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Salomon Siegmund Schlomer * 1853

Neuer Pferdemarkt 21 (Altona, Sternschanze)

HIER WOHNTE
SALOMON SIEGMUND
SCHLOMER
JG. 1853
DEPORTIERT 1942
THERESIENSTADT
ERMORDET 15.8.1942

Salomon (Siegmund) Schlomer, born on 6 July 1853 in Lübeck-Moisling, deported on 15 July 1942 to Theresienstadt, murdered there on 15 Aug. 1942

Neuer Pferdemarkt 21/22

For many generations, Salomon Schlomer’s family called Moisling their home. The formerly Holstein village belonged to Lübeck as of 1802, and as early as the late seventeenth century, it had a Jewish community with strictly orthodox orientation. In about 1845, Moisling even had more Jewish than Christian inhabitants. The Schlomer family played an important role in Jewish communal life, as one family member, the Lübeck merchant Eisak Jacob Schlomer, remembered in 1909: "Whenever the Moisling Jews were not in the synagogue, the center was the birthplace of the Schlomer family in Moisling; actually, one ought to have it marked for posterity with a commemorative plaque. Located in the east of the town, it was always the center of all verbal and physical battles waged about community affairs, especially leading up to the election of the head of the Jewish Community and during the seven-year religious war in the course of which orthodox and liberal members feuded with each other fiercely.” However, as a result of the introduction of equal legal status of Jews and Christians in Oct. 1848 and the lifting of the settlement ban for Jews in Lübeck, the Jewish Community in Moisling gradually broke up, and in 1872, the synagogue was locked up and the Torah scrolls taken to Lübeck.

At about that time, Salomon Schlomer’s father, the horse dealer Abraham Schlomer, decided to move to Hamburg. The mother, Reichel, was also a native of Moisling and came from the Prenzlau family. Abraham and she had been married according to Jewish rites on 1 July 1835. They had eleven children, seven boys and four girls. The age difference between the oldest, Isaac, and the youngest, Joel, was a whopping 20 years; Salomon was the seventh oldest. Isaac had moved to Hamburg as early as 1863. Together with the parents, Marjanne, Samuel, Salomon, Martha, Amalia, called Malka, and Joel eventually left their birthplace as well.

Abraham Schlomer’s departure left a gap in Moisling that could not be closed anymore. Wistfully, the Lübeck Rabbi Salomon Carlebach – father of the subsequent Hamburg Chief Rabbi, Joseph Carlebach – once more commemorated Schlomer’s sweeping significance for the small town in a lecture held in 1898 on the "History of the Jews in Lübeck and Moisling": "The greatest loss, however, was the departure of the head of the community, Abraham Schlomer, who had stayed in Moisling until this time, forming the center of the few families there that had not been able to bring themselves to move to Lübeck. Schlomer was not only the wealthiest and most respected man in the community, a member of the town council, and the like, but also a sincerely devout Jew, who had religious knowledge extending beyond the ordinary. (…) [W]ith the day Schlomer left Moisling ended the existence of the Moisling Jewish Community and the synagogue would remain abandoned from then on.”

Just as Abraham Schlomer had already worked as a livestock dealer back in Moisling and continued to do so in Hamburg, his sons also practiced this trade in the Hanseatic City. Salomon’s brother Isaac had already established himself in the new center of the horse trade, at Neuer Pferdemarkt in St. Pauli. This was a meeting place for horse dealers and operators of horse-drawn vehicles, estate owners and buyers purchasing horses for the cavalries of various armies. In the immediate vicinity, veterinarians and a factory for coaches and superstructures for carts had started operations, as had livestock commission agents, brokers between sellers and prospective buyers. Many of the residential buildings constructed on Neuer Pferdemarkt featured extended garden properties, which by way of stables and pastures also served the livestock trade.

In Hamburg, Isaac Schlomer had also met his future wife, Sophie, from the Haarburger family. They were married in 1865 and they had three children: William, Hugo, and Rieke. The year before, Isaac had already sworn the Hamburg citizen’s oath as a sign of his firm intent to stay in Hamburg, and thus obtained the certificate of Hamburg civic rights – not until providing the necessary proof beforehand of being able to earn his livelihood on his own without any difficulties and not without having paid the corresponding fees, of course.

The parents, Abraham and Reichel Schlomer, in their turn, moved to Hamburg’s Eimsbüttelerstrasse 31 (since 1956 Budapester Strasse), where the father’s office was located as well. For his part, Salomon set himself up together with a partner as "Schlomer & Wulff, Livestock Commissioning Agent” at Eimsbüttler Chaussee 4. Although from a Jewish-orthodox family, he decided in Hamburg to replace his Hebrew-sounding first name. Henceforth, he had people call him Siegmund. His younger brother Joel also changed his name, calling himself Julius henceforth.

In 1883, Salomon’s father Abraham passed away at the age of 73. He had wished to be buried in Moisling, "in native soil.” However, since his death occurred on 13 October and thus dated just before several important Jewish holidays, his wife Reichel and his children decided to acquire a grave in the Grindel Cemetery. At Eimsbüttelerstrasse 31, where Reichel Schlomer continued to reside, Julius Schlomer opened W. Schlomer & Co, a business trading in hides and furs, together with his nephew William two years later, in 1885. Also in 1885, Isaac and the second oldest brother Samuel established Gebr. Schlomer (Schlomer Bros.), a horse trading company. In that year, Siegmund’s sister Malka passed away. She reached the age of only 28 and she had been married since 1875 to the merchant Heimann Prenzlau, also a native of Moisling and a cousin. Both had resided in the Grindel quarter and belonged to the orthodox Synagogue Association (Synagogenverband). Two years afterward, Siegmund’s partner, P. E. Wulff, passed away. As a result of this, Christian Waldemar Wismann, a native of Denmark, joined the company as a partner. However, he and Siegmund continued to operate the business under the already established name of Schlomer & Wulff. That same year, Siegmund’s brother Julius died at the age of only 27. Three years later, Schlomer & Wulff relocated to Feldstrasse 29, which meant that by this time most of the members of the Schlomer family residing in Hamburg lived and worked around Neuer Pferdemarkt.

In 1894, Siegmund’s mother Reichel passed away at the age of 77. She was buried next to her husband in the Grindel Cemetery.

When Siegmund Schlomer’s second partner, Christian Waldemar Wismann, died in 1908, Siegmund continued to manage the company on his own – doing so for over 25 years at the same address, on Feldstrasse. In private, he lived at Neuer Pferdemarkt 21/22. During this time, more precisely on 19 June 1918, he subscribed as "S. Schlomer” in the subscription book of the Patriotic Society of 1765 (Patriotische Gesellschaft von 1765) with 20.00 marks toward his membership fee, though without taking on any special offices in the association. His brother Isaac passed away in 1918, Samuel eight years later. The latter was married to Martha, née Emden, and the couple had two children, Elisabeth and Georg.

With his enterprise, Siegmund Schlomer survived both the inflation of 1923 and the world economic crisis of 1929. He even managed to sustain the boycott of Jewish stores and companies after the transfer of power to the Nazis in 1933, which already ruined many self-employed persons. However, the pressure of the Nazi state on Jewish entrepreneurs to "Aryanize” their companies became increasingly greater. In Aug. 1935, already aged 82, he made his non-Jewish accountant Gustav Ebel the owner of his business. Two years later, the company that Siegmund Schlomer had managed successfully for about 60 years, his life’s work, bore the name of Gustav Ebel as well.

In the spring of 1938, Siegmund Schlomer was also compelled to disclose his assets to the Chief Finance Administrator (Oberfinanzpräsident), in compliance with the "Decree Concerning the Reporting of Jewish Assets” ("Verordnung über die Anmeldung des Vermögens von Juden”) issued by the Plenipotentiary for the Four-Year Plan, Hermann Göring, since these assets amounted to more than 5,000 RM. About seven months later, he was forced on the basis of this information to pay more than 13,000 RM in a "levy on Jewish assets” ("Judenvermögensabgabe”), part of an "atonement payment” ("Sühneleistung”) fixed by Hermann Göring at 1 billion RM, a levy all German Jews had to pay after the Pogrom of Nov. 1938. It amounted to 20 percent of the respective personal assets and became due in four, from 1939 onward in five installments.

In 1942, Siegmund Schlomer gave up his apartment on Neuer Pferdemarkt and moved into the Jewish Retirement and Nursing Home at Schäferkampsallee 29. On 15 July 1942, he was deported from there on Transport VI/1, č. 827 to Theresienstadt, into the so-called "ghetto for the elderly” ("Altersgetto”). He lived through the hunger and cold, the diseases and epidemics for four weeks. On 15 Aug. 1942, he perished in Theresienstadt. An old man of 89 years.

All his life, he had not married or started a family. In his last will, he designated Agnes Louise Emilie Thiel, a non-Jewish woman 41 years his junior, to become the sole heir. However, due to the plundering by the Nazis – his household effects were auctioned off at giveaway prices after the deportation – there was nothing she could have inherited.


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

Stand: April 2018
© Frauke Steinhäuser

Quellen: 1; 3; 4; 5; 7; 8; StaH 111-1 Cl.I LIT T Senat, Norddeutscher Bund und Deutsches Reich, 1866-1928 Nr. 21 Vol. 4 Fasc. 13b Inv. 100-1217; StaH 232-3 Testamentsbehörden H 16488; StaH 332-3 Zivilstandsregister: B 87 u. 506/1875; A261 u. 2087/1875; A230 u. 1534/1869; A224 u. 1358/1867; A221 u. 1123/1866; StaH 332-5 Standesämter: 913 u. 445/1926; 791 u. 834/1918; 9103 u. 1149/1894; 9864 u. 246/1933; 9857 u. 504/1932; 147 u. 3165/1883; 225 u. 1788/1887; 245 u. 2273/1888; 362 u. 749/1894; 7896 u. 209/1895; 7802 u. 1402/1885; 365 u. 2046/1894; StaH 332-7 Staatsangehörigkeitsaufsicht: A I a, Bd 29, Nr. 4573 u. Nr. 5038; Staatsangehörigkeitsaufsicht A I a, Bd 27, Nr. 1336; StaH 332-7 Staatsangehörigkeitsaufsicht A I e 40 Bd. 8 Bürgerregister; StaH 351-11 Amt für Wiedergutmachung: 632; 16063; StaH 522-1 Jüdische Gemeinden 992 e 2 Deportationslisten Bd. 4; Archiv der Hansestadt Lübeck, 03.05-03 Stadt- und Landamt, Familienverzeichnis der Personenstandsregister der Israelitischen Gemeinde; Hamburger Adressbücher; Carlebach, Geschichte der Juden; Guttkuhn, Geschichte der Juden in Moisling und Lübeck; Hamburger, Juden im öffentlichen Leben Deutschlands, S. 337; Viehkommissionair, in: Krünitz, Oekonomische Encyklopädie; Schlomer, Liebes, altes, jüd’sches Moisling; Michael Winter, Die Juden in Moisling und Lübeck. Drei zusammenfassende Darstellungen, ein ergreifender Bericht aus der Zeit des Nationalsozialismus und eine Zeittafel der wichtigsten Ereignisse, www.luebeck-kunterbunt.de/TOP100/Juden_in_Luebeck.htm (letzter Zugriff 25.4.2014); Bildarchiv Hamburg 1860–1955, www.hamburg-bildarchiv.de; Salomon Schlomer, auf: Holocaust.cz, www.holocaust.cz, 109.123.214.108/de/victims/PERSON.ITI.621544 (letzter Zugriff 1.5.2014); Neuer Pferdemarkt, in: Straßen in St. Pauli, www.20359hamburg.de/strassenverzeichnis/ausgabe.php?str= neuerpferdemarkt (letzter Zugriff 5.5.2014)
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