Search for Names, Places and Biographies

Max Karfunkel * 1872

St. Georgs Kirchhof 7 (Hamburg-Mitte, St. Georg)

HIER WOHNTE
MAX KARFUNKEL
JG. 1872
VERHAFTET 1938
KZ FUHLSBÜTTEL
SACHSENHAUSEN
ENTLASSEN 1938
DEPORTIERT 1942
THERESIENSTADT
ERMORDET 21.1.1943

Max Karfunkel, born on 10 Mar. 1872 in Lomaz, detained in 1938 in the Fuhlsbüttel and Sachsenhausen concentration camps, deported on 15 July 1942 to Theresienstadt, died there on 21 Jan. 1943

St. Georgskirchof 7 (Hamburg-Mitte)

At the age of eight years, Max Karfunkel, born on 10 Mar. 1872, arrived in Hamburg with his two older sisters Lea, born on 25 Dec. 1867, and Anna, born on 5 Apr. 1870, and with his parents Simon and Sarah Karfunkel, née Friedmann, born on 15 Feb. 1836. Simon Karfunkel was born on 1 May 1835 in Gütersloh/Westphalia, and the children were born in Lomaz, as was their mother. Lomaz or Lomazy in the Province of Siedlce in today’s eastern Poland belonged to the Russian Empire at that time. The Karfunkel and Friedmann families were Jewish. Simon Karfunkel converted to Christianity before 1880. About his life before that, we can only assume that he became a trader in "Dutch goods” [i.e., fine linens, textiles, cloth], worked in Lomaz, and started a family there. He returned to Westphalia and moved to Hamburg in early 1881. When he moved to the city, he identified himself with a certificate of residence from Wiedenbrück dated 29 Dec. 1880.

The reason for the move to Hamburg was Simon Karfunkel’s employment with the "Comite für Judenmission.” Baptized Jews were called proselytes, and some of them became Jewish missionaries themselves. Simon Karfunkel’s task was to prepare candidates for proselytism, for conversion to the Lutheran Church. The Rhenish-Westphalian Jewish Mission and the Edzardi Foundation in Hamburg financed his position with 1,200 marks, the cost of which had been estimated to be at least 2,000 marks. The difference had to be paid by the "Comite.”

The time and place Simon Karfunkel was baptized and when and where he decided to work as a missionary among Jews could not be clarified. His wife Sarah remained Jewish, the children became Lutheran.

Simon Karfunkel settled at Schäferstrasse 13 in Eimsbüttel, near the Presbyterian Jerusalem congregation whose concern was the conversion of Jews. At first, the family lived on his income as a missionary, but the means were often insufficient. The "Comite” suggested that he earn his own living as the apostle Paul had done in his time, and that he do voluntary missionary work. In 1885, he set up his own business trading in "Dutch goods” at Hammer Steindamm 23/25 in Hamburg-Hamm and in 1887, he moved the operation from there to Wandsbeker Chaussee 136 in Eilbek. Whether the children attended the municipal eight-grade elementary schools (Volksschulen) or private schools is not documented. That Max enjoyed a good education is evident from his handwriting and the polished formulations of his subsequent letters, which were preserved in the welfare file.

On 31 Dec. 1888, Simon Karfunkel died in Altona. The circumstances of his death and his burial place are not known. Lea had just come of age; Anna was 18 and Max 16. Simon Karfunkel’s widow Sarah apparently continued to run the company for a few more years until she moved to Borstelmannsweg in Hamm in 1894.

Daughter Anna entered services as a domestic help near her mother, but also outside Hamburg. Time after time, she returned to stay with her mother between jobs. Lea moved to Holstein in 1894, after which all traces of her disappear.

Max Karfunkel also left Hamburg. In Apr. 1889, he was sentenced by a court of lay assessors in Wittenburg (Mecklenburg) to six months in prison for theft in five cases. After his return to Hamburg, he again committed a criminal offense. On 9 Dec. 1892, the Hamburg State Court (Landesgericht) sentenced him to two years in prison and two years’ loss of civic rights for forgery of documents and fraud. Until 1909, there is no evidence of his whereabouts and of contacts with his mother and sisters.

Sarah Karfunkel moved to Borgeschstrasse 13 in the St. Georg quarter at the end of 1897 and one and a half years later to Wichernsweg 6, where she lived as a widow. Five years later, in Oct. 1904, she moved to Horner Landstrasse 172, where she resided until the end of her life, finally together with her daughter Anna. Sarah Karfunkel died on 22 Feb. 1908 in the Israelite Hospital in the St. Pauli quarter. She was buried at the Jewish Cemetery on Ilandkoppel in Ohlsdorf.

Anna Karfunkel took up positions as a domestic help, successively at Borgfelderstrasse 50 and Borstelmannsweg 17. When Max Karfunkel returned to Hamburg in 1909, he was listed as a merchant with the address there. According to his later statements to the welfare office, he had been working as an independent businessman in St. Petersburg in the metal and tool trade until the revolution. According to this, his business activity had extended as far as Finland.

Instead of working as a "maid,” Anna Karfunkel earned her living by renting out rooms for a time, but then in Oct. 1914 she was employed by Krökel at Wendenstrasse 358. On 28 Dec. 1914, she married her employer, the widower Robert Krökel, born on 5 Sept. 1865 in Magdeburg, a typesetter and printer. Both were Lutheran and remained a source of stability to Max Karfunkel for a long time.

At the beginning of the 1920s, Max Karfunkel again returned to Hamburg and moved into a ground-floor apartment at Normannenweg 3 in Borgfelde. After 1922, he worked as foreign representative of major automobile companies in Finland and its neighboring countries, eventually as foreign representative of the Alfred Eriksen machine tool factory in Hamburg. He registered with the employment office, but as a former self-employed person, he did not receive unemployment benefits. His unsettled life had made him miss the opportunity to apply for naturalization in Hamburg.

Economically, Max Karfunkel did not gain a foothold again. His sister Anna and her husband supported him with lunch and small contributions, but were themselves in a needy situation. When his savings had been used up and he had pawned jewelry and clothes, he turned to welfare services in 1929. He had no more cash to pay rent, laundry, supper, stamps, and he applied for welfare assistance with the aim of securing at least his shelter. He also planned to go back to Scandinavia – as a representative of German companies with whom he had signed contracts and as an importer of cranberries and game. The basis for this was to be Riga in Latvia.

On business stationary from his time in Finland – "Helsingfors, Import Agenturen – Machinen Eisen Stahl Bleche Draht Fahrräder und -teile Metallwaren” ("Helsingfors, Import Agencies – Iron Steel Sheets Wire Bicycles and Bicycles Parts Metal Goods”), he wrote to the welfare office in Mar. 1930 that he needed 610 RM (reichsmark) for travel expenses – covering the redemption of the pawned clothing, payment of arrears in rent, and living expenses. He was granted 200 RM. However, the project failed, and the global economic crisis blocked this way out as well. He initially lived with his brother-in-law and sister for 8 RM a week. In 1931, he finally broke with them for good in a dispute over part of his mother’s inheritance.

As a welfare recipient, he was entitled and obliged to work according to his possibilities. Max Karfunkel was not used to heavy physical work and suffered from heart problems, which is why he could only perform a sedentary job. His first assignment began on 13 Aug. 1931 with the welfare office as an emergency helper and soon ended because the work was curtailed.

He lived for little rent with an elderly gentleman, for whom he also cared. In Nov. 1931, he volunteered for the winter relief program (Winterhilfe). The "Whole” [nickname for the welfare office – "Wohlfahrt” in German] paid his rent of a few marks a week and a small contribution toward ongoing support. It also paid for shoe repairs and healthcare costs. Max Karfunkel succeeded in maintaining his status as a cultivated merchant to the outside. That is why he insisted that his mail from the welfare office and the visits of the welfare workers were not recognizable as such.

In 1933, another attempt to revive old business connections to Finland failed.

In June 1934, Max Karfunkel was assigned a job in the Kohlhöfen library, three days a week at a daily rate of 75 pfennigs. When it ended after one year, it was followed in July by a stint as a welfare support worker at the World Economic Archive (WWA – Weltwirtschaftsarchiv). The management there was given the task of checking whether he was eligible for this job as a "non-Aryan” (Jew), a native Russian, and person with a criminal record, albeit dating from a long time ago. It ruled against him and terminated his employment on 13 Aug. 1935.

On 8 Dec. 1934, he joined the German-Israelitic Community in Hamburg without contacting the associated commission for welfare services. He wanted nothing to do with the Community and pretended to be of "Aryan” descent on his father’s side, but the proof was still missing.

In June 1938, Jews, primarily those who had a criminal record, were also included in the "work-shy persons” campaign. Max Karfunkel was taken into preventive custody on 22 June 1938 – prevention of crime. The only crimes he had committed up to that time dated from the end of the nineteenth century. After two and a half months of detention in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, he returned to his former apartment on 6 Sept. 1938, but had to give it up because of the high rent. The following move was the fifteenth, as the welfare office kept track. Each of them involved a great deal of effort for staff, while Max Karfunkel only had to give the new address; he had not owned any moving goods for a long time. From the Jewish Community, which by then was called the "Jewish Religious Organization” ("Jüdischer Religionsverband”), he received a one-time payment of 10 marks and meal tickets for the period from 14 Oct. to 16 Dec. 1938, during which time the November Pogrom occurred; however, he was spared from accompanying arrests.

Welfare services set up a special department for Jews, to which Max Karfunkel was transferred on 20 Jan. 1939. Then the German state relieved itself of this task and on 24 Nov. 1939, Special Department B handed over its file to the Jewish Religious Organization, which provided cash subsidies of 108 RM for the period from 1 July to 30 Sept. 1939, in addition to 4.85 RM for medical and dental treatment. From then on, the Jewish Religious Organization was responsible for him.

The Protestant Max Karfunkel had to share the fate of the Jews because of his descent. In July 1942, he was called to move to the Theresienstadt "ghetto for the elderly” ("Altersgetto”). To cover the costs of the ghetto, which was declared a retirement home, the deportees had to contribute their assets, however small they were. Max Karfunkel had nothing to contribute. The transport left Hamburg on 15 July 1942 and when it arrived in Theresienstadt, the ghetto was overcrowded and diseases were rampant. Max Karfunkel survived them, but then died at the age of 70 on 21 Jan. 1943 from myocardial degeneration, as attested by the physician Franziska Frankl. He was buried in the afternoon of 23 Jan. 1943.

Anna and Robert Krökel were completely bombed out in July 1943 and found refuge in Mecklenburg. Robert Krökel died on 20 Aug. 1943 in Lübtheen, Anna on 15 Sept. 1943 in Hagenow.

Translator: Erwin Fink
Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

Stand: July 2020
© Hildegard Thevs

Quellen: 1; 3; 4; 5; 7; 9; Hamburger Adressbücher; StaH, 351-14 (Wohlfahrt), 1357; 611-20/28, (Archiv der Vormals Edzardi’schen Jüdischen Proselyten-Anstalt,) B 13 (Judenmission in Hamburg) S. Karfunkel, 1880–1886; 332-5/606/133, StA 2a/1908, Melderegister K 6350.
Zur Nummerierung häufig genutzter Quellen siehe Link "Recherche und Quellen".