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Günther Brauer * 1925

Rappstraße 10 (Eimsbüttel, Rotherbaum)

HIER WOHNTE
GÜNTHER BRAUER
JG. 1925
DEPORTIERT 1942
THERESIENSTADT
1944 AUSCHWITZ
ERMORDET 26.12.1944
DACHAU
AUSSENLAGER KAUFERING

further stumbling stones in Rappstraße 10:
Werner Behrens, Sophie Behrens, Alfred Behrens, Uri Behrens, Georg Brauer, Bertha (Berta) Brauer, Moses Abraham Petrover, Friederike Petrover, Melitta Petrover, Iwan Pincus, Rachel Leah Pincus

Berta Brauer, neé Aschner, born on 5 Aug. 1899 in Tost (Toszek) Upper Silesia, deported to Theresienstadt on 19 July 1942, deported to Auschwitz on 4 Oct. 1944, died in spring 1945 after death march to Mauthausen
Georg Brauer, born on 7 July 1889 in Kattowitz (Katowice), deported to Theresienstadt on 19 July 1942, deported to Auschwitz on 4 Oct. 1944 and killed there
Günter (Günther) Brauer, born on 17 Dec. 1925 in Kattowitz, deported to Theresienstadt on 19 July 1942, deported to Auschwitz on 4 Oct. 1944, died in Dachau-Kaufering on 26 Dec. 1944 (or on 19 January 1945, date of death varies in the sources)

Schäferkampsallee 25/27 / Dillstraße 15 / Rappstraße 10, Rotherbaum

In June 1939 Georg Brauer was hired on approbation as manager at the locksmith’s apprenticeship workshop of the Advice Centre Weidenalle, succeeding Alfred Heilbrunner. He was also a colleague of Jacob Blanari (s.there), the director of the locksmith’s apprenticeship workshop. In December 1940 Georg Brauer organized the workshop’s move to the new workshop spaces in Schlump 31 after an armament industry’s factory had demanded the rooms in Weidenalle. He was originally from Kattowitz where he had completed his A-Levels (Abitur) at the Realgymnasium. He most likely studied in Breslau at the Technical University. We do not know when Georg Brauer married Berta Aschner. She came from Upper Silesia and was ten years younger than her husband. Their daughter Charlotte was born in Kattowitz in 1921, their son Günther in 1925. Kattowitz in Upper Silesia was affiliated to Poland in 1922, whereas Trost - his mother’s place of birth – remained part of the German Reich after a referendum as a result of the First World War. The Germans living in the area of Kattowitz were to nearly one third Jewish.

As a young man Georg Brauer fought in the First World War and was severely injured. Perhaps he ran a locksmith’s shop in Kattowitz, but he had to leave the town because he had opted for Germany in the referendum in 1921. In 1928 the Brauer family moved to Hindenburg (Polish Zabrze) in Upper Silesia which was part of the administrative district of Oppeln until 1939. In 1933 Hindenburg had 130.000 inhabitants. In a lawsuit for compensation (Wiedergutmachungsverfahren) civil servants later reported that until 1933 Brauer ran an engineering office and a repair shop with several employees. It is, however, also possible that he was unemployed already since the late 1920s because of his war injury. In spring 1936 Georg Brauer moved to Mannheim where he had found a job as manager in a vocational training workshop for young Jews. From 1936 to Nov. 1938 he was director of the apprenticeship workshop of the Jewish community in Mannheim where he initially lived in the workshop’s house in Mannheim Neckarau, Friedrichstraße 47. Soon afterwards the family followed and they found an apartment at Geierstraße 6. From 15 Sep. 1938 to June 1939 the family lived in Mannheim’s city centre at the address U1, 6 (founded as a planned city, Mannheim had been organized in square city blocks. The individual blocks have been counted alphanumerically since the 17th Century). In 1939 the family moved to Hamburg. The index card of payments of church tax (Kultussteuerkarteikarte) registered the following addresses: Rappstraße 10 (at Kramer’s), Durchschnitt 8 and Dillstraße 15. From Dillstraße 15 Berta, Georg and Günter Brauer were deported to Theresienstadt on 19 July 1942.

Günter Brauer was 14 years old when he came to Hamburg with his family. In June 1939 he entered the Talmud Tora School. Before that he had attended the Jewish primary school Hindenburg-Volksschule in Mannheim. After having been deported together with his parents to Theresienstadt at the age of 16 he was deported to Auschwitz on 4 Oct. 1944 where the SS "selected” prisoners who were able to work. From Auschwitz Günter Brauer came to Dachau concentration camp, to the subcamp (Außenlager) Kaufering. It was a big complex of concentration camps with several subcamps. The prisoners were supposed to build three gigantic underground-bunkers for the war industry. The corpses of the prisoners who died in Kaufering after Oct. 1944 were hastily buried in mass graves in the neighbourhood. In Dec. 1944 an epidemic of spotted fever spread in Dachau due to the disastrous sanitary conditions. It may have been the reason for Günter Brauer’s death. The date of his death differs in various sources. He probably died on 19 Jan. 1945. He did not live to see neither the camp’s evacuation nor the "death marches” ("Todesmärsche”).

His sister was eighteen when the family left Mannheim. It is not clear whether Charlotte moved to Hamburg together with her family immediately. She does not appear in Mannheim’s register of residents. Since she was Jewish she had not been allowed to go to school in Mannheim. In Hindenburg she had attended the state secondary school. She worked as an intern at the Jewish hospital and as a trainee at a Jewish private hospital. In Hamburg she was a trainee nurse from 1941 until she was deported and lived in Johnsallee 54. This building was for a long time part of the Jewish hospital. Johnsalle 54 was also the address on the deportation list. One of Charlotte’s colleagues was Ellen Glück (see Peter Glück) who was deported together with Charlotte.

It seems that all family members had valid documents for emigration to Bolivia when they received their order for deportation. The chests containing the family’s property for emigration had already been accepted by the German authorities, as well as released by customs, and the charges connected to the emigration were paid. The costs for the passage were to be paid by the Jewish Aid Association (Jüdischer Hilfsverein).

After their deportation to Theresienstadt mother Berta and her daughter Charlotte walked through various stations of suffering together; namely Auschwitz, the work camp (Arbeitslager) Freiberg/ Sachsenhausen which was part of the Flossenbürg Concentration Camp, and the death march (Todensmarsch) to Mauthausen in spring 1945. Contrary to her mother, the daughter survived the liberation in 1945 and emigrated to the USA after stops in Czechoslovakia and Palestine. In Freiberg Charlotte met the Jewish women Esther Bauer. The two young women had to do forced labour in a metal processing factory. Esther Bauer remembers to have made a bracelet of metal splits for Charlotte once while the working process was interrupted. The two lost sight of each other in Mauthausen.

Father Georg was killed in Auschwitz. Most likely he was classified as not being able to work.

Before the war the family seems to have lived in good middle-class living conditions. Berta’s parents were said to have been affluent. During the lawsuit for compensation (Wiedergutmachungsverfahren) an absurd discussion arouse about a stamp collection which had belonged to the family since the late 19th Century. The son Günter was said to have been its last owner. During the war Günter had entrusted the Jewish doctor Martin-Heinrich Corten with the collection for safekeeping. He hid it in his basement at Hegestraße but it was said to have been lost due to an air raid. On 18 Aug. 1942 some of Günter’s stamps were publicly auctioned and reached a price of 42 Reichsmark.

Translator: Paula Antonella Oppermann
Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

© Susanne Lohmeyer

Quellen: 1; 4; 5; 7; StaH 214-1 Gerichtsvollzieherwesen, 178; StaH 351-11 AfW, 11236, 130721, 21859 und 171025; StaH 362-6/10 Talmud Tora Schule StaH 741-4 Fotoarchiv Sa 1248; StaH 522-1, 992e 2 Band 5 (Deportationslisten); Peter Offenborn, Jüdische Jugend, S. 767, S. 1144f.; Auskunft Stadtarchiv Mannheim; HAB II 1942; Telefongespräch mit Esther Bauer am 24.1.2013.
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