Search for Names, Places and Biographies

Gerda Pumpianski * 1921

Schröderstiftstraße 30 (Eimsbüttel, Rotherbaum)

1940 Tötungsanstalt Brandenburg
ermordet am 23.9.1940

Gerda Pumpianski, born on 22 Oct. 1921 in Königsberg (today Kaliningrad in Russia), murdered on 23 Sept. 1940 in the Brandenburg/Havel euthanasia killing center

Stolperstein in Hamburg-Rotherbaum, at Schröderstiftstrasse 30

Gerda Pumpianski’s residency in Hamburg can be traced back to Mar. 1937. We do not know when and for what reason she had arrived in Hamburg. A decision by the Hamburg "hereditary health court” (Erbgesundheitsgericht) dated 3 Aug. 1939 shows that Gerda Pumpianski had already lived in Hamburg for a period even earlier. This ruling mentions a file of the Hamburg Youth Welfare Office from 1929, a medical history of Eppendorf University Hospital from 1935, as well as files of the State Welfare Institutes, and an admission to the Hamburg Children’s Sanatorium in Sülzhayn (Thuringia). Unfortunately, these documents are no longer available.

Gerda’s parents, the cabinetmaker Meyer Pumpianski from Vilnius and his wife Bussa, née Plaschzen or Plachzun, were already considered missing back then. Her mother may have died in Russia. With the exception of care by a guardian who lived at Schröderstiftstrasse 30 in the Rotherbaum quarter, Gerda Pumpianski apparently was on her own in Hamburg. We do not know with whom Gerda Pumpianski lived or in which accommodation and whether or how long she attended school.

On 9 Mar. 1937, Gerda Pumpianski was admitted to the Youth Welfare Office institutions and on 17 Mar. 1937 to what was then the Alsterdorf Asylum (Alsterdorfer Anstalten). There she was diagnosed with "imbecillity,” which at the time denoted a moderate degree of mental disability. In Alsterdorf, too, file cards were created for all occupants toward the so-called "hereditary health card file” ("Erbgesundheitskartei”), which was introduced throughout the German Reich with the aim of taking stock of the hereditary biological situation of the populace. The file card for Gerda Pumpianski still exists. In addition to her personal data, it conspicuously contains the note indicating "Jewish” and the reference that the then 16-year-old was able to do light housework under supervision. She reportedly "kept herself and her things clean and tidy” and attended school with little success.

After 1933, the Alsterdorf Asylum developed into a Nazi model operation where eugenics ideas were supported and, associated with them, forced sterilization as "prevention of unworthy life” ("Verhütung unwerten Lebens”). It was only a matter of time before the persecution of the Jews in the German Reich also led to corresponding measures at the Alsterdorf Asylum. A ruling by the Reich Audit Office (Reichsfinanzhof) of 18 Mar. 1937 served as a pretext for preparing the discharge of all Jews from the Alsterdorf Asylum. Pastor Friedrich Karl Lensch, the director of the Alsterdorf Asylum, deduced from the verdict the danger of the loss of non-profit status under tax law if Jews continued to stay in the institution. A letter dated 3 Sept. 1937 to the Hamburg Welfare Authority contained 18 names of "Jewish charges who are accommodated here at the expense of the welfare authority,” including that of Gerda Pumpianski. On 31 Oct. 1938, the Alsterdorf Asylum moved 15 Jewish occupants to the Oberaltenallee care home (Versorgungsheim Oberaltenallee). On 23 Jan. 1939, Gerda Pumpianski, who had been on the Alsterdorf hospital ward since 21 Sept. 1938 to clarify a suspected illness, was also admitted to the Oberaltenallee care home. In Apr. 1940, the Alsterdorf Asylum was eventually able to rid itself of the last Jewish resident.

In 1939, the Oberaltenallee care home initiated Gerda Pumpianski’s sterilization in accordance with the "Law for the Prevention of Offspring with Hereditary Diseases” ("Gesetz zur Verhütung erbkranken Nachwuchses”) dated 14 July 1933. The hereditary health court decided on 3 Aug. 1939 that Gerda Pumpianski was to be sterilized.

In the spring/summer of 1940, the "euthanasia” headquarters in Berlin, located at Tiergartenstrasse 4, planned a special operation aimed against Jews in public and private sanatoriums and nursing homes. It had the Jewish persons living in the institutions registered and moved together in what were officially so-called collection institutions. The Hamburg-Langenhorn "sanatorium and nursing home” ("Heil- und Pflegeanstalt” Hamburg-Langenhorn) was designated the North German collection institution. All institutions in Hamburg, Schleswig-Holstein, and Mecklenburg were ordered to move the Jews living in their facilities there by 18 Sept. 1940.

Gerda Pumpianski probably arrived in Langenhorn on 18 Sept. 1940, like the other Jews from care homes. On 23 Sept. 1940, she was transported to Brandenburg/Havel with a further 135 patients from North German institutions. The transport reached the city in the Mark (March) on the same day. In the part of the former penitentiary that had been converted into a gas-killing facility, the patients were immediately driven into the gas chamber and murdered with carbon monoxide. Only Ilse Herta Zachmann escaped this fate at first (see corresponding entry).

It is not known whether, and if so, when relatives received news of Gerda Pumpianski’s death. In all documented death notices, it was claimed that the person concerned had died in Chelm (Polish) or Cholm (German). Those murdered in Brandenburg, however, were never in Chelm/Cholm, a town east of Lublin. The former Polish sanatorium there no longer existed after SS units had murdered almost all patients on 12 Jan. 1940. Also, there was no German records office in Chelm. Its fabrication and the use of postdated dates of death served to disguise the killing operation and at the same time enabled the authorities to claim higher care expenses for periods extended accordingly.

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

Stand: March 2020
© Ingo Wille

Quellen: 1; 4; 5; 9; StaH 133-1 III Staatsarchiv III, 3171-2/4 U.A. 4, Liste psychisch kranker jüdischer Patientinnen und Patienten der psychiatrischen Anstalt Langenhorn, die aufgrund nationalsozialistischer "Euthanasie"-Maßnahmen ermordet wurden, zusammengestellt von Peter von Rönn, Hamburg (Projektgruppe zur Erforschung des Schicksals psychisch Kranker in Langenhorn); 242-2 Strafvollzugsanstalten 6 Beschlüsse des Erbgesundheitsgerichts 1939; 352-8/7 Staatskrankenanstalt Langenhorn Abl. 1/1995 Aufnahme-/Abgangsbuch Langenhorn 26.8.1939 bis 27.1.1941; 352-8/7 Staatskrankenanstalt Langenhorn Patienten-Karteikarte Gerda Pumpianski; Evangelische Stiftung Alsterdorf, Archiv, Erbgesundheitskarteikarte Gerda Pumpianski. Fuchs, Petra/Rotzoll, Maike/Müller, Uwe/Richter, Paul/Hohendorf, Gerriet (Hrsg.), "Das Vergessen der Vernichtung ist Teil der Vernichtung selbst". Lebensgeschichten von Opfern der nationalsozialistischen "Euthanasie", Göttingen 2014, Glossar, S. 380.
Zur Nummerierung häufig genutzter Quellen siehe Link "Recherche und Quellen".