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Hermann Szykman * 1920

Holstenstraße (ggü. Paul-Rosen-Straße) (Altona, Altona-Altstadt)

HIER WOHNTE
HERMANN SZYKMAN
JG. 1920
FLUCHT 1938
USA

further stumbling stones in Holstenstraße (ggü. Paul-Rosen-Straße):
Efroim Szykman, Rosa Szykman

Efroim/Efraim Szykman/Schickmann, born on 26.12.1892 in Bedzin (now Będzin, Poland), forcibly expelled from Hamburg on 28.10.1938 across the german-polish border at Zbąszyń ("Poland Action"), sent to the Litzmannstadt Ghetto (Łódź), murdered on 29.12.1940

Rosa Szykman/Schickmann, née Waldhorn, born on 14.6.1898 in Radautz/Bukovina (now Romania), forcibly expelled from Hamburg on 28.10.1938 across the german-polish border at Zbąszyń ("Poland Action"), sent to the Litzmannstadt Ghetto (Łódź), murdered in Chelmno

Hermann Szykmann, born on 11.11.1920 in Altona, fled to the USA in July 1938

Holstenstraße (opposite Paul-Roosen-Straße) (formerly Kleine Johannisstraße 12/12a)

Efroim/Efraim Szykman and Rosa Waldhorn, both of Jewish descent, came from the former Austria-Hungary. They had arrived in the then still independent Prussian city of Altona at the beginning of the twentieth century. Here, Efroim Szykman, who had settled in Altona in October 1915, bore the Germanised surname Schickmann and the first name Efraim. He and Rosa Waldhorn married on 17 December 1919. According to the marriage register, Efraim Schickmann was born on 26 December 1892 in Bendin (also Bedzin, today Będzin, Poland). Bendin is located about 80 km northwest of Krakow and 10 km northeast of Katowice in the northeastern part of the Upper Silesian industrial area. Until the end of the 1930s, the city was home to a very large Jewish community.

Efraim Schickmann was a Polish citizen and a merchant by profession. He belonged to the High German Israelite Community (Hochdeutsche Israeliten-Gemeinde) in Altona.

Rosa Waldhorn was born on 14 June 1898 in Radautz in Bukovina. At the time of her marriage, she lived with her mother Scheindel Brunstein, née Waldhorn, and her stepfather, Alter Brunstein, in Altona, Waterloostraße 2a.

Their child Hermann was born on 11 November 1920. Efraim and Rosa Schickmann initially lived at Gustav Adolfplatz 112 (now Steinheimplatz) and from around 1922 at Kleine Johannisstraße 12 in Altona, which no longer exists. From here, Efraim Schickmann ran a business selling cheese and other dairy products. The business apparently developed so favourably that Efraim Schickmann was able to purchase the residential building at Kleine Johannisstraße 12/12 a and his wife was able to purchase the property at Kleine Roosenstraße 57/59 (today Paul-Roosen-Straße) around 1927.

In the 1937 Hamburg address book, Efraim Schickmann is also listed at Grindelberg 3a in Harvestehude with the note "fatty goods". We do not know whether this was only a business address or whether the family also lived at Grindelberg.

The marriage certificate of Efraim and Rosa Schickmann contains a marginal note dated 19 May 1938, according to which the Altona District Court ordered "he husband's name to be changed to Efraim Szykman". One day later, the name change was also made in their son's birth certificate. Thus, the Schickmann family, like other Jews who had immigrated from Poland, had their germanised names, which they had adopted in the meantime, revoked.

Hermann Schickmann attended the Talmud Tora School in Hamburg until 1938. His leaving certificate stated that he would have passed his Abitur (A-levels) if he had been able to remain at the school. However, on 22 July 1938, he boarded the SS Laconia in Liverpool and fled to the United States with the support of an aid organisation.

On 28 October 1938, as part of the so-called Poland Action, 17,000 Jews of Polish origin were deported from the German Reich to Poland. On 6 October, the Polish government had decided that those who had not renewed their passports by 29 October would lose their citizenship. This would have made them stateless. The Nazi government feared that thousands of "Eastern Jews" would remain permanently on German territory. Without warning and without regard for their status, men, women and children were taken from their workplaces or homes throughout the German Reich, herded together at various locations and deported by train on the same day across the Polish border at Zbąszyń (Bentschen), Chojnice (Konitz) in Pomerania and Bytom in Upper Silesia. The costs of the operation were to be borne by the deported Jews. Only if this was not possible would the Reich budget be used.

Efraim and Rosa Schickmann were also affected by the expulsion and were now officially named Efraim and Rosa Szykman. While Efraim Szykman travelled from Zbąszyń to his brother Noech in Łódź, Rosa Szykman was allowed to return temporarily to Altona at the end of 1938 or beginning of 1939 to settle the family's financial affairs. She moved back into her apartment building on Kleine Johannisstraße.

In addition to the two properties on Kleine Johannisstraße and Kleine Roosenstraße, Efraim and Rosa Szykman owned various securities with a nominal value of 19,800 RM. Because Rosa Szykman was suspected of "capital flight", the Foreign Exchange Office of the Hamburg Regional Finance Office issued a "security order" in April 1939, denying her access to the family's property. Withdrawals of money now required the permission of the Foreign Exchange Office, which was granted only extremely restrictively. From May to June 1939, Rosa Szykman received seven individual permits allowing her to dispose of a total of around 1,800 RM from the blocked account. This money was to be used to purchase clothing, passage and freight for departure with the United States Lines, as well as to pay medical bills and purchase medication. However, this departure did not take place.

On 21 July 1939, Rosa Szykman travelled to Łódź to join her husband and the family of her brother-in-law Noech Szykman, who were living there together.

From September 1939 onwards, the Jewish population began to be gradually concentrated in individual districts of the city, until the old town of Łódź and the districts of Baluty and Marysin were declared a ghetto area in April 1940. On 11 April 1940, Łódź was renamed "Litzmannstadt" by the German occupying forces.

Efraim and Rosa Szykman, as well as Noech Szykman, his wife and other relatives, were sent to the ghetto. According to her ghetto employment office ID card, Rosa Szykman was once again called Rosa Schickmann there.
Efraim Szykman died in the ghetto on 29 December 1940. The cause of death was given as "frostbite".

There are differing reports about the further fate of Rosa Szykman. Her brother-in-law Noech Szykman suspected that she was murdered in Auschwitz.

Noech Szykman himself was held in the Litzmannstadt (Łódź) Ghetto until February 1944 and then sent to one of the labour camps near Częstochowa. The Litzmannstadt (Łódź) Ghetto was dissolved shortly before liberation. According to Noech Szykman, all inmates were sent to Auschwitz or Treblinka. Noech Szykman said that his own wife (whose name we do not know) was deported from the Litzmannstadt (Łódź) Ghetto to Auschwitz, probably together with Rosa Szykman. Since neither Noech Szykman's wife nor Rosa Szykman returned, Noech Szykman assumed that his wife and sister-in-law had perished in Auschwitz at the same time.
However, no evidence could be found to support this.

Contrary to Noech Szykman's assumption, the memorial book of the Federal Archives entitled "Victims of the Persecution of Jews under National Socialist Tyranny in Germany 1933–1945" states that Rosa Szykman was deported from the Litzmannstadt Ghetto (Łódź) to the Kulmhof (Chelmno) extermination camp on 23 June 1944.

Rosa Szykman was declared dead on 8 May 1945 on the grounds that her whereabouts had been unknown since her time in the ghetto and there was no information as to whether she was still alive or had died.

Noech Szykman was liberated in Częstochowa on 16 January 1945. After the war, he lived in Brussels.

The 88 square metre property at Kleine Johannisstraße 12/12 a was compulsorily administered by the Hamburgische Grundstücksverwaltungsgesellschaft von 1938 m.b.H. and was sold to the Hanseatic City of Hamburg in August/September 1941 for 10,000 RM. The proceeds from the sale were confiscated for the benefit of the German Reich. The property at Kleine Roosenstraße 57/59 (now Paul-Roosen-Straße) was disposed of in the same manner.

Hermann Szykman, who called himself Howard Hugh Crawford in the USA, served as a soldier in the U.S. Army. He married Alcenith Boydan Veith on 15 January 1943 and had three sons with her: Clifford, Gary and Dale.

Around 1944, he obtained American citizenship. He managed to obtain his university entrance qualification, studied medicine and settled as a doctor in Santa Monica, California. He also took on the role of Honorary Consul of El Salvador. Howard Hugh Crawford died in 2014.

The long-time address of the Schickmann/Szykman family at Kleine Johannisstraße 12/12a no longer exists. Therefore, on 22 November 2025, the Stolpersteine in memory of Efraim, Rosa and Hermann Szykman were laid in the pavement near their former residence on Holstenstraße, opposite the junction of Paul-Roosen-Straße. Howard Hugh Crawford's grandson Morgan, the son of Dale Crawford, was present with his husband and their daughter Rosa. Her first name commemorates Rosa Schickmann, who was murdered in Chelmno. As descendants of victims of Nazi persecution, the young family was granted German citizenship in 2024 (Article 116, Paragraph 2 of the German Basic Law). Howard Crawford, his husband and their daughter Rosa travelled from Berlin, where they have lived since spring 2025, to attend the stumbling stone laying ceremony.

Stand: February 2026
© Ingo Wille

Quellen: Adressbuch Altona (Diverse Einträge). Steuerkarten der Jüdischen Gemeinde von Efraim Szykman. StaH 213-13 Landgericht Hamburg – Wiedergutmachung 6176 (Efraim Szykman), 6177 (Rosa Schickmann), 314-15 Oberfinanzpräsident R1939_2538 (Efraim Szykman), F0227_Band_1 (Alter Brunstein), 332-5 Standesämter 6048 Heiratsregister Nr. 1722/1919 (Efraim Schickmann/Rosa Waldhorn), 351-11 Amt für Wiedergutmachung 43584 (Efraim Szykmann), 6178 (Rosa Schickmann), 43584 (Howard Crawford), 424-111 Amtsgericht Altona 6663 (Efraim Szykman), Sonderstandesamt Arolsen Sterberegister Nr. 1479/1956 (Efraim Schickmann), Bundesarchiv R_58/276 Reichssicherheitshauptamt Polen-Aktion Ravensbrück. Mitteilung des Bundesarchivs vom 21.8.2025 zu Rosa Szykmans Transport nach Chelmno: "Als Verweis für die Angabe zu Kulmhof ist dem hiesigen Datensatz als Belegstelle-Łódź Transports to the Chelmno (Kulmhof) Extermination Camp (Przełożony Starszeństwa Żydów w Gettcie Łódźkim (Łódź Ghetto Jewish Council), hinterlegt bei JewishGen (Record # 519; Transport # 92) nachgehalten."
Howard Crawford stellte diverse Familiendokumente zur Verfügung, darunter auch die Legitimationskarte aus dem Getto Litzmannstadt.