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Julius Wohl * 1876

Rothenbaumchaussee 217 (Eimsbüttel, Harvestehude)

HIER WOHNTE
JULIUS WOHL
JG. 1876
DEPORTIERT 1941
RIGA

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Julius Wohl, born 17.8.1876 in Wilhelmshaven, deported to Riga on 6.12.1941

Rothenbaumchaussee 217 (Harvestehude)

Julius Wohl was born in Wilhelmshaven in 1876, the son of master butcher Anton Wohl and his wife Sophie Wohl, née Falk. His siblings Johanna (1878), Rosa (1879), Mary (1883), Arthur (1884) and Ella (1890) were born after him. The family lived in Wilhelmshaven in Kaiserstraße around 1900. At the same time, a master butcher Jacob Wohl lived in Wilhelmshaven at Altestraße 11 - presumably a relative. The first Jewish families had moved to Wilhelmshaven, which had been established as a Prussian naval base, around 1870, presumably including the Wohl family.

Julius Wohl probably completed a commercial apprenticeship after school and then did his military service. He married (before 1904) Bertha Oss (born 22.1.1875 in Stotel, Amt Lehe). Ten years later he took part in the First World War as a soldier.

Although a merchant by profession, Julius Wohl moved to the company of his brother-in-law Siegmund Oss jr. in Geestemünde (Am Quai) and worked as an employed tailor. There he managed the department for sailors' and workwear. After the death of the company founder, his son-in-law Elias Mayer (1866-1942) continued the business with his wife Johanna, née Oss (born 19.10.1870 in Stotel) and Siegmund Oss's widow.

The anti-Jewish boycotts and harassment from 1933 onwards probably also had an economic impact on the Oss textile business. In July 1933, Julius Wohl moved to the store "Kleidung Haus Kugelbake” (men's clothing and equipment for fishing and seafaring) in Bremerhaven (Georgenstr. 73), which had only opened two years earlier and whose owner was "Aryan”. Julius Wohl also worked here as a salesman and tailor; he probably cut the flannel underwear and shrouded gloves (lined (work) gloves) for the seamen. His monthly income in 1934 amounted to 150 RM gross or 80 RM net.

Julius and Bertha Wohl also lived in the employer's business premises. The permission to sell uniforms for members of the NSDAP meant that Kugelbake was obliged to dismiss Jewish employees. Julius Wohl not only lost his job, but also his apartment: in October 1936, the Wohl couple had to move to the house of the cattle dealer Siegfried Seligmann (Schiffdorfer Chaussee 11) under pressure from the Gestapo in Bremerhaven. (The main tenant Siegfried Seligmann, born 6.12.1878 in Mönchengladbach, was interned in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp in November 1938 and deported to the Theresienstadt ghetto on July 23, 1942).

From 1937, the 61-year-old war veteran Julius Wohl received a pension. His only child, Arnold Wohl (born 8.6.1904 in Geestemünde), emigrated to South America. His wife Bertha died in Bremerhaven on February 21, 1939.

On September 18, 1939, the Bremen Chief Finance President issued a "security order” against Julius Wohl's income and assets. Julius Wohl declared an estimated annual income of 947.50 RM for 1939.

In February 1940, the Wilhelmshaven Gestapo ordered all Jews to leave the administrative district of Aurich and the state of Oldenburg by April 1, 1940, as they were considered suspected spies in the border region. As there was a threat that the East Frisian Jews would be deported to the Lublin district, the Jewish authorities tried to find accommodation for them, especially in the nearby cities of Hamburg and Hanover.

On February 3, 1941, Julius Wohl moved from Bremerhaven to Hamburg to a Jewish retirement home at Rothenbaumchaussee 217 (Harvestehude). Ten months later, he was deported to the Jungfernhof branch of the overcrowded Riga ghetto. There he died or was shot.

What happened to his siblings?
His sister Johanna Wohl (born 8.9.1878 in Wilhelmshaven) had married the Protestant chef Willy Kannenberg (1877-1933) in Wilhelmshaven in December 1903. It is not known whether she converted to the Evangelical-Lutheran denomination before or after the marriage. The couple had four children. Johanna Kannenberg was considered Jewish, as baptism had no effect on "race” according to Nazi ideology; her children were classified as "first-degree Mischlinge” who were not yet threatened with deportation.
According to the 1938/39 Wilhelmshaven address book, she lived at Kaiserstraße 34. In the May 1939 census questionnaire, Johanna Kannenberg was recorded with the address Wesermünde (Bremerhaven), Schiffdorfer Chaussee 11, where her brother Julius had already been committed in October 1936. In 1942, Johanna Kannenberg moved to Hamburg to live with her daughter at Maria-Louisen-Straße 94, IV. floor. Johanna Kannenberg was assigned to a transport to Theresienstadt on January 19, 1944 with "Deportation Order No. 28”.
She received the deportation order one day before the transport, on January 18, and then took her own life with Veronal sleeping pills. The children Hans and Ruth seem to have known about this and respected their mother's decision. They apparently only informed the doctor Werner Schaar from Maria-Louisen-Straße 63 on January 21 and the 17th police station a day later.

Johanna Kannenberg's son Hans Kannenberg (born 13.2.1906 in Wilhelmshaven), owner of a metal goods factory and engraving works in Wilhelmshaven (Marktstr. 55), was denounced by a competitor and Gestapo informer Alex Makowski (member of the Nazi motorists' corps) and arrested by the Gestapo in 1943/44 on a charge of alleged "sabotage of the war industry”, but was apparently released again and lived in Hahn/Oldenburg in 1944. After the war, he moved to Frankfurt/M. and died in Pforzheim in 1977.

Rosa Oberschützky, née Wohl (born 29.11.1879 in Wilhelmshaven), worked as a housekeeper before her marriage; married the merchant Adolf (Abraham) Oberschützky (born 4.4.1867 in Burgdorf) in 1919, who had three children from his first marriage. In 1917, he founded a company for chemical products in Hamburg, which was deleted from the commercial register in 1927. After her marriage, Rosa moved in with her husband at Isestraße 35 (Harvestehude). Adolf Oberschützky died in May 1932 as a business traveler in Schlochau (West Prussia). Despite subletting and support from her stepchildren, the widow was soon no longer able to finance the apartment.
In October 1933, she moved a few houses away to Isestraße 53 I. She rented a room from Dina Pein, née Peine (born 15.5.1871 in Hamburg), for 25 RM per month. The landlady was still running a lottery business in her apartment in 1935 in cramped conditions. In August 1934, Rosa Oberschützky turned to the state welfare office because the financial circumstances of her stepchildren had deteriorated. Although she complained of health problems, as a Jewish welfare recipient she had to do compulsory state work in a sewing room. In September/October 1939, she was treated for four weeks in the Israelite Hospital at Eckernförderstraße 4 (now Simon-von-Utrecht-Straße 2). She died on March 8, 1940 at the age of 60 in Hamburg in the Jewish Hospital at Johnsallee 54 (Rotherbaum).

Julius Wohl's unmarried sister Mary Wohl (born 12.8.1883 in Wilhelmshaven) last lived in Hamburg in the Jewish nursing home at Schäferkampsallee 29 (Eimsbüttel), where she died on December 31, 1942 at the age of 59. There is no record of her suicide in the police authority's register of "unnatural deaths”. The building was declared a "Jews' house” by the Nazi regime and the rooms were occupied by up to four people. Deportations to the Theresienstadt ghetto took place from here in July 1942 and February 1943.

His brother Arthur Wohl (born 3.11.1884) had married a non-Jewish woman, which led to lasting problems within the family. Arthur Wohl went to sea until 1938. He was deported to the Theresienstadt ghetto on April 4, 1945, but survived the ghetto due to the late deportation date.

His youngest sister Ella Wohl (born 21.9.1890 in Wilhelmshaven) was listed in May 1939 with the residential address Eppendorfer Baum 24 in Hamburg-Eppendorf. As her name is not listed in the Hamburg address books of 1939 and 1940, she probably lived here as a subtenant. The "Office for the Auction of Confiscated Property” at Gorch-Fock-Wall 11 gave her last residential address as Haynstraße 5 II. It had been declared a "Jewish house”. She was deported to the Lodz ghetto on October 25, 1941 and from there to the Chelmno extermination camp on May 15, 1942.

Translation: Beate Meyer
Stand: November 2024
© Björn Eggert

Quellen: Staatsarchiv Hamburg (StaH) 213-13 (Landgericht Hamburg, Wiedergutmachung), 6478 (Hans Kannenberg); StaH 214-1 (Gerichtsvollzieherwesen), 713 (Lampenkronen von Ella Wohl, 1942); StaH 314-15 (Oberfinanzpräsident), R 1941/0036 (Sicherungsanordnung gegen Julius Wohl); StaH 331-5 (Polizeibehörde – unnatürliche Sterbefälle), 1944/283 (Johanna Kannenberg); StaH332-5 (Standesämter), 8168 u. 158/1940 (Sterberegister 1940, Rosa Oberschützky geb. Wohl); StaH 332-5 (Standesämter), 8185 u. 1/1943 (Sterberegister 1943, Mary Wohl); StaH332-5 (Standesämter), 9945 u. 86/1944 (Sterberegister 1944, Johanna Kannenberg); StaH 351-11 (Amt für Wiedergutmachung), 28238 (Arnold Wohl/ Julius Wohl); StaH 351-11 (Amt für Wiedergutmachung), 42453 (Ruth Naumann geb. Kannenberg); StaH 351-14 (Arbeits- u. Sozialfürsorge), 1649 (Rosa Oberschützky geb. Wohl); StaH 522-1 (Jüdische Gemeinden), 992b (Kultussteuerkartei der Deutsch-Israelitischen Gemeinde Hamburg), Julius Wohl; Landesarchiv Berlin, Heiratsregister 825/1897 (Adolf Oberschützky, Nauen u. Hedwig Jacobsohn, Danzig); Bundesarchiv Berlin, R 1509 (Reichssippenamt), Volks-, Berufs-, u. Betriebszählung am 17. Mai 1939 (Johanna Kannenberg; Ella Wohl; Julius Wohl); Verlust- u. Vermisstenlisten des 1. Weltkriegs, Nr. 1654 (3.10.1917, Julius Wohl); Wilhelm Mosel, Wegweiser zu ehemaligen jüdischen Stätten in Hamburg, Heft 2, Hamburg 1985, S. 27-30 (Schäferkampsallee 29); Handelskammer Hamburg, Handelsregisterinformationen (Adolf Oberschützky, HR A 19496); Hamburger Börsenfirmen, Hamburg 1926, S. 769 (Adolf Oberschützky, gegr. 1917, Chemische Produkte, Isestraße 35); Adressbuch Hamburg (Isestraße 53) 1940; Adressbuch Hamburg (Adolf Oberschützky) 1918, 1927 (Firma für chem. Produkte, Isestraße 35); Adressbuch Wilhelmshaven (Anton Wohl) 1900; Adressbuch Wilhelmshaven (Johanne Kannenberg, Hans Kannenberg) 1938/39; Adressbuch Bremerhaven (Julius Wohl, Verkäufer, Schiffdorfer Chaussee 11) 1939; www.stolpersteine-hamburg.de (Johanna Kannenberg; Louis Oberschitzky); www.stolpersteine-bremen.de/glossar (Die Vertreibung der Juden aus Ostfriesland und Oldenburg); https://oldenburger-buergerstiftung.de/erinnerungszeichen-erinnern-auf-augenhoehe/ (Elias Mayer, Johanna Mayer geb. Oss); Auskunft Stadtarchiv Wilhelmshaven per e-mail _FB-47, Dr. W. Jansen v. 19.4.2024.