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Erich Alexander Heilbut, 1923
© UKE/IGEM

Erich Alexander Heilbut * 1901

Bornstraße 4 (Eimsbüttel, Rotherbaum)

HIER WOHNTE
ERICH ALEXANDER
HEILBUT
JG. 1901
EINGEWIESEN 1940
HEILANSTALT LANGENHORN
"VERLEGT" 23.9.1940
BRANDENBURG
ERMORDET 23.9.1940
"AKTION T4"

further stumbling stones in Bornstraße 4:
Betty Elkeles, Oswald Heilbut, Michel Liepmann Heilbut

Michel Liepmann, called Martin, Heilbut, born on 18.6.1864 in Hamburg, deported to the Theresienstadt Ghetto on 15.7.1942, deported to Treblinka on 21.9.1942, murdered

Oswald Heilbut, born on 8.4.1899 in Hamburg, deported on 22.10.1940 from Baden to Gurs/Southern France, died there on 1.11.1941

Erich Alexander Heilbut, born on 17.1.1901 in Hamburg, murdered on 23.9.1940 in the "State Hospital Brandenburg” ("Landes-Pflegeanstalt" Brandenburg) an der Havel

Bornstraße 4 (Eimsbüttel, Rotherbaum)

The Jewish family Heilbut was demonstrably resident in Hamburg since the early 19th century. The cigar worker Liepmann Michel Heilbut, born in Neubukow/Mecklenburg in 1827, and his wife Johebet Jette, née Koppel, born in Hamburg in 1833, had at least three children: Michel, born in 1859, Michel Liepmann, called Martin, born in 1864 and Golda Goldine, born in 1868. The family relationship with Neubukow was obviously maintained. Whilst Michel (Martin) Liepmann was born in Hamburg, his elder brother, Michel, and his sister Golda Goldine Heilbut were born in Neubukow.

We know nothing about what happened to the eldest child, Michel. Golda Goldine married Simeon Burghard, a milk trader who also originated from Neubukow in 1909. We do not know whether children were born of this marriage.

Michel Liepmann Heilbut married Helene Samuel on 16 March 1898. She was born on 4 May 1875 also in Hamburg. Michel Liepmann was called Martin only by his wife. This first name is also used here. While Martin Heilbut lived at the time of his marriage at Schlachterstraße 47 in Hamburg-Neustadt, Helene Samuel lived at that time at Grindelberg 10 together with her mother, who died on 1 Aug. 1897. Initially, the couple lived at Grindelberg 10a for several years, then at Rutschbahn 25 in the Rotherbaum district and afterwards at Wrangelstraße in the Hoheluft-West district.

Four children were born of the marriage: Oswald, born on 8 Apr. 1899, Erich Alexander, born on 17 Jan. 1901, both born Grindelberg 10a, Thea Henriette Justine, born on 27 June 1905, and Vera, born on 1 May 1909, both born at Wrangelstraße 18.

Martin Heilbut earned the livelihood for the family as a salesman in textile goods. He practiced this profession for several decades.

The family could be found in the Hamburg address book at Bornstraße 4 for many years from 1915 where they lived in a comfortable five and a half room apartment.

Helene Heilbut, Martin Heilbut's wife, no longer lived in the shared flat since 1923, but was in various psychiatric hospitals. The children also left the parental home in the 1920s. After he had to considerably restrict his business activities as a result of the Nazi boycott measures against Jewish businesses and institutions in April 1933, Martin Heilbut was forced to give up the previous flat in Bornstraße. He now lived at Abendrothsweg 66 in Hoheluft-Ost as a subtenant with the widow S. Burchard. From here he tried to keep his business going, but had to stop it completely on 1 Apr. 1938.

From 22 May 1939, Martin Heilbut had to live in extremely cramped accommodation in a "Jew House” ("Judenhaus") at Rutschbahn 25a, house 2, 2nd floor. The "Reich Law on Tenancies with Jews" of 30 Apr. 1939 had restricted tenant protection for Jews and their free choice of housing. Jewish people were now concentrated in "Jews Houses”, mostly buildings of former Jewish owners or Jewish foundations like the four small houses in the backyard of Rutschbahn 25, which belonged to the Jewish Minkel Salomon David Kalker Foundation. On 6 Dec. 1940 Martin Heilbut had to move into house No. 3 of the apartment building Rutschbahn 25a.

On 29 Apr. 1941 Martin Heilbut wrote to his daughter Vera, who was living in Palestine, on a German Red Cross form that he was about to move into the old people's home. By this he meant the Jewish old people's home at Sedanstraße 23, by now also a "Jew house”. He went on to write that Vera's brother Oswald was interned in Gurs/Pyrenees.

On 16 May 1941, he moved to the old people's home. There he received the deportation order one year later. He had to appear at the Schanzenstraße/Altonaerstraße school and was deported to the Theresienstadt Ghetto in the "Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia", i.e. in the German-occupied part of Czechoslovakia, together with 925 other Jewish people on 15 July 1942.

For him, like many others, the "old people's Ghetto" Theresienstadt turned out to be a transit camp to death: two months later, on 21 Sep. 1942, a transport of a total of 2002 women and men left from there for the extermination camp Treblinka in occupied Poland. Martin Heilbut was in this transport, too. He was declared dead after the war on 8 May 1945.

Helene Heilbut, Martin Heilbut's wife, suffered from depression since the early 1920s. She was admitted to the Friedrichsberg State Hospital on 7 Feb. 1923 and transferred to the Langenhorn State Hospital on 4 June 1924. There she expressed pessimism about her "failed life" and complained about two unhappy mentally ill children. By this she meant her son Erich Alexander and probably also her daughter Thea Henriette Justine.

After a few days' stay in the Nursing Home Hamburg (Versorgungsheim Hamburg), Helene Heilbut was returned to the State Hospital Langenhorn in December 1929 and from there, like many Langenhorn patients, she was transferred to the Lübish sanatorium Strecknitz (Lübische Heilanstalt Strecknitz) near Lübeck at the beginning of 1930. (The cities of Hamburg and Lübeck had concluded an agreement on the basis of which a total of 400 additional beds were to be built in Strecknitz with the help of an interest-free loan from Hamburg, at least 75% of which were reserved for Hamburg patients.)

On 9 May 1936, Helene Heilbut was discharged as improved in retirement to a Mr. Blumenthal at Steinstraße 10 in Hamburg, who shortly afterwards moved with her to Carolinenstraße 22. In August 1938, Helene Heilbut was hit by a motorbike and suffered fractures of the skull, ribs and legs as well as a cerebral haemorrhage, as a result of which she died in the Israelite Hospital on 29 Aug. 1938.

Erich Alexander Heilbut, the second oldest of Martin and Helene Heilbut's four children, had also been in psychiatric institutions since 1923. He was admitted to the Friedrichsberg State Hospital on 23 March 1923. The admission to Friedrichsberg was arranged by the Jewish neurologist Ernst Kalmus, Colonnaden 9, with the following diagnosis: "The 22-year-old Erich Heilbut, Bornstraße 4 III, suffers from schizophrenic disorders and requires admission to the nervous department in Friedrichsberg. gez. Dr. Kalmus". (for Ernst Kalmus see addendum)

Martin Heilbut described his son Erich Alexander as very dreamy and enthusiastic. He had wanted to become an actor, was very talented and could recite well, but had to abandon this wish because of a pharyngitis infection. Erich Alexander moved a lot in artistic and scientific circles. His main focus had been Theosophy (Theosophy – the "Wisdom of God” is a religious – ideological movement which wishes to understand the structure of the world and the meaning of world affairs through meditative contact with God). He read a lot and composed poems.

Since late autumn 1922, a change had occurred. He was no longer able to concentrate, did not like to get dressed, sat around for hours and spoke little. He often stroked his head. He did not pay attention to his appearance and sometimes soiled himself while eating. He was clumsy when doing manual work. He had a close relationship with his mother. He had been her favorite because he could have been so gentle and quiet. Only rarely did he react with irascibility.

Erich Alexander Heilbut himself reported that he had experienced a normal childhood and had passed the Abitur after attending the Oberrealschule (High School). School had seemed unnatural to him, "the comrades with all their jokes and all their stuff". Mathematics and natural sciences suited him more than languages. After school, he joined a bookshop, but did not get along with the boss. "He was such an old, practical gentleman and I was so dreamy." Erich Alexander had lessons with three actors, but repeatedly got laryngitis, so he had to give up acting.

He now worked for about two years in the bookshop of the Tietz department stores, but stayed away one day on the grounds that he had to help a friend's wife. He was then dismissed. This was followed by a short period of work in the bookshop Max Löwenberg in the Kaufmannshaus at Bleichenbrücke 10. Erich Alexander Heilbut himself felt that he was doing everything wrong.

In addition to his psychological problems, Erich Alexander Heilbut also suffered from severe overweight. He weighed 121 kg when he was admitted to Friedrichsberg. A year later, he had lost eleven kilograms, but was still considerably over normal weight. In accordance with his wish to do light gardening work, Erich Alexander worked in Friedrichsberg "at times in the column" (meaning group work, e.g. in the gardens).

Five years later, on 14 June 1928, Erich Alexander's stay in Friedrichsberg came to an end. He was first transferred to the Langenhorn State Hospital and then to the Strecknitz Sanatorium in Lübeck on 30 Oct. 1930. He lived in Lübeck-Strecknitz until September 1940. It is not known whether he had contact with his mother during the time she was a patient in Lübeck-Strecknitz. After her release in 1936, Helene Heilbut often asked the institution management about her son's health. She always enclosed stamps worth one mark and asked them to buy cakes for Erich Alexander. After her death on 29 Aug. 1938, Erich Alexander's father, Martin Heilbut, took care of him, especially before birthdays.

In the spring/summer of 1940, the "Euthanasia" headquarters in Berlin, Tiergartenstraße 4, planned a special action against Jews in public and private sanatoriums and nursing homes. They had the Jewish people living in the institutions registered and gathered together in so-called collective institutions. The Hamburg-Langenhorn sanatorium and nursing home, as the institution was called from 1938, was designated as the North German collective institution. All institutions in Hamburg, Schleswig-Holstein and Mecklenburg were ordered to transfer the Jews living in their institutions there by 18 Sept. 1940.

Erich Alexander Heilbut arrived in Langenhorn on 16 Sept. 1940. On 23 Sept. 1940, along with a further 135 patients of both sexes from North German homes, he was transferred to Brandenburg on the Havel. The transport reached the city in the Mark of Brandenburg the same day. In the part of the former prison which had been converted into a center for murder by gas, the staff herded the people without delay into the gas chamber and killed them with carbon monoxide (Only one patient, Ilse Herta Zachmann, initially escaped this fate. See the entry on her in www.stolpersteine-hamburg.de)

It is not known whether and, if so, when relatives were informed of Erich Alexander Heilbut's death. In all documented communications it was claimed that the person concerned had died in Chelm (Polish) or Cholm (German). It was noted on Erich Alexander Heilbut's birth register entry that he died on 2 Feb. 1941 and the Chelm II registry office registered his death under number 421/1941. However, those murdered in Brandenburg had never been in Chelm or Cholm, a town north-east of Lublin. The Polish sanatorium that used to be there, no longer existed after SS units murdered almost all the patients on 12 Jan. 1940. There was also no German registry office in Chelm. The invention of the registry office and the use of later than the actual death dates served to disguise the murder and at the same time to be able to claim rations from the Jewish relatives or the Jewish communities for a correspondingly longer period of time.

Thea Henriette Justine Heilbut, Erich Alexander’s sister had also left her parent’s flat in Bornstraße in 1926. According to the Hamburg Jewish Community Religious Tax index card, she left for an unknown destination. From a short note in Helene Heilbut’s patient record, however, it is apparent that Thea Heilbut was admitted to the State Hospital Langenhorn. We do not know whether she was admitted there directly or, as in many other cases, had previously been in the Friedrichsberg State Hospital.

On 30 Oct. 1930, Thea Heilbut was transferred to Lübeck-Strecknitz on the same transport as her brother Erich Alexander. She died there on 21 June 1934.

Oswald Heilbut, the eldest child of Martin and Helene Heilbut, worked as a bookseller. He also left the family apartment at Bornstraße 4 in 1926. In 1928, he married in Stuttgart Helene Kühn, a non jewish unskilled labourer, born in 1907 in East Prussia. The marriage was divorced in February 1932.

In 1934, Oswald Heilbut emigrated to Paris. He must have returned to Germany, however, because he was one of the 6,500 Jews who were deported from Germany in one of the early deportations, the "Wagner-Bürckel Action", named after the responsible NSDAP Gauleiters, on 22 Oct. 1940 from Baden and the Saar Palatinate to France and imprisoned in the Camp de Gurs, northeast of the Pyrenees. (According to the plans of the National Socialists at that time, the Jews were to be deported later to Madagascar. However, the course of the war shattered these vague plans).

Approximately 2000 of the people deported from Mannheim (2335), Heidelberg (1380), Karlsruhe (900), Baden-Baden (106), Freiburg (450) and Konstanz (110) died in the internment camp Gurs, amongst them Oswald Heilbut on 1 Nov. 1941.

Vera Henriette Justine Heilbut, the youngest of the children, trained to be a gardner. She migrated to Ludwigshorst/Deutsch Krone (today Poland, Woiwodschaft West Pommerania) in 1932, emigrated to Palestine in August 1932 and lived there in the Kibbuz Givat Brenner near Rechovot, south of Tel Aviv.

Addendum:
The Jewish physician Ernst Kalmus, born on 1 Jan. 1874 in Berlin, worked as a practicing neurologist in Hamburg Neustadt. After he was denounced by a female patient in April 1933, he was arrested and accused of tax evasion, communist conduct and sexual harassment. After 16 days in solitary confinement, he was able to escape to Bohemia and emigrated from there to Palestine / Israel. He died in 1959 in Kibbuz Jawne.

Translation Steve Robinson

Stand: April 2023
© Ingo Wille

Quellen: 1; 4; 5; 7; 9; AB; StaH 133-1 III Staatsarchiv III, 3171-2/4 U.A. 4, Liste psychisch kranker jüdischer 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 Oberfinanzpräsident FVg 3057 Vera Heilbut; 332-5 Standesämter 8589 Heiratsregistereintrag Nr. 95/1898 Michel und Helena Heilbut, 1089 Sterberegistereintrag Nr. 316/1938 Helene Heilbut, 13613 Geburtsurkunde Nr. 183/1901 Erich Alexander Heilbut; 351-11 Amt für Wiedergutmachung Nr. 33971 Vera Heilbut; 352-8/7 Staatskrankenanstalt Langenhorn Abl. 1/1995 Aufnahme-/Abgangsbuch Langenhorn 26.8.39 bis 27.1.1941, Abl. 1995/2 Nr. 15064 Helene Heilbut, Nr. 17474 Erich Alexander Heilbut; UKE/IGEM, Patienten-Karteikarte Erich Alexander Heilbut der Staatskrankenanstalt Friedrichsberg; UKE/IGEM, Patientenakte Erich Alexander Heilbut der Staatskrankenanstalt Friedrichsberg; IMGWF Lübeck, Patientenakten über Thea Heilbut und Erich Alexander Heilbut der Heilanstalt Lübeck-Strecknitz; JSHD Forschungsgruppe "Juden in Schleswig-Holstein", Datenpool Erich Koch, Schleswig. Das Theresienstädter Gedenkbuch. Die Opfer der Judentransporte aus Deutschland nach Theresienstadt 1942-1945/ Institut Theresienstädter Initiative, S. 394. Delius, Ende von Strecknitz. Die Lübecker Heilanstalt und ihre Auflösung 1941, Kiel 1988, S. 28 f. Anna von Viellez, Mit aller Kraft verdrängt. Entrechtung und Verfolgung "nicht arischer" Ärzte in Hamburg 1993 bis 1945, Hamburg 2009, S. 314. Fremdwörterduden 1997 (Theosophie). Telefonische Auskunft von Cornelius Borck, Institut für Medizinische Geschichte und Wissenschaftsforschung der Universietät Lübeck, Lübeck am 5.3.2022 zu Thea Heilbut. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_de_Gurs#Deutschland, Zugriff am 27.4.2016; http://www.holocaust.cz/de/opferdatenbank/opfer/14385-michael-heilbut, Zugriff am 28.4.2016.
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