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Joseph Polack * 1867

Neuer Steinweg 22 / Ecke Neanderstraße (Hamburg-Mitte, Neustadt)

HIER WOHNTE
JOSEPH POLACK
JG. 1867
DEPORTIERT 1942
THERESIENSTADT
1942 TREBLINKA
ERMORDET

further stumbling stones in Neuer Steinweg 22 / Ecke Neanderstraße:
Emilie Polack

Emilie Polack, née Koopmann, born on 6 Oct. 1866 in Uedem/Kleve District, deported to Theresienstadt on 19 July 1942, died there on 4 Sept. 1942
Joseph Polack, born on 3 Aug. 1867 in Jever/Oldenburg, deported to Theresienstadt on 19 July 1942, further deported to the Treblinka extermination camp on 26 Sept. 1942

Intersection of Neanderstrasse Ludwig-Erhard-Strasse (Elbstrasse 37/39)

Joseph Polack was the only child of the Jewish couple Samson Abraham Polack (born on 2 Feb. 1837) and Sara, née Lehmann, born in Jever near Oldenburg. In 1880, his parents moved to Hamburg with their eleven-year-old son, first to Sternstrasse 69, then to the St. Pauli quarter, and two years later to a basement apartment at 1st Elbstrasse 30 (from 1900, Elbstrasse 37/39, today Neanderstrasse), where Samson Polack became self-employed as a brush maker. His wife Sara Polack died on 25 Mar. 1891 at the age of 53.

Joseph Polack married Emilie Koopmann on 1 Jan. 1900. Emilie, daughter of Simon Koopmann and Lisette, née Seligmann, was born in Uedem on the Lower Rhine in the district of Kleve. Having married in 1859, her parents lived in Uedem in house number 71 (today Markt 9). Her father had done business there and he was both a butcher and a livestock trader. There were at least four more children in the family: Siegmund (born on 21 Dec. 1864, died in 1932 in Düsseldorf); Gustav (born in 1868, died in 1930 in Düren); Julius (born on 31 Oct. 1870); and Moritz (born on 7 Nov. 1875). The three brothers Siegmund, Gustav, and Moritz Koopmann later opened shoe stores.

After the wedding, Emilie Polack moved to live with her husband Joseph in Hamburg. She took over sales of her father-in-law’s self-made "brushes of all kinds” and expanded the shop on the ground floor of the house to include the sale of soap, cosmetics, and toiletries. The workshop was behind the store. Their first child, daughter Meta, was born on 18 Dec. 1901; Erwin followed on 13 July 1905.

Joseph Polack registered his trade as a brush maker in 1902; at the same time, he was employed as a conductor for the Hamburger Hochbahn, the Hamburg transit system, for 12 years. On 31 July 1909, his father Samson Abraham Polack died at the age of 72. His grandson Erwin continued the family tradition when, after finishing school, he took up the trade of a brush maker, a profession that his great-grandfather Samson Polack had reportedly practiced already in the Dutch city of Winschoten. On 30 Dec. 1933, Erwin married his fiancée Anni/Anna Parnes (born on 13 Sept. 1913 in Harburg), emigrating with her to Palestine on 7 Jan. 1934. (Erwin Polack was killed on 11 July 1948 as a soldier fighting in the Israeli War of Independence).

His parents had quickly felt the effects of the boycott campaigns after the National Socialist assumption of power. Their sales gradually fell by half until, at the beginning of 1939, they, like all Jewish owners of businesses and craft enterprises, were prohibited from any further economic activity. On 17 Dec. 1938, they gave up the business in due time. Joseph and Emilie Polack moved into the front building of the Hertz-Joseph-Levy-Stift, a residential home, at Grossneumarkt 56 and lived on the small pension that Joseph Polack received from Hamburger Hochbahn.

Their daughter Meta, a longtime clerk of Chs. Lavy & Co. at Bleichenbrücke 25/29, was dismissed in 1938 when the company was "Aryanized” (see Julius Asch). On 22 Feb. 1939, she married the Rostock insurance inspector Curt Marchand (born on 30 June 1903) and emigrated with him to the USA. Daughter Marion Ruth was born in Chicago on 25 Aug. 1941. Perhaps the grandparents still found out about the birth of their granddaughter.

Less than a year later, on 19 July 1942, the Polacks were deported to Theresienstadt. According to the death notice, Emilie died on 4 Sept. 1942 of pneumonia and heart failure. Joseph Polack was deported to the Treblinka extermination camp on 26 Sept. 1942.

The same month in Hamburg, 21 September saw the auction of their household effects left behind. A sum of 1207.40 RM (reichsmark) was transferred to the treasurer’s office of the Hamburg Chief Finance Administrator (Oberfinanzpräsident).

Emilie’s brother Moritz Koopmann had lived with his wife Rosa, née Katz (born on 10 Jan. 1884 in Eisenach), in Lüdenscheid since 1906, where they ran a shoe store with eight employees at Wilhelmstrasse 36 and owned a house at Wilhelmstrasse 3. The calls for a boycott against Jewish retailers and other reprisals spelled ruin. In May 1936, they gave up the business and moved to Frankfurt/Main. Their daughter Charlotte (born on 28 May 1907) was able to emigrate to Palestine in Dec. 1934. Son Fritz (born on 18 Apr. 1909) emigrated to the USA in Aug. 1939. The married couple Rosa and Moritz Koopmann were deported on 22 Nov. 1941 from Niddastrasse 46 in Frankfurt/Main to the Lithuanian ghetto in Kaunas (Kowno, Kauen), where they were shot outside the city immediately upon arrival on 25 Nov. 1941.

The older brother Julius Koopmann had married in Cologne in 1903. The marriage had been divorced in 1917 in Düsseldorf. His last place of residence was also Frankfurt/Main. On 19 Aug. 1942, he was deported from the Jewish retirement home at Hans-Handwerkstrasse 30 to Theresienstadt, where he died on 22 Sept. 1942 at the age of 71.

The nephew, Hans Koopmann (born on 30 Jan.1905), the son of Emilie’s oldest brother Siegmund, was murdered in Auschwitz on 9 Oct. 1942.

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

Stand: July 2020
© Susanne Rosendahl

Quellen: 1; 3; 6; 351-11 AfW 1160; 351-11 AfW 1103 (Polack, Emilia); StaH 314-15 Abl. 1998 P295; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 294 u 723/1891; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 14437 u 1090/1905; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 13952 u 1084/1933; StaH 522-1 Jüdische Gemeinden 374; Auskünfte von Michael Lehmann, Heimat- und Verkehrsverein Uedem e.V. vom 19.4.2012; Lehmann: Schicksal, S. 155–158, S. 241–242; http://www.statistik-des-holocaust.de/list_ger_hhn_411122.html (Zugriff 9.5.2017); Lüdenscheider Gedenkbuch für die Opfer von Verfolgung und Krieg der Nationalsozialisten 1933–1945; http://www.friedensgruppe-luedenscheid.de/files/gedenkbuch_2_aufl.pdf (Zugriff 9.5.2017).
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