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Albert Kaufmann * 1894

Rutschbahn 7 (Eimsbüttel, Rotherbaum)

1941 Minsk

further stumbling stones in Rutschbahn 7:
Herta Kaufmann, Willy Mendel, Ida Seligmann, Helene Streit, Ludwig Streit

Albert Kaufmann, born 8 Feb. 1894 in Hamburg, deported 8 Nov. 1941 to Minsk
Hanna Herta Kaufmann, née Mendel, divorced Joseph, born 6 June 1905 in Hamburg, deported 8 Nov. 1941 to Minsk

Rutschbahn 7

Albert Kaufmann was born to Martin and Babette Kaufmann on 8 Feb. 1894 in Hamburg. Albert Kaufmann took part in the First World War as a soldier, from which he returned with lasting damage to his health. In 1918 he went to Berlin and returned to Hamburg six years later. He worked as a sales representative. After his father’s death in 1927, he took over his father’s business, a sign factory at Markstr. 138 registered under the name Kaufmann & Simon. However, the business ran poorly, although Albert maintained that he managed to avoid filing for bankruptcy. Yet at times he had no orders whatsoever.

The first time he wed, Albert Kaufmann married Clara, née Lebrecht, on 25 Dec. 1927 in Mainz where his bride was born on 15 Oct. 1905. The couple lived in Hamburg and moved into an apartment at Hansastraße 70 in Jan. 1928. The housing office had found the apartment for them. Rent was 87.50 RM. They sublet two of the four rooms and initially were able to earn 50 RM a month, later somewhat less.

Clara had trained as a clerk, however she was unable to find work, probably due to the global economic crisis. From 1 Apr. 1931 she therefore hired herself out to David Levy as a nanny and was paid 40 RM a month. Albert Kaufmann mainly covered his living costs with his pension for disabled war veterans, which he received because of limited movement in his left arm and left hand. The pension fluctuated between about 50 and 65 RM, including a supplementary pension. In 1931 for instance, he received 50.25 RM as his disabled war veterans pension and a supplementary pension of 12.25 RM. With the income that Clara was earning at the time and the income from subletting, they had a total income of 140 RM a month in spring of that year. Compared to other years, the couple was in a relatively good position in 1931. However their marriage failed. In July 1931, Clara went back to Mainz. Albert wrote that she left him due to "my poor financial situation". The childless couple was divorced at the beginning of 1934.

After the separation from Clara, Albert first moved to Hochallee 14 in 1932. From then on he only lived in sublets and moved house at ever shorter intervals. He built up considerable rent debt with various creditors. Eventually his furnishings went into compulsory auction. In 1936 Albert noted in a letter to the welfare office, from which he received a pension, that he still owned "his own desk and very many books". In the same year he also owed, in addition to the previously mentioned outstanding rent, the finance office money for rent on Hansastraße and 625 RM from a loan that the welfare office had granted him in 1929.

In 1933/34 Albert Kaufmann only had a monthly income of 47.70 RM from his pension. He then tried not only to continue running his father’s business Kaufmann & Simon as a sales representative, from August 1936 he also worked as a clerical employee at the company Elias Moor, an importing business for skins, where he earned a gross income of 165 RM. He lost the job after four months. Not until July 1939 was he able to find an apprenticeship – albeit unpaid – as a photographer with the company Fa. Wilhelm Heinemann Nachfolger Karl Niemeier on Schanzenstraße which provided him with health care benefits.

Albert Kaufmann’s private life also changed in 1939: He got married again. His second wife, Hanna Herta, called Herta, was the daughter of Willy Mendel, a merchant, and his wife Jenny, and was born on 6 June 1905 in Hamburg. She had a younger sister, Else van Cleef. Her two half-sisters and a half-brother came from Willy Mendel’s relationship with Käthchen Went-Mendel. Else definitely attended the Israelite Daughters School on Karolinenstraße, which leads us to believe that Herta also went to school there. The Jewish girls’ school was founded at the end of the 19th century through the combination of two girls’ schools that had been set up for students from a poor socio-economic background. Its good reputation and multi-facetted curriculum, encompassing foreign languages and sciences, increasingly attracted middle-class girls.

It was also Herta’s second marriage since she had previously been married to a man by the name of Joseph. Nothing further is known about him. She did not receive any alimony from him. During the summer of 1937 at least, Herta lived with her sister and her husband Edgar van Cleef at Bismarckstraße 80, before she moved into a sublet at Brahmsallee 6 in Aug. of that year. At that time, Herta earned 150 RM a month, from which she supported her mother with 70 RM a month. Her mother died in 1937. Besides the funeral, she also had to pay for her mother’s hospital stay. Herta paid her debt in installments. She didn’t always manage to raise the necessary funds. In June 1941 she still planned to start paying the installments again.

Herta had trained as a foreign-language shorthand typist and was a member of the Jewish community. From 1930 to 1941 she paid varying amounts to them. From the regularity we can surmise that she worked nearly continuously. From Mar. to May 1939, she had a job with the property manager Mary Fränkel, from 1940 with the company Fa. Ernst Scharlach & Co., a Jewish immigration consulting service on Königstraße. There she earned 108 RM a month.

Albert and Herta were married on 3 Oct. 1939. How they met is not known. The couple remained childless. At first the couple lived at Schlüterstraße 80. Their landlord’s name was Leyser. Albert and Herta probably did not move to Rutschbahn 7 until spring 1941, where they sublet from a subletter by the name of Streit.

The couple spoke of plans to emigrate both in connection with Albert’s photography apprenticeship and in a request by Herta to have the remaining debt for her mother’s hospital stay forgiven. Herta’s sister had already fled to Uruguay in 1938, and her father perished in Hungary while trying to reach Panama on a convoluted path. These two lead us to believe that Albert and Herta also aspired to immigrate to South America but weren’t able to pull it off.

Herta continued to be employed by the company Fa. Scharlach & Co. until 6 Nov. 1941. Her employer was able to communicate one last sign of life to her sister Else following Herta’s deportation. Ernst Scharlach described Albert’s health as poor. Both their deportations at such short notice came as an "extraordinary surprise".

Albert and Herta Kaufmann received the order for deportation at Rutschbahn 7. They were deported to Minsk on 8 Nov. 1941. The train transport lasted about two days. Nothing is known about their life or death at the ghetto there.

After the couple was deported, the "Department for the Recovery of Seized Assets" had their possessions sold by the auctioneer Schlüter.
Herta Kaufmann was declared dead on 8 May 1945.

Translator: Suzanne von Engelhardt

Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

Stand: October 2016
© Julia Stamer

Quellen: StaHH, 522-1 Jüdische Gemeinden, 992b, Kultussteuerkartei der Deutsch-Israelitischen Gemeinde Hamburg, Kultussteuerkarte Martin bzw. Babette Kaufmann, Albert Kaufmann, Jenny Mendel; StaHH, 315-14 Arbeits- & Sozialfürsorge, Einzelfallakte Jüdische Fürsorgeempfänger 1374 Albert Kaufmann; StaHH 351-11 Amt für Wiedergutmachung 34600 Wiedergutmachungsakte für van Cleef, Else; StaHH 351-11 351-14 Arbeits-& Sozialfürsorge, Einzelfallakte Jüdische Fürsorgeempfänger 1573 Jenny Mendel; StaHH 314-15 Oberfinanzpräsident J2 Bd. 2, Nr. 2/456; Statistik des Holocaust, Deportationsliste der Gestapo, http://www.statistik-des-holocaust.de/OT411108-21.jpg, Stand 21.06.14; Rentrop, Petra: Tatorte der "Endlösung". Das Ghetto Minsk und die Vernichtungsstätte von Maly Trostinez, Berlin 2011; Meyer, Beate: Die Deportation der Hamburger Juden 1941–1945, in: Meyer, Beate (Hrsg.): Die Verfolgung und Ermordung der Hamburger Juden 1933–1945. Geschichte. Zeugnis. Erinnerung, 2. Aufl., Hamburg 2007; Langner, Dirk: Die Wiedergutmachung von NS-Unrecht und die neue Richtlinie zur Ghettoarbeit, in: Zarusky, Jürgen (Hrsg.): Ghettorenten. Entschädigungspolitik, Rechtsprechung und historische Forschung, München 2010 [Zeitgeschichte im Gespräch, Bd. 6]; Randt, Ursula: Carolinenstrasse 35. Geschichte der Mädchenschule der Deutsch-Israelitischen Gemeinde Hamburg 1884–1942, Hamburg 1984 [Verein für Hamburgische Geschichte (Hrsg.): Vorträge und Aufsätze, 26].