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Ruth Körbchen * 1887

Lange Reihe 111 (Hamburg-Mitte, St. Georg)

1941 Lodz
weiterdeportiert 1942

further stumbling stones in Lange Reihe 111:
Franz Grünfeld, Günther Pinkus, Johanna Pinkus, Herbert Pinkus

Ruth Gustava Körbchen, born 20.10.1887 in Geldern, deported to the Lodz ghetto on 25.10.1941 and murdered there on 1.5.1942

Lange Reihe 111, St. Georg

Ruth Gustava Körbchen was born in Geldern on October 20, 1887.

Ruth's father, Simon Siegmund Körbchen, was born on August 21, 1853 in Vreden, her mother Anna Körbchen, née Stern, on June 7, 1861 in Königsberg. Both were Jewish. They married on November 29, 1886 in Geldern, a town in the west of what is now the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. Simon Siegmund Körbchen worked as a merchant, Anna Körbchen as a teacher.

The Körbchen couple had two more children in Geldern: Hans Otto Siegfried, born on April 20, 1893, and Friedrich Paul Jacob Körbchen, born on June 11, 1894.

From July 16, 1895, Ruth Körbchen lived in Hamburg-Rotherbaum at Rutschbahn 10 with her grandmother Malwine Stern, née Ollendorf, born on December 9, 1839 in Rawitsch (now Rawicz) in the Prussian province of Posen (now Poland).

We do not know why Ruth grew up with her grandmother in Hamburg and not with her parents in Geldern.

On March 28, 1904, Ruth Körbchen left Hamburg and moved in with her parents, who had meanwhile settled in Berlin. In Berlin, Ruth Körbchen trained as a dental technician. At that time, dentist was a profession that required training as a craftsman, as opposed to dentist, which required a degree.

In 1914, she moved back to Hamburg and lived at Kreuzweg 21 as a subtenant with the Weißgerber family.

On February 20, 1925, her father Simon Siegmund Körbchen died in Berlin-Mitte, Spandauer Straße 27.

In 1925, Ruth Körbchen moved to Schmilinskystraße 5-7, first floor, in the Hamburg-St. Georg district. Previously, her grandmother Malwine Stern and her daughter Käthe, Ruth's aunt, had lived in this apartment. Malwine Stern had died on February 9, 1922, Käthe Stern on December 18, 1925.

There was enough space in the apartment for Ruth Körbchen to set up a dental laboratory.

We have no information about Ruth Körbchen's life in the years 1926 to 1932. In 1933, Jewish craft-trained dentists and studied dentists working for the state were banned from practicing their profession; the others initially lost their license to work for the health insurance and in 1938 they all lost their license to practice at all. Ruth Körbchen was no longer allowed to work as a dentist in her own laboratory at Schmilinskystraße 5-7. Consequently she had to give up her apartment.

Ruth Körbchen probably knew her next landlord, the owner of the house, Dr. Alfons Maria Jakob, born on July 2, 1884 in Aschaffenburg. In 1919, the non-Jewish doctor qualified as a professor of neurology and psychiatry at the University of Hamburg. He was appointed Professor of Neurology there in 1924. Alfons Maria Jakob died in Hamburg on October 17, 1931. His widow Dorothea Jakob bought the apartment building Lange Reihe 111 in St. Georg from his estate and enabled Ruth Körbchen to move into an apartment on the second floor.

According to an entry in the Hamburg address book, Ruth Körbchen opened a boarding house there. She rented a room to Eugen Philipp Bauer on May 24, 1940. (Eugen Philipp Bauer was deported to Theresienstadt on July 15, 1942 and died there, see www.stolpersteine-hamburg.de)

The systematic deportation of Jews began with the first transport from Hamburg on October 25, 1941 to the "Litzmannstadt Ghetto” set up by the Germans in occupied Lodz. Ruth Körbchen also received her deportation order to this place. Like all those ordered to be deported, she had to report to the lodge on Moorweidenstraße the day before the deportation date. The Jewish community had set up double-decker beds there and provided provisions for the journey. On October 25, 1941, the train left the Hanover train station (now Hafen City) in Hamburg with 1034 people. It arrived at the ghetto around midday the next day.

Shortly after the ghetto was established, the German administration had already set up a textile and clothing department there. This was also an supplier of textiles, clothing and leather goods for the German economy.

According to the documents from Lodz, Ruth Körbchen was assigned an apartment at Rauchgasse 21 in the ghetto. The address Rauchgasse 21 and the job title "dental technician” were noted on an index card created for her. We do not know whether Ruth Körbchen was able to practise her profession in the ghetto or whether she was given a job at all.

On May 1, 1942, she had to leave the apartment at Rauchgasse 21, was deported to Chelmno (Kulmhof) and murdered there.

The first Nazi extermination camp in occupied Poland was set up in Chelmno (Kulmhof), 70 kilometers west of Lodz, in 1941. The Chelmno camp consisted of two parts, the "castle” and the "forest camp”. People were usually murdered in gas vans immediately after arriving at the "castle”, while those murdered in the "forest camp” were buried and cremated in mass graves dug by selected deportees.

Ruth Körbchen was only 54 years old.

The fate of the Körbchen family:
Ruth's mother Anna Körbchen died in the Theresienstadt ghetto on November 15, 1943. There is a Stumbling Stone for her in Geldern, Bahnhofstraße 9 (see: List of Stumbling Stones in Geldern - Wikipedia)

Ruth Körbchen's brother Hans Otto Siegfried was killed in the First World War on April 20, 1918.

Her brother Friedrich was deported to Theresienstadt on June 16, 1943 and on October 23, 1944 to Auschwitz, where he was murdered. A Stolperstein is located at Bahnhofstraße 9, Geldern. (see: List of Stumbling Stones in Geldern - Wikipedia)

Translated by Beate Meyer
Stand: May 2025
© Bärbel Klein/Benedikt Behrens (†)

Quellen: 1; 4; 5; 6; 9; StaH 213-13 Landgericht Hamburg- Wiedergutmachung 14849 (Ruth Körbchen); 352-10 Gesundheitsverwaltung - Personalakten 244 (Dr. Alfons Maria Jakob); 332-5 Sterbeurkunde 849 Nr. 241/1922 Malwine Stern; 332-5 Sterbeurkunde 894 Nr. 1804/1925 Käthe Stern; 332-5 Sterbeurkunde 8107 Nr. 490/1931 Alfons Jakob; 741-4 Fotoarchiv K 2415 (Hartwicusstraße), K 6404 (Körbchen), K 7025 (Körbchen); Berlin Heiratsurkunde Nr. 646/1918 Otto Hirsch Stern und Mathilde Therese Elsa Ackermann; Berlin Sterbeurkunde Nr. 768/1927 Otto Hirsch Stern; Mail von Ralf Hendrix vom 31.03.2023 mit Unterlagen von Familie Körbchen, Stadtarchiv Geldern, Juden in der Geschichte des Gelderlandes, herausgegeben vom Historischen Verein für Geldern und Umgebung, Seite 378; Mail Renate Mielczarek Unterlagen Ruth Körbchen 17.04.2024 Archiv Lodz; ITS Digital Archive, Arolsen Archives Copy of 1.1.22.1/1203275; SUB Adressbuch SUB Hamburg - Advanced Search - asearch (uni-hamburg.de) folgende Jahre 1925, 1928-1931 und 1934; Alfred Gottwald und Diana Schulle, Die Judendeportationen aus dem Deutschen Reich, Marixverlag, Erschienen 2005; www.ancestry.de (Zugriff 16.02.2022); Alfons Maria Jakob – Wikipedia (Zugriff 08.04.2024).
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