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Stolperstein für Rosa Jelenkiewicz
© Johann-Hinrich Möller

Rosa Jelenkiewicz (née Rothschild) * 1866

Alte Rabenstraße 9 (Eimsbüttel, Rotherbaum)

HIER WOHNTE
ROSA JELENKIEWICZ
GEB. ROTHSCHILD
JG. 1866
DEPORTIERT 1942
THERESIENSTADT
1942 TREBLINKA
ERMORDET

further stumbling stones in Alte Rabenstraße 9:
Karl Jelenkiewicz

Karl Jelenkiewicz, born on 27 June 1896 in Hamburg, murdered on 23 Sept. 1940 in the Brandenburg/Havel euthanasia killing center
Rosa Jelenkiewicz, née Rothschild, born on 8 Mar. 1866, deported to Theresienstadt on 15 July 1942, deported to Treblinka on 21 Sept. 1942, murdered

Stolperstein in Hamburg-Rotherbaum at Alte Rabenstrasse 9

Karl Jelenkiewicz was born on 27 June 1896 at Klosterallee 25 in Hamburg-Harvestehude. His parents, the merchant Max Jelenkiewicz and his wife Rosa, née Rothschild, were of the Jewish faith. Apart from Karl, they had three children: Recha Lisbeth, born on 3 Oct. 1889; Gertrud, born on 15 Nov. 1891; and Margot, born on 25 Aug. 1899, all natives of Hamburg.

Karl’s father owned the J. G. Wright drinks factory, which produced lemonade and sold English beers. He had taken over the company from Karl’s grandfather Lemmel, called Kaskel, who had died in 1884. This company formed the basis of a materially very comfortable life for the family. According to the entries in the Hamburg directory, Karl Jelenkiecwicz’ family moved from Klosterallee to Parkallee 7 in 1908.

After attending the eight-grade elementary school (Volksschule), Karl Jelenkiewicz went to Heinrich-Hertz-Realgymnasium [a high school focused on science, math, and modern languages] from Oct. 1908 and finished school in 1916 with the intermediate secondary school certificate (mittlere Reife). A little later, on 4 Nov. 1916, Karl was admitted to the Friedrichsberg "lunatic asylum” ("Irrenanstalt Friedrichsberg”). His father considered him incapable of independently exercising the full legal capacity associated with his coming of age in mid-1918. On 8 May 1917, he applied for the incapacitation of his son and the establishment of a provisional guardianship due to "mental degeneration and inferiority.” Although the Friedrichsberg "lunatic asylum” told the guardianship authority on 18 May 1917 that Karl Jelenkiewicz was suffering from "psychological degeneration,” a few days later (on 4 June 1917) it argued that "the condition of Karl Jelenkiewicz was not such that he had to be detained here against his will beyond his age of majority.”

On the grounds that Karl, due to his mental deficiency, was inclined toward adventures, stupid tricks, and incurring debts, the guardianship authority initiated the order of provisional guardianship "in order to avert a considerable danger to the person and property of Karl J.” On 1 Aug. 1917, the Hamburg District Court (Amtsgericht) ruled to incapacitate Karl Jelenkiewicz "because of feeblemindedness.” Karl’s father assumed guardianship over his son, who was of full age by then. When Max Jelenkiewicz died on 19 Dec. 1918, Karl still lived in Friedrichsberg. The guardianship passed to a grandfather from Berlin, with whom Karl had been friends from his childhood.

Karl’s mother had moved to Curschmannstrasse 6 after the death of her husband. There she took Karl in for a few days following his release from the former Friedrichsberg "lunatic asylum,” renamed "State Hospital” ("Staatskrankenanstalt”) on 7 Jan. 1920. Still in Jan. 1920, Karl Jelenkiewicz moved to Hohenhorn in today’s Herzogtum [duchy] Lauenburg administrative district, residing with the peasant farmer Eggers. According to the report of his guardian, he settled in well there, so that the Hamburg District Court revoked Karl’s incapacitation on 6 May 1922. Half a year later, on 23 Dec. 1922, he married the Christian woman Sophia Elisabeth Johanna Stemwede from Hamburg. However, the stable life lasted only for a short period. Karl shot a farmer by the name of Willms at the beginning of 1923 and also committed arson. It is not known whether the two acts were related to each other and what underlying motives were. The following pre-trial detention, begun in Feb. 1923, was interrupted at the end of March by a stay in Friedrichsberg, probably to clarify his culpability. At the end of Aug. 1923, the Altona District Court put Karl Jelenkiewicz "out of prosecution” due to lack of accountability. Starting on 11 Sept. 1923, institutionalization followed for Karl that would last for the rest of his life, until 16 Sept. 1940 in the Neustadt (Holstein) State Sanatorium (Landesheilanstalt Neustadt), then a few days in the Langenhorn "sanatorium and nursing home” (Heil- und Pflegeanstalt Langenhorn).

Karl was not completely cut off from the outside world in Neustadt. The visit of his wife in Mar. 1936 is documented in his Neustadt file. Although the marriage between Karl and Sophia Jelenkiewicz had been legally divorced on 13 Jan. 1940, Sophia visited her former husband at least once again in June 1940 in Neustadt. In the meantime she had resumed her former last name of "Stemwede.”

We only know the events in Karl Jelenkiewicz’ life that are visible to everyone, but we do not know what feelings (of guilt) weighed on him. Karl Jelenkiewicz’ attempt on 12 Sept. 1940 to cut open the artery of his right hand with a razor blade may give an indication of serious inner conflicts.

In the spring/summer of 1940, the "euthanasia” headquarters in Berlin, located at Tiergartenstrasse 4, planned a special operation aimed against Jews in public and private sanatoriums and nursing homes. It had the Jewish persons living in the institutions registered and moved together in what were officially so-called collection institutions. The Hamburg-Langenhorn "sanatorium and nursing home” ("Heil- und Pflegeanstalt” Hamburg-Langenhorn) was designated the North German collection institution. All institutions in Hamburg, Schleswig-Holstein, and Mecklenburg were ordered to move the Jews living in their facilities there by 18 Sept. 1940.

Karl Jelenkiewicz arrived in Langenhorn on 16 Sept. 1940. On 23 Sept. 1940, he was transported from there to Brandenburg/Havel with a further 135 patients from North German institutions. The transport reached the city in the Mark (March) on the same day. In the part of the former penitentiary that had been converted into a gas-killing facility, people were immediately driven into the gas chamber and murdered with carbon monoxide. Only Ilse Herta Zachmann escaped this fate at first (see corresponding entry).

On the birth register entry of Karl Jelenkiewicz, it was noted that the records office Cholm II registered his death on 31 Mar. 1941 under number 110/1941. Those murdered in Brandenburg, however, were never in Chelm (Polish) or Cholm (German), a town east of Lublin. The former Polish sanatorium there no longer existed after SS units had murdered almost all patients on 12 Jan. 1940. Also, there was no German records office in Chelm. Its fabrication and the use of postdated dates of death served to disguise the killing operation and at the same time enabled the authorities to claim higher care expenses for periods extended accordingly.

Rosa Jelenkiewicz, Karl’s mother, lived for many years in a two-bedroom owner-occupied apartment at Lenhartzstrasse 15. In 1936 or 1937, due to persecution, she was forced to sell the apartment and the objects it contained far below value and subsequently, she lived at Unnastrasse 14 in Hoheluft-West and as a subtenant with Lippstadt at Alte Rabenstrasse 9 in the Rotherbaum quarter. In July 1942, she was forced to move to the Jewish retirement home at Schäferkampsallee 27, one of the compulsory quarters for Jews. In the same month, Rosa Jelenkiewicz received the deportation order. She was deported with 924 other Jews to Theresienstadt on 15 July 1942. On 21 Sept. 1942, she was deported from Theresienstadt to Treblinka and murdered. By ruling dated 21 Dec. 1964, the Hamburg District Court declared her dead "as of the end of 1945.”

Karl Jelenkiewicz’ three sisters had married and also had children. Two – Margot, married name Kaiser, and Gertrud, married name Selig – left Germany and emigrated with their families to the USA in time.

Recha Lisbeth, married name Borchardt, fled to Belgium with her husband Sigmund and her son Otto. Recha and Sigmund Borchardt hid in a back room of the apartment of the non-Jewish Belgian family Joseph Pauwels at 121 Avenue des Statuaires in Uccle near Brussels. Sigmund Borchardt died in hiding, his wife Recha Lisbeth survived. Their son Otto later reported: "When Nazis (probably Gestapo) entered Mr. Pauwels’ apartment several times, he had always declared at his own peril that no Jews lived with him. For this, he has been awarded a distinction by the Belgian government, la medaille de la resistance, La Commemorative, etc. The fear of discovery, the self-detention in the back room, the lack of medicine, sufficient food and coal, etc. etc. have been so monstrous and unworthy of human beings for my parents, who had been very wealthy until then, that in Aug. 1944 my father, without medicine or care by a doctor, deteriorated in this room. His body had to remain in the room with my mother for several days until he could be taken to a Catholic cemetery at night with false papers; my mother was not allowed to accompany my father’s body due to the danger of discovery.” It is not known how Otto Borchardt succeeded in escaping persecution.

For Rosa Jelenkiewicz, there is a Stolperstein at Alte Rabenstrasse 9 in Hamburg-Rotherbaum. Located next to that for his mother is also the Stolperstein for Karl Jelenkiewicz, although he had never lived there.

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

© Ingo Wille

Quellen: 1; 4; 5; 7; AB; StaH 133-1 III Staatsarchiv III, 3171-2/4 U.A. 4, Liste psychisch kranker jüdischer Patientinnen und Patienten der psychiatrischen Anstalt Langenhorn, die aufgrund nationalsozialistischer "Euthanasie"-Maßnahmen ermordet wurden, zusammengestellt von Peter von Rönn, Hamburg (Projektgruppe zur Erforschung des Schicksals psychisch Kranker in Langenhorn); 314-15 Oberfinaneingefaüzpräsident R 1940_293 Jelenkiewiez; 332-03 Zivilstandsaufsicht A 4 Geburtsregister Nr. 1157/1866 Rosa Rothschild, A 177 Geburtsregister Nr. 3350/1874 Minna Philippine Jelenkiewicz; 332-5 Standesämter 2203 Nr. 4097/1889 (1) Geburtsregister Recha Lisbeth Jelenkiewicz; 980 Sterberegister Nr. 332/1931 Ivan Selig, 6332 Geburtsregister Nr. 2112/1893Sophia Elisabeth Stemwede, 8741 Heiratsregister Nr. 390/1920 Margot Jelenkiewicz, 9066 Geburtsregister Nr. 1625/1891 Gertrud Jelenkiewicz, 9121 Geburtsregister Nr. 1140/1896 Karl Jelenkiewicz, 9769 Sterberegister Nr. 4246/1918 Max Jelenkiewicz, 9939 Sterberegister Nr. 545/1943 Sophia Elisabeth Johanna Stemwede, 13089 Geburtsregister Nr. 1746/1899 Margot Jelenkiewicz. 351-11 Amt für Wiedergutmachung 1027 Jelenkiewicz, 351-11 Amt für Wiedergutmachung 13552 Gertrud Selig geb. Jelenkiewicz, 22705 Jelenkiewicz Margot verh. Kaiser; 352-8/7 Staatskrankenanstalt Langenhorn Abl. 1/1995 Aufnahme-/Abgangsbuch Langenhorn 26.8.1939 bis 27.1.1941; 522-1 Jüdische Gemeinden 922 e 2 Deportationslisten; Landesarchiv Schleswig LAS Abt. 377 Nr. 801 Neustadt; UKE/IGEM, Archiv, Patienten-Karteikarte Karl Jelenkiewicz der Staatskrankenanstalt Friedrichsberg; JSHD Forschungsgruppe "Juden in Schleswig-Holstein", Datenpool Erich Koch, Schleswig.
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