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Selma Pincus * 1892

Grindelallee 138 (Eimsbüttel, Rotherbaum)

1941 Lodz
1942 weiterdeportiert

further stumbling stones in Grindelallee 138:
Hugo Frank, Bertha Hauptmann, Ernst Hauptmann, Edgar Rosenbaum, Rieckchen Weil

Selma Pincus, born on 31 Dec. 1892 in Mölln, deported on 25 Oct. 1941 to the Litzmannstadt (Lodz) Ghetto
Rieckchen Weil, née Pincus, born on 18 Dec. 1885 in Mölln, deported on 25 Oct. 1941 to the Litzmannstadt (Lodz) Ghetto

Grindelallee 138

We know little about Rieckchen Weil and her sister Selma Pincus. Their lives have left only minor traces in the archives, only in the Jewish Community’s Jewish religious tax (Kultussteuer) card file and in the deportation lists. Only the biography of her brother Martin Pincus (see www.stolpersteine-hamburg.de) reveals some details about the family and thus also about Rieckchen and Selma. The apartment of Pincus parents was the center of the family. The children always came back there in crisis situations.

The Pincus family lived in Mölln. Rieckchen and Selma’s father was Aron Marcus Pincus, (born on 23 Nov.1839 in Moisling near Lübeck), their mother Frieda, née Horwitz (born on 3 Apr. 1862 in Neustadt/Holstein). Both had married around 1883/1884 and lived in Mölln until 1896. Their four children were born there: Rieckchen, Ella (on 7 Jan. 1887), Martin (on 10 Feb. 1889), and Selma as the last one. Aron Pincus was Jewish and registered as a merchant. In July 1896, the family moved to Lübeck, where Aron Pincus had already acquired citizenship in 1869. He was listed in the register of the Israelite Community there. Aron Pincus was an agent and broker acting as an intermediary. He made his living reselling larger lots of goods. Frieda Pincus’ widowed mother, Henriette Horwitz, née Wolfsberg, (born on 17 Sept. 1826 in Neustadt/Holstein) moved to her daughter in Lübeck and died there in July 1899.

The relocation of the Pincus family to Hamburg took place in stages. Daughter Ella Pincus lived there since 1901. She was a milliner and made ornamentations for women’s hats. She resided with her uncle Hermann Horwitz (1867–1944), who ran a slaughterhouse and sausage-making business at Bornstrasse 14 (Rotherbaum). When her parents arrived in Hamburg with Selma in 1904, she moved in with them.

In 1904, Aron Pincus moved with his wife Frieda and their 12-year-old daughter Selma to Kleiner Kielort 11 in Hamburg’s Eimsbüttel District, later only a few houses further to Kielortallee 1. Whether Aron was still working at the age of 65 is not known. The Jewish religious tax card file shows that his daughter Rieckchen supported him financially in Hamburg.

Rieckchen Pincus had already moved to Hamburg three months before her parents and lived temporarily as a subtenant with relatives of the Wolfsberg family at Dillstrasse 16. Her maternal grandmother’s maiden name was Wolfsberg. Rieckchen worked as an office clerk. Around 1920, she was employed at the Lisser & Rosenkranz banking house at Neuer Wall 10. She also moved back in with her parents in 1904.

In 1908, the Pincus family relocated to Rutschbahn 29 in the Rotherbaum quarter, where Aron Pincus died on 1 Jan. 1915 at the age of 75. His widow Frieda stayed there with the children until 1935.

Martin Pincus had already left Lübeck on 18 Dec. 1903 to begin an apprenticeship as a painter and decorator in Frankfurt/Main. In 1914, he went to Hamburg and moved into his parents’ apartment at Rutschbahn 29. He was registered as a "Kommis” (sales clerk). In 1920, Martin founded the Pincus & Valk engros & endetail stationery store together with Iwan Valk, born on 8 Oct. 1878 in Lübeck. In September of the same year, Iwan Valk married Ella Pincus. The two rented an apartment of their own at Rutschbahn 29. Martin had meanwhile found his own apartment on the ground floor of the same house; Frieda Pincus, the mother, lived on the raised ground floor with the sisters Rieckchen and Selma.

Around 1923, Rieckchen Pincus married the Jewish merchant Ludwig Weil, born on 29 Apr. 1879 in Merzig/Saar. They moved into their own apartment. Starting in 1924, the Valk couple resided at Mansteinstrasse 3 in Hoheluft. In 1935, 46-year-old Martin Pincus married Käthe Josias, born on 8 Jan. 1899 in Hamburg. Both had already lived together in Martin’s apartment on Rutschbahn, but they moved out at that point. In the following years, they rented accommodations only as subtenants.

In April/May 1935, Frieda Pincus and her daughters Selma Pincus and Rieckchen Weil moved to Grindelallee 138 on the third floor, where Frieda Pincus died of natural causes in Feb. 1941. Selma Pincus worked as a dealer for Leon Levy in the 1930s. Her earnings could not have been very high, as she did not have to pay any Jewish religious tax from 1931 to 1941.

At the time of Frieda Pincus’s death, her daughter Ella lived also with her mother again. Her husband Iwan Valk had emigrated as early as July 1937. In Sept. 1941, Ella followed her husband to Amsterdam, which was already occupied. Both were murdered in the Sobibor extermination camp. Only their joint son Alfred Valk, born on 13 June 1921 in Hamburg, managed to flee to New York in 1937, where Iwan Valk’s son from his first marriage had lived since 1934.

Rieckchen Weil, née Pincus, also moved back in with her mother and sister Selma in those years – after her husband Ludwig Weil had passed away. When this happened and when Ludwig Weil died could not be determined. From 1934 onward, Rieckchen was listed in the Jewish religious tax card file as a widow, with her place of residence indicated as Rutschbahn 29, later Grindelallee 138. Her regular tax assessment for the Jewish Community did not begin until Jan. 1936, however, when she worked as an accountant at S. Magnus, Kohlenhandel, a coal trading company located at Rutschbahn 11.

After the death of their mother Frieda in Feb. 1941, Rieckchen and Selma Pincus were deported by train from Hamburg to Litzmannstadt/Lodz on 25 Oct. 1941. They did not return.

Martin and Käthe were deported on the same transport. They died in the Lodz Ghetto on 1 June and 13 Aug. 1942, respectively.

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

© Peter Steckhan

Quellen: 1; 4; 5; StaH 522-11 Jüdische Gemeinden 992 e 2 Bd. 1, Liste 2; Björn Eggert, Biografie Martin Pincus, s. www.stolpersteine-hamburg.de.
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