Search for Names, Places and Biographies

Sophie, geb. Wulf, und Louis Stiefel
© Privatbesitz

Sophie Stiefel (née Wulf) * 1890

Kurzer Kamp 6 Altenheim (Hamburg-Nord, Fuhlsbüttel)

1942 Auschwitz
ermordet

further stumbling stones in Kurzer Kamp 6 Altenheim:
Dr. Julius Adam, Johanna Hinda Appel, Sara Bromberger, Therese Bromberger, Friederike Davidsohn, Margarethe Davidsohn, Gertrud Embden, Katharina Embden, Katharina Falk, Auguste Friedburg, Jenny Friedemann, Mary Halberstadt, Käthe Heckscher, Emily Heckscher, Betty Hirsch, Hanna Hirsch, Regina Hirschfeld, Clara Horneburg, Anita Horneburg, Emma Israel, Jenny Koopmann, Franziska Koopmann, Martha Kurzynski, Laura Levy, Chaile Charlotte Lippstadt, Isidor Mendelsohn, Balbine Meyer, Helene Adele Meyer, Ida Meyer, Ella Rosa Nauen, Celine Reincke, Friederike Rothenburg, Benny Salomon, Elsa Salomon, Martha Rosa Schlesinger, Louis Stiefel, Louise Strelitz, Eugenie Hanna Zimmermann

Sophie Stiefel, née Wulf, born on 24.6.1890 in Hamburg, deported on 11.7.1942 to Auschwitz and murdered
Louis Stiefel, born on 29.12.1874 in Hamburg, deported on 11.7.1942 to Auschwitz and murdered

Kurzer Kamp 6, Old People's Home (Hamburg-North, Fuhlsbüttel), designated 1939 a "Judenstift"

Sophie Wulf was born on June 24, 1890 at Glashüttenstraße 114, five and a half years after her sister Hertha (born Dec. 15, 1884). Sophie's mother Mathilde, née Risch (born Oct. 31, 1858), and her father Adolph Wulf (born Apr. 2, 1851) had married in November 1882 in their shared birthplace of Hamburg. Sophie Wulf's paternal grandparents were already deceased when she was born - Sophie Wulf, née. Peine (born 1812), in whose memory she had been named, had died a year earlier, on August 28, 1889, and five years earlier Jean Isaac Wulf (born 1803), on December 19, 1885 (her brother would later be named after his grandfather). Both graves are in the Ilandkoppel Ohlsdorf Jewish Cemetery, grave location A 11, no. 115, Jean Wulf and Zy 11, no. 322, Sophie Wulf.

Sophie was also unable to get to know her maternal grandfather, the "Lotteriecollecteur" Philipp Risch (born 1817). In December 1876, he had already died at the age of 57 in St. Pauli, Mathildenstraße No. 5.
Shortly after Sophie's birth, her father Adolph Wulf registered his business as a merchant on July 19, 1890. The family lived at Rödingsmarkt 36, 1st floor. Sophie's brother Paul Jean was born two years after her on September 16, 1892. The youngest sister Gertrud followed on March 7, 1895. The Wulf couple was members of the Deutsch-Israelitischen Gemeinde. For Sophie Wulf, a frequent change of residence was part of family life. In 1896, her father's "Agency and Commission" was located in Eimsbüttel, Rutschbahn 35. On January 21, 1898, Adolph Wulf was granted Hamburg citizenship. Sophie was then seven years old and had moved with the family to the Neustadt, Gerhofstraße 29, 2nd floor. Her grandmother Eva Risch, née Heckscher, lived with her family as a widow at Neumarkt 44 in Hamburg, where she died at the age of 75, on June 2, 1900, shortly before Sophie's tenth birthday. She found her final resting place in the Ottensen Jewish Cemetery.

We know nothing about Sophie's school years or any education she may have had. At the age of 20, Sophie Wulf worked as a clerk and lived with her parents at Rappstraße 20. Her father suffered a stroke during this time, shortly before his 60th birthday. He received medical treatment for another eight days, then died on March 22, 1911 in the afternoon in the apartment of his son Paul, Roonstraße 32, 2nd floor. He was buried in the Jewish Cemetery Ilandkoppel Ohlsdorf, grave location ZY 10, No. 255. Sophie continued to live with her mother; three years later they moved to the neighboring house, Rappstraße 18, 1st floor. It can be assumed that Sophie Wulf lived there until her marriage to Louis Stiefel.

Louis Stiefel came into the world on December 29, 1874 at Neuer Steinweg 26. Ten months earlier, his brother Benjamin had died as an infant at the age of nine months.

Louis Stiefel's father Koppel Stiefel (born 10 May 1846) was from Abterode, Eschwege County, Prussia. He was the son of Adelheid, née Grünheit, and the "merchant" Meier Stiefel. Koppel Stiefel was a shoemaker and had come to Hamburg in 1869. Two years later, he had married Elise Cohen (b. Nov. 6, 1841) of Hamburg on Jan. 4, 1871. Louis Stiefel's maternal grandfather, Simon Lazarus Cohen, was a messenger, "Lotteriecollecteur" and married to Angela, née Seatiel. Louis Stiefel's oldest sister Angela, who was born on January 15, 1872 at Neuer Steinweg 72, was named after this grandmother, whose ancestry led to the Portuguese Jews in Holland.
Louis had four more siblings: Jenny (born March 10, 1876), Joseph (born December 21, 1877), who was born at Jacobstraße 17, and Martha (born April 9, 1881), who was born at Brüderstraße 26, and the youngest sister Selma (born June 9, 1882). Louis Stiefel grew up with his family in Hamburg's Neustadt, the district where many Jewish merchants conducted their trade and where frequent changes of residence were common.

When Louis' parents with their four daughters and two sons were admitted to the Hamburger Staatsverband on August 23, 1892, they lived at Großneumarkt 24, 2nd floor. Louis turned 18 that year. For a year his father had been earning a living for the family as a messenger at the "Brüderlicher Hülfsverein" of the Deutsch-Israelitischen Gemeinde. His annual income was taxed at 1,400 to 1,500 marks. Louis Stiefel's mother was a cook and kept a kosher household. The family belonged to the Deutsch-Israelitischen Synagogenverband in Hamburg, which represented Orthodox Jews.

Louis Stiefel's oldest sister Angela worked as a domestic servant and saleswoman and lived with their parents. On January 19, 1909, she married Karl Otto Ferdinand Kohlstädt, a clerk in Altona who had previously converted to Judaism. After the marriage of her brother Joseph, she left her hometown and moved to her husband in Kiel to Lüneburgerstraße 36, 2nd floor.

At the age of 36, she gave birth to their son David Walter on November 8, 1909 in Hamburg, Schulterblatt 60.

Joseph Stiefel, Louis' brother, three years younger, was a salesman by profession. He was the first to seal the family connection between the Stiefel and Wulf families. On February 11, 1909, he married Hertha Wulf, Sophie's oldest sister. Together, the couple lived with Stiefel's parents and siblings Jenny, Martha, Selma and Louis Stiefel, initially at 20 Dillstraße, 1st floor. In December of the same year, their son Kurt was born. A year later, the young family moved to Roonstraße 36. Hertha and Joseph Stiefel had two more children, Adolf, called Adie (born 1917) and Lieselotte, called Lottie (born 1919).

Louis Stiefel's sister Jenny worked as a storekeeper. The younger sister Martha completed an apprenticeship as a tailor and earned a living as a clerk. In February 1912, when she was almost 31 years old, she gave birth to her son Walter. Walter never met his non-Jewish father Kurt Bauer. Martha Stiefel was unmarried and lived with her family. Louis' father Koppel Stiefel died shortly before his 67th birthday on May 9, 1913, in the apartment they shared. Like Sophie's father two years earlier, he suffered a stroke. Six months later, on December 18, 1913, Louis' mother Elise Stiefel also died in the same apartment. She was 72 years old and had suffered from arteriosclerosis. Both found their final resting place in the Jewish Cemetery Ilandkoppel Ohlsdorf, grave location ZX, No. 132/133.
After the death of his parents, Louis Stiefel remained living in Dillstraße together with his sisters Jenny, Martha and Selma.

Selma Stiefel married Joseph Zwienicki, a native of the Ukraine, in a civil ceremony in Bremen on July 12, 1916. In Hamburg they had been married by Chief Rabbi Samuel Spitzer of the Deutsch-Israelitischen Synagogenverband of Orthodox Jews. In Bremen, Selma ran a kosher household and, together with her husband, established a bicycle and motorcycle business. Initially, Joseph Zwienicki, a technically gifted master craftsman, manufactured bicycles under the "Republik" brand. Selma was a trained kindergarten teacher. She had completed her education at the Fröbelseminar in Hamburg and had also completed an apprenticeship as a clerk in a large textile company. In February 1917, Jenny went to Bremen for a month, presumably to assist her youngest sister with the birth of her first child. Gerd Koppel Zwienicki was born in Bremen on March 25, 1917. He later wrote in his book "Time of Terror" that his mother had been called "the soul of the business." Selma Zwienicki gave birth to three more children in Bremen: Benno (born 1918), Liesel (born 1921) and Alfred Abraham (born 1925).

After the marriage of his sister Selma, Louis Stiefel moved with his two sisters Jenny and Martha to Grindelhof 62. From February 1918, 42-year-old Jenny and 36-year-old Martha, presumably with their five-year-old son Walter, lived together in the Israelite Girls' Home at Grindelallee 42. This home had been founded by the Israelitischen Humanitären Frauenverein and was run by Sidonie Werner. Women and girls were taught there how to run a kosher household and raise children.

On June 21, 1920, Sophie, née Wulf, and Louis Stiefel were married in Hamburg. Louis Stiefel was an employee of the large clover and grass seed company John Sülzer at the harbor, which imported seeds worldwide and sold them in Hamburg. Daughter Inge was born on May 8, 1921. The couple lived at Wrangelstraße 24 in the neighborhood of their siblings Hertha, née Wulf, and Joseph Stiefel, who lived with their three children a few houses away at No. 18.

During this time, Louis Stiefel together with Alfred Meyer became owners of the firm for paper goods engros "Fa Stiefel & Meyer" at Gothenstraße 10/12, later Kurze Mühren 20. Sophie and Louis Stiefel's son Horst was born on September 11, 1922 at Woldsenweg 13, 3rd floor.

For the sisters Jenny and Martha Stiefel, their time in the Israelitischen Mädchenheim was certainly good preparation for marriage. They remained there until Jenny Stiefel married the merchant Mendel Josua Josias, called Menne (born 1891 in Friedrichstadt), 15 years younger, on May 15, 1922, at the age of 46. His family had been residents of Hamburg since the year of his birth. At Dillstraße 15, Mendel Josias ran a paper goods wholesaler on the 3rd floor and was involved in the Deutsch-Israelitischen Gemeinde. He lived with his mother, his father Josias Josias had already died at the end of 1915. The nephew Gerd Zwienicki from Bremen describes in his book that he liked to spend vacations with his beloved aunt and her husband Mendel Josias. He says that the Pesach Sedorim (first celebrations of Passover) on Dill Street were often held with 20 or more friends and relatives. When Jenny began to go blind, Mendel Josias took her to Vienna to see an eye specialist. The surgical procedure was successful for only a few days, and then Jenny Josias went completely blind.

A year after Jenny's wedding, on August 30, 1923, 42-year-old Martha Stiefel married Adolf Wolff, called Adje (born Oct. 22, 1891 in Burgdorf), the ten years younger journeyman baker. He had served in the infantry during World War I, from 1914-1918. It can be assumed that Martha had also learned how to run a kosher household from Sidonie Werner, which subsequently benefited her. From 1928, Adolf Wolff, as owner and master baker, ran the kosher bakery at Rappstraße 7 together with her. Martha's oldest sister Angela worked there as a trained saleswoman.

Angela Kohlstädt's marriage was legally divorced on April 19, 1929, by a ruling of the Hanseatic Higher Regional Court in Hamburg. Karl Kohlstädt had left the German-Israelite Community as a member on March 6, 1928. Their son David Walter Kohlstädt married Margaretha Rosenstein and had two sons with her in Hamburg, Manfred (born Feb. 20, 1930) and Helmuth (born June 8, 1931). They lived with David Walter's parents-in-law Albert and Henriette Rosenstein, who ran a butcher store there at Bogenstraße 5.

Around 1925, after the business "Fa Stiefel & Meyer" at Kurze Mühren 20 had come to a standstill, presumably as a result of inflation, Louis Stiefel had worked as an agent for the fountain pen company "Luxor" based in Heilbronn. The family had lived in Woldsenweg until 1927, then briefly in Hamburg-Hamm, Dimpfelsweg 9. In 1929 they had moved to Hoheluftchaussee 117. Horst attended the Talmud Torah school. He later recalled that the apartment was near the Victoria sports field and that many Jews lived there. His paternal grandparents lived religiously, not his maternal. He had experienced his mother's family as "such an artistic family," open and liberal-minded.

In April 1930, the entire Stiefel family was invited to the bar mitzvah of Selma Zwienicki's son Gerd in Bremen. The following year, Sophie's mother Mathilde Wulf died at the age of 72 on October 31, 1931, in the Israelite Hospital. She was buried in the Jewish Cemetery Ilandkoppel Ohlsdorf, grave location ZY 10, No. 254.

Louis Stiefel's sister Jenny Josias had spent eleven years together with her husband, Mendel Josua Josias, who had in the meantime become a civil servant in the Deutsch-Israelitischen Gemeinde. On February 3, 1933, she died in the Israelite Hospital, Eckernförderstraße 4, one month before her 57th birthday, after suffering from bronchopneunomy. She was also buried in the Jewish Cemetery Ilandkoppel, grave location K 1, No. 2.

Since 1933, the year the National Socialists came to power, Sophie and Louis Stiefel lived with their two children at Blücherstraße 40, 1st floor. Louis Stiefel was a member of the liberal Jewish community of the temple on Oberstraße; Horst had become a bar mitzvah there. He belonged to a Zionist association, the "Bar Kochba" sports association. Inge attended the Israelitische Töchterschule in Carolinenstraße and was a member of the German-Jewish youth of the sports association "Schild". The effects of National Socialist persecution were felt by her. Son Horst experienced a situation that was to burden him for the rest of his life - he had to witness how a young man in the uniform of the Hitler Youth blocked his father's way on the sidewalk of Hoheluftchaussee and, in order to humiliate his father, made him walk around him.

Daughter Inge completed a two-year commercial apprenticeship at the Hugo Hartig company and subsequently worked there as a stenotypist with a salary of RM 80 per month. After the so-called "Aryanization" of the company, she was still able to work for the lawyers Dres. Samson (for biography see www.stolpersteine-hamburg.de) and Haas for 100,- RM per month. The law firm was one of the few permitted "consulters," i.e., it was only allowed to work for Jewish clients. During this time of National Socialist persecution of the Jews, Sophie Stiefel expressed that she wanted to leave Germany. It was not to come to that.

Louis Stiefel's sister Selma Zwienicki and her husband in Bremen had already had the opportunity to leave for the USA in 1924 with the help of an affidavit from a friend. At the last moment, however, Selma did not want to part with her family in Hamburg; she was very attached to them. Selma Zwienicki became a victim of a brutal crime committed by Nazi perpetrators. On the pogrom night of November 9-10, 1938 in Bremen, Selma and her husband Joseph Zwienicki were staying in their house with their two sons Benno and Alfred. When they heard the SA people bawling outside their house, Joseph Zwienickie fled unnoticed over the roof of the house. The SA people invaded the house and forced their way into the bedroom where Selma was staying. Asked about the whereabouts of her husband, Selma Zwienicki, bravely protecting her husband, gave no answer. She was shot in cold blood by the SA man. Son Benno tried to get a doctor; he was refused.

Selma Zwienicki had attached great importance to a good education for her eldest son Gerd. After graduating from high school in 1936, he was given the opportunity to study at the Torah Academy Yeshiva in Frankfurt am Main and at the Jewish teachers' seminary in Würzburg. There, during the Pogrom Night, he was arrested with his fellow Jewish students, which also happened to his brother Alfred in Bremen. After Gerd was released from "protective custody" after eight days, he looked for his family. He found them in Hamburg. His sister Liesel was employed as a "Kinderfräulein" by Else and David Hirsch, the cantor of the Dammtorsynagoge. His youngest brother Alfred, in shock, had walked barefoot to Hamburg after the Pogrom Night; he had also been taken for stretches. He was temporarily taken in at the orphanage. His father had fled to Hamburg to the house at Rappstraße 7. There they held shiva, the seven-day Jewish mourning period, for Selma Zwienicki at the home of his aunt Martha and her siblings. Returning to Bremen, they had to live on the unheated upper floor of their house, the 1st floor having been cordoned off by the Gestapo. Benno Zwienicki was released from Sachsenhausen concentration camp after six weeks. Gerd Zwienicki had founded a Jewish school in Bremen within the Jewish community despite the times. After Joseph Zwienicki closed the business, he was able to emigrate to Canada with his children on May 31, 1939, with the help of an affidavit from his cousin.

Hertha and Joseph Stiefel lived with their three children at 8 Breitenfelderstraße during their last years in Hamburg, and were able to escape Nazi persecution by emigrating to Brazil on March 3, 1939.

Sophie and Louis Stiefel's daughter Inge escaped persecution on the penultimate Kindertransport to England on August 23, 1939. A few days later, with the invasion of Poland by the German Wehrmacht on September 1, 1939, this possibility of escape no longer existed. In exchange for free lodging, Inge worked as a housemaid in England.

Shortly after the kosher bakery was opened at the beginning of 1928 by Louis Stiefel's brother-in-law Adolf Wolff at Rappstraße 7, the business was under police surveillance. In 1929, Adolf Wolff had been sentenced to a fine for "selling and employing employees on Sundays," and in August 1932 and 1933 for forbidden night work in the bakery business, all before the day of the boycott of Jewish businesses on April 1, 1933. In the same year and in 1934, there had been convictions for "failure to use potato flour in the bakery trade," and "failure to declare the gross weight." The accusations intensified with the increasing persecution of the Jewish population and the destruction of their businesses. They culminated for Adolf Wolff on July 8, 1936 in the advanced accusation of "health-damaging disgusting production and storage of baked goods. 6 weeks in prison, confiscation and prohibition of operation". With this, the National Socialist rulers had achieved their goal; this Jewish business was also destroyed. Adolf Wolff was placed in so-called "protective custody" in Oranienburg from June 23 to December 13, 1938, in the course of an "asocial arrest action." On March 23, 1939, he had to go to the welfare office. For ten years, from January 1928 to December 1938, he had worked as a self-employed master baker together with his wife Martha. Then, with the Jewish customers leaving, the business declined more and more.

In the end, Martha and Adolf Wolff lived from their small savings and from the sale of remaining valuables. They soon had nothing left to sell and were completely penniless. They sublet one room of their apartment for RM 22. They owed the landlady, Mrs. Schultze-Nissen, about RM 5,000 in rent. The living room furnishings had been seized by the Arthur Ahlers delivery company. The Jewish Community had supported Martha Wolff during her husband's imprisonment with 100 RM. Neither of them could count on any other help. Their own relatives were also destitute. They then lived in an empty room at Grindelallee 38 at Nathan's for 22,- RM and received 64,- RM support per month from the welfare from March 25, 1939. Their last address was at Schlüterstraße 63 with Willy Wolff, a brother of Adolf.

Adolf Wolff had been released from Sachsenhausen concentration camp with the condition that he leave Germany by March 31, 1939. However, since he could not settle his financial affairs with the chief financial officer and there was still no room with the shipping companies, the departure was delayed. He was forced to report to the criminal police every day. Finally, he had to do earthwork as a forced laborer for the Johann C. Meltzer company in Blankenese.

Sophie and Louis Stiefel's son Horst had worked in Hamburg for the Zimmer company until the November pogrom in 1938, and after his dismissal, until shortly before the start of the war, for the Pick company in Deichstraße. In preparation for emigration to Palestine, he had enlisted in the Hachshara in the summer of 1939, and until the end of July 1941 he and other young people had been called up by the Reichsvereinigung der Juden for various agricultural assignments. On August 1, 1941, Horst Stiefel was ordered by the Gestapo to perform forced labor by the Eberswalde Labor Office and was assigned to columns with other fellow prisoners for logging and removal. They were housed in a windowless bunker.

Sophie and Louis Stiefel were forced to move to the Mendelson-Israel-Stift in Hamburg-Fuhlsbüttel, which had been designated a "Judenstift" according to the decrees issued by the National Socialist rulers in May 1939. They lived there together with 40 elderly people of Jewish descent in very cramped conditions. Sophie and Louis Stiefel were destitute and had been dependent on welfare assistance since January 1941.

Louis Stiefel's sister Martha and her husband Adolf Wolff were deported to the Lodz ghetto with the first Hamburg deportation on October 25, 1941.

Six months later, on July 11, 1942, Sophie and Louis Stiefel were deported to Auschwitz and murdered. Sophie Stiefel was 52 years old and Louis Stiefel 67 years old.

After all the Jews from the Mendelson-Israel-Stift had been deported, their remaining household goods were auctioned off by W. C. H. Schopmann & Sohn to the citizens of Hamburg in Fuhlsbüttel on September 1, 1942. The proceeds of 444.62 RM for the remaining household of Sophie and Louis Stiefel fell to the Chief Finance President.

The fate of the family members of Sophie and Louis Stiefel, the people who were connected to them, will be further shown in the following:
Louis Stiefel's oldest sister Angela Kohlstädt had to experience that her son David Walter, a commercial employee who lived at Grindelhof 64, 1st floor, was imprisoned for "racial defilement" on December 13, 1940. According to the "racial classification" of the National Socialists, he was indeed "half-Jewish", but - because both parents had belonged to the Jewish community at the time of his birth - he was not treated as a "Mischling of the first degree" (for whom - at least officially - the racial defilement paragraph did not apply), but as a "Geltungsjude" and was subject to all persecution measures of Jews. On December 17, 1940, he was remanded in custody, and on April 22, 1941, he was sentenced to ten months imprisonment for "continued racial defilement," which he had to serve from April 23 to October 8, 1941. After five months, on May 8, 1941, he was transferred from the remand prison to Neuengamme concentration camp. Presumably he had been released on October 8, 1941, to meet his mother at Bornstraße 6, 1st floor, near Masenberg.

Nine months later, he met his death in Neuengamme concentration camp on June 19, 1942. The stated cause of death was "pulmonary tuberculosis." David Walter, who had already left the Deutsch-Israelitischen Gemeinde in June 1935, left behind his divorced wife Margareta, née Rosenstein, their two sons, Manfred (born 20.2.1930) and Helmuth (born 8.6.1931), and his mother Angela Kohlstädt. They, too, had to say goodbye to each other soon after. Margareta, her parents, Henriette and the butcher Albert Rosenstein, the twelve-year-old Manfred and the eleven-year-old Helmut were deported together to Auschwitz on July 11, 1942 and murdered.

Angela Kohlstädt was last housed in the "Judenhaus" at Kielortallee 22, the former "Oppenheimer-Stift," founded by Hirsch Berend Oppenheimer (1794-1870). One month after the death of her son, she was deported to Theresienstadt on July 15, 1942, and two more months later, on September 21, 1942, she was transported on to Treblinka on one of the dreaded transports and murdered. Angela Kohlstädt, née Stiefel, was 70 years old.

Stolpersteine commemorate the Rosenstein family and the David Walter Kohlstädt family at Bogenstraße 5, for Angela Kohlstädt, her sister Martha Wolff and her husband Adolf Wolff at Rappstraße 7 (for biographies see www.stolpersteine-hamburg.de).

Louis Stiefel's sister Martha Wolff had the address "10. Str. 35" in the Lodz ghetto. She died in the hospital there on August 24, 1942; in the surviving hospital list, the cause of death is given as "cardiac insufficiency." Martha Wolff, née Stiefel, was 61 years old. Her husband Adolf Wolff survived her for six months, until February 10, 1943, when he lived to be 51. Three of his siblings, Bella, Julius and Willy Wolff (see www.stolpersteine-hamburg.de for biography) from Hamburg, were also victims of the Shoah.

Sophie's brother Paul Wulf had tried to escape persecution and had already emigrated to France in 1933. After the occupation of France by the German Wehrmacht, he was interned and then deported from Drancy to Auschwitz on Convoi No. 18 under the registration number11 and the occupational title "commercant" (merchant) on August 12, 1942, and murdered, one month before his 50th birthday.

Sophie's youngest sister Gertrud Wulf had lived in the Martin-Brunn-Stift at Frickestraße 24, room 40, in June 1942. Due to a heart condition diagnosed by Dr. Ernst Wolffson, she was to be transferred to the Mendelson-Israel-Stift near her sister Sophie, partly because of the fresh and restful air there. However, the Stift was fully occupied and so she had to remain in the hospital at Schäferkampsallee 27. A report from the welfare department describes her as follows: "She is an extremely decent and hard-working person, but very suffering and sensitive, so that she will only reluctantly make use of our care. Gertrud Wulf was deported to Theresienstadt on June 23, 1943, and died there a year later on June 1, 1944, at the age of 49. Stolpersteine commemorate Sophie's siblings, Gertrud Wulf and Paul Wulf, at the Grindel high-rises at Oberstraße 16-18 (formerly Klosterallee 20).

Louis Stiefel's brother-in-law Mendel Josias had worked for the Jewish Community in the Funeral Brotherhood and lived at Bogenstraße 5. After the death of his wife Jenny, née Stiefel, he had married a second time and had a son Julius with his wife Rosa, née Horwitz (born 14.4.1903 in Nuremberg), on 10 May 1938. In the last period they lived at Grindelallee 23, 2nd floor. Together they were deported to Theresienstadt on July 19, 1942. They were all dragged on to Auschwitz and murdered, Mendel Josias on September 28, 1944, his wife Rosa with their six-year-old Julius on October 4, 1944.

Walter Stiefel, the son of Martha Wolff, née Stiefel, survived the Shoah in Hamburg because his father, unknown to him, was non-Jewish. In the last year before the end of the war, he was conscripted into forced labor for rubble work. After the war, he was the only member of the large Stiefel family to live with his wife and their three children in Hamburg on Kottwitzstraße (formerly Blücherstraße), the Stiefel family's former residential street. Their son Jürgen died after the war on May 17, 1946at the age of 16from a traumatic brain injury and was buried in the family grave in Ohlsdorf Cemetery. In his honor, his father had a tombstone set, with the inscription "Our dear unforgettable Jürgen" and the sculpture image of his last name, a pair of boots. Walter Stiefel died on January 3, 1997, and his wife on April 12, 1989. They rest together with their son and in-laws in this family grave, grave site J 28 II, No. 16-18, which is still preserved today.

Sophie and Louis Stiefel's daughter Inge had married in England in September 1943. Inge Tyndall, née Stiefel, remained in England with her family. Her 24th birthday, the day the war ended, brought her not only the liberation of her brother, but also the painful certainty of the Shoah and the loss of her parents and family members.

Sophie and Louis Stiefel's son Horst had been deported to Gestapo headquarters in Berlin on December 11, 1942, and from there to Auschwitz from the Hamburger Strasse assembly point in Berlin on January 13, 1943. Horst Stiefel is one of the few who survived the time of suffering in Auschwitz and the crimes committed in the Golleschau subcamp. After his ordeal through the concentration camps, he was liberated by the Americans and was able to testify: "[...] where thousands perished, in ice and snow, had nothing to eat, lived only on snow. [...] If I got a piece of bread, we were two or three other comrades, we shared it. Whoever got something, shared it with us. It had been very important to be in a group to survive that [...] five out of 2500 survived that. I am one of them. [...] and if someone asks me, today, in the past, how did you survive it. I just say that what I tell you, what you read in books, what you see on television, is nothing. If you have not been there and experienced how every second harassment, murder and manslaughter, then a person can not understand what can make a person another person. It looks cruel in the books. But it all does not compare how it was in reality."
"From January 18, how Auschwitz was dissolved, in 1945, because the Russians were approaching, until May 1, when I was liberated, I was in eight different concentrationcamps. From one to the other. And of course thousands of people died there. From hunger, from the cold, from illness, from weakness through all those years. From Auschwitz we marched, a few days, a few nights, in ice and snow in January. Many of those who could go no further perished. Then we arrived in Sachsenhausen in an open wagon in January."

After the end of the war, Horst Stiefel lived where his parents had to spend their last time in Hamburg, in the former Mendelson-Israel-Stift.

In 1949 he emigrated to the USA. There, as Harry Stiefel, he married Nora, née Meyer-Udewald, who was born in Hamburg, in 1961. She herself had been deported from Drancy to Auschwitz and, like her husband, was one of the few people to survive Auschwitz. Most of her family had been victims of the Shoah. Her grandparents Jakob Sakom and Sophie, née Kagan, died in Kaunas. Dr. Jakob Sakom had once been a principal cellist in the Philharmonic Society Orchestra in Hamburg and a teacher at the Vogt Conservatory. Her parents had tried to escape with her and her brother via Belgium. Her mother Valentine Meyer-Udewald, née Sakom (born 1905), and her brother Hans Siegmund Meyer-Udewald (born 1929) had been murdered in Auschwitz.

Her father Wolfgang had managed to escape to Cuba. Stolpersteine commemorate her mother and brother at Jungfrauenthal 22, for her grandparents at Curschmannstraße 13. Another stumbling stone for Jakob Sakom was laid in front of the music hall at Johannes-Brahms-Platz 1 (for biographies see www.stolpersteine-hamburg.de).

Sophie and Louis Stiefel's son Harry and his wife Nora Stiefel had their son Lewis in New York; he now lives in the USA with his wife and daughter, the great-granddaughter of Sophie and Louis Stiefel.

Harry Stiefel passed away in New York on December 20, 2010, at the age of 88.

Gerd Zwienicki, who had been able to emigrate to Canada with his family in 1939, became a rabbi and later lived in New York under the name Jacob G. Wiener. He passed away there in February 2011. The family photos in the USHMM and Staatsarchiv Bremen come from his estate. In his book "Time of Terror - Road to Revival" he tells of his vacation stays in Hamburg with the Stiefel family, who were very close to him.

Stand: August 2023
© Margot Löhr

Quellen: 1; 2; 4; 5; 8; StaH, 314-15 Oberfinanzpräsident, Abl. 1998-1 J5, 314; Str 163 Kurt Stiefel; StaH, 332-3 Zivilstandsaufsicht, Geburtsregister, A 123 Nr. 284/1872 Angela Stiefel, A 156 Nr. 4072/1873 Benjamin Stiefel, A 192 Nr. 9488/1874 Louis Stiefel; StaH, 332-3 Zivilstandsaufsicht, Heiratsregister, B 36 Nr. 2186/1871 Koppel Stiefel u. Elise Cohen; StaH, 332-3 Zivilstandsaufsicht, Sterberegister, C 150 Nr. 1035/1874 Benjamin Stiefel; StaH, 332-5 Standesämter, Geburtsregister, 1880 u. 1283/1876 Jenny Stiefel, 1914 u. 6001/1877 Joseph Stiefel, 2002 u. 1912/1881 Martha Stiefel, 2029 u. 2802/1882 Selma Stiefel, 2019 u. 3410/1882 Ferdinand Kohlstädt, 2085 u. 5924/1884 Hertha Wulf; 9059 u. 1388/1890 Sophie Wulf, 9076 u. 1448/1892 Paul Jean Wulf, 9109 u. 533/1895 Gertrud Wulf, 14944 u. 389/1907 Margarete Rosenstein, 14614 u. 1580/1906 Walter Stiefel, 113794 u. 1327/1909 David Walter Kohlstädt; StaH, 332-5 Standesämter, Heiratsregister, 2644 u. 1383/1882 Adolph Wulf u. Mathilde Risch, 5985 u. 70/1909 Ferdinand Kohlstädt u. Angela Stiefel, 8662 u. 24/1909 Joseph Stiefel u. Hertha Wulf, 8741 u. 425/1920 Louis Stiefel u. Sophie Wulf, 8765 u. 217/1922 Mendel Josias u. Jenny Stiefel, 8780 u. 496/1923 Adolf Wolff u. Martha Stiefel, 13290 u. 35/1930 David Walter Kohlstädt u. Margareta Rosenstein; StaH, 332-5 Standesämter, Sterberegister, 9702 u. 799/1911 Adolph Wulf, 8015 u. 248/1913 Koppel Stiefel, 8016 u. 560/1913 Elise Stiefel, 980 u. 298/1931 Mathilde Risch, 1009 u. 71/1933 Jenny Josias, 10715 u. 544/1942 David Walter Kohlstädt; StaH, 332-7 Staatsangehörigkeitsaufsicht, AIf Bd. 181 Nr. 616 G, B III Nr. 42865 Koppel Stiefel; StaH, 342-2 Militärersatzbehörden, D II Nr. 75 Bd. 4 Nr. 560; StaH, 351-11 Amt für Wiedergutmachung, 13693 Adolf Wolff, 21564 Adolf Stiefel, 22478 Margareta Kohlstädt, 31090 Walter Stiefel, 33917 Arthur Rosenstein, 39417 Adolf Stiefel, 42776 Lieselotte Stiefel, 49413 Nora Meyer-Udewald, 45508 Horst (Harry) Stiefel, 46890 Horst Stiefel; StaH, 352-5 Todesbescheinigungen, 1911 Sta 3a Nr. 799 Adolph Wulf, 1931 Sta 2a Nr. 298 Mathilde Risch, 1933 Sta 2a Nr. 71 Jenny Josias; StaH, 376-2 Gewerbepolizei, Spz VIII C 39 Nr. 3824; StaH, 522-1 Jüdische Gemeinden, Geburtsregister, Nr. 195/1841 Elise Cohen,992 n Bd. 35 Gertrud Wulf; StaH, 741-4 Fotoarchiv, K 3872, K 7027; Archiv Friedhof Ohlsdorf, Beerdigungsregister, Nr. 6122/1946 Jürgen Stiefel, Grabbrief Nr. 174738/1946; Hamburger Adressbücher 1874–1943; Datenbankprojekt des Eduard-Duckesz-Fellow und der Hamburger Gesellschaft für jüdische Genealogie, Grindelfriedhof, Ohlsdorf 1883–1889, 1908–1914, 1931–1939; A 11-115, ZX 10-132/133, ZY 10-254/255, ZY 11-322, http://jüdischer-friedhof-altona.de/datenbank.html, eingesehen am: 22.2.2022; FZH/WdE, Auskünfte Linde Apel, Interview: Sybille Baumbach, K I/550/B am 2.7.1993, verkürzte Wiedergabe; Auskünfte Claudia Hermanns, Standesamt Hamburg-Mitte, Geburtsregister, Nr. 989/1907 Margareta Rosenstein; Staatsarchiv Freie Hansestadt Bremen 10, B-A4-1401 (alle Kinder); Douglas Ballman, Manager of External Relations – Online Archive USC Shoah Foundation Institute for Visual History and Education; Peter Lande und Judith Cohen, USHMM, Worksheet 62984, Photos Familie Stiefel, USHMM Lodz-Hospital Datei; Boris Löffler; Verena Lucia Naegel, Shoah Foundation Institute for Visual History and Education der USC, Freie Universität Berlin, Visual History Archive, Jewish Survivors, Interview Code 2488 Harry Stiefel, 2524 Nora Stiefel; Maria Koser: Stolpersteine in Hamburg Eppendorf und Hamburg Hoheluft-West, S. 360–363 (Dr. Jakob Sakom und Sophie, geb. Kagan); Wilhelm Lührs: "Reichskristallnacht" in Bremen. Vorgeschichte, Hergang und gerichtliche Bewältigung des Pogroms vom 9./10. November 1938, Bremen 1988; Rolf Rübsam: Kinder dieser Stadt, Bremen 2005, S. 50–75; Rolf Rübsam: Sie lebten unter uns, Bremen 1988, S. 92–94; Jürgen Sielemann: Der Zielort des Hamburger Deportationstransports vom 11. Juli 1942, in: Zeitschrift des Vereins für Hamburgische Geschichte 95 (2009), S. 91–110; Jacob G. Wiener, Time of Terror – Road to Revival, Victori BC, Canada 2010; WULF, Paul, 15/09/1892, à HAMBURG, Convoi n° 18, https://ressources.memorialdelashoah.org/resultat.php?type_rech=rap&bool%5B%5D=&index%5B%5D=noms_tous&value%5B%5D=Wulf&bool%5B%5D=AND&index%5B%5D=prenoms_tous&value%5B%5D=Paul&bool%5B%5D=AND&index%5B%5D=fulltext&value%5B%5D=&spec_date_naissance_start=&spec_date_naissance_end=&naissances_tous=&adresses_tous=&biographies_tous=&id_pers=*&spec_expand=1, eingesehen am: 28.3.2022; Herzlichen Dank an Lewis Stiefel!
Zur Nummerierung häufig genutzter Quellen siehe Link "Recherche und Quellen".