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Sophie Kasarnowsky * 1894

ohne Hamburger Adresse

ermordet am 23.9.1940 in der Tötungsanstalt Brandenburg an der Havel

further stumbling stones in ohne Hamburger Adresse :
Dr. Hans Bloch, Felix Cohn, Moraka Farbstein, Erland Walter Friedmann, Richard Guth, Martha Havelland, Albert Hirsch, Auguste Hirschkowitz, Ernestine Levy, Richard Levy, Hannchen Lewin, Bronislawa Luise Dorothea Mattersdorf, Karl Friedrich Michael, Lucie Rothschild, Dorothea Dorthy Silberberg, Wilhelm Süsser, Anna Luise (Louise Hedwig) Weimann, Salo Weinberg

Sophie Kasarnowsky, born in 1894 (?) in Brovari/Brovary (today in Ukraine), murdered on 23 Sept. 1940 in the Brandenburg/Havel euthanasia killing center

Without Stolperstein

Sophie Kasarnowsky probably comes from Brovary, at that time belonging to Russia. She was born about 1894 and likely was of the Jewish faith. In April/May 1923, she was admitted to the Friedrichsberg State Hospital (Staatskrankenanstalt Friedrichsberg) because of a "mental illness.” The admission date derives from the still existing patient file card, on which "Schifre” was noted as the first name.

Apparently, Sophie Kasarnowsky had attempted to emigrate from Hamburg to the USA in the early 1920s. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Hamburg was one of the largest ports for emigrants, alongside Bremen. The emigrants originated from Germany and many Eastern European countries. Most of them wanted to enter the USA via New York. However, they first had to endure a control procedure on Ellis Island to check their suitability for the new country. The immigration officials allowed only capable people into the country, persons that would probably be able to earn their own living. To this end, the immigrants were subjected to a "muscle test.” Anyone who appeared to the officials to be mentally or physically unfit was rejected. People who did not pass these entry controls were rigorously prevented from entering the country and sent back to their port of origin. The ship owner had to bear the return travel costs for such persons, who were almost always destitute. When they arrived in Hamburg, the "remigrants” were usually first admitted to the Harbor Hospital and, in the case of mental disability or mental illness, to the "Friedrichsberg lunatic asylum” ("Irrenanstalt Friedrichsberg”), from 1918/1919, "Friedrichsberg State Hospital” ("Staatskrankenanstalt Friedrichsberg”). One of them was probably Sophie Kasarnowsky. The Hapag shipping line had assumed her return travel costs and had to finance her hospital stay in Hamburg. Apparently, the authorities found no hometown to which Sophie Kasarnowsky could have been deported, as she was transferred to the Hamburg-Langenhorn State Hospital (Staatskrankenstalt Hamburg-Langenhorn) on 4 Sept. 1926. She remained there until 23 Sept. 1940.

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. After all Jewish patients from the North German institutions had arrived in Langenhorn, they were taken to Brandenburg/Havel on 23 Sept. 1940, together with the Jewish patients who had lived there for some time, on a transport comprised of 136 persons overall. On the same day, they were killed with carbon monoxide in the part of the former penitentiary converted into a gas-killing facility. Only one patient, Ilse Herta Zachmann, escaped this fate at first (see corresponding entry).

It is not known whether, and if so, when relatives became aware of their deaths. In all documented death notices, it was claimed that the person concerned had died in Chelm (Polish) or Cholm (German). Those murdered in Brandenburg, however, were never in Chelm/Cholm, 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.

According to research done so far, Sophie Kasarnowsky had no personal address in Hamburg, so that there is no individual place where she could be commemorated with a Stolperstein.

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

© Ingo Wille

Quellen: 4; 5; 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); 352-8/7 Staatskrankenanstalt Langenhorn Abl. 1/1995 Aufnahme-/Abgangsbuch Langenhorn 26.8.1939 bis 27.1.1941; UKE/IGEM, Archiv, Patienten-Karteikarte Sophie Kasarnowsky der Staatskrankenanstalt Friedrichsberg. Hess, Volker/Schmiedebach, Heinz-Peter (Hrsg.), Am Rande des Wahnsinns. Schwellenräume einer urbanen Moderne, Wien 2012; http://www.european-emigration.com/de/hamburger-passagierlisten.html (Zugriff 5.6.2016).
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