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Benno Hurwitz * 1889

Krausestraße 79 (Hamburg-Nord, Dulsberg)

HIER WOHNTE
DR. BENNO HURWITZ
JG. 1889
VERHAFTET 1938
KZ FUHLSBÜTTEL
ERMORDET 25.10.1938

further stumbling stones in Krausestraße 79:
Karl Hermann Rüther

Benno Erich Hurwitz, born on 25 Mar. 1889 in Königsberg, suicide in the Hamburg-Fuhlsbüttel concentration camp on 25 Oct. 1938

Krausestrasse 79 (Ahrensburger Strasse 99)

Benno Hurwitz was born in Königsberg (today Kaliningrad in Russia), where he grew up and probably completed training to become a physician as well; at any rate, he received his doctorate in general medicine at the university of his hometown in May 1913 and was granted the license to practice medicine by the Prussian Minister of the Interior in June 1914. The only details known about his family circumstances are that he had an older brother by the name of Paul (born in 1882) who received a doctorate in law.

Benno Hurwitz served as a senior physician (Oberarzt) in the First World War, at the end of which he moved to Hamburg. There, he received his license to practice medicine from the local medical authority on 28 Mar. 1919, following which he opened a practice as a "general practitioner and obstetrician” that same year. Until the mid-1920s, his first practice was probably located in Dulsberg, on Dithmarscher Strasse. Afterward, he moved to the nearby Ahrensburger Strasse, where he lived, until his arrest in 1938, in a two-and-a-half bedroom apartment owned by the Hamburg Bauverein, a cooperative building association; his practice was also located there.

After the Nazi Party (NSDAP) assumed power, Benno Hurwitz had to endure the same discriminatory measures as all Jewish physicians. As of 1 Jan. 1938, his statutory health insurance license was revoked, and on 30 Sept. of that year his license to practice as a physician. Deprived of the basis of his livelihood by these arbitrary measures, the unmarried doctor began preparing his emigration from Germany. Via the consul of El Salvador, a friend of his, he succeeded in obtaining an entry visa for the Central American country. In the later summer of 1938, he had already given notice to quit his apartment and stored his personal effects and medical instruments in suitcases, ready for departure. He had also contacted the Chief Finance Administrator (Oberfinanzpräsidenten) to settle taking along his property abroad. However, his departure was thwarted by his arrest, ordered by the State Criminal Investigation Department, Office K, due to suspected "racial defilement” ("Rassenschande”), on 5 Sept. 1938.

Benno Hurwitz had to spend the first eight days as a "protective custody prisoner” ("Schutzhäftling") in the Fuhlsbüttel police prison before being placed under pretrial detention on 13 September. No detailed indictment against him is documented. During the detention, he had contact to a Hamburg lawyer who was allowed to visit him in prison once; moreover, he corresponded with his brother, who still lived in Königsberg. According to a news report by the Hamburger Tageblatt dated 6 Sept. 1938, he allegedly confessed to having committed "racial defilement.”

A few days after Benno Hurwitz’ arrest, the Hamburg customs investigation department issued a temporary "security order” ("Sicherungsanordnung") with respect to the movable property he owned and two life insurance policies worth 4,600 RM (reichsmark) in total. Following more than seven weeks of imprisonment, he was found in his cell, hanged from the window frame with two towels in the early morning of 25 Oct. 1938. According to the prison administration, no indications suggesting suicidal intentions had been noticed.

According to the assessment by the prison physician, Oberregierungsmedizinalrat ("senior government medial councilor”) Callsen, the reason for the suicide of Benno Hurwitz had been "the despair at the bewilderment [sic!] of his situation.” Callsen did not determine any "signs of preceding mistreatment.” In the cell of the Jewish doctor, farewell letters to his brother were discovered and later submitted to the Hamburg District Court (Amtsgericht), but they are no longer to be found today. Brother Paul managed, probably in 1939, to escape to Palestine. A Stolperstein for Benno Hurwitz is located in front of his last residential address at Krausestrasse 79, formerly Ahrensburger Strasse.

Translator: Erwin Fink

Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

Stand: October 2016
© Benedikt Behrens

Quellen: 1; 2; StaH 242-1 II Gefängnisverwaltung II, Abl. 12, 221 Hurwitz (Gefangenenpersonalakte) und Abl. 16 (Untersuchungshaftkartei); StaH 213-8 Staatsanwaltschaft OLG – Verwaltung, Abl. 2451a E1,1c (Schutzhaftkosten); StaH 351-11 AfW, Abl. 2008/1, 10.6.14, Hurwitz, Ernst; Verzeichnis der jüdischen Ärzte, Zahnärzte, Dentisten, Bandagisten, Optiker in Hamburg, Altona, Wandsbek. Hamburg o.J.; Villiez, Anna von, Mit aller Kraft verdrängt. Entrechtung und Verfolgung "nicht arischer" Ärzte in Hamburg 1933 bis 1945, München/Hamburg 2009, S. 299; Diercks, Herbert Gedenkbuch "Kola-Fu", Hamburg 1987, S. 25; Plaumann, Hans Jürgen, Nacherkundungen zu "Spurensuche des Nationalsozialismus und des Widerstandes am Dulsberg", Hamburg 1998, S. 23.
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