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Hugo Moses * 1887

Grindelhof 83 (Eimsbüttel, Rotherbaum)

1941 Minsk
ermordet

further stumbling stones in Grindelhof 83:
Leopold Bielefeld, Erna Brociner, Valentina Brociner, Kurt Ehrenberg, Heinrich Kempler, Rosa Kempler, Herbert Lesheim, Bert(h)a Lesheim, Ruth Lesheim, Marion Lesheim, Tana Lesheim, Mary Liebreich, Bertha Nürenberg

Hugo Moses, born on 30 Jan. 1887 in Hamburg, deported on 8 Nov. 1941 to Minsk

Grindelhof 83

Hugo Moses was born in a basement apartment at Krayenkamp 18, house no. 2, in Hamburg-Neustadt, directly next to the main Protestant church of St. Michaelis. His parents, the cigar worker Levi Samuel Moses (1851–1915), born in Schleswig, and Sophie Moses (1845–1936), born in Soltau or Neuenkirchen/Kingdom of Hannover, had been married since 1875 and had moved into the basement apartment in Feb. 1886 after residing in accommodations in the St. Pauli quarter and in Hamburg-Neustadt. The house belonged to the Oppenheimer Stift, a charitable residential home, which had been established in 1868 by Hirsch Berend Oppenheimer for needy Jewish families. The Oppenheimer Stift also included a synagogue conforming to Orthodox rites; the inhabitants of the residential home had to prove a proper and religious way of life to be admitted. Levi Moses belonged to the Jewish proletariat as a cigar worker or cigar maker, as he was called in other documents since 1876. No training was required for this activity, only a modicum of skill. In about 1865, there were approx. 95,000 employees working in the tobacco industry in the German states, of whom some 6,500 were organized in the General German Cigar Workers’ Association (Allgemeiner Deutscher Cigarrenarbeiter-Verein). In Nov. 1890, the Hamburg-Altona Association of Cigar Manufacturers (Verein der Zigarrenfabrikanten) demanded that the workers leave the trade union. As a result, from Nov. 1890 to Mar. 1891, a major cigar workers’ strike took place in Hamburg, Altona, Ottensen, and Wandsbek, which received financial support from the labor movement. Employers reacted with lockouts. Although it is not known whether Levi Moses was organized in the union, it is quite possible that he was affected by this industrial action.

The low wages for cigar workers meant a modest standard of living for the Moses family and cramped living conditions. A rise from the working class was most likely possible through self-employment, but that required capital and business acumen. Hugo Moses had four siblings: Emma (born on 15 Mar. 1876 in Hamburg), Martha (born on 18 June 1879 in Soltau), Siegmund (born on 17 Apr. 1881 in Soltau), and Max (born on 22 Apr. 1884 in Hamburg). In 1894, the family moved within the residential home, residing in house no. 1 on the fourth floor until Dec. 1897. Afterward, the first children are likely to have already contributed with their wages to the augmentation of the family budget. For the next four years, the register of local residents lists Levi Moses as the main tenant at Neuer Wall 38, rear building; and from 1902 to 1915, only with changing subtenancies in Hamburg-Neustadt. It was no coincidence that Hamburg-Neustadt, the residential area of the urban middle and lower classes, remained Levi Moses’ residential quarter. After the children, eventually the wife also does not seem to have lived with him anymore.

Hugo’s brother Siegmund, six years his senior, who according to his own information worked as a merchant and real estate agent for houses and had moved out in 1902, was sentenced to ten months in prison each in 1903 and 1907, respectively. After the release from his second prison term, he notified the Hamburg authorities in Dec. 1907 that he was moving to the neighboring Prussian city of Altona.

At the time of Hugo’s birth, his father’s religious affiliation was entered as Jewish; when he underwent his army physical 20 years later, his own profession was indicated as "Kommis” (commercial employee, office clerk) and his religious affiliation as Protestant. From 1907 to 1909, he had to complete his three-year military service. After his father’s death in the Israelite Hospital in Jan. 1915, Hugo lived with his mother at Framheinstrasse 33 in Barmbek-Süd, and his job title was then "Expedient” (commercial employee in the shipping department). Probably in 1915 or 1916, Hugo Moses, only 1.56 m (just under 5 ft 2 in) in height, was drafted into the military; during this time, he fell seriously ill with typhoid fever twice.

After returning from the war, he changed his life: Together with Reiner J. Behr, he founded the H. Moses & Behr mineral oil import company (technical oils and greases, technical supplies, chemical preparations) with business premises at Düsternstrasse 43 "Schlosshof”/Hamburg-Neustadt (1920–1921), Beim Strohhause 44/St. Georg (1922–1924) and Seilerstrasse 3/St. Pauli (1925–1926). In 1926, the company went bankrupt and 39-year-old Hugo Moses was convicted of fraudulent bankruptcy. Even before that, he had been found guilty multiple times of fraud, profiteering, dealing in stolen goods, commerce with many intermediaries, as well as aiding and abetting. In Sept. 1927, he was able to leave prison. As an unemployed person (occupation indicated as "traveling salesman”), he applied for support from the welfare office and from Nov. 1927 onward, he lived as the main tenant at Wachtelstrasse 57 on the fourth floor (Barmbek-Süd). He received 10 RM (reichsmark) per week in assistance, with 8 RM per week to be paid for the rent. After one year, he moved back in with his mother at Framheinstrasse 33, who received a disability pension of 23.30 RM per month and 12 RM per month from the Jewish Community; her two-room apartment cost 37 RM per month, so one room was sublet as furnished accommodation for 7 RM per week.

Since 1929, at the age of 42, Hugo Moses was on file as an independent member of the Hamburg German-Israelitic Community. Since he was unemployed, he did not have to pay any Jewish religious tax (Kultussteuer) to the Community until 1940. It is not known when he started engaging in the "street trade” that was later noted on the Jewish religious tax file card and meant only a small additional income. Until Oct. 1931, he then worked as an advertisement canvasser for the Hamburger Echo, an SPD-related daily newspaper, which dismissed him due to insufficient volume of orders. His attempt to start a similar occupation with the Volksstimme in Magdeburg (also close to the SPD) failed. Starting in Nov. 1932, he had to perform compulsory labor in Hammer Park in return for welfare assistance payments.

From 1933, the Nazi dictatorship quickly began to categorize the German population in terms of race ideology and politics and to exclude and persecute undesirable groups. The terms "incapable of community life” ("gemeinschaftsunfähig”) and "asocial” ("asozial”) were equated to each other, with unemployed people, drinkers, homosexuals, and criminals assigned to them. The Nazi party’s Office of Racial Policy (Rassenpolitisches Amt), as well as lawyers, doctors, police officers and administrative and welfare staff, had the sovereignty to define and the instruments to sanction this policy. In the first years of the Nazi dictatorship, the recording apparatus was expanded and persecution laws created. Hugo Moses continued to live inconspicuously with his mother. Even after her death at the age of 91 on 13 Oct. 1936, he was able to remain in the apartment at Framheinstrasse 33. His brother, the 52-year-old port worker Max Moses, then moved with his family from Heinskamp 46 (Barmbek-Süd) to stay with him. However, the financial situation deteriorated further. In Mar. 1937, the welfare office withdrew support from Hugo Moses and the owner of the house sued him in Aug. 1937 for arrears of three monthly rents (102.90 RM). In Sept. 1937, the welfare office confirmed the denial of any support: "Due to the current total income of the family unit, support is to be discontinued”; Hugo Moses’ plea to the appeals committee was unsuccessful. In order to avoid further financial and legal disputes, he moved into a furnished room at Framheinstrasse 3 on the third floor with the "widow Friedrich Sievert,” who charged RM 4.50 a week for the room, including light and coffee; except for one cupboard, Max had taken over his mother’s furniture.

Even if the entries in Hugo Moses’ welfare file after 1933 did not contain any anti-Semitic degradations, the forced labor deployments in the second half of the 1930s are probably due to his Jewish background. Since Feb. 1938, Hugo Moses had been enlisted to perform physically demanding labor: "M. is to be instructed in U-M-Arbeit [compulsory work in return for minimal support] for 3 days per week at the Waltershof worksite in return for a daily allowance of 40 pfennig.” In the southern Waltershof harbor area, Herbert Lesheim, too, (see corresponding entry) was used for compulsory work.

Hugo Moses was arrested by the police as part of the arrest campaign associated with "operation ‘work-shy Reich’” ("Aktion Arbeitsscheu-Reich”), and from 16 June to 23 June 1938, together with Siegfried Liebreich (see corresponding entry) and Ludwig Nöll (see Grindelberg 3, Johanna Meyer, née Heimbach), was taken into "protective custody” ("Schutzhaft”) in the Fuhlsbüttel concentration camp. During this operation, more than 9,000 men were arrested throughout the Reich, including about 2,300 Jews. On 23 June 1938, Hugo Moses was transferred from the Fuhlsbüttel concentration camp to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, where he was humiliated and mistreated under prisoner number 6,156 and the prisoner category of "(previously convicted) work-shy Jew” ("[vorbestrafter] arbeitsscheuer Jude”). It was only after eleven months that he was released on 22 Mar. 1939. On 27 Mar. 1939, the Hamburg Welfare Office noted in Hugo Moses’ file the time in Sachsenhausen, without comment and in handwriting. When he was released, he had to commit himself to keeping the "events” in the camp secret. He was excluded from the Nazi "[German] national community” ("Volksgemeinschaft") as a Jew and supposedly "work-shy person” ("Arbeitsscheuer”). The release from detention in the camp was usually associated with the condition that the person left Germany in short order. The emigration to Shanghai planned by Hugo Moses for Apr. 1939, which was already noted in the Jewish religious tax (Kultussteuer) file card, did not come about. Even the costs for the long ship passage would have been beyond his means.

While on the one hand, Hugo Moses, as a Jew, found no regular work in Nazi Germany, on the other hand, he had to perform forced labor ordered by the state. From 28 Apr. 1939, he was employed by Karl Vogt (presumably a structural and civil engineering company), from 24 July 1939 to 21 Nov. 1939, at Hamburger Wollkämmerei AG in Wilhelmsburg (Kanalstrasse 62), a wool-carding plant, and from May 1940, as an "excavator” at the Johannes C. Meyer road construction and civil engineering company in Blankenese (Dockenhudenstrasse 26). His residential addresses noted in the file of the welfare office after his release from Sachsenhausen were Dietrichstrasse 2 with Lipke (in, among other times, Mar. 1939) and Langenrehm 40 with Paulmann in Barmbek-Süd (from, among other times, Mar. to Apr. 1939); at the latter address, he only had a sleeping place on a couch in the living room for 4 RM per week. On 30 Mar. 1939, the welfare office questioned the landlady Mrs. Paulmann (presumably the wife of the carpenter H. Paulmann): "When I asked her whether she knew that she was accommodating a Jew, she declared ‘yes - money has not smell.’” Afterward Hugo Moses lived at Brucknerstrasse 8 with "widow Carl Tilge” (among other times, in Apr. 1940) and Brucknerstrasse 8 with Mrs. Faerber (starting in Apr. 1940). From the beginning of Sept. 1940, he lived as a subtenant at Grindelhof 83, house no. 11, with Erna Brociner, née Hauptmann (see Grindelhof 83, born on 22 Mar. 1883 in Dresden) and her daughter Valentina Brociner (also Grindelhof 83, born on 24 Apr. 1909 in Dresden) for 5 RM per week; the house was situated in a residential complex for workers dating from the 1890s.

The last entries in the welfare office file indicated that Hugo Moses had been working as a temporary matzoh baker for the Jewish Religious Organization (Jüdischer Religionsverband) since the beginning of May 1941; "this work is to be finally completed on 25 June 1941, since his co-religionists no longer issue bread stamps for this purpose. I ask for resubmission after four weeks,” and it was noted that he had been unfit for work due to illness since 8 July 1941.

Four months later, on 8 Nov. 1941, the 54-year-old man was deported together with the main tenant, Erna Brociner, and her daughter to the Minsk Ghetto in occupied Belarus. Each of them was allowed to carry a suitcase with a maximum weight of 50 kilograms (approx. 110 lbs), bedding, food and 100 RM (of these items, the SS guards picked out and confiscated the best pieces). After the deportation, the deportees’ apartments were sealed by the police and their furnishings confiscated and auctioned off by the Nazi state. On 10 Nov. 1941, the deportees arrived in the cordoned-off ghetto of the largely war-ravaged city. The dismal sanitary and medical situation there and the inadequate food supply led to a high mortality rate. Men and women able to work were commanded by the SS to labor outside the ghetto as well. In May 1943, almost all Hamburg Jews still living in the ghetto were shot dead or asphyxiated in gas vans. When and under what circumstances Hugo Moses died in Minsk is unknown.

So far, the persecution of his brother Max Moses, who was three years his senior, has only been documented in fragments. According to the Memorial Book of the Federal Archives in Koblenz, he was imprisoned in the Fuhlsbüttel prison from 1934 to 1935, held in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp until 21 Dec. 1938, and he died in the Auschwitz extermination camp.

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

© Björn Eggert

Quellen: 1; 4; 5; StaH 213-8 (Staatsanwaltschaft OLG Verwaltung), Ablieferung 2, 451 aE 1, 1c; StaH 332-5 (Standesämter), 1880 u. 1316/ 1876 (Geburtsregister 1876, Emma Moses); StaH 332-5 (Standesämter), 2078 u. 2404/ 1884 (Geburtsregister 1884, Max Moses); StaH 332-5 (Standesämter), 2149 u. 594/1887 (Geburtsregister 1887, Hugo Moses); StaH 332-5 (Standesämter), 725 u. 9/1915 (Sterberegister 1915, Levi Moses); StaH 332-5 (Standesämter), 7180 u. 978/1936 (Sterberegister 1936, Sophie Moses geb. Aron); StaH 342-2 (Militär-Ersatzbehörden), D II 127 Band 5 (Hugo Moses); StaH 351-14 (Arbeits- u. Sozialfürsorge), 1597 (Hugo Moses); StaH 741-4 (mikroverfilmte Alte Einwohnermeldekartei), K 6633 (Levi Moses, Siegmund Moses); Gedenkstätte und Museum Sachsenhausen, Archiv, D 1A/1020 Bl. 271und D 1A/1022 Bl. 408 und D 1A/1024 Bl. 096 (Hugo Moses); Bajohr: "Arisierung", S. 266–267 (Hugo Moses, Siegfried Liebreich); Hipp: Freie und Hansestadt Hamburg, S. 195 (Neustadt), 378 (Grindelhof-Allee); Scherer: "Asozial", S. 21, 48–51; Stein: Jüdische Baudenkmäler, S. 114 (Oppenheimer Stift); Adressbuch Hamburg (Moses) 1887, 1888, 1891, 1893–1895, 1897–1900, 1914, 1920, 1928; Adressbuch Hamburg (Moses & Behr) 1920–1926; Telefonbuch Hamburg 1940 (Joh. C. Meyer).
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