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Harry Jacob * 1899

Schultzweg 2 (Hamburg-Mitte, Hammerbrook)

HIER WOHNTE
HARRY JACOB
JG. 1899
EINGEWIESEN 1940
HEILANSTALT LANGENHORN
"VERLEGT" 23.9.1940
BRANDENBURG
ERMORDET 23.9.1940
"AKTION T4"

Harry Jacob, born on 29 Sept. 1899 in Hannover, murdered on 23 Sept. 1940 in the Brandenburg/Havel euthanasia killing center

Stolperstein Hamburg-St. Georg, Schultzweg 2 (früher Westerstrasse 27)

Harry Jacob was born in Hannover on 29 Sept. 1899, as the son of the Jewish trader Moritz Jacob and his wife Rosalie, née Moses. He completed secondary school and is said to have been a good pupil. Subsequently, he started a commercial apprenticeship. From 1916, he participated in the First World War in Russia and France as a soldier in the 73rd Infantry Regiment. He worked at times as a medical orderly. He received morphine from a medical officer to help him overcome constant fatigue. Since he had no problem gaining access to this drug, he developed an addiction to it.

After being discharged from the army in spring 1919, Harry Jacob worked in his father’s business where he stole 1000 Marks from him to be able to buy morphine. He underwent several courses of rehab at his father’s expense between 1920 and 1922 in institutions in Ilten and Langenhagen in the Hannover region as well as in Göttingen and Hildesheim but without success. Following this, Harrys father threw his son out of the family flat. Harry Jacob was now dependant on himself and repeatedly committed theft to finance his drug consumption. Up to 1933, he served a total of 14 prison or hard labour penitentiary sentences for procurement theft. In between prison terms, he worked as a construction worker. After his last release from prison, he found work from 1936 till September 1937, first with the Market Garden Directorate in Hannover and then with the building and construction company, Häntzsche and Klingenhöfer, who executed government contracts. They dismissed Harry Jacob since he was a "non Aryan”.

Harry Jacob went to Hamburg on 11 Nov. 1937 because he was afraid of being sought after a theft at the expense of the people he was living with. He stayed under a false name at various hotels near the main station and in St Pauli. He financed the accommodation and the morphine repeatedly prescribed by doctors through the sale of stolen goods. From 19 to 21 Nov. 1937, Harry Jacob found accommodation in the Daniel-Wormser-House, a Jewish support facility for the homeless at Westerstrasse 27 in Hamburg-St Georg. Shortly after, on 29 Nov. 1937, he stole the coat from a dentist in Eimsbüttel, was apprehended by his victim and committed to the Hütten police prison. Harry Jacobs explained in the police station: "I acted from necessity as I haven`t eaten anything for two days”.

In a dossier on Harry Jacob’s guiltiness obtained for the preparation of the criminal proceedings before the Hamburg district court it is explained, "acknowledging a drug addiction which has existed for years I think I have to assume that the cases at issue here, which are intimately linked to the drug addiction would have to be confirmed as fulfilling the requirements of Para 2 of § 51. It is a known fact that drug addicts generally cannot resist the urge to obtain drugs and that under such a compulsion they do not shy from committing criminal acts. However, I cannot persuade myself to consider the requirements of § 51 fulfilled, particularly as evidently the quantity of drugs consumed by J. recently (and which he no longer takes intracutan (injection under the dermis) as before but Os (Oral intake) has not been significant. I consider J.`s commitment to an Institution necessary. I consider that putting him into a Rehab Centre would be the most suitable option […]. I do not believe putting him into a Nursing and Care Home to be suitable. Signed (signature).”

The Hamburg district court sentenced Harry Jacob on 5 April 1938 "due to continued theft in relapse to 2 (two) years prison. […] Placement in a detoxification centre is ordered”. The court`s opinion also included the threat of preventive detention in the case of another relapse or, alternatively, commitment to a Nursing and Care Home "due to a possible mental disorder resulting from ‘eternal’ use of drugs”.

Harry Jacob started his prison term on 19 Aug. 1938. He served part of it in the Wolfenbüttel prison and was released from the Fuhlsbüttel penitentiary on 30 July 1940. The Nursing and Care Home Hamburg-Langenhorn informed the Public Prosecutors Office "Harry Jacob Israel was admitted here on 9.8.1940. Starting from this day, the permanent confinement of Jacob will be enforced”. On 6 Aug. 1942, the Nursing and Care Home Langenhorn advised the senior Public Prosecutors Office at the Hamburg district court succinctly: "By order of the Reich Minister of the Interior, Harry Jacob was transferred to Chelm near Lublin on 23.9.1940”.

This alleged transfer had been preceded by the following. Within a special action planned by the "Euthanasia” central office in Berlin, Tiergartenstrasse 4 against Jews of both sexes in public and private Nursing and Care Homes the Reich Interior Ministry had instructed that all those concerned from Hamburg, Schleswig Holstein and Mecklenburg should be collected in the Nursing and Care Home Hamburg-Langenhorn by 18 Sept. 1940. The Langenhorn Home requested in writing the approval of The Hamburg State Prosecutors Office on 18 Sept. 1940. "By order of the Reich Minister of the Interior dated 30.8.1940, mentally ill Jews are to be transferred to a collection home. Only Jews of German or Polish nationality as well as stateless Jews. The relocation is scheduled for 23.9.1940. Harry Israel Jacob, born in Hannover 29.9.1899 is also worth considering for the relocation. We request you to take note and give us your approval for this transfer”. The approval came by return post.

After all the Jewish women and men from the Northern German homes had arrived in Langenhorn, they were brought together with those Jews who had been living there longer, to the so-called District Care Home in Brandenburg an der Havel. They were killed there with Carbon Monoxide on the same day in the part of the former penitentiary that had been converted into a gas killing centre. To cover up these murders, it was stated in the notifications of death that the people concerned had died in a home in Chelm (Polish) or Cholm (German) east of Lublin.

It is not known whether and, if so, when Harry Jacob’s relatives were informed of his death. The people murdered in Brandenburg had never been in Chelm/Cholm. The Polish nursing home which had previously existed there was no longer functional after SS units had murdered nearly all the patients on 12 Jan. 1940. And there had never been a German registry office in Chelm. Its invention and the use of dates of death later than the real ones served to cover up the murders and, simultaneously, to charge maintenance costs for a correspondingly longer period of time.

The Hannover district court ruled Harry Jacob legally dead on 31 Dec. 1945.

His mother Rosalie also died in the Holocaust. She was deported from Hannover to Riga on 15 Dec. 1941. His father had died before.

Translation by Steve Robinson

Stand: April 2020
© Ingo Wille

Quellen: 1; 4; 5; 9; 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); 213-11 Staatsanwaltschaft Landgericht 03886-38 Harry Jacob; 352-8/7 Staatskrankenanstalt Langenhorn Abl. 1/1995 Aufnahme-/Abgangsbuch Langenhorn 26.8.1939 bis 27.1.1941; Niedersächsisches Landesarchiv, Hannover, Nds. 725 Hannover Acc. 103/96 Nr. 236 Todeserklärungsverfahren Harry Jacob; Stadtarchiv Hannover, I 6053-Geburtsregister Nr. 5733/1899 Harry Jacob.
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