Search for Names, Places and Biographies

Gerson Jacobsen * 1941

Rutschbahn 11 (Eimsbüttel, Rotherbaum)

1942 Auschwitz

further stumbling stones in Rutschbahn 11:
Ilse Dotsch, Malka Goldberg, Hanna Heimann, Regine Jacobsen, Ludwig Jacobsen, Klara (Clara) Jacobsen, Beer Lambig, Pescha Lambig, Senta Lambig, Samuel Lambig, Leo Lambig, Manuel Staub, Gerson Stoppelman, Augusta Szpigiel

Clara (Klara) Jacobsen, née Löwenstein, born 2.6.1902 in Cologne, deported 11.7.1942 to Auschwitz
Gerson Jacobsen, born 28.1.1941 in Hamburg, deported 11.7.1942 to Auschwitz
Ludwig Jacobsen, born 8.7.1900 in Hamburg, deported 8.11.1941 to Minsk
Regine Jacobsen, born 18.11.1934 in Hamburg, deported 11.7.1942 to Auschwitz

Rutschbahn 11

Ludwig Jacobsen's grandfather, Adolph Michel Jacobsen, born January 16, 1834 in Altona, had founded a family business, the company A. M. Jacobsen. He was married to Klara/Clara, née Joseph, born Nov. 24, 1842 in Hamburg. Both were of Jewish origin. Their marriage produced several children. Their son Michel, born Aug. 28, 1868, became a co-owner of the company, and his brother Jacob (born January 20, 1875), who was seven years younger, also joined his parents' business. They expanded it into a wholesale business for supplies for nurseries and florists, with headquarters on Woltmanstraße in Klostertor, now St. George. The wholesale flower market at Klosterwall was not far away.

Michel Jacobsen married Regine Offenburg, born Jan. 6, 1868, a Danish woman of the same age, on Oct. 24, 1895. They both lived in Hamburg's Neustadt. Regine's father Joseph Offenburg, born August 25, 1824, had moved from Copenhagen to Hamburg in 1890 after the death of his wife Sara, née Fränckel, with their daughter and son Nathan Hirsch, born August 6, 1866, and initially moved in with relatives. After Nathan Offenburg had established himself with a banking and exchange business, he rented an apartment at Mathildenstraße 10, where he lived with his children until the end of his life on September 9, 1892. He was buried in a single grave in the Jewish cemetery at Ilandkoppel in Hamburg-Ohlsdorf. Six months after his death, the siblings moved and lived at Bei der kleinen Michaeliskirche 30 until Regine's marriage. At that time, Michel Jacobsen was still living in his parents' house, Alter Steinweg 22/23. After he moved out, the parents changed to the Levy-Stift Gr. Neumarkt 56, where Klara Jacobsen died on January 14, 1900.

The young couple lived in Wexstraße 10, where Regine Jacobsen gave birth to their first child on November 24, 1897, a son named Joseph after his deceased maternal grandfather. He was followed by three more sons, Marcus (Dec. 25, 1898), Ludwig (August 7, 1900), and after a move to 32 Carolinenstraße, Jacob Ivan (Dec. 10, 1901).

As a widower, Adolph Michel Jacobsen initially moved to Wexstraße 14. However, like many Jews at the beginning of the 20th century, he left the Neustadt: in 1906 he moved to the Grindelviertel and lived as a subtenant at Bornstraße 24 until his death at the age of 83 on July 14, 1917. Michel Jacobsen had meanwhile moved with his family to Bornstraße 6.

Contrary to the commercial tradition, Joseph Jacobsen was not trained to take over his parents' business, but he did follow the spiritual tradition. After attending the Talmud Tora Realschule, he transferred to the Heinrich-Hertz-Oberrealschule, where he passed the Abitur, took part in the First World War and then, initially in Munich, began to study musicology, French, English and Hebrew. To continue his studies he went to Leipzig and returned to Hamburg for graduation. There he began teaching at the Talmud Tora Realschule in 1923.

The second son, Marcus, also did not grow up in the family business. He attended the School of Arts and Crafts and died at the age of 18.

Jacob Ivan went through commercial training after graduating from Talmud Tora Realschule. He then gained professional experience before joining his parents' business in 1924. In addition to school and work, he played sports in the Bar Kochba club, especially field hockey.

The least is known about Ludwig Jacobsen. It can be assumed that he received the same schooling and professional training as his younger brother. At the age of 21 he joined his parents' company as an authorized signatory. In 1924, his uncle Jacob, who lived with his wife Guste, née Möller, born February 13, 1871, and their children Klara (born March 30, 1904) Pincus Paul (born December 19, 1905) in Hamburg-Eimsbüttel at Bismarckstraße 134, set up his own business for floricultural supplies, with a warehouse at Grindelberg 84. His brother Michel remained the owner of the company.

The three brothers belonged to the Orthodox synagogue association, as did their uncle Nathan Offenburg, who was active in several committees in the Jewish community. He lived with his wife Bertha, née Leinkauf, born May 23, 1878 in Vienna, and their four children in close proximity at Dillstraße 21.

In 1924, Joseph Jacobsen received his doctorate in Hamburg. On October 17, he married Martha Feist, born Sept. 10, 1895, a student teacher in Frankfurt am Main. Neither his father nor any of his brothers attended as witnesses.

Martha Jacobsen apparently ended her own professional career when she married and moved to Hamburg. Her husband Joseph, on the other hand, as a music teacher, shaped not only the musical life of the Talmud Torah School, but also that of Jewish youth associations. Four children were born of their marriage. The family lived in Harvestehude until their emigration.

Ludwig Jacobsen lived for years in subletting at Bornstraße 5 across the street from his parents and his brother Jacob Ivan. The latter moved to Eimsbüttel after his marriage to Jeanette Fielmann, born Sept. 24, 1906 in Hamburg, while Ludwig remained in the Grindelviertel. He married Clara Löwenstein, born Febr. 6, 1902 in Cologne, daughter of the merchant Gottfried Löwenstein and his wife Gudula, née Kaufmann, in 1927. The marriage took place in Cologne, and Clara joined her husband in Hamburg at Fröbelstraße 8.

In 1933, their new home became an apartment on the second floor of an apartment building at Rutschbahn 11, which belonged to the Alte und Neue Klaus Society. Non-Jews also lived there. At the back of the courtyard were the Lehrhaus and the synagogue.

Clara Jacobsen gave birth to a son as her first child on July 22, 1929, who was named Adolf after his paternal grandfather.
Her father-in-law, Michel Jacobsen, died in 1931 at the age of 63 in his apartment at Bornstraße 6.

Regine Jacobsen now continued the business as sole owner. Even before the transfer of power to Adolf Hitler, medium-sized entrepreneurs took boycott measures against Jewish companies, which were also directed against the company A. M. Jacobsen. Whether the relocation of the company's headquarters to Repsoldstraße 93/Klostertor was a reaction to this is not documented.

Regine Jacobsen herself moved to Bieberstraße 9 as a subtenant. Regine Jacobsen and her sons did not succeed in stopping the bankruptcy in 1933/34. When she died on March 13, 1934, the debt amounted to RM 100,000. Knowing that under the circumstances they would never be able to pay off this debt burden, the sons disclaimed the inheritance, so that it fell to the state. The governor handed over the business, which had been extinguished by bankruptcy, to Wilhelm Kalbfell as the new owner, who took over Ludwig and Jacob Ivan as employees.

In this time of political and just overcome economic uncertainty, daughter Regine was born on November 18, 1934. For Adolf Jacobsen the time of compulsory education was approaching. Since it was a matter of course for the Orthodox Jewish family that their children attended Jewish schools, discrimination against Jewish students in state schools was not a problem for them. Adolf was registered on December 8, 1935 for the first class of the new school year 1936 in the Talmud Torah School. He was placed in class 1b, with a reduced tuition of RM 8 per month. His walk to school through Dill or Rapp Street was easy even for a first grader.

The first deportation of a family from the house concerned the family of the bookseller Lambig (see www.stolpersteine-hamburg.de). They became victims of the "Polish Action" on October 10, 1938, as did Herschel Grynszpan's parents. His shooting of the von dem Rath embassy employee in Paris was the trigger for the November pogrom that now followed, making it clear to every Jew that a new phase of persecution had begun.

On the night of the ninth to the tenth of November 1938, the building of the Klaus was demolished, the teachers imprisoned, and the Talmud Torah School closed. Adolf was by now attending the third grade. In an attempt to secure the Torah scrolls, Ludwig Jacobsen was arrested and, like his brothers Jacob Ivan and Joseph, was sent to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp.

On November 17, 1938, Clara Jacobsen gave birth to her third child, a son. In the meantime, Jews were forbidden to give their children "German" names. According to the list of permitted names issued in August 1938, the child was named Eljakim. Eljakim was born prematurely at the Johnsallee 1 Children's Hospital. Around the same time, Joseph Jacobsen was released from the Sachsenhausen concentration camp at the instigation of the Gestapo commissar, as he was needed as a teacher at the reopened Talmud Torah School. Ludwig Jacobsen's release six weeks later coincided with the death of his son Eljakim. The latter died in the children's hospital on December 23, 1938, of "weakness of life." Thus, his father himself was able to report Eljakim's death to the registry office. Like his paternal relatives, the child was buried in the Jewish cemetery in Langenfelde.

Before daughter Regine became of school age, her brother Adolf also died at the age of nine on March 28, 1939, in the Israelite Hospital of severe inflammatory diseases and was also buried in the Jewish cemetery in Langenfelde.

After six weeks of imprisonment, his health severely impaired, Jacob Ivan also returned from prison. The Jacobsen brothers had lost their jobs with the November pogrom. Jeanette Jacobsen's parents were already living in Cape Town and helped with the immediate emigration of their son-in-law and his family, who left for Bulawayo in what was then Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), as early as December 31, 1938. Joseph Jacobsen emigrated with his family to England in March 1939, where he died in London in 1943.

It is not known whether Ludwig Jacobsen attempted to emigrate. He no longer had any income how the tax card of the Jewish community shows, and therefore only paid the bounty of 1 RM per month to the congregation.

On January 28, 1941, Clara Jacobsen gave birth to another son, Gerson. In the spring, Regine was enrolled in the former girls' school of the Jewish community at Carolinenstraße 35. As a "Volks- und Höhere Schule für Juden" (elementary and secondary school for Jews), it was now the only Jewish school in Hamburg after the merger with the Talmud Torah School. From September 19, Regine Jacobsen also had to wear the yellow star as a child elder than 6 years.

When the deportations of Hamburg Jews alleged "for construction in the East" began in October, Ludwig Jacobsen, without his wife and children, was called to the second evacuation on November 8, 1941, which led to the ghetto of Minsk. Two elementary school teachers from Regine's school left Hamburg on the same transport. Unlike in most cases, where the husband was initially deported to Minsk alone, Clara Jacobsen and the children did not receive the deportation order for November 18, 1941.

She was granted a short respite. Now the Jewish Community created a separate cultural tax card for her, on which she was listed as "gt" - separated. She moved with Regine and Gerson to Dillstraße 15, and they never saw her husband and father again.

Former teacher Rebekka Cohn, who had already retired, was rehired to teach the deported elementary school teachers. She now also taught Regine. With the order of the Hamburg Reich Governor Kaufmann of April 29, 1942, the teaching of Jewish children had to end, and the Carolinenstraße school was evacuated. The remaining teachers and schoolchildren found a new home in the former Jewish boys' orphanage. Only two months later, on June 30, 1942, all instruction for Jewish children in the German Reich ended. The children and young people of the institution, now called the "Jewish School in Hamburg," received their leaving certificates.

Rebekka Cohn wrote a report for each of her seven first graders. About Regine Jacobsen she wrote: "Regine is a very lively child who follows the lessons with great interest. Her performance in reading is very good. She can retell well what she has read. She calculates quickly and confidently. Regine writes good dictation. Regine's performance in Hebrew is especially good. R. is musically gifted. - She has achieved the class goal."

Only eleven days later, Regine Jacobsen was deported directly to Auschwitz, together with her class teacher, her mother, and her brother Gerson. The transport included three other teachers and 20 schoolchildren. It included 300 people, none of whom returned. Ludwig Jacobsen also did not return.

Translation by Beate Meyer
Stand: February 2022
© Hildegard Thevs

Quellen: 1; OFP?; 4; 5; 7; 8; 9; AB; JFHH A 12-169; StaH 232-3 Testamentsbehörde, H 10615; 311-1 IV Finanzverwaltung, VuO II B 6 gb (Regine Jacobsen Nachlass); 332-5 Standesämter, 771-798/1917; 1024-116/1934; 1053-164/1936; 2435-4025/1897; 2463-4091/1898; 2850-1047/1895; 8039-451/1917; 8107-449/1931; 13282-1534/1900; 13624-2328/1901; 351-11 AfW, 31299 (Jeanette Jacobsen); Historisches Archiv der Stadt Köln; Standesamt Köln, Geburtsurkunde Nr. 1093/1902; Landesarchiv NRW Abteilung Rheinland, Standesamt Köln III, Heiratsurkunde Nr. 467/1927; Informationstafeln Alte und Neue Klaus, Rutschbahn 11; Betty Batja Rabin, Friendly Enemy Aliens or Uprooted but not rootless, in: Eine verschwundene Welt. Jüdisches Leben am Grindel, (Hrsg.) Ursula Wamser und Wilfried Weinke, Hamburg 2006; Heinsohn, Kirsten: Ophir, Baruch Zwi (Benno Offenburg), Das jüdische Hamburg. Göttingen 2006; Randt, Ursula: Jacobsen, Joseph, ebd.; dies. Die Talmud Tora Schule in Hamburg 1805 bis 1942, München/Hamburg 2005. Der Aktenbestand Oberfinanzpräsident des Hamburger Staatsarchivs stand leider für diese Forschung nicht zur Verfügung.