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© Harry Turner
Abram Widawski * 1900
Malzweg 3 (Hamburg-Mitte, Borgfelde)
HIER WOHNTE
ABRAM WIDAWSKI
JG. 1900
DEPORTIERT 1938
ZBASZYN
VERHAFTET 1940
GEFÄNGNIS HARBURG
1941 SACHSENHAUSEN
ERMORDET 1942
Abram Widawski, born on 20 June 1900 in Wielun/Poland, deported on 28 Oct. 1938 to Zbaszyn, imprisoned on 6 Dec. 1940 in Hamburg, detained on 15 Feb. 1941 in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, death there in 1942
Malzweg 3
Abram or Abraham Widawski was born on 26 June 1900 in Wielun, a small town 20 kilometers (some 12.5 miles) behind the then German-Polish border in the Lodz area. Wielun was attacked by the German Air Force at 4:40 a.m. on 1 Sept. 1939, and 1,200 of the 16,000 residents died. This attack took place five minutes before the attack on the Westerplatte, unleashing the Second World War according to current historiography. At that time, Abram Widawski lived illegally in Hamburg, where he had gone at the end of the 1920s, settling as a tailor. In 1929, he was registered as a member of the Hamburg German-Israelitic Community. Abram Widawski remained single, had a very low income, and initially resided as a subtenant at Fröbelstrasse 12, moving from there to the St. Georg quarter, and finally living in Borgfelde at Malzweg 3. In 1936, he received a passport from the Polish consulate. His circle of friends and acquaintances consisted of non-Jewish Germans who, like him, cultivated musical interests. Perhaps this social cohesion was the reason why he left the Jewish Community on 15 July 1938.
On 28 Oct. 1938, Abram Widawski was deported across what was then the German-Polish border near Zbaszyn/Bentschen on the orders of the Hamburg police commissioner, as were about 1,000 other Poles. He obtained permission to return to Hamburg for a short time to settle business matters there and crossed the border to the German Reich again on 20 June 1939. The re-entry was expressly granted on condition of leaving the German Reich for good after two weeks. Abram Widawski notified the authorities that he was departing for Poland again on 11 July 1939, actually remaining in Hamburg though. His parents, David-Jakob Widawski and Malka, née Fränkel, were no longer alive. He found accommodation at Kantstrasse 4 with Goldberg in Eilbek.
As his great-nephew Harry Turner described it, Abram Widawski’s social interaction with non-Jewish Germans made him suspicious to police. On 23 Oct. 1940, he was arrested on suspicion of "racial defilement” ("Rassenschande”), but the charges were withdrawn. Six weeks later, he was questioned and released on suspicion of having breached Sec. 175 of the Reich Criminal Code (175 Reichsstrafgesetzbuch – RStGB). It is unclear why he was not immediately investigated for illegal residence in the German Reich. On 6 Dec. 1940, he was sentenced to one month in prison for violating the Aliens Police Ordinance (Ausländerpolizeiverordnung) and for his unauthorized return to Hamburg. Beginning to serve the sentence immediately, he was transferred to the court prison in Hamburg-Harburg on 12 Dec. 1940.
After his release from prison on 6 Jan. 1941, he was sent to the police as a Pole and a Jew. This was followed by "protective custody” ("Schutzhaft”) in the Fuhlsbüttel concentration camp from 7 Jan. to 14 Feb., which ended with his transfer to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, where he was registered on 15 Feb. 1941 under the prisoner number 036048. According to his grandnephew Harry Turner, Abram Widawski died in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp in 1942. He reached the age of 42.
Translator: Erwin Fink
Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.
Stand: May 2019
© Hildegard Thevs
Quellen: 1; 4; 5; 8; StaH, 213-11 Strafakten NS-Zeit, Serie Amts-, Land- und Sondergericht, 0263/1941; 242-1 II, Gefängnisverwaltung II, Abl. 13, Gefangenenkartei, hier: Gerichtsgefängnis Hamburg-Harburg; 522-1 Jüdische Gemeinden, 390, 391; Gedenkstätte Sachsenhausen, Schreiben vom 10.12.2009; Harry Turner, Page of Testimony Yad Vashem und persönliche Mitteilungen.
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