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Benjamin Sarfaty * 1937

Innocentiastraße 37 (Eimsbüttel, Harvestehude)

HIER WOHNTE
BENJAMIN SARFATY
JG. 1937
FLUCHT 1938 HOLLAND
INTERNIERT WESTERBORK
DEPORTIERT 1943
AUSCHWITZ
ERMORDET 27.8.1943

further stumbling stones in Innocentiastraße 37:
Prof. Friedrich Adler, Zerline Adler, Kaethe (Käte) Pincus, Martin Pincus, Abraham Sarfaty, Franziska Sarfaty, Joseph Sarfaty, Rosa Sarfaty, Israel Abraham Sarfaty, Annette Sarfaty, Ruth Klara Sarfaty, Henriette M. Schmid, Fritz Weinstein, Gertrud Weinstein

Abraham Sarfaty (Sarfatij), born 17.11.1899 in Amsterdam, fled from Hamburg to the Netherlands in 1938, interned in "Kamp Westerbork" on 24.7.1943, deported to Auschwitz on 24.8.1943, murdered on 27.8.1943

Franziska (Francisca) Sarfaty (Sarfatij), née Weening, born 30.1.1903 in Amsterdam, fled from Hamburg to the Netherlands in 1938, interned in "Kamp Westerbork” on 24.7.1943, deported to Auschwitz on 24.8.1943, murdered on 27.8.1943

Joseph Sarfaty (Sarfatij), born 26.12.1926 in Hamburg, fled to the Netherlands in 1938, interned in "Kamp Westerbork”, deported to Sobibor on 18.5.1943, murdered on 21.5.1943

Rosa Sarfaty (Sarfatij), born on 30.9.1930 in Hamburg, fled from Hamburg to the Netherlands in 1938, interned in "Kamp Westerbork” on 24.7.1943, deported to Auschwitz on 24.8.1943, murdered on 27.8.1943

Israel Abraham Sarfaty (Sarfatij), born 31.7.1932 in Hamburg, fled from Hamburg to the Netherlands in 1938, interned in "Kamp Westerbork” on 24.7.1943, deported to Auschwitz on 24.8.1943, murdered on 27.8.1943

Annette (Anette) Sarfaty (Sarfatij), born 12.6.1935 in Hamburg, fled from Hamburg to the Netherlands in 1938, interned in "Kamp Westerbork” on 24.7.1943, deported to Auschwitz on 24.8.1943, murdered on 27.8.1943

Benjamin Sarfaty (Sarfatij), born 29.10.1937 in Hamburg, fled from Hamburg to the Netherlands in 1938, interned in "Kamp Westerbork” on 24.7.1943, deported to Auschwitz on 24.8.1943, murdered on 27.8.1943

Ruth Klara Sarfaty (Sarfatij), born 10.7.1940 in Amsterdam, interned in "Kamp Westerbork” on 24.7.1943, deported to Auschwitz on 24.8.1943, murdered on 27.8.1943

Innocentiastraße 37 (Eimsbüttel)

Abraham Sarfaty (Sarfatij) was born in Amsterdam on 17 November 1899 and had lived in Hamburg since March 1923. He practised the profession of Cantor (prayer leader or precentor) at the Portuguese Jewish Community in Hamburg.

The synagogue of the Portuguese Jewish Community had been at Marcusstraße 36/38 (today Markusstraße) in Hamburg-Neustadt since 1855. After the middle of the nineteenth century, the number of members had declined to well under 300. The community was in danger of ageing. New Sephardic members were therefore recruited from Denmark, Portugal, Morocco, Central and South American countries and neighbouring Holland. The longstanding relations with Sephardic communities in the Netherlands may have contributed to Abraham Sarfaty and his wife, Franziska, (née Weening, born on 30 January 1903 in Amsterdam) following the call to Hamburg in February 1923.

The Sarfaty family lived at Hütten 86 only a five minutes walk from the synagogue in Marcusstraße. Two of their children were born here – Joseph on 26 December 1926 and Rosa on 30 September 1930.

Around 1931, the family moved from Neustadt to Brahmsallee 6 in the Grindel district, which had increasingly become the centre of Jewish life in Hamburg. The family once again took up residence in the neighbourhood of an institution run by the Portuguese-Jewish community. There had long been a synagogue in the residential building at Hallerstraße 45, which was used during the cold season.

In the middle of the 1930s when scarcely any members of the community still lived in Neustadt, the maintenance costs of the synagogue in Marcusstraße proved to be too high for the ca 150 member strong community. The community council rented the synagogue to the German Israelite Community. A new synagogue was set up in a rented villa at Innocentiastraße 37 and consecrated on 14 March 1935. It served as a religious home to the small community until 1939.

Abraham Sarfaty and his family also transferred their residence there. In addition to the children born in Neustadt, three more were born: Israel Sarfaty, born on 31 July 1932, Annette Sarfaty, born on 12 June 1935 and Israel Benjamin Sarfaty, born on 29 October 1937.

On the night of 9 to 10 November 1938 a pogrom took place in Germany throughout the whole country. Organised thugs set fire to Jewish businesses, places of worship and other institutions. Thousands of Jews of both sexes were abused, arrested or killed. Even before this the national socialist state had implemented increasingly wider discriminatory steps against the Jews. This continual escalation of anti Jewish measures will have led the Sarfaty family already seriously considering a return to their native Netherlands. In fact the family fled to Amsterdam on 10 November 1938. The decision is likely to have been taken suddenly due to the November pogrom since the Portuguese Jewish community reported to the Foreign Exchange Section of the Chief Finance Administrator (Oberfinanzpräsident) on 12 December 1938 that Abraham Sarfaty had left behind payment obligations for groceries, fruit, vegetables, bakery products, coffee, tea, milk, butter and purchases of laundry amounting to 551,50 RM, which were to be settled against the salary which was still owing to him.

The only thing that we know about the life of the Sarfaty family in the years after their flight to the Netherlands is that another child, Ruth Klara Sarfaty, was born in Amsterdam on 10 July 1940.

On 10 May 1940, the German Wehrmacht invaded the Netherlands and occupied the kingdom. The ‘Central Refugee Camp Westerbork’ had already been set up by the Dutch government as a reception camp for Jews from Germany and Austria in particular. The Germans then took over the camp and turned it into the ‘Kamp Westerbork police transit camp for Jews’.

The entire Sarfaty family was interned in Westerbork on 24 July 1943. The eldest son, Joseph had been interned there already on 20 April 1943. He was deported to the extermination camp Sobibor in the east of Poland on 18 May 1943 and murdered there. The others had to start their journey to death on 24 August 1943. They were murdered in Auschwitz-Birkenau on 27 August 1943.

Translation: Steve Robinson
Stand: November 2024
© Ingo Wille

Quellen: Hamburg Adress- und Telefonbücher 1924 bis 1938, StaH 314-15 Oberfinanzpräsident FVg 3052 (Abraham Sarfatiy); Auskunft per email des Herinneringscentrum Kamp Westerbork vom 4. Juli 2022. Stein, Irmgard: Jüdische Baudenkmäler in Hamburg, Hamburg 1984, S. 43. Ina Lorenz und Jörg Berkemann, Die Hamburger Juden im NS-Staat 1933 bis 1938/1939, Bd. I, S: 425 ff.