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Rieckchen Hauptmann (née Blach) * 1883

Bartelsstraße 30 Ecke Susannenstr. (Altona, Sternschanze)

1940 Tötungsanstalt Brandenburg
ermordet Brandenburg

further stumbling stones in Bartelsstraße 30 Ecke Susannenstr.:
Benno Hauptmann, Ruth Hauptmann

Benno Hauptmann, born on 17 Aug. 1917 in Hamburg, deported on 25 Oct. 1941 to Lodz, deported on 10 May 1942 to Chelmno (Kulmhof), murdered there
Rieckchen (Rickchen, Riekchen, Jenny, Fanny) Hauptmann, née Bloch (Blach), born on 26 Sept. 1883 (25 Sept. 1883) in Abterode, deported on 23 Sept. 1940 from the "Langenhorn sanatorium and nursing home” ("Heil- und Pflegeanstalt Langenhorn”), murdered on the same day at the euthanasia killing center in Brandenburg/Havel
Ruth Hauptmann, born on 5 Oct. 1915 in Hamburg, deported on 25 Oct. 1941 to Lodz, died there on 13 July 1942

Benno and Ruth Hauptmann were biological children of Rieckchen Hauptmann, the second wife of Fabian Hauptmann. They had four other brothers, who were nearly 20 years older and very likely from the first marriage of their father with Martha, née Salomon: Siegmund and Kurt survived the era of National Socialism – Kurt, married in a "mixed marriage,” performed forced labor at various companies for more than five years and was deported to the Theresienstadt Ghetto in Feb. 1945; Siegfried moved to Berlin in 1926 or 1927, was detained in 1938, transported to the Buchenwald concentration camp, and declared dead in 1945; Rudolf was killed in action in World War I.

Together with her husband Fabian, who was a native of Lissa in [the Province of] Posen, Rieckchen ran a furniture store at Bartelsstrasse 34/36, where they offered new and used furniture. On a voters’ list of the Jewish Community for 1930, Bartelsstrasse 34 is indicated as the address for Fabian, Jenny, and Kurt. The business was taken away from the Hauptmanns. Later, Rieckchen and Fabian lived with their children Ruth and Benno at Marthastrasse 28/30. In 1937, they moved to accommodation in Schlachterstrasse, which no longer exists today. House numbers 40/42, where the Hauptmanns rented an apartment, were owned by the Marcus-Nordheim-Stift, a charitable residential home. On 29 Aug. 1938, Fabian was committed to the Friedrichsberg Psychiatric Hospital at the age of 71. There he was diagnosed with a late-life (in Senium) depression. On 6 Oct. 1938, he was transferred on a mass transport to the Langenhorn State Institution, where he died eleven days later.

Also in 1938, Rieckchen was given psychiatric treatment in the "Landesirrenanstalt” Ochsenzoll (Ochsenzoll "State Lunatic Asylum”). In the national census in May 1939, she was registered in Langenhorn, census district no. 333 (Zählbez.-Nr. 333). The index card also provides a clue to her whereabouts. It reads: "Deportation destination Cholm = Chelm, 23 Sept. 1940.” A we know today, the "Lunatic Asylum Chelm, Post Office Lublin” ("Irrenanstalt Cholm, Post Lublin”) served as a cover address for an alleged destination of this and other transports to the former penitentiary in Brandenburg, where, on the day of arrival, all patients were murdered in gas vans.

The historian Beate Meyer explains how the cover-up succeeded: "A fictitious records office certified the patients’ deaths, which were later communicated to the relatives or, respectively, the district offices of the Reich Association [of Jews in Germany (Reichsvereinigung der Juden in Deutschland)] in writing.” The deportation and murder of the Jewish patients of psychiatric hospitals in Hamburg was preceded by a questionnaire campaign in the course of which the senior physicians of the sanatoria and nursing homes were ordered by way of a circular decree by the Reich Ministry of the Interior to record, in addition to the patients’ personal data, the "diagnosis” and "citizenship and race” as well and to send the information to the Reich Ministry of the Interior. From mid-1940, Langenhorn served as the collective institute for Jewish patients from the North German region. From there, 136 Jewish patients were deported on central orders from Berlin to the euthanasia killing center in Brandenburg on 23 Sept. 1940.

Ruth was a trained domestic help and worked – as her Jewish religious tax (Kultussteuer) file card indicates – as a nanny. In Aug. 1933, she moved to Bergstrasse 125 in Altona, and only a few months later to Bartelsstrasse 30. She joined the Jewish Community at the end of Dec. 1933, though not being assessed for taxes from 1934 until 1939. In 1940, she paid modest Jewish religious taxes. Until 1938, she lived again with her family in Marthastrasse and in Schlachterstrasse. When her parents were committed to mental institutions, she moved to Haynstrase 15 with Levy and then further to the "Jews’ house” ("Judenhaus”) in Frickestrasse 24, where she also resided with Levy. She worked as a domestic help until her deportation.

In Lodz, she initially lived at Rembrandtstrasse 12, apartment 32, later at Kreuzstrasse 2a. Several weeks after the murder of her brother Benno, Ruth died as well. For Monday, 13 July 1942, the chroniclers of the ghetto recorded 65 deaths and 4 births.

Ruth’s brother Benno had attended the Talmud Tora Realschule. Report cards from the years 1924 until 1932 have been preserved. He joined the Jewish Religious Organization (Jüdischer Religionsverband) in 1936. In the following years, he only had a low income, for which he was not assessed in terms of taxes – except in 1937. He, too, left his parents’ apartment in 1938. He moved to Klosterallee 33, then to Werderstrasse 7, and to Kaiser-Wilhelm-Strasse 115. He did a commercial apprenticeship with Isaacsohn und Bühring, an import and export business on Kaiser-Wilhelm-Strasse, which he completed in Sept. 1939. That same year, he relocated his residence to Hegestieg 12 and shortly afterward to Grindelhof 95. He worked as a commercial clerk at de Vivanco & Co., a company founded in 1920. For the year 1940, the Jewish religious tax file card contains the following note: "Rent paid by the welfare office. Works in the [retirement] home on Rothenbaumchaussee for board and an allowance of 10,– [RM = reichsmark].”

When his sister Ruth received her deportation order to the Lodz Ghetto, Benno lived at Parkallee 12. He volunteered for the transport on 25 Oct. 1941. In Lodz, he was quartered at Hausierergasse 1, apartment 11, working in clothes production as a maker of ready-to-wear clothing. The "Litzmannstadt” (Lodz) Ghetto served the SS as a manufacturing ghetto. The "Jewish Eldest,” Chaim Rumkowski, also hoped to be able to "pay for additional lifetime” by delivering work performance. The production primarily served the German Wehrmacht, though part of the output was also sold to private companies. In May 1942, Lodz saw the beginning of the "resettlement” ("Aussiedlung”) – i.e., the murder – of West European Jews.

Starting in May 1941, the deportation cards – called "wedding cards” in the ghetto jargon – were sent out above all to people not employed. Between 4 and 15 May, the Nazis murdered more than 10,000 persons who had been "settled in” ("eingesiedelt”) from the "Old Reich” ("Altreich,” i.e., Germany within the 1937 borders) to the Jewish ghetto of Lodz in the Kulmhof/Chelmno extermination camp using gas vans. Benno Hauptmann was one of them.

Translator: Erwin Fink

Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

Stand: October 2016
© Christiane Jungblut

Quellen: 1; 2; 4; 5; 8; AB 1936, T. 1, 1938, T. 1; ITS/ARCH/Ghetto Litzmannstadt, Ordner 7, Seite 491; ITS/ARCH/Ghetto Litzmannstadt, Ordner 7, Seite 492; StaH 314-15 OFP, Abl. 1998/1, H 959; StaH 351-11 AfW, Abl. 2008/1, 291095 Hauptmann, Kurt; StaH 352-8/7 Staatskrankenanstalt Langenhorn, Abl. 2/1995, 25298; StaH 362-6/10 Talmud-Tora-Schule, TT 19; StaH 522-1 Jüd. Gemeinden, 992 e 1 Band 1; Feuchert/Leibfried/Riecke (Hrsg.), Chronik, 1942, 2007, S. 7 f, 142, 360; Löw, Litzmannstadt, 2006, S. 309; Meyer, unveröffentlichtes Dokument, 2008; Rüter/de Mildt, Justiz, http://www1.jur.uva.nl/junsv/ Excerpts/697002.htm (17.2.2009); Wunder, Anstaltsfürsorge, in: Ebbinghaus/Linne (Hrsg.), Kein abgeschlossenes Kapitel, 1997, S. 400.

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Hier abweichend:
(2) Bundesarchiv Berlin, R 1509 Reichssippenamt, Ergänzungskarten der Volkszählung vom 17. Mai 1939

Rieckchen Hauptmann, née Bloch, born on 26 Sept. 1883 in Abterode/Hessen, murdered on 23 Sept. 1940 in the Brandenburg/Havel euthanasia killing center

Stolperstein in Hamburg-Sternschanze, at Bartelsstraße 30, Ecke Susannenstraße

Rieckchen Hauptmann, née Bloch, born on 26 Sept. 1883 in Abterode, Hesse, ran a furniture shop with her husband Fabian, who came from Lissa (today Leszno in Poland) in the Prussian Province of Posen, at Bartelsstrasse 34/36 (at the time, in Hamburg-St. Pauli, today in Hamburg-Sternschanze), where they sold new and used furniture.

Fabian Hauptmann had been married before. Four sons resulted from his union with Martha, née Salomon, whom he had married on 12 June 1892: Siegmund, born on 21 Mar. 1893; Rudolf, born on 27 June 1894; Kurt, born on 29 Oct. 1895; and Siegfried, born on 8 Feb. 1897, all natives of Hamburg.

Martha Hauptmann died on 1 May 1910 in Hamburg’s Israelite Hospital. Half a year later, on 10 November, Fabian Hauptmann married Rieckchen (also called Jenny). The couple had two children: Ruth, on 5 Oct. 1915; and Benno, on 17 Aug. 1917, both born in Hamburg.

The furniture store at Bartelsstrasse 34 had been listed in the Hamburg directory since 1919. It had therefore existed since at least 1918; no earlier addresses can be established. Probably the store also included an apartment, because on a voter list of the Jewish Community for the year 1930, Bartelsstrasse 34 is named as the address for Fabian, Jenny, and Kurt Hauptmann. The last mention of the address in the directory dates from 1932. Rieckchen and Fabian then lived with their children Ruth and Benno at Marthastrasse 28/30 in Eimsbüttel and moved in 1937 to Schlachterstrasse on Grossneumarkt, which no longer exists today. The buildings with house numbers 40/42 in which Hauptmanns rented an apartment belonged to Marcus-Nordheim-Stift, a residential home.

On 29 Aug. 1938, Fabian Hauptmann was admitted to the "Psychiatric and Mental Hospital of the Friedrichsberg Hansische University” ("Psychiatrische und Nervenklinik der Hansischen Universität Friedrichsberg”) at the age of 71. There he was diagnosed with senile dementia and general loss of strength. On 6 Oct. 1938, he was transferred to the Langenhorn "sanatorium and nursing home” ("Heil-und Pflegeanstalt” Langenhorn) and he passed away on 17 October.

Rieckchen was already a patient in Langenhorn by this time. After a short stay in Friedrichsberg, she had been admitted to Langenhorn on 19 Mar. 1938. She was registered as residing there in the May 1939 German national census.

When the Reich Ministry of the Interior used a special operation planned by the "euthanasia” headquarters in Berlin, located at Tiergartenstrasse 4, to have all Jewish persons from institutions in Hamburg, Schleswig-Holstein and Mecklenburg concentrated at the Hamburg-Langenhorn "sanatorium and nursing home” as of 18 Sept. 1940 and then had them transported to the so-called "Brandenburg State Asylum” ("Landespflegeanstalt Brandenburg”) in Brandenburg on the Havel River on 23 Sept. 1940, Rieckchen Hauptmann was one of them. On the same day, the persons were killed with carbon monoxide in the part of the former penitentiary converted into a gas-killing facility. To disguise this killing operation, death notices claimed that the victims had died in an institution in Chelm (Polish) or Cholm (German) east of Lublin.

Ruth, Rieckchen and Fabian Hauptmann’s first daughter, a trained domestic worker, worked as a nanny. In Aug. 1933, she moved to Bergstrasse 125 in Altona, a few months later to Bartelsstrasse 30 in today’s Sternschanze quarter. Ruth Hauptmann joined the Jewish Community at the end of Dec. 1933. She lived with her relatives on Marthastrasse, on Schlachterstrasse, and as a subtenant at Haynstrasse 15, as well as eventually in the "Jews’ house” ("Judenhaus”) at Frickestrasse 24. On 25 Oct. 1941, she was deported together with her brother Benno on a transport comprising 1034 persons to the "Litzmannstadt” (Lodz) Ghetto.

Benno Hauptmann had attended the Talmud Tora Realschule. He joined the "Jewish Religious Organization” ("Jüdischer Religionsverband”), as the Community had to call itself by then, in 1936. In the following years, he earned only a modest income. He, too, left his parents’ home in 1938 and had addresses at Klosterallee 33, Werderstrasse 7, and Kaiser-Wilhelm-Strasse 115. He completed a commercial apprenticeship at Isaacsohn & Bühring, an import and export business based at Kaiser-Wilhelm-Strasse 20/26, which he concluded in Sept. 1939. In the same year, he moved to Hegestieg 12 and shortly afterward to Grindelhof 95. He worked as a commercial clerk for the de Vivanco & Co. import and export company at Georgsplatz 8/10 in Hamburg’s historic downtown. On 16 Mar. 1940, the following was noted on the Jewish religious tax (Kultussteuer) file card: "Rent is paid by the welfare authorities. Works at the Rothenbaumchaussee home for food and 10,- [reichsmark] in allowance.”

When his sister Ruth received the deportation order, Benno lived at Parkallee 12 with Fränkel. He volunteered for the transport on 25 Oct. 1941 and accompanied his sister.

In the "Litzmannstadt” (Lodz) Ghetto, he was quartered at Hausierergasse 1, apartment 11, and worked in the clothing production as a "fashion designer” ("Konfektionist”). The "Litzmannstadt” Ghetto served the SS as a production ghetto. The production was primarily used by the German Wehrmacht, some of the products were also sold to private companies. Chaim Rumkowski, the Jewish eldest, hoped to be able to buy lifetime through work performance.

Since the beginning of May 1942, people were destined for a new deportation. Ghetto inmates who were not employed received deportation cards – in the ghetto jargon, "wedding cards.” Between 4 and 15 May, the Nazis murdered more than 10,000 of the people who had been "resettled” from the "Old Reich” [Altreich, i.e., Germany within the 1937 borders] to the Jewish Lodz Ghetto in the fall of 1941 at the Kulmhof/Chelmno extermination camp in gas vans. Benno Hauptmann was one of them.

Ruth Hauptmann "resided” in "Litzmannstadt” first at Rembrandtstrasse 12, apartment 32, later at Kreuzstrasse 2a. A few weeks after the murder of her brother Benno, Ruth also lost her life. She perished in a ghetto hospital. The cause of death was listed as "malnutrition.”

Siegfried, Fabian Hauptmann’s son from his first marriage, also died in the Holocaust. He moved to Berlin in 1926 or 1927, was arrested in 1938, taken to the Buchenwald concentration camp, and declared dead as of 1945.

Kurt Hauptmann, also from the first marriage, survived National Socialism. After the November Pogrom on 9 Nov. 1938, he was imprisoned in the Fuhlsbüttel police prison from 11 Nov. to 2 Dec. 1938. Married in a so-called "mixed marriage” ("Mischehe”), he performed more than five years of forced labor for various companies. He was deported to the Theresienstadt Ghetto on 14 Feb. 1945 and liberated there in May.

Rudolf Hauptmann, the oldest of the Hauptmann children, died in the First World War. He was killed at the age of 22 during fighting near Martinpuich in France after a shell splinter had torn off both his hands.

Siegmund Hauptmann left his hometown Hamburg in 1926 to an unknown destination. No information is available about his subsequent fate.

Beside the Stolperstein for Rieckchen Hauptmann, there are others for Benno and Ruth Hauptmann at Bartelsstrasse 30, at the intersection to Susannenstrasse in Hamburg-Sternschanze.

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

© Ingo Wille

Quellen: 1; 2; 4; 5; 8; AB, StaH 133-1 III Staatsarchiv III, 3171-2/4 U.A. 4, Liste psychisch kranker jüdischer Patientinnen und Patienten der psychiatrischen Anstalt Langenhorn, die aufgrund nationalsozialistischer "Euthanasie"-Maßnahmen ermordet wurden, zusammengestellt von Peter von Rönn, Hamburg (Projektgruppe zur Erforschung des Schicksals psychisch Kranker in Langenhorn); 314-15 OFP, Abl. 1998/1, H 959; 332-5 Standesämter 638 Sterberegister Nr. 283/1910 Martha Hauptmann, 749 Sterberegister Nr. 861/1916 Rudolf Hauptmann, 2312 Geburtsregister Nr. 1166/1893 Siegmund Hauptmann, 2344 Geburtsregister Nr. 2418/1894 Rudolf Hauptmann, 2796 Heiratsregister Nr. 509/1892 Fabian Hauptmann/Martha Salomon, 8669 Heiratsregister Nr. 346/1910 Fabian Hauptmann/Rieckchen Blach, 9117 Geburtsregister Nr. 2470/1895 Kurt Hauptmann, 9136 Geburtsregister Nr. 337/1897 Siegfried Hauptmann, 9894 Sterberegister Nr. 208/1938 Fabian Hauptmann; 351-11 Amt für Wiedergutmachung 18300 Hauptmann, Kurt; 352-8/7 Staatskrankenanstalt Langenhorn Abl. 1/1995 Aufnahme-/Abgangsbuch Langenhorn 26.8.1939 bis 27.1.1941; 352-8/7 Staatskrankenanstalt Langenhorn Abl. 2/1995, 25298 Fabian Hauptmann; 362-6/10 Talmud Tora Schule, TT 19; 522-1 Jüd. Gemeinden, 992 e 1 Band 1, 922 e 2 Deportationslisten; Standesamt Abterode, jetzt Meißner, Geburtsregister Nr. 43/1883 Rieckchen Hauptmann; Fritz Neubauer, Universität Bielefeld. Feuchert, Sascha/Leibfried, Erwin/Riecke, Jörg, Die Chronik des Gettos Lodz/Litzmannstadt, 1942, Göttingen 2007, S. 7f., 142, 360; Löw, Andrea, Juden im Getto Litzmannstadt, Göttingen 2006, S. 309ff. Wunder, Michael, Anstaltsfürsorge, in: Ebbinghaus, Angelika/Linne, Karsten (Hrsg.), Kein abgeschlossenes Kapitel. Hamburg im "Dritten Reich", Hamburg 1977, S. 400f. Jungblut, Christiane, Benno Hauptmann, Rieckchen Hauptmann, Ruth Hauptmann, in: Jungblut, Christiane/Ohl-Hinz, Gunhild, Stolpersteine in Hamburg-St. Pauli, Hamburg 2009.
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