Search for Names, Places and Biographies

Adolf Kahn * 1870

Großneumarkt 38 (vorm. Schlachterstraße) (Hamburg-Mitte, Neustadt)

HIER WOHNTE
ADOLF KAHN
JG. 1870
DEPORTIERT 1941
MINSK
ERMORDET

further stumbling stones in Großneumarkt 38 (vorm. Schlachterstraße):
Hanna Aghitstein, Julie Baruch, Ludwig Louis Baruch, Julius Blogg, Rebecca Blogg, Kurt Cossmann, Mathilde Cossmann, Frieda Dannenberg, Alice Graff, Leopold Graff, Flora Halberstadt, Elsa Hamburger, Herbert Hamburger, Louis Hecker, Max Hecker, Marianne Minna Hecker, Lea Heymann, Alfred Heymann, Wilma Heymann, Paul Heymann, Jettchen Kahn, Curt Koppel, Johanna Koppel, Hannchen Liepmann, Henriette Liepmann, Bernhard Liepmann, Johanna Löwe, Martin Moses, Beate Ruben, Flora Samuel, Karl Schack, Minna Schack, Werner Sochaczewski, Margot Sochazewski, verh. Darvill, Sophie Vogel, Sara Vogel

Adolf Kahn, born on 26 Dec. 1870 in Mayen/Koblenz, deported on 18 Nov. 1941 to Minsk
Jettchen Kahn, née Plaut, born on 3 Mar. 1891 in Hamburg, deported on 18 Nov. 1941 to Minsk

Grossneumarkt 38 (Schlachterstrasse 46/47)

Adolf Kahn’s parents were Salomon Kahn and Helena, née Anschel. Adolf Kahn was born on 26 Dec. 1870 in Mayen in Rhineland-Palatinate. Since 1868, the Jewish Community in Mayen had its own synagogue and in 1878, when Adolf was eight years old, the Jewish school became a public Israelite elementary school, the first in the Rhine Province.

It is not known when Adolf Kahn left his hometown. On 8 Aug. 1895, he married in Altona Rosa Bachrach, the daughter of Moses Bachrach and Emilia, née Eichholz. She was born on 15 June 1861 in Paderborn.

Adolf and Rosa Kahn had four children. Daughter Helene was born on 6 May 1896 in Hamburg. Margaretha followed on 14 Sept. 1897; nothing is known about her. Son Hans was born on 1 Sept. 1899 in Gelsenkirchen; the youngest, Hedwig, on 5 Mar. 1901 in Hamburg. Hans began an apprenticeship as a mechanic after finishing school, and he died, only 15 years old, for unknown reasons on 29 May 1915 in Hamburg’s Harbor Hospital.

The family lived in Hamburg at Lindenstrasse 28, in 1901 at Volksdorferstrasse 44, and in 1906 at Meissnerstrasse 1a in Hamburg-Eimsbüttel. In 1908, Adolf Kahn was admitted as a citizen to the Hamburg Federation (Hamburgischer Staatsverband). He was at the time employed as a station worker of the "Royal Railway” at the central station and lived with his family at Schlachterstrasse 46/47, house 3, in the Jewish Lazarus-Gumpel-Stift, a residential home. From 1914 to 1918, he fought in the war. He did service on troop transporters as a heater and after the end of the war, he was employed for some time by the railroad company as a [signal] "lamp keeper” ("Lampenwärter”). His hope of getting a permanent position there as a civil servant was not fulfilled. Adolf Kahn resumed his original profession as a shoemaker. On 17 Sept. 1920, he returned temporarily to Mayen, whether alone or with his family is not recorded. Five years later, he lived again in Hamburg at Schlachterstrasse 46/47 and started his own business as a shoemaker on the ground floor. His wife Rosa died on 10 Apr. 1932.

On 22 Dec. 1932, Adolf Kahn married in a second union the daughter of his neighbors, the tailor Jettchen Plaut, 20 years his junior. She was born as the fourth of five children of the self-employed saddler and upholsterer Joseph Plaut (born on 23 Oct. 1850, died on 18 Feb. 1929) and his wife Mirjam, née Philipp (born on 11 Dec. 1855), in Hamburg-Eimsbüttel at Bellealliancestrasse 16. In 1892, her parents, who had married in Hamburg on 26 Nov. 1885, moved to Schlachterstrasse 46/47, house 6, where the grandparents Gabriel Jacob Plaut and Jette, née Baerentzen, lived already. Jettchen’s witness to the marriage was her brother Oscar Plaut (born on 19 Nov. 1887), who had been born at Kampstrasse 31 in the St. Pauli quarter (Oscar Plaut died in the Harbor Hospital on 30 May 1935 after a "traffic accident”).

Of Adolf Kahn’s children from his first marriage, his deceased son Hans had attended the Talmud Tora School, the two girls had gone to the Israelite girls’ school at Carolinenstrasse 35. After finishing school, Helene had learned the hairdresser’s trade and married Emil Gärtner on 4 Aug. 1922. Six years later, they emigrated together to the USA. Helene Gärtner later reported on her father’s professional activities before and after 1933: "My father went to the workshop every morning and worked until late at night, interrupted only by meals. He had a regular clientele that kept coming back to him. He did not just repairs, but also manufactured custom-made products. His master diploma hung in the living room next to a large group photo from his military days as a young man. He was very proud of both. After 1933 until about 1936, sales declined sharply. "Anyway, I know that my father complained very vividly about the decline in business.”

Adolf Kahn was forced to give up his workshop due to boycott measures against Jewish shops and crafts enterprises and he became unemployed. In the last years before his deportation, he worked as a shoemaker for the Jewish Community in Hamburg. It transferred to him shoe repairs, and that was the only way he could still practice his profession.

Daughter Hedwig had completed training as a tailor in 1915 with Ernst Besser at Colonnaden 15 and with Peter Lamers at Gänsemarkt 3. After the examination at the end of her apprenticeship in 1918, she had worked in Hamburg and Berlin before setting up her own workshop on Hammer Landstrasse in Hamburg. On 14 Feb. 1925, she had married Richard Aderhold, who came from a non-Jewish family, and had given up her job. After separating from her husband, she worked as a domestic servant for the consul Eduard Wolf until 1937. According to her own information, she could practice her profession only secretly. She was no longer allowed to work as a tailor. Her last Hamburg address was at Eppendorfer Baum 34 before emigrating to New York on the steamer "Mouzinho” via Lisbon on 20 Aug. 1941.

Almost two months later, on 18 Nov. 1941, her father Adolf and his wife Jettchen were deported to the Minsk Ghetto, where all traces of them disappear.

Jettchen’s widowed mother Mirjam Plaut, née Philipp, was spared deportation; she died in Hamburg on 19 Mar. 1941 at the age of 85.

The older brother Philipp Plaut (born on 6 Oct. 1886) lived with his non-Jewish wife Helene, née Buchholz, from Danzig (today Gdansk in Poland), and two children at Pestalozzistrasse 21, and eventually at Schlüterstrasse 64. In the course of the November Pogrom of 1938, Philipp Plaut was arrested at his workplace in the fashion house of the Robinsohn brothers on Neuer Wall and taken to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. His wife was able to obtain his release on 14 Mar. 1939. Initially protected from impending deportations by his "privileged mixed marriage” ("privilegierte Mischehe”), he was deported to Theresienstadt on 14 Feb. 1945, shortly before the end of the war, for "external labor deployment.” Liberated there by Soviet troops on 8 May, he returned to Hamburg. Philipp Plaut died on 30 Apr. 1951.

The following is known about Adolf Kahn's siblings:
The eldest brother August Kahn (born 22.5.1869 in Mayen) had been running a butcher's shop in Gelsenkirchen at Gewerkenstraße 68 since 1896. He had married his wife Rosa Weber (born 12.3.1872 in Andernach) on 16 February 1893 in Andernach. The couple had two children: Lilly (born 12.11.1895 in Andernach) and Hedwig (born 2.3.1897 in Gelsenkirchen).
August Kahn was a sponsor of the soccer club FC Schalke 04 and maintained personal contacts with many players. But in 1933 he was expelled from the club because he was a Jew. In 1939 the couple had to move to Franz-Seldte-Strasse 84 (today Florastrasse) and in May 1942 to Klosterstraße 21 in so-called Jewish houses. On 31 July 1942, the couple was deported via Münster to the ghetto of Terezin/Theresienstadt. Rosa Kahn already died there on 4 September 1942, August Kahn on 11 October 1944. Rosa and August Kahn have been commemorated by stumbling blocks (Stolpersteine) at Gewerkenstraße 68 in Gelsenkirchen in April 2020. A memorial plaque was placed on the "Thousand Friends Wall" around the Schalke Veltins Arena in 2013 to commemorate the persecuted and murdered members of the FC Schalke 04 club family. August Kahn is one of the nine named. The daughter Hedwig Kahn was initially able to emigrate to the Netherlands. She last lived in Amsterdam. Two years after the invasion of the German Wehrmacht, she was interned in the concentration camp Herzogenbusch (Kamp Vught) in August 1942. From there she was sent to the Westerbork assembly and transit camp on 13 September 1943. The following day Hedwig was deported to Auschwitz, where she was murdered on 17 September 1943. Unfortunately, the destiny of her married sister Lilly Süsskind is unknown.

The younger sister Sophie Kahn (born 15.6.1882 in Mayen) was married to the art and building fitter Leopold Daniel (born 10.3.1887 in Kruft). The couple lived in Bochum. Their son Adolf was born on 24 February 1911 in Düsseldorf. He and his wife later managed to escape to Palestine in 1939. His parents were unable to leave Germany. They had to leave and vacate their longtime flat at Ehrenfelderstraße 29 in 1939 and move into a "Jewish house" at Dibergstraße 4. Leopold Daniel was conscripted into forced labour in the Dumte construction camp near Borghorst (In Dumte in the district of Steinfurt, the Jews were used to straighten the Aa, a tributary of the Ems). On 30 April 1942, Sophie and Leopold Daniel were deported via Dortmund to the ghetto in the occupied Polish town of Zamość in the Lublin district. Their dates of death are not known.

The eldest sister Jetta Kahn (born 30.11.1872 in Mayen) lived in Wedel near Hamburg in Schleswig-Holstein. She had married the gentile shoemaker Johann Jacob Husmann (born 15.5.1872 in Wedel) in Altona on 13 March 1897, but he already died in 1928. Jetta Husmann lived at Bahnhofstraße 28, where she ran a white goods shop. After receiving the deportation order, she took her own life on 17 July 1942 at the age of 70 by hanging herself.


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

Stand: May 2020
© Susanne Rosendahl

Quellen: Quellen: 1; 4; 9; StaH 351-11 1657 (Kahn, Adolf); StaH 351-11 AfW 261210 (Gärtner, Helene); StaH 351-11 AfW Abl. 2008/1, 050301 Aderhold, Hedwig; StaH 351-11 AfW 8723 (Plaut, Philipp); StaH 351-14 Arbeits- und Sozialfürsorge 1678 (Plaut, Miriam); StaH 522-1 Jüdische Gemeinden Abl. 1993/01, 37; StaH 332-7, B III 95451/1908; StaH 522-1 Jüdische Gemeinde Nr. 992 e 2 Band 3; StaH 522-1 Jüdische Gemeinde Nr. 992 e 2 Band 5; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 2685 u 1407/1885; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 2132 u 4912/1886; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 9068 u 653/1891; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 1193 u 107/1941; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 723 u 565/1915; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 13503 u 298/1901; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 2343 u 1588/1895; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 5934 u 670/1895; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 6364 u 2573/1897; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 922 u 266/1932; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 13846 u 815/1932; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 2159 u 5597/1887; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 1039 u 140/1935; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 5940 u 189/1897; diverse Hamburger Adressbücher; www.alemannia-judaica.de/mayen-synagoge.htm (Zugriff 12.4.2011); http://www.hans-dieter-arntz.de/juden_von_mayen.html (Zugriff 12.4.2011); Meyer: Verfolgung, S. 79–87; Hubert Schneider, Die Entjudung des Wohnraums – "Judenhäuser" in Bochum. Die Geschichte der Gebäude und ihrer Bewohner; Auskunft von Anke Rannegger, Stadtarchiv Wedel am 30.9.2021; http://www.stolpersteine-gelsenkirchen.de/stolpersteine_ehepaar_kahn.htm; (Zugriff 4.10.2021)https://www.niewieder.info/informieren/download/Biografien11Freunde.pdf (Zugriff 4.10.2021); https://www.gelsenkirchen.de/de/stadtprofil/stadtgeschichten/juedische_verfolgte_in_gelsenkirchen_1933-1945/details.aspx?id=859 (Zugriff 4.10.2021); https://www.wedel.de/kultur-bildung/wedel-historisch/erinnern/erinnerung-an-die-opfer-der-ns-zeit (Zugriff 4.10.2021)
Zur Nummerierung häufig genutzter Quellen siehe Link "Recherche und Quellen".