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Klara Schenkolewski
© Privatbesitz

Klara Schenkolewski (née Marx) * 1907

Rutschbahn 37 (Eimsbüttel, Rotherbaum)

1943 aus NL nach Auschwitz
1943 ermordet in Sobibor

further stumbling stones in Rutschbahn 37:
Isaak Schenkolewski, Mirjam Schenkolewski, Moses Schenkolewski, Clementine Stein, Mathias Stein

Isaak Schenkolewski, born 19 Feb. 1906 in Hamburg, immigrated in 1938 to the Netherlands, deported in 1943 to Auschwitz extermination camp and killed 31 Mar. 1943
Klara Schenkolewski, née Marx, born 20 May 1907 near Recklinghausen, immigrated in 1938 to the Netherlands, deported in 1943 to Sobibor extermination camp, killed 23 July 1943
Mirjam Schenkolewski, born 9 Jan. 1934 in Hamburg, immigrated in 1938 to the Netherlands, detained at Herzogenbusch concentration camp (Vught), transferred to Westerbork transit camp and deported to Sobibor extermination camp where she was killed 23 July 1943
Moses Schenkolewski, born 4 July 1934 in Hamburg, immigrated in 1938 to the Netherlands, detained at Herzogenbusch concentration camp (Vught), transferred to Westerbork transit camp and deported to Sobibor extermination camp where he was killed 23 July 1943

Rutschbahn 37

The married couple Isaak and Klara Schenkolewski lived with their children in Hamburg. In Dec. 1938 they immigrated to the Netherlands, first settling in Den Haag and later in Gouda. In 1943 they were deported from there to the extermination camps Auschwitz and Sobibor where they were killed.

Isaak Schenkolewski, son of the couple Max Schenkolewski and Eva Schenkolewski (née Korschland) was born in Hamburg on 19 Feb. 1906, the youngest of five children. At the age of 27, he married Klara Marx who gave birth to their first daughter Mirjam in Hamburg on 9 Jan. 1934. Their second child Moses was also born in Hamburg on 4 July 1935. Their third child Sarah was born the following year on 4 Nov. 1936 but died shortly thereafter at the age of three months at the Hamburg Israelite Hospital.

Klara and Isaak lived with their children Moses and Mirjam in a ground-floor apartment at Rutschbahn 37 in Hamburg’s Grindel District, in the same neighborhood where Isaak’s father ran a woolen goods store (Brahmsallee 4). Isaak worked there as an employee until his emigration. Isaak’s brother Meier (born on 7 Feb. 1904) lived in his parents’ household. Isaak’s brother Selig (born on 11 Jan. 1902) worked at the Bank M.M.Warburg & Co. and lived next door at Brahmsallee 8. His sister Sarah also lived nearby at Rutschbahn 11. Isaaks eldest brother Wolf (born on 26 Mar. 1896) fell in World War I. Over the course of the 1930s and over the course of the political developments, the neighborly family life fell apart for numerous family members left Hamburg and immigrated to various different places. Sarah wed and her married name from then on was Heimann. She immigrated to Palestine.

Isaak’s brother Meier immigrated mid or late 1936 by ship via England to the USA, his brother Selig at the end of 1938 with his wife and five children to Palestine after being detained at Sachsenhausen concentration camp in the wake of the November pogrom night and promising in writing to leave Germany as soon as possible upon his release.

Isaak too endeavored to emigrate from 1938. At first he named the USA as his destination but later changed it to the Netherlands. Evidently the family had connections there because in 1935 a one M. Schenkolewski, perhaps Meier Schenkolewski, had held several speeches in Gouda and Amsterdam in which he spoke, as announced in Jewish newspapers, about the Agudath Yisrael, an orthodox religious movement which attempted to shape Jewish life in Israel and in the Diaspora according to Jewish law. Isaak Schenkolewski, like many other Jewish men and women, had to pay a so-called departure levy (Dego-Abgabe) prior to emigrating. This referred to the levy to be paid to the German Golddiskonto Bank in the event of emigration, imposed for money transferred abroad and household goods taken abroad. The Schenkolewski Family took many personal items with them, like a stamp collection, family pictures, a Torah scroll, and over 300 books. Isaak’s parents, Max and Eva Schenkolewski also eventually left Hamburg in 1941 – they joined their son Meier in the USA.

In the Netherlands Isaak, Klara, Mirjam and Moses first lived in Den Haag before moving to Gouda in 1941. It was there that Isaak and Klara and their children found housing in the attic of the house of the couple van Levij van Collem and Rachel Jessurun Cardozo who ran a kosher slaughterhouse. Evidently the orthodox Schenkolewski Family actively took part in Jewish life in the Netherlands. For instance a group photo shows Mirjam and Moses at a Jewish children’s celebration in Gouda in 1941.

On 22 Apr. 1943 Isaak, Klara, Mirjam and Moses were brought to the Vught camp (Herzogenbusch concentration camp). Klara Schenkolewski and her children were taken on the so-called children’s transport on 7 June 1943 from Vught to Westerbork ("Westerbork transit camp”). On 20 July 1943 they were deported onward to Sobibor extermination camp where they were killed on 23 July 1943.

Isaak remained in Vught until 21 Sept. 1943. On that day he was taken to Westerbork and on 16 Nov. 1943 deported to Auschwitz and killed. His official date of death is 31 Mar. 1944, a collective date for many victims whose actual date of death, as for Isaak, could never be determined.

In addition to the stumbling stones in front of the building at Rutschbahn 37 in Hamburg’s Grindel District, there are other memorial sites and types of remembrance for the persecuted and murdered Schenkolewski Family. The names of Mirjam and Moses Schenkolewski are listed on the "children’s memorial" at the Vught concentration camp memorial (Herzogenbusch concentration camp) that bears witness to the victims of the children’s transports. The memorial Yad Vashem holds memorial sheets for Isaak, Klara, Mirjam and Moses. Moreover, a children’s book entitled "Stories from Gouda" tells about Mirjam and Moses’ life in Gouda and their deportation.

An initiative in Gouda had stumbling stones laid for the Schenkolewski Family in 2014.


Translator: Suzanne von Engelhardt
Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

Stand: January 2019
© Wiebke Elias

Quellen: StaHH, 522-1 Jüdische Gemeinden, 992b, Kultussteuerkartei der Deutsch-Israelitischen Gemeinde Hamburg, Kultussteuerkarte Isaak Schenkolewski, Max Schenkolewski; StaHH, 314-15, Akten des Oberfinanzpräsidenten, F2168; Hamburger Adressbuch von 1936 [online] Stand: 27.11.2013; StaHH, 131-1 II – 3769, Korrespondenz ehemaliger jüdischer Mitbürger im Ausland, Brief von Selig Schenkolewski an Senatskanzlei, 15. Juli 1971; StaHH, 314-15, Akten des Oberfinanzpräsidenten, Fvg 2162; Yad Vashem, Central Data Base of Shoa Victims, Page of Testimony Moses Schenkolewski, Isaak Schenkolewski, Klara Schenkolewski, Mirjam Schenkolewski; Auskunft per E-Mail von Soesja Citroen, 14.1.2014, joods monument, Eintrag zu Isaak Schenkolewski [online] Stand 28.2.2014, abrufbar unter: http://www.joodsmonument.nl/page/400567; Nieuw Israelitisch Weekblatt v. 26.7. und 21.6.1935 (dank an Lucas Brujin).