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John Schickler * 1875

Valentinskamp 46 (Hamburg-Mitte, Neustadt)

1942 Theresienstadt
ermordet 13.01.1943

further stumbling stones in Valentinskamp 46:
Ella Feldheim, Ingeborg Feldheim, Bela Feldheim, Bernhard Feldheim

John Schickler, born 14 June 1875 in Hamburg, deported 19 July 1942 to Theresienstadt where he died on 13 Jan. 1943

Valentinskamp 46

John Schickler grew up with eight siblings. He was born on 14 June 1875 at Steinwegpassage 4 where his father had a shop selling ribbons. His parents were the Jewish couple Abraham Julius Schickler (born 13 Nov. 1823, died 28 May 1902), a native of Rodenberg in Lower Saxony, and Sara Rike, née Zacharias (born 4 Nov. 1840 died 10 Oct. 1919).

John Schickler earned a living as a travelling salesman. The Hamburg address book listed him as a businessman. When he married Bertha Janover (alternative spelling: Janower) on 18 Oct. 1906, he was living at Schanzenstraße 45 in the St. Pauli district.

Bertha Janover was born in Hanover on 4 Aug. 1884, the daughter of Meta Deppe. Her mother, who was not Jewish, was born an illegitimate child in Bremen on 10 Feb. 1865. Her mother’s name was also Meta Deppe and later married under the name Staufenberg. When Bertha was five months old, her mother married the Jewish furniture merchant Nahmann Moise Janover (born 16 Apr. 1849, died 4 Dec. 1925) on 3 Jan. 1885; the widower, who was sixteen years her senior, called himself Moritz and was a native of Iaşi, a city in northeastern Romania.

After their wedding in Bremen, the couple had three sons, Julius (born 10 July 1886), Paul (born 28 July 1888) and Max (born 9 Sept. 1890, died 1 Apr. 1966). They attended the school Liebfrauen Domschule in Bremen. Nothing is known about Bertha’s education. In 1903 the Janover Family moved from Werrastraße 21 in Bremen to the Altona neighborhood of Hamburg where they lived at Beim grünen Jäger 25. According to an account of their son Paul, the move was not voluntary. His father did not have German citizenship and as a foreign Jew he was forced to leave Bremen.

Paul and Julius worked in the furniture industry, like their father, and became naturalized citizens of Hamburg at the start of World War I. They married in 1916 and 1922, respectively. Max became a photographer. When he married in 1918, his father Moritz and his brother-in-law John Schickler were his witnesses. The wives of the three brothers were not Jewish.

Bertha and John Schickler lived on the third floor at Gärtnerstraße 58 in Eimsbüttel where their daughters Edith and Fanny were born, the former on 11 Mar. 1911 and the latter on 20 Aug. 1913. The couple lived for a short time at Heussweg 24 and at Gneisenaustraße 13. They moved to Rappstraße 17 in the Grindelviertel neighborhood in 1916. After World War I, their youngest daughter Margot was born on 26 June 1919 at Dillstraße 6. She was only eight years old when her mother Bertha Schickler passed away at Israelite Hospital on 4 Dec. 1927. She was buried at Ilandkoppel Jewish Cemetery in Ohlsdorf. John Schickler lived on Dillstraße until 1930, then he moved to Beneckestraße 20. In 1932, the German-Israelite Community showed him as unemployed, most likely due to the global economic crisis. During the following years, he lived as a lodger in the neighborhoods of St. Pauli and Neustadt at various addresses. For a time he lived with his daughters at Burchardstraße 18a.

Edith worked as a salesperson. She became the main tenant of the apartment on Burchardstraße as of 1937, despite the fact that she is said to have lived outside of Hamburg at times. A staff member of the Jewish Community wrote on her sister Fanny’s religion tax card in 1932 "Beautician Jungfernstieg 3”. Victoria Grunwald ran a beauty care salon at that address on the second floor; it is quite possible that Fanny worked there for a time.

John Schickler once again became self-employed in 1936. He ran a metal trade in the rear courtyard at Valentinskamp 46. According to a note on his religion tax card, however, he had very little business after 1939. On 26 Feb. 1938 John Schickler encountered a further blow. His youngest daughter Margot died following an appendicitis at Altona Hospital. Margot was only 18 years old and working as a maid. Like her mother Bertha, she too was buried at Ilandkoppel Jewish Cemetery.

We were not able to determine precisely when Edith and Fanny Schickler lived as lodgers during the 1930s at Krochmannstraße 72 in Hamburg-Winterhude, where today Stumbling Stones have been place in their honor (see Stolpersteine in Hamburg-Winterhude). According to the census from May 1939, at that time they were living on the third floor of the building at Kreunzweg 21 in the St. Georg neighborhood.

The sisters tried to improve their status as Jews. On 25 June 1941, they declared in a letter to the Jewish Religious Association of Hamburg that they were to be classified as "half-breeds of the first degree” in line with the "Nuremberg Racial Laws”, did not have to have a "Jewish identification card”, nor did they have to use the compulsory name "Sara”.

They further informed the Association that their grandmother Meta Janover had declared under oath in Dec. 1938 that her deceased husband Max Janover was not the father of her daughter Bertha, even though he had accepted his paternity in 1886 before the Civil Registry Office in Hanover. Their grandmother had indeed converted to Judaism at the time of their wedding, but they themselves were not raised in the Jewish tradition nor did they belong to the German-Israelite Community. They had attended Dr. Löwenberg’s private school but did not take part in the Jewish religion classes held there. They celebrated Christmas in their family, and they did not have any contact with their father’s family, but they did with the family of their deceased, non-Jewish mother. Their attempt failed.

Edith and Fanny’s grandmother Meta Janover, who last resided at Großen Gärtnerstraße 120 (today Thadenstraße), had passed away five months earlier on 18 Jan. 1941 at Hohenzollernring Auxiliary Hospital in Altona. She was buried next to her husband, who had died in 1925 at an early age, at Bornkampsweg Jewish Cemetery in Bahrenfeld.

Their sons Paul and Julius Janover were not able to improve their status by leaving the German-Israelite Community in 1935/1936. Since they were considered Jews, they were subject to all anti-Jewish measures but were initially protected from deportation by their "mixed marriages”. The older brother Julius Janover was living with his wife Martha (born 3 June 1888) at Amandastraße 89 in Hamburg-Eimsbüttel when he was arrested in June 1938 and taken to Sachsenhausen concentration camp. He died shortly after his release, severely ill, on 7 Dec. 1939 at Eppendorf University Hospital.

Brother Paul Janover and his wife Hedwig, née Jahnke (born 26 Nov. 1883 in Anklam), were forced to move out of their apartment of many years at Arnisstraße 2 in Altona and into the "Jewish house” at Heinrich-Barth-Straße 8. He survived his "external work assignment” at Theresienstadt, shortly before the end of the war on 14 Feb. 1945.

John Schickler, like his brother-in-law Paul Janover, was also ultimately housed at a "Jewish house”. At the former Lazarus-Gumpel Foundation, Schlachterstraße 46/47, he was reunited with his sister Therese Meyer, née Schickler (born 19 Aug. 1869), who had been forced to give up the apartment at Schlüterstraße 79 which she had shared with her husband Samuel Meyer (born 1 May 1867 in Altona). On 19 July 1942 they were deported to the "old age ghetto” Theresienstadt with her widowed sister Dora Salomon, née Schickler (born 2 Jan. 1864), their sister Ella Mayer, née Schickler (born 21 Jan. 1879) and her husband Isidor Mayer (born 26 Mar. 1874 in Eschweiler). They were killed in Treblinka in Sept. 1942.

According to the announcement of his death, John Schickler died in Theresienstadt Ghetto on 13 Jan. 1943 of pneumonia.

When the names of Edith and Fanny Schickler were placed on the deportation list, Fanny with the job description laboratory technician, the sisters had already moved to the "Jewish house” at Beneckestraße 2. Despite the fact that they had signed a "home purchase contract” for their accommodation at Theresienstadt Ghetto – unusual for people of their age – they were first transported to Berlin on 12 Feb. 1943 along with 21 other people, where they were forced to wait in the collection camp at Große Hamburger Straße until they were assigned to a transport heading east to Auschwitz on 19 Feb. 1943.

Their household that they left behind in Hamburg was auctioned off. The proceeds of 132.25 Reich Marks were confiscated for the benefit of the German Reich.

A Stumbling Stone for her Aunt Dora Salomon lies at Sedanstraße 23, for the couple Ella and Isidor Mayer at Dillstraße 20 and for Therese and Samuel Meyer at Schlüterstraße 79.

Translator: Suzanne von Engelhardt
Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

Stand: June 2020
© Susanne Rosendahl

Quellen: 1; 9; StaH 214-1 Gerichtsvollzieherwesen 612; StaH 351-11 AfW 9337 (Janover, Martha); StaH 351-11 AfW 10952 (Janover, Paul); StaH 351-11 AfW 6860 (Janover, Hedwig); StaH 332-5 Standesämter 7933 u 785/1900; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 7954 u 1255/1902; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 3070 u 610/1906; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 8054 u 630/1919; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 926 u 477/1927; StaH 352-5 Todesbescheinigung 1927, Sta 2a Nr. 477; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 5412 u 309/1938; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 9906 u 1876/1939; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 5104 u 90/1941; StaH 522-1 Jüdische Gemeinden 161 Hochdeutsche Israelitische Gemeinde in Altona Mitgliederliste 1924-1926; StaH 522-1 Jüdische Gemeinden 992 d Band 30; StaH 522-1 Jüdische Gemeinden 992 d Band 14; StaH 522-1 Jüdische Gemeinden 391 Mitgliederliste 1935; StaH 522-1 Jüdische Gemeinde Nr. 992 e 2 Band 5, Transport nach Theresienstadt am 19. Juli 1942 Liste 1; StaH 522-1 Jüdische Gemeinde Nr. 992 e 2 Band 5, Transport nach Auschwitz am 12. Februar 1943; StaH 522-1 Jüdische Gemeinde Nr. 992 e 2 Band 5, Transport nach Theresienstadt am 14. Februar 1945; http://familytreemaker.genealogy.com/users/n/e/u/Eliot-Neumann/WEBSITE-0001/UHP-0068.html (Zugriff 11.1.2015); Meyer: Verfolgung, S. 69 u. S. 79–87; Meyer: "Jüdische Mischlinge"; Stein: Stiftung, S. 181; diverse Hamburger Adressbücher.
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