the first time and the unconscious "swindle" was discovered. The adoptive mother made it clear to the authorities that the child had known nothing about her origins, thus sparing her further inconvenience.

As a "half-Jew", Ingrid was not tolerated in the labor service. Instead, however, she found a commercial apprenticeship with an employer who was close to the Freemasons. The house that her mother wanted to leave her was sold by the adoptive family - the amount of money raised was almost completely lost in the 1949 currency reform.

Some of the Waschinsky siblings survived the persecution, such as Gerda Weys, who died in 1990, Fritz Waschinsky (born 1903), who made it to New York in time with his wife Edith, and Erwin Waschinsky, who emigrated to Palestine.

The sister Margarethe Schirer, born in 1905, was deported to the Polish ghetto Modliborzyce in 1941, but survived this time.

The sister Leonore Harania, whose further life data are not known, was deported from Vienna to Minsk and murdered in the nearby extermination camp Maly Trostinec.

The siblings' parents were deported from Vienna to Theresienstadt on July 14, 1942. Hanni Hermine Waschinsky died there already on July 23. Her husband Sigmund Waschinsky was liberated from Theresienstadt in 1945 and later lived in Switzerland.

Translation by Beate Meyer
Stand: January 2022
© Ulrike Sparr

Quellen: 1; 4; 5; 8; Familienunterlagen und Gespräch mit der Tochter und der Enkelin von Eveline Waschinsky am 24.02.2008; StaHH 522-1 Jüdische Gemeinden 992 e 2 Bd. 5; Amtliche Fernsprechbücher Hamburg 1932–1943; AB 1933, 1934 (Bd. 1 u. 2), 1938, 1941 (Bd. 2).