Search for Names, Places and Biographies

Jacob Cohn * 1884

Markusstraße (Durchgang zur Neanderstraße, vor Sportplatz; früher Peterstraße 17) (Hamburg-Mitte, Neustadt)

HIER WOHNTE
JACOB COHN
JG. 1884
"SCHUTZHAFT" 1938
DACHAU
DEPORTIERT 1941
LODZ / LITZMANNSTADT
ERMORDET 8.2.1942

further stumbling stones in Markusstraße (Durchgang zur Neanderstraße, vor Sportplatz; früher Peterstraße 17):
Rosa Cohn, Ingeborg Holstein, Ignatz Holstein

Jacob Cohn, born 4/6/1884 in Hamburg, repeatedly jailed, deported to Lodz on October 25, 1941, died there on February 8, 1942.
Rosa Cohn, née Lippmann, born 1/11/1895 in Jauer, deported to Lodz on October 25, 1941, murdered at the Chelmno/Kulmhof extermination camp on 5/1/1942.
Ignatz Holstein, born 9/2/1900 in Hamburg, deported to Lodz on 10/25/1941
Ingeborg Holstein/Jordan, née Cohn, born 8/2/1916, deported to Lodz on 10/25/1941, murdered at the Chelmno/Kulmhof extermination camp on 5/1/1942.

Corner of Markusstrasse/Peterstrasse 15 (Peterstrasse 16/17)

Gustav Holstein, born 9/1/1867 in Kröpelin near Rostock. Repeatedly jailed, deported to Theresienstadt on 7/19/1942, died there on 5/12/1943.
Johanna Holstein, née Levy, born 1/11/1877 in Hamburg, deported to Theresienstadt on 7/19/1942, deported on to Auschwitz on 5/15/1944.
Heinz Lippmann, born on 1/29/1925 in Hamburg, deported to Lodz on 10/25/1941.

Grossneumarkt 38 (Schlachterstrasse 40/42) (planned)

At the bend of Markusstrasse, where there is now the playground of a kindergarten and, behind this, a fenced-in sports field, Peterstrasse used to lead directly to the street called Hütten. Rosa and Jakob Cohn lived at number 17 of that no longer existing section of Peterstrasse with their daughter Ingeborg and their son-in-law Ignatz Holstein. The buildings were destroyed during the bombing of Hamburg.

The Jewish couple Rosa and Jacob Cohn had married in Hamburg on August 2, 1914, at the outbreak of World War 1. Jakob Cohn was drafted into the navy shortly after. He served as a seaman first class and was decorated with the Iron Cross II and the Cross of Honor for front soldiers. Jakob Cohn was a citizen of Hamburg and had two brothers. Joseph, the elder, was born January 29, 1880, Carl, the younger, on August 26, 1886. Their parents were Marcus Cohn (born 10/3/1853, died 8/27/1892), a clothes dealer, and Josephine Cohn, née Wagner (born 6/16/1853, died 2/18/1923), a dressmaker; the couple lived separately and was divorced on July 8, 1891.

Upon graduating from school, the brothers Jacob and Joseph had both absolved an apprenticeship as typesetters, Carl became a wood turner. Jacob Cohn worked at the Hermann Otto Persiehl printing company at the Gutenberg House at Katharinenbrücke 2.

His wife Rosa Cohn, née Lippmann, was the eldest of five children. Their parents, Iwan Lippmann (born 8/7/1866) and Marie, née Seelig (born 11/18/1872) had married in Marie’s mother’s birthplace, the town of Liegnitz in Lower Silesia (now Legnica, Poland) on February 12, 1894. Rosa and her brother Max (born 6/3/1896) were born in Jauer (now Jawor, Poland), their sister Johanna (born 6/1/1901), called Hanna, in Breslau (now Wroclaw, Poland). The youngest Siblings, daughter Ilse (born 10/13/1905, died 11/10/1925) and son Erwin (born 8/29/1908), were born in Hamburg.

Their father Iwan Lippmann, a master glazier by trade, preferred to work at a branch of the Produktion co-operative grocery store chain at Elbstrasse 135 (now Neanderstrasse). Because he suffered from Asthma, he later worked as a messenger. In March 1904, Iwan Lippmann and his family moved to an apartment in the Marcus-Nordheim-Stift at Schlachterstrasse 40/42 house 2. Rosa worked as a salesgirl and lived with her parents until she married Jacob Cohn, daughter Ingeborg, her only child, was born August 2, 1916. After finishing school, Ingeborg, too, worked as a salesgirl, at Repar in Alter Steinweg 64.

On November 10, 1936, Jacob Cohn had to report to the Fuhlsbüttel penitentiary to serve a one-year sentence for alleged "racial defilement” - the indictment is not preserved. On October 19, an additional five months were added to his term, he had been convicted of fraud – according to an investigation report from the Hamburg labor agency, Jacob Cohn had earned additional income from a side job as a waiter at the inn of Friedrich Schabbel in Elbchaussee 187 while receiving unemployment pay. At the end of his prison term, the Hamburg Gestapo issued an order for "protective custody”, and Cohen was admitted to the Dachau concentration camp in Bavaria on April 30, 1938. From there, he was transferred on September 23, 1938 to the Buchenwald concentration camp, block 9. The reason for dis detainment was given as "threat of racial defilement.” Jacob Cohn was only released on April 14, 1939 and was therefore unable to attend the wedding of his daughter.

On Mai 31, 1938, Ingeborg had married Ignatz Holstein, who had moved in with the Cohns as a subtenant around the time Jacob Cohn had gone to prison.

Ignatz Holstein, born September 2, 1900 in Hamburg, was the only surviving child of Gustav and Johanna Holstein, née Levy. His brother Alfons (born 7/26//1901, died 3/17/1902) and his sister Käthe (born 3/21/1904, died 4/30/1904) had died in early infancy. Their parents Gustav and Johanna Holstein and Ingeborg’s grandparents Marie and Iwan Lippmann were neighbors in Schlachterstrasse.

Gustav Holstein came from Mecklenburg, born in Kröpelin as the illegitimate son of Auguste Holstein (born 12/21/1832). Gustav’s grandfather Levy Levin Marcus Holstein (born 1798, died 1880) worked as a product and leather trader. He and his wife were buried at the Jewish cemetery in Kröpelin.
Gustav Holstein had come to Hamburg around 1895, where he married Johanna Levy, a linen seamstress, on January 30, 1900. At the time of his marriage, he lived in Hamburg’s Eimsbüttel district at Kleiner Kielort 7.

Johanna Levy was a citizen of Hamburg, daughter of Isaac Levy, a laborer, and his wife Mine (Minna), née Michel (born 4/11/1843, died 11/1/1931) in Hamburg-Neustadt, Hinter den Hütten 8 (now Hütten). She lived at Neuer Steinweg 39, House 3, where Gustav Holstein moved in after their marriage. In 1924, the Holsteins were given the apartment at the Marcus-Nordheim-Stift, Schlachterstrasse 40/42 house 5. Gustav Holstein dabbled in various trades, working as a travelling salesman, watchman, waiter and musician. He was repeatedly unemployed and received compensation payments.

After finishing school, Gustav’s son Ignatz Holstein had absolved an apprenticeship as a pastry chef from 1915 to 1918, in the time of food rationing. In spite of good references, e. g. from the renowned restaurant Uhlenhorster Fährhaus, he thought he was unable to meet the demands of his profession and emigrated to Argentina in 1923. Returning to his home town in June 1929, he was 28 and liable for the support of his illegitimate son Rolf Schlüter, born in Hamburg on April 27, 1923, whose mother was Paula Clara Wilma Schlüter (born 3/31/1903).

In October 1929, Ignatz Holstein acquired a driver’s license, hoping to find work as a chauffeur. For a time, he was unemployed and moved back in with is parents. Because he did not get along with his mother, he rented a room and started working as a messenger for the "Perco-Handel Parameter” company at Kattreppel 2.

Like many Jewish men, Ignatz Holstein was arrested during the pogrom of November 9-10, 1938 and taken to the Fuhlsbüttel Police Prison. From there, he was transferred to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp in Brandenburg, where he was discharged on January 11, 1939, severely ill with facial erysipelas. Having lost his job as a messenger during his detainment, he was now assigned to forced work as an excavator.

His father Gustav Holstein belonged to the about 200 Jewish men in Hamburg who were arrested by the Gestapo on June 23, 1938 in the scope of the "June raid” – mostly for petty crimes – and taken to Sachsenhausen concentration camp. Released on September 4, he was once more arrested on December 16 for unknown reasons.

In the meantime, Ignatz und Ingeborg Holstein had been admitted to the Lazarus-Samson-Cohen-Eheleute und Levy-Hertz-Eheleute-Stift at Neuer Steinweg 78 house 10, when two deaths occurred in the summer of 1939: Rosa Cohn’s sister Johanna Lippmann died on June 13, her mother Marie Lippmann two days later. Both were buried next to each other at the Jewish Ilandkoppel cemetery in Hamburg-Ohlsdorf.

Soon after that, Rosa Cohn’s father Iwan Lippmann and his grandson Heinz were forced to leave their home in Schlachterstrasse – they, too were quartered at Neuer Steinweg 78, where they were assigned to a room in house 11. Iwan Lippmann died there soon after on January 27, 1940.

His grandson Heinz Lippmann was the son of Rosa’s late sister Johanna. He had grown up with his Lippmann grandparents at their home in Schlachterstrasse and worked as a painter’s helper. When Heinz was born on January 29, 1925, his father Johannes Looft (born 4/1/1905 in Altona), a sailor, was at sea. In spite of the fact that his parents were not married, Johannes Looft obviously kept in touch with his son. After the war, Johannes Looft reported having bade farewell to his son at the assembly point before the Masonic Temple on Moorweide in October 1941 – Heinz Lippmann, Rosa and Jacob Cohn and Ingeborg and Ignatz Holstein had received their deportation orders. On October 25, 1941, all of them were dispatched to the ghetto of Lodz ("Litzmannstadt”) in occupied Poland, where the family was quartered Steinmetzgasse 20. Jacob Cohn died at the "ghetto hospital” of malnutrition on February 8, 1942. Heinz Lippmann was separated from his family on February 16, 1942 – possibly, he was assigned to a labor squad. On February 26, 1942, his aunt Rosa received her "emigration order.” She was suffering from acute gall ailments, was feeble and had a doctor’s certificate that she was unfit for transport, issued by Dr. Isaak/Iwan Schumacher (s. Stolpersteine in Hamburg-Barmbek und Hamburg-Uhlenhorst).

At the last minute, Ignatz Holstein had attempted to obtain a waiver of the deportation order for his mother-in-law Rosa as well as for Ingeborg, who was attending her mother – in vain, because primarily those unfit for work and not assigned to one of the production facilities rated as important, e.g. for the Wehrmacht, were deported on to the Chelmno/Kulmhof extermination camp. Thus, Ignatz Holstein’s application was rejected with the stamp "ODMOWA" – with the note that a car had been requested for the removal of Rosa Cohn. In his letter to the "Expulsion Committee”, Ignatz Holstein also wrote that Ingeborg now bore the family name Jordan and that her second husband had died in the ghetto: on February 26, 1942, the merchant Kurt Jordan from Hamburg, born April 26, 1907, died of exhaustion.” Jordan had volunteered for deportation to Lodz on October 25, 1941. If he was indeed Ingeborg’s second husband, they must have married immediately before their deportation, as Ingeborg was still featured on the deportation list with the name Holstein. Rosa Cohn and Ingeborg Jordan were suffocated by exhaust fumes in a specially converted truck on May 1, 1942 at Chelmno/Kulmhof, about 60 kilometers away from Lodz.

The fate of Ignatz Holstein is unknown. He was officially declared dead after the war, effective May 8, 1945.

His parents Gustav and Johanna Holstein were deported to the Theresienstadt ghetto on July 19, 1942. Gustav Holstein died there on May 12, 1943; a year later, on May 15, 1944, Johanna Holstein was deported on to the Auschwitz extermination camp and murdered.

Jacob Cohn’s brother Joseph Cohn lived at Lokstedterweg 108 with his non-Jewish wife Emma Margaretha, née Otten (born 12/27/1882), whom he had married on May 11, 1904. He survived, protected by the "mixed marriage” and died on May 29, 1946 in Hamburg. His younger brother Carl Cohn also lived in a "mixed marriage” – on October 1, 1910, he had married the non-Jewish seamstress Frieda Naumann (born 3/1/1888 in Britz) in Rixdorf. According to the census of May 1939, the couple lived at Bergstrasse 129 in Berlin-Neukölln.

From the Lippmann family, Max Lippmann was able to emigrate to South America in 1938. His brother Erwin Lippmann, who had already been jailed in March 1933 for his opposition to the Nazi regime, survived several concentration camps. On August 31, 1946, he married Erna Norden (s. the Norden family); the couple emigrated to Argentina in 1951, returning to Germany in 1971.

Translated by Peter Hubschmid
Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

Stand: May 2020
© Susanne Rosendahl

Quellen: 1; 7; 9; StaH 351-14 Arbeits- und Sozialfürsorge 1312 (Holstein, Ignatz); StaH 351-14 Arbeits- und Sozialfürsorge 1313 (Holstein, Gustav); StaH 351-14 Arbeits- und Sozialfürsorge 1487 (Lippmann, Iwan); StaH 351-11 AfW 18228 (Lippmann, Max); StaH 351-11 AfW 29419 (Looft, Johannes); StaH 351-11 AfW 45997 (Schlüter, Rolf); StaH 213-11 Amtsgericht Hamburg 04796/1938; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 1903 u 339/1877; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 2077 u 1674/1884; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 2131 u 4166/1886; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 325 u 250/1892; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 2942 u 77/1900; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 13405 u 2430/1900; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 13561 u 2024/1901; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 535 u 602/1904; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 241 u 487/1914; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 870 u 87/1923; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 7058 u 1189/1925; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 1105 u 258/1939; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 1103 u 369/1939; StaH 522-1 Jüdische Gemeinde Nr. 992 e 2 Band 1; Auskunft aus der Gedenkstätte Sachsenhausen von Monika Liebscher, E-Mail vom 2.8.2013; Auskunft aus der Stiftung Gedenkstätten Buchenwald und Mittelbau-Dora von Stefanie Dellemann, E-Mail vom 24.8.2016; Auskunft von Fritz Neubauer, Universität Bielefeld, E-Mail vom 23.4.2014; Lodz Hospital, Der Hamburger Gesellschaft für Genealogie zur Verfügung gestellt von Peter W. Landé, 2009, USHMM, Washington, bearbeitet von Margot Löhr; http://stevemorse.org/dachau/details.php?lastname=COHN&firstname=Jakub&title=&birthday=06&birthmonth=Apr&birthyear=1884&birthplace=Hamburg&
from=&town=Hamburg&street=Brüderstr.%2020&number=14049&DateOfArrival=zug.%2030%20Apr%201938&
disposition=22%20Sep%201938%20Bu.&comments=&category=Ra.%20J.&ID=51732&page=894/Sch.&disc=2&image=1127
(Zugriff am 5.11.2014); www.ancestry.de (Heiratsregister Carl Cohn und Frieda Naumann am 1.10.1910 in Rixdorf, Zugriff am 30.4.2017); www.ancestry.de (Breslauer Adressbuch von 1898, Zugriff am 30.4.2017.
Zur Nummerierung häufig genutzter Quellen siehe Link "Recherche und Quellen".