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Anton Münden 1904
© Nathan Ben-Brith

Aron Anton Münden * 1867

Beim Andreasbrunnen 3 (Hamburg-Nord, Eppendorf)

HIER WOHNTE
ARON ANTON
MÜNDEN
JG. 1867
DEPORTIERT 1942
THERESIENSTADT
1942 TREBLINKA
ERMORDET

further stumbling stones in Beim Andreasbrunnen 3:
Hedwig Münden, Leo Nachum, Eva Nachum

Anton Münden, born on 8 July 1867 in Hamburg, deported on 15 July 1942 to Theresienstadt, deported further on 23 Sept. 1942 to Treblinka
Hedwig Münden, née Salomon, born on 22 Aug. 1879 in Hamburg, deported on 15 July 1942 to Theresienstadt, deported further on 23 Sept. 1942 to Treblinka

Beim Andreasbrunnen 3

The youngest of three sons of the Jewish wholesale trader in feathers, hair, furs, and raw products Salomon Münden (born on 30 Aug. 1820 in Altona) and Hanna, née Koch (1839–1905), Anton Ahron Münden was born at Grossneumarkt 49 in Hamburg-Neustadt. In 1873, Salomon Münden, since 1848 documented as a member of the German-Israelitic Community in Hamburg, was awarded Hamburg civic rights, which also conferred to him the right to vote. The family of six lived in secure economic circumstances.

The year 1874 saw the family with orthodox orientation move to Kohlhöfen 35, a street in which the Jewish Talmud Tora School and a synagogue were still located in those days. In 1877, Salomon Münden passed away. From then on, the family lived on savings, moving to Zeughausmarkt 34 (in 1879), subsequently once more into an apartment on Kohlhöfen, this time no. 40 (1885–1887), and later to Marktstrasse 12 (1890–1892) in the Karolinen quarter. The family hoped for successful careers of the sons in order to continue being able to maintain the acquired standard of living. In 1886, daughter Rosa (1868–1936) married, at the Elbstrasse Synagogue (today Neanderstrasse), the merchant Moritz Glückstadt (1853–1921), who operated a wholesale trade in "fashion accessories, dry goods, and pipe products” at Wexstrasse 35.

In 1887, after finishing the Talmud Tora School and a commercial apprenticeship, the second oldest son, Daniel Münden (born on 20 Jan. 1866 in Hamburg), opened the Schröder & Münden importing agency for raw tobacco. The oldest son, Max Münden (born on 25 Feb. 1865 in Hamburg), attended school all the way up to obtaining his high school graduation diploma (Abitur) and then, following a temporary period of commercial training and work, studied medicine from 1888 onward. Anton Münden, who looked so much like his second oldest brother Daniel that they were often confused with one another, also took up the merchant’s trade after attending the Talmud Tora School.

He had acquired Hamburg citizenship in 1898 and married the Hamburg resident Hedwig Salomon on 8 Jan. 1903. Shortly afterward, he had joined the company of his brother-in-law Moritz Glückstadt, which by then also operated a publishing firm for "nature photographed” ("naturphotografierte”) postcards, relocating the business premises from Alter Steinweg 42/43 to Kaiser-Wilhelm-Strasse. In 1909, Anton Münden became a co-owner of the company. That same year, the enterprise moved its headquarters within Hamburg-Neustadt from Kaiser-Wilhelm-Strasse 93 ("Kaiser-Wilhelm-Haus”) to Caffamacherreihe 1–5 ("Industriepalast”). For the company, Anton Münden, though only an amateur in this field, took photographs himself using a camera, tripod, and magnesium flash. In this context, the business was not interested in artistic photography but rather in the most extensive and sellable selection of motifs possible. For this reason, there was a preference for images of hotels for picture postcards because in this genre, almost automatic demand existed by guests staying at these places. The postcards were printed in Leipzig by Glass & Tuscher. However, this job did not quite match the expectations Anton Münden had entertained regarding his professional career. Probably it rather stemmed from his own aspiration of wishing to provide his family with the appropriate lifestyle.

The family of Hedwig Münden, née Salomon, came from Lüneburg, where her father, Siegfried Simon Salomon (1842–1917), was born and worked as a broker in hides and leather. His father, Simon Salomon (died probably in 1889) had been a leather manufacturer and head of the synagogue in Lüneburg. As early as 1877, Siegfried Salomon, by then a leather manufacturer himself, moved with his wife and daughter Gertrud (born in 1876) to Hamburg. In 1879, daughter Hedwig Sophie was born in Hamburg-Neustadt (at Grosse Bleichen 65 on the fourth floor), with her religious affiliation at the time indicated as "Jewish.” In 1881, Siegfried Salomon obtained Hamburg civic rights. The subsequent joint addresses of the residence and office (brokerage for leather, hides, and furs), Mittelweg 64 in the building at the rear (at least from 1890 until 1910) and Isestrasse 59 on the raised ground floor (1910–1933) were a manifestation of Siegfried Salomon’s economic success, who liked to play skat [a popular German card game] and kept a parrot in the apartment.

Arguing, "I can pray to the good Lord wherever I wish,” Siegfried Salomon turned away from the Jewish religion and toward a Freemasons’ lodge. Probably, he was a member of the Hamburg "Lodge to the Fraternal Chain” ("Loge zur Bruderkette”) founded in 1874. Thus, according to the granddaughter, his children grew up at a distance to the temple and the Jewish Community. Instead of Hanukkah, the family observed the Christian Christmas holiday with a Christmas tree. The parents attached great importance to their children’s education. Hedwig attended the private girls’ secondary school run by "Miss” ("Fräulein”) Laura Nemitz at Grindelhof 59, received piano lessons, and aspired to become a teacher. Her brother Ernst Salomon (born in 1877 in Lüneburg) was killed in action on the western front in 1916.

From then on, the calendar in the Salomons’ home stopped on the date of his death, 27 October. Sister Olga Meyer, née Salomon, born on 16 Nov. 1880 in Hamburg, lived on Isestrasse; (she was deported on 19 July 1942 to the Theresienstadt Ghetto, where she died on 30 Sept. 1942). Sister Gertrud Cohn, née Salomon (born in 1876 in Lüneburg), also lived with her husband and the two twin sons in an apartment at Isestrasse 45. Hedwig’s mother Betty Salomon, née Alexander (1856–1933), a native of Hamburg, received financial support from the sons-in-law after her husband’s death. She passed away in 1933 and was buried in the Ohlsdorf Jewish Cemetery next to her husband.

Anton Münden and Hedwig Salomon met at Carl Hagenbeck’s Zoo (Tierpark Carl Hagenbeck). It is not known whether this meeting was arranged. After getting married, Anton Münden left the apartment at Rutschbahn 25 (Rotherbaum), where his mother resided in the same building. Anton and Hedwig Münden lived in the upscale residential neighborhoods of Harvestehude with their relatively high share of the population Jewish: Oberstrasse 3 (1907) and its parallel street, Innocentiastrasse 61 (1908–1915). From there, they moved to a spacious five-bedroom apartment on the raised ground floor at Beim Andreasbrunnen 3 in Dec. 1916, after the birth of their second child.

The apartment house featuring an elevator, built in the style of the Hamburg Art Nouveau plaster-wall structures, had been constructed only a few years earlier and it was located in the immediate vicinity of Eppendorfer Landstrasse, with many stores used by the Münden family for shopping. For instance, there was the grocery store where they got "canned Californian fruit” for special visitors; the Menden (house no. 7) and Nobiling (house no. 36) pastry shops, the latter with an added small beer garden (pastry chef Georg Nobiling ran for the Hamburg City Parliament in 1919 on one of the lower places of the left liberal DDP [German Democratic Party]); the delicatessen of Albert Hicke (house no. 76), whose daughter Annemarie was a school friend of Annelise Münden. This street also accommodated the Dittmer Department Store, formerly Deppe (house nos. 108–110), one of Hamburg’s oldest department stores. Located at Eppendorfer Baum 37, next to the community center with movie theater, was Rudolf Möller’s pastry shop, where Hedwig Münden and her mother liked to buy ice cream from time to time. Also on Eppendorfer Baum, a locality featuring music and a restaurant with a beer garden beckoned guests to come in, and the Münden family would go there on occasion.

As was the custom with spacious, representative apartments, the Mündens had, among other things, three balconies (one to the street and two to the rear); an elegant smoking room for men in dark oak with a desk (featuring the telephone), a sofa, leather armchairs, a bookcase, and four oil paintings by a marine painter; a dining room with a pull-out table seating up to 24 persons and an elaborately finished sideboard decked with glass and silver-plated Art Nouveau vases and bowls as well as crystal decanters with silver necks and silver lids; a living room finished in cherry wood with a table and six chairs, two cupboards, a modern built-in sofa, a French piano of the "Plyl” brand, a French mantelpiece clock made of green marble, and a woman’s desk; as well as a small room for the maid that helped Hedwig Münden. In addition, she also employed a domestic help for sewing and other household work, who did not have any accommodation in the apartment, however.

The bulk of laundry was taken to a nearby laundry shop. Kosher preparation of food took place in Anton Münden’s home only in the early days. During an illness of Hedwig Münden, a caregiver had not paid attention to the food regulations. Afterward, kosher cooking was not reintroduced. The Münden family usually ate lunch together. Friday was fish day and on Sunday, a roast was served, with that meal as a rule also attended by the mother-in-law, Betty Salomon from Isestrasse. Probably still harking back to his orthodox formative years, Anton Münden avoided pork and instead preferred roast beef.

For reasons of age, Anton Münden was not drafted to serve in World War I anymore. Instead, he patrolled in Eppendorf as part of the "home guard” ("Bürgerwehr”) in 1917/18. He later told his daughter, without any pride or pathos, that the rifle he had shouldered for that purpose had never been loaded. As for the rest, politics and money were never topics of conversation in the Münden home.

On the ground floor of the building at Beim Andreasbrunnen 3 lived the Jewish family of the traveling salesman Leo Nachum (born on 7 July 1875 in Hamburg) with his wife Eva. The floor above the Mündens accommodated the Heicke family of three. Carl Heicke was the director of the Albingia Insurance Company and of the Hamburg-Mannheimer Insurance Company, of Protestant faith and a tenant in the house since 1916. The family doctor of the Münden family, Paul Bonheim (born in 1877), was also "Assistant Medical Director [Oberarzt] at the Department of Internal Medicine of the Freemasons’ Hospital,” as the 1930 phone directory indicated. He still went on the house calls in a coach, and the children of the patients, Annelise Münden and Gerda Hermann, were allowed to accompany him in the coach for part of the way back. The tall and imposing Paul Bonheim was also a friend of the Hermann family.

Since 1913 at the latest, Anton Münden was a member of the German-Israelitic Community as well as the Temple Association (Tempelverband). His brother Daniel Münden was a board member of the liberal Temple Association since 1922. The closeness of the three Münden brothers is demonstrated by their reservation of graves on 6 Dec. 1921: For themselves and their wives, they chose a common burial place for cremation in the Ohlsdorf Jewish Cemetery (sister Rosa was buried in the orthodox Jewish Cemetery in Langenfelde).

Anton Münden went to the Temple on Poolstrasse (Neustadt) and from 1931 onward to the newly built Temple on Oberstrasse (Harvestehude) together with his two children. On these occasions, Anton Münden wore a dark suit and a top hat. The mother stayed at home in the meantime and the home comers would encounter her there with a Jewish prayer book opened. The apartment featured a seven-branched Hanukkah candelabrum, but no special foods were consumed on the Sabbath. While the son had celebrated his bar mitzvah (a Jewish coming-of-age ritual, marking inclusion in the circle of adult Community members, comparable to the Protestant confirmation) in the Temple in 1918 or 1919, this did not happen in the case of the daughter, possibly because of the purity regulations lifted in the Münden home by then. The parents had left the decision up to her, a clue to their liberal methods of education. However, she had still attended the afternoon religion classes at the Oberrealschule [a secondary school without Latin] on Hegestrasse given by the rabbis of the Temple on Poolstrasse, Jacob Sonderling and Friedrich Rülf, in the years 1921/1922. Sometimes, the Chief Cantor Leo Kornitzer was also present during the religion classes, teaching the most important religious songs.

Deputizing for Rabbi Rülf, the older one of the Münden cousins, Annemarie Münden (born in 1898), would also teach religion class a few times. Annelise Münden was a member of the Jewish Bar Kochba sports club, practicing track and field there. She also liked to go swimming, in the summer to the outdoor pool on Lattenkamp, in the other seasons to the heated indoor pool, the Warmbadeanstalt Eppendorf (today Holthusenbad) featuring separate pools for men and women. Even more, she enjoyed rowing the boat of her male cousin and three female cousins residing at Agnesstrasse 46 in Winterhude (see biography of Daniel Münden) in the nearby canals. She was particularly fond of rowing with a girlfriend to the bay in front of the Uhlenhorst Ferry House (Uhlenhorster Fährhaus) and then, floating alongside other boats, listening from the water to the concert music. At the ferry house, a band would play music in a pavilion every day. For physical strengthening of their children, the Mündens had mounted both gymnastics rings and a horizontal bar in the apartment at Beim Andreasbrunnen 3.

January 1928 saw Anton and Hedwig Münden’s silver wedding anniversary celebrated at the Esplanade Hotel in Hamburg-Neustadt. The guests paid tribute to the couple of honor with poems, songs, and a wedding newspaper. The Münden family cultivated solid middle-class conceptions of education, art, and culture. The large entrance hall of the apartment sported engravings and original etchings; the smoking room and living rooms were adorned with various oil paintings. Hedwig Münden had complete command of the piano as had her daughter Annelise. The latter received lessons with "Miss” ("Fräulein") Daus (probably Gertrud Daus), who also played duets on the piano with the uncle on the mother’s side, Henry Cohn. Moreover, the smoking room featured a bookcase containing a large number of works: by Goethe, Heine, Schiller, Fritz Reuter, Jakob Wassermann, Lion Feuchtwanger, Stefan Zweig, Thomas Mann, and others. In this respect, it was above all Hedwig Münden who provided for the proper reading material: for the daughter initially the Nesthäkchen (a variety of novels for teenage girls) volumes by Else Ury as well as Heidi by Johanna Spyri and later art books. Brother Herbert, like most boys his age, read Karl May’s adventure novels set in the American Old West and the Near East.

The daily press was read as well; in addition to the Jewish Hamburger Familienblatt, the subscription list included the liberal Hamburger Fremdenblatt. Probably, the home featured a phonograph and, from the mid-1930s, a small radio set of the "Volksempfänger” ("People’s receiver”) design (in Sept. 1939, all Jews were banned from owning a radio). Quite often, Annelise Münden also went to the 800-seat "Harvestehuder Lichtspiele” movie theater at the Eppendorf Community Center (Gesellschaftshaus) at Eppendorfer Baum 35–37. There she saw the UFA films Der blaue Engel (The Blue Angel) starring Marlene Dietrich, Die drei von der Tankstelle (The Three from the Filling Station) with Lilian Harvey, Willy Fritsch, and Heinz Rühmann, as well as Der Kongress tanzt (The Congress Dances), again featuring the dream couple Harvey/Fritsch.

After the death of his business partner Moritz Glückstadt in 1921, Anton Münden continued to manage the company, on his own. A contract between the two owners provided for support payments to the widow of the owner deceased first. This arrangement ensured that Rosa Glückstadt, née Münden, received financial benefits but no longer had a share in the business. Hedwig Münden was given powers of attorney for the company, which had rented office space in large business premises featuring a paternoster elevator in Hamburg-Neustadt (at Caffamacherreihe 1–5) since 1925.

In May 1929, son Herbert Münden (born in 1905) joined the enterprise as a co-owner. After temporarily attending the Oberrealschule [a secondary school without Latin] on Hegestrasse (Eppendorf) and passing final exams at the private Wahnschaff Realschule [a practice-oriented secondary school up to grade 10] in Rotherbaum, he completed a commercial apprenticeship with a company trading in hides and furs (Bachrach & Loeb) – a line of business that his grandfather and great grandfather had already pursued successfully. For him, too, work at M. Glückstadt & Münden was a duty and not a free career choice. Herbert Münden had a driver’s license and thus could drive the company car, which had enough space to transport the heavy photo equipment. However, Herbert Münden also put to private use the vehicle of the NSU make, for which a garage had been rented on Eppendorfer Landstrasse.

The world economic crisis in 1929/30 led to a drop in sales, as picture postcards were a dispensable article in those precarious times. M. Glückstadt & Münden, up to the First World War still one of the leading picture postcard companies, dissolved the rented office and in late 1930 moved into two rooms of the apartment at Beim Andreasbrunnen 3, where one other female employee was working in addition to the junior and senior owners. In 1935, the four-story private maternity clinic diagonally across the street run by the Ernst siblings (at Beim Andreasbrunnen 6) was occupied by the NSDAP Administration District Office I (Kreisamt I), including district propaganda office, district legal office, district administration offices for civil servants, educators, technology, public health, etc. (District Leader Johannes Lange). In 1938, the Jewish owners of Glückstadt & Münden were deprived of their right to travel freely in Germany. For the company oriented toward regional business, this constituted a serious economic loss, since solid customer management was impossible without travelling.

In the course of the Pogrom of Nov. 1938, Herbert Münden, too, was taken into custody by force. Twenty-two years later, his sister described the events to the Restitution Office (Amt für Wiedergutmachung): "I also recall very well that my father terminated all of his business activities immediately after the events of 10 Nov. 1938. I remember that at the time my father spoke in detail with his auditor and my current husband (Dr. jur. Bunzel) about whether and how the business might develop in the future. At this time, my bother Herbert Münden was detained in a concentration camp.” Herbert Münden had been arrested in the apartment of his parents-in-law Aron and Hedwig Reginbogin at Hansastrasse 55 in the Harvestehude quarter. At a police station (probably on Bundesstrasse), his wife and his sister were allowed to pick up the valuables that Herbert Münden had carried on him. He was committed from Hamburg to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp and in detention there for six weeks. Upon his release on 23 Dec. 1938, he was forced to sign a written pledge to remain silent about the exact circumstances of his imprisonment, his sister recalled.

In 1939, the M. Glückstadt & Münden Company was "Aryanized.” In early 1939, the merchant and "occupational subgroup leader” ("Fachuntergruppenleiter”) Hans Andres, who had been the owner of a picture postcard publishing house in the Greater Hamburg sales area since 1926, bought the M. Glückstadt & Münden Company that was geographically focused mainly in the seaside resorts of the North and Baltic Seas, in Schleswig-Holstein, Mecklenburg, and in Brandenburg. For master and negative material of the "Aryanized” company, "estimated to comprise about 17,000 items, with 2,000 of them done new in the past two years,” he paid only 3,000 RM. He also took over equipment (among other things, a new Mercedes typewriter and a 4.5 Zeiss Tessar 10x15 camera with various lenses), inventory (about 500,000 copies), and the client list. Due to state regulations concerning "Aryanizations,” it was not permitted to pay any compensation for the company’s added non-material value ("good will”), common otherwise for transfers of ownership, which would take into consideration, e.g., good reputation and positive earnings prospects. The M. Glückstadt & Münden Company was deleted from the company register on 4 Oct. 1939. The stamped note indicating "By public notice on” and the inserted date stamp of "23 June 1939” document the company sale forced by administrative means.

Starting in the spring of 1939, the German Reich began using measures to seize the Münden’s private assets: gold and silver objects as well as pieces of jewelry had to be handed in at public collection points, and the Mündens were forced to pay the newly legislated "levy on Jewish assets” ("Judenvermögensabgabe”). The "security measures,” initiated in late Mar. 1939 by the foreign currency office against Anton Münden, Herbert Münden, and the company toward blocking assets, were not pursued any further due to insignificance.

Daughter Annelise Münden (born in 1912) had first gone to kindergarten on Isestrasse and then, after public girls’ high school (Lyzeum) at Hansastrasse (from 1926 onward, Helene-Lange School), attended the private girls’ school run by "Elise de Fauquemont and A. Lühring” (at Eppendorfer Landstrasse 57). The female students there probably knew who among them were of the Christian or of the Jewish faiths, but in terms of dealings with each other or choosing friends, this aspect did not play a role. After finishing the private school, Annelise Münden completed the advanced business school branch at the Catholic St. Anschar School (at St. Anschar-Platz 13 in Valentinskamp). Following various office jobs, she still started training as a dental assistant with a non-Jewish dentist who had taken over the practice of the Jewish Dentist [a skilled dentist without academic training] Massenbacher (at Eppendorfer Landstrasse 55). However, state restrictions banned the dentist from continuing to employ her. Annelise Münden was only allowed to commence an apprenticeship with a company in Jewish ownership. By arrangement of her uncle Daniel Münden, who had contacts to M. M. Warburg & Co. Bankers, she was taken on as an apprentice (office employee) at the renowned banking house in May 1937.

However, after only one year, the regulations were tightened once again and on 15 Nov. 1938, Annelise Münden had to quit the apprenticeship already started, due to her Jewish descent. Even prior to that, all senior staff of the banking house had been questioned as to their descent, as Annelise Bunzel, née Münden, recalled 70 years later, and dismissed immediately if they listed any Jewish ancestors. Even before the November Pogrom of 1938 and the arbitrary arrest of her brother, Annelise Münden decided to leave Germany. On 10 Nov. 1938, the guarantee from the USA for her and Franz Bunzel was available, and they were engaged on the same day. The bureaucratic procedure made up of forms, permits, and stamps was followed by the luggage inspection on 16 Dec. 1938. Customs Inspector Hans Lerk, employed at the customs investigations department since 15 Aug. 1938, was present during the packing in the dining room of the parents’ home, and the parents looked on as well.

Even though the 53-year-old customs secretary (not a member of the Nazi party) turned away several times in the process to make a point and said, "Pack whatever you want to,” 26-year-old Annelise Münden did not dare smuggle valuables not declared in between pieces of undergarments. After all, her applications for being allowed to take along jewelry and valuables had been turned down in their entirety (concerning, among other things, 12 of the 24 silver-plated pieces of cutlery monogrammed with an "M.”). In an official "investigative report,” Customs Secretary Lerk from the customs investigation department documented as a result of the inspection, "Clothing and undergarments were supplemented to a reasonable extent.” Based on an ordinance, jewelry and valuables had to be deposited in a safety deposit box with the M. M. Warburg & Co. banking house in Mar. 1939. These also included old heirlooms, later confiscated to the benefit of the German Reich and ordered to be surrendered at the "purchasing point” on Bäckerbreitergang. Among them were the golden pocket watch of Anton Münden and two antique silver candlesticks, so-called "Augsburger Leuchter,” usually standing on the bookcase in the smoking room and used only on special occasions.

At Christmas of 1938, first Annelise Münden’s fiancé, Dr. jur. Franz Bunzel (1896–1969), emigrated to Amsterdam. From a phone booth, he informed his fiancée in Hamburg about his successful arrival.

Probably on 28 Dec. 1938, Annelise Münden followed to join him. She was allowed to take along only 10 RM in cash. In Amsterdam, they were both able to stay with Hans Steinschneider (born in 1895). After his dismissal as a Regional Court (Landgericht) judge on 1 Nov. 1933, Franz Bunzel had most recently managed the Jacques Steinschneider banking house in Hamburg (at Admiralitätsstrasse 18), after its owner, Hans Steinschneider (in the very end residing at Eppendorfer Landstrasse 47), had emigrated to Amsterdam in Feb. 1937. Following the Pogrom of 9 Nov. 1938 and a search of his apartment by Gestapo men during his absence, Franz Bunzel went underground for 44 days, finding shelter with the non-Jewish graphic designer and artist Erwin Krubeck at Eppendorfer Stieg 11.

Not without reason, Franz Bunzel feared that a specific hunt was under way against him as a former judge and son of the liberal democratic DDP deputy Carl Bunzel. The criminal detective Willy Rammelsberg (since 1922 with the Hamburg police; since 1 May 1933 member of the NSDAP and transferred to the criminal investigation department) apparently took revenge in this way for a legal dispute dating from the time of the Weimar Republic, Annelise Münden recalled. Willy Rammelsberg also showed up in the apartment at Beim Andreasbrunnen 3 with a younger colleague in tow, searching the rooms for Franz Bunzel. The Nazis’ policy provided plenty of opportunity for private vendettas in the context of encroachments and arbitrary arrests planned by the state.

Annelise Münden and Franz Bunzel hastened to reach Rotterdam, where the Dutch steamer "Volendam” took to sea on 31 Dec. 1938.

Her uncle Daniel Münden had transferred 1,000 RM to Annelise Münden toward financing her emigration. The lawyer Hans Zacharias (1897–1938), a friend of Franz Bunzel who had already emigrated to New York, had contacted relatives of Annelise Münden in New York. As a result, one of the mother’s cousins, Walter I. Salomon, who was born in the USA, provided the required guarantee for Annelise Münden’s entry. For Franz Bunzel, his brother Kurt Bunzel, who had already emigrated to the USA in Mar. 1938, gave the guarantee. The passengers aboard the "Volendam” transatlantic liner of the Holland America Lijn also included several men with shaven heads, who had just been released from one of the German concentration camps.

Herbert Münden, who had taken his sister to the train at the end of Dec. 1938, emigrated with his wife Ellen, née Reginbogin, via Amsterdam, London, and Cuba to La Paz (Bolivia) five weeks later. His father-in-law, Aron Reginbogin (born in 1879 in Minsk), reduced to inaction since 1932, and his wife Hedwig, née Schüler (born in 1880), both residents of Hamburg since 1907 and members of the German-Israelitic Community in Hamburg since 1918, also emigrated, to Venezuela in June 1939. Herbert Münden and Ellen Reginbogin had been married at the Temple on Oberstrasse in 1936; due to the anti-Jewish mood in Germany, the wedding reception had been a very modest affair. With assistance from the brother-in-law Alfred Reginbogin, who had already been living in Havana since 1929 and maintained business contact to Bolivia, it was possible to initiate the departure just in time. Alfred had also financially supported his parents for years and paid for their passage on a ship.

In the period following, the emigrated children Annelise and Herbert Münden though about where their parents might be able to emigrate to, putting their sights on Bolivia as a country of asylum, even though there were reservations concerning the climate and altitude. On 21 Aug. 1939, Franz Bunzel wrote from the USA to his brother-in-law Herbert Münden in Bolivia, "Regarding possible immigration of your parents to Bolivia, we did make some concluding comments in the last letter. As for everything else, the parents have to decide themselves. Dani Münden wrote to me a few days ago that he deemed it a crazy idea, to put it mildly. In my view, Cochabamba (Bolivia) is obviously to be considered far more preferable to La Paz [note: altitude 3,700 meters, approx. 12,000 ft].” A month earlier, Herbert Münden had already written to his sister and brother-in-law about the grave danger in which his parents were: "Apparently, you are forgetting about the new housing laws, the scarcity of food, etc., and the unbearable thrust of the party toward making it as difficult as possible for Jews wherever possible. There just has to be some incident (like, for instance, the fabricated pretext for "Kristallnacht,” note by B. E.) and my father would not be safe from concentration camp despite his advanced age.” However, Anton Münden did not want to go into exile in Bolivia.

The Münden couple received financial support from Franz Bunzel, who transferred to them funds from his blocked account with the Vereinsbank, which continued to be credited with his reduced pension. They were still allowed to stay in their apartment, the greater part of which they had been compelled to sublet out of necessity. The 73-year-old brother, Daniel Münden, emigrated with his wife to Amsterdam on 28 Jan. 1939. Of his small remaining fortune, the formerly affluent tobacco merchant Daniel Münden gave his brother Anton 500 RM as a farewell gift.

Pressured by state authorities, the Münden couple moved to a one-room apartment of the Jewish retirement home at Frickestrasse 24 (Martin Brunn-Stift) on 23 Mar. 1942. The whereabouts of the numerous pieces of furniture from the spacious apartment are unclear. The building at Frickestrasse 24 was used by the Nazis as a "Jews’ house” ("Judenhaus”) for concentrating Jewish occupants prior to their subsequent deportation. Food for the Jews was calculated so stingily that the Münden couple was dependent on additional food donations that were slipped to them by the non-Jewish woman Magda Karl from Werderstrasse 48. She also kept the silver pieces of cutlery safe from the clutches of state authorities.

By registered letter, Anton and Hedwig Münden were served an "evacuation order.” Before their deportation to Theresienstadt, they had to sign and pay 3,800 RM for a "home purchase contract for communal accommodation” ("Heimeinkaufvertrag für Gemeinschaftsunterbringung”). On the part of the state, the authorities suggested that Theresienstadt was a "ghetto for the elderly” ("Altersgetto”), a sort of housing estate for Jewish seniors in the East. At the same time, the Nazi state appropriated the couple’s assets still remaining after the previous plundering measures. On 15 July 1942, the Anton and Hedwig Münden couple was deported to the Theresienstadt Ghetto, located some 65 kilometers (approx. 40 miles) north of Prague, and from there further to the Treblinka extermination camp on 23 Sept. 1942.

The furnishings left behind at Frickestrasse 24 were confiscated by the state and auctioned off by Carl F. Schlüter auctioneers. The proceeds of about 600 RM went to the treasurer’s office with the Chief Finance Administrator (Oberfinanzkasse). The items auctioned also included, apart from a wardrobe and linen closet (130 RM), the leather armchair (45 RM) from the smoking room of the previous apartment, two carpets for 80 RM, an oval table for 12 RM, curtains, bed linens, towels, dishes, one of Anton Münden’s frock coats for 5 RM, as well as shoes and two of Hedwig Münden’s dresses for 18 RM.

The Hamburg District Court (Amtsgericht) declared Anton Münden and his wife dead in 1949, with their dates of death set on 8 May 1945.

In Jan. 1939, Annelise Münden married Franz Bunzel in the USA, taking on US citizenship together with her husband in 1944, after she had been stripped of German citizenship. In 1949, her brother Herbert Münden also moved to the USA from Bolivia, where he had found work as a photographer.

In 1951, during a visit to Hamburg, the Hanseatic City of Hamburg offered Franz Bunzel his old position as judge at the Higher Regional Court (Oberlandesgericht). In the course of this visit, Franz Bunzel also did research into the whereabouts of the valuables in the ownership of his parents-in-law. At the "Silver Chamber” ("Silberkammer”), it was possible by using a photograph to correlate and hand over the two historical "Augsburger Leuchter” as nos. 823a and 823b. Even though the position of judge in Hamburg was very enticing, Franz and Annelise Bunzel decided against it. After the years without rights during the Nazi persecution, they feared that they would not be able to live a happy life in Germany. In 1958 and 1963, Annelise Bunzel accompanied her husband on his trips to Hamburg. Only in the mid-1970s, she visited one more time the street called Beim Andreasbrunnen, setting foot one more time on the staircase and in her parents’ apartment. But inner peace would not come; the pain was too great, too moving was the past. In retrospect, she even believed it had been a mistake to return to the apartment at all.

Stolpersteine at Agnesstrasse 46 in Hamburg-Winterhude commemorate Daniel Münden, his wife Martha, and his son Gerhard, who was deported from the Netherlands in 1943. The brochure entitled Stolpersteine in Hamburg-Winterhude provides an account of their lives.

For Max Münden and his wife Martha, Stolpersteine were laid at Grindelallee 153 in Hamburg-Rotherbaum. One can read up on the course of their lives at www.stolpersteine-hamburg.de.


Translator: Erwin Fink

Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

Stand: October 2017
© Björn Eggert

Quellen: 1; 2; 4; 8; StaH 213-13 Staatsanwaltschaft Landgericht – Strafsachen, 14112/52 (Willy Rammelsberg); StaH 213-13 Wiedergutmachungsamt, Z 1376 und Z 2783 und Z 20398 und Z 20732 und Z 29853; StaH 221-11 Staatskommissar für die Entnazifizierung, F 3348 (Hans Lerk); StaH 221-11 Staatskommissar für die Entnazifizierung, P 20382 (Willy Rammelsberg); StaH 241-2 Justizverwaltung Personalakten, A 1206 (Franz/Francis Bunzel); StaH 314-15 OFP, Fvg 3650 (Anneliese Betty Münden); StaH 314-15 OFP, R 2081/39 (Anton u. Herbert Münden, Münden & Co.); StaH 314-15 OFP, F 2225 (Hans Steinschneider); StaH 314-15 OFP, FVg 4803 (Aron Reginbogin); StaH 332-8 Alte Einwohnermeldekartei, Siegfried Salomon, Ernst Salomon, Moritz Glückstadt; StaH 351-11 AfW, 1156 (ehemals Eg 080767, Anton Münden); StaH 351-11 AfW, 2676 (ehemals Eg 070775, Leo Nachum); StaH (Lesesaal), General-Trau-Register 1863; StaH (Lesesaal), Bürger-Register 1845–1875, L–R (Salomon Münden); StaH (Lesesaal), Bürger-Register 1876–1896, L–Z (Siegfr. Simon Salomon, Daniel Münden); StaH (Lesesaal), Generalregister Heiraten 1903; AB 1866, 1870, 1875, 1879, 1882, 1885, 1887, 1890, 1896, 1902, 1913, 1920, 1938, 1940; Amtliche Fernsprechbücher Hamburg 1895, 1909 und 1910 (Salomon), 1906–1936 (Münden); Gräberkartei Jüdischer Friedhof Ohlsdorf (Münden u. Salomon); Vieth, Hier lebten sie miteinander, 1993, S.23–27 (Glückstadt); Von Villiez, Mit aller Kraft verdrängt, 2009, S. 232 (Bonheim), S. 364 (Münden); Hipp, Kunstreiseführer Hamburg, 1990, S. 396 (Beim Andreasbrunnen); Hanke, Eppendorf, 2001, S. 18 (Beim Andreasbrunnen); Alter, Eppendorf, 1976, S. 89/90 (Nobiling), S. 93 (Andreasbrunnen); Handbuch der Hansestadt Hamburg, 1939, S. 292 (NSDAP-Kreis 1); Handelskammer Hamburg, Firmenarchiv (Glückstadt & Münden, 1921–1939); Hamburger Börsenfirmen, Hamburg 1910, S. 214 (M. Glückstadt & Münden); Bajohr, "Arisierung",1998, S. 357 (Glückstadt & Münden); Sparr, Stolpersteine, 2008, S.178–182 (Daniel, Martha u. Gerhard Münden); Randt, Die Talmud Tora Schule, 2005, S. 207 (C. Z. Klötzel, Erinnerungen an die alte Talmud Tora Realschule); Hamburger Schulmuseum (Auskünfte zu Schulbezeichnungen u. Adressen); Sköllin, Statistische Mitteilungen, Nr. 8, 1919, S. 31, 56 (Carl Bunzel, Georg Nobiling); Büttner, Politischer Neubeginn, 1994, S. 137 (Carl Bunzel, DDP); 10 Telefoninterviews mit der Tochter Annelise Bunzel, geb. Münden (USA), Frühjahr 2009 bis Frühjahr 2010; Jüdisches Museum Berlin, Sammlung Familie Bunzel-Münden, 2006/90/1-109 u. 2007/37/1-267 (inkl. Fotografien); Gedenkstätte und Museum Sachsenhausen, Sonderliste, D1A/1020, Bl.546 (Herbert Münden); www.ancestry.de (eingesehen am 13.4.2009); http://wikipedia.org/wiki/Holland-America_Line (eingesehen am 2.5.2009); www.doew.at/projekte/holocaust/shoah/ maly.html (eingesehen am 6.6.2009); Königliche Kunst – Freimaurerei in Hamburg seit 1737, Ausstellung im Jenisch-Haus, März–November 2009, Jubiläums-Blatt der Loge zur Bruderkette von Dez.1897 (Sim. Salomon, Siegm. Salomon); Stadtarchiv Lüneburg, Meldekartei, Adressbücher 1860, 1869, 1877.
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