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Johanna Keibel * 1891

Grindelallee 62 (Eimsbüttel, Rotherbaum)

HIER WOHNTE
JOHANNA KEIBEL
JG. 1891
DEPORTIERT 1941
MINSK
ERMORDET

further stumbling stones in Grindelallee 62:
Rosa Keibel, David Zinkower, Rosa Zinkower, Herbert Zinkower

Rosa Keibel, née Heine, born on 20 Mar. 1865 in Strelitz, deported on 18 Nov. 1941 to Minsk
Johanna Keibel, born on 9 May 1891 in Rostock, deported on 18 Nov. 1941 to Minsk

Grindelallee 62

The Jewish merchant Ernst Nissan Keibel moved to Hamburg with his family in 1897. Nissan/Nishan Keibel, born on 19 Nov. 1854 in Wilhelmsburg in Ückermünde (Western Pomerania), later changed his first name to Ernst. In 1890, he had married Rosa, née Heine, born on 20 Mar. 1865 in Strelitz, and lived with his family in Rostock until moving to Hamburg. Johanna, the first of their three children, was born there on 9 May 1891. One year later, Erwin followed (on 11 June 1892) and finally, Elsa on 16 Apr. 1894.

After the family moved in 1897, Ernst Nissan ran a cigar wholesale business from his apartment in the St. Georg quarter and later in the Uhlenhorst quarter, got a partner to join the company, and had it entered in the company register. In 1912, he relocated with his family and his business to Grindelallee 62 and, together with his son Erwin, founded a business for tailoring supplies that was also registered under commercial law. On 6 July 1914, he joined the German-Israelitic Community. During the war years, business went very badly, so Erwin was not able to pay his dues to the Community. By the end of the inflation period in 1923, he had succeeded in almost completely paying off the accumulated tax debt.

The two daughters, Johanna and Elsa Keibel, became teachers. Elsa entered into a "mixed marriage” ("Mischehe”) on 15 July 1920. She retired from the teaching profession in 1924 when married teachers were dismissed due to the general economic situation. Her husband, the widower Heinrich Kittler (1889–1976), who was also a teacher trained for the eight-grade elementary school (Volksschule), described himself as having no religion (religionslos). Gerda, the daughter born on 19 August 1921, resulted from the marriage. The Kittler family survived the Nazi regime. Elsa died in Hamburg on 30 Nov. 1970.

Johanna remained unmarried and taught at the Berliner Tor 27 state-operated school until her dismissal in 1933 based on the "Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service” ("Gesetz zur Wiederherstellung des Berufsbeamtentums”). She then taught at the Talmud Tora School until her deportation on 18 Nov. 1941.

Son Erwin Keibel married Erna Silberberg, a native of Hamburg, on 4 May 1920.

Erna Silberberg’s parents, the "agent” (commercial representative) Hermann Silberberg, born on 22 Oct. 1872 in Hoerde/Westphalia, and Ida, née Magnus, born on 17 Mar. 1874 in Uelzen, had married on 23 August 1894 in Wandsbek. Their son Siegfried was born there on 14 June 1895, and subsequently, they moved to a rented apartment at Steindamm 25 in Hamburg’s St. Georg quarter, where Erna was born on 23 July 1896. (A second daughter was erroneously noted on the Jewish religious tax [Kultussteuer] file card of the widowed Ida Silberberg, but that person is her daughter-in-law Gertrud, née Kaufmann, born on 21 May 1898). After six months, Ernas’s father departed Hamburg for Dortmund, returning in 1897 for another month and then leaving again, this time for Hoerde.

Thus, Siegfried and Erna Silberberg grew up without their father. When Erna married, he lived in Berlin and worked as an accountant. Hermann Silberberg died on 11 Oct. 1925 in Berlin-Neukölln. While Erna remained in Hamburg, her brother Siegfried and his wife Gertrud Silberberg moved to Berlin in 1932. Their only child, Vera, had died just one day after her birth on 22 May 1930. On 24 Feb. 1942, the Silberbergs adopted five-year-old Peter Binner (born on 3 June 1936 in Berlin). Their last place of residence was Rosenstrasse 14 in the district of Berlin Mitte.

After his marriage, Erwin Keibel joined the Jewish Community as the head of the household and, like his father, paid regular contributions until 1923. In 1928, father and son parted ways as business partners. Erwin Keibel moved with his wife Erna and their two daughters Liselotte, born on 23 Mar. 1921, and Ruth, born on 29 Mar. 1924, to Marienthaler Strasse 145 in Hamburg-Hamm.

Erna Keibel gave birth to their son Hans, a late arrival, on 7 July 1933. In the same year, Erwin Keibel opened a company for the production of linen at Kantstrasse 36 in the Eilbek quarter.

Johanna Keibel stayed with her parents Ernst and Rosa. Together they moved to Groothoffgasse 3 in the Winterhude quarter, where Ernst Keibel continued to trade in textile goods.

Liselotte Keibel apparently planned to emigrate to Palestine and prepared herself for this by completing an apprenticeship as a gardener. From 27 Feb. 1936 to 27 Jan. 1938, she worked in Hessisch Oldendorf near Hameln, for 20 RM (reichsmark) a month as well as free room and board. Meanwhile, in 1937 her relatives moved again, her grandparents and Johanna to Hansastrasse 64, her parents with Ruth and Hans to a basement apartment at Durchschnitt 8. There, they operated a sewing room with which they achieved only a modest unsteady income below the tax threshold.

Erna Keibel was temporarily imprisoned in 1938 in the Fuhlsbüttel concentration camp, presumably in connection with the November Pogrom during the night of 9/10 November. Liselotte then made efforts with her sister Ruth toward emigrating to the Netherlands. She completed the relevant questionnaire in Dec. 1938. Since she was not yet of age, her parents signed the papers. In the summer of 1939, she stated Britain as her new emigration destination, more precisely Edinburgh/Scotland, without naming Ruth as a fellow traveler. On 10 August, she had gathered all of the necessary certificates and on 25 Aug. 1939, she applied for the moving goods she wished to take along. The Relief Organization of Jews (Jüdischer Hilfsverein) supported her in purchasing two suitcases and outerwear. Her list of moving goods consisted of three pages, mainly detailing dowry linen, which she had received as engagement gifts in 1939. When she completed the lists on 2 Sept. 1939, the war had begun, and on 7 September, "Will not be emigrating for the time being (war)” was entered in her file, and on 5 Feb. 1940: "All tax clearance certificates [Unbedenklichkeitsbescheinigungen] must be resubmitted in the event of emigration.” It did not come to that anymore. On 24 Nov. 1939, Liselotte Keibel married the 21-year-old painter Kurt Joseph Schmul, whose emigration plan had also failed.

Kurt Schmul was born on 17 Jan. 1918 in Berlin as the illegitimate son of Gertrud Schmul. His father Max Schulz was not Jewish, but Kurt Schmul was treated as a "Jew by definition” ("Geltungsjude”) because he was brought up in the Jewish faith. For the first three grades, he attended a general eight-grade elementary school (Volksschule), finishing his school years at the boarding school of a Jewish Orphanage. He stayed there until the age of 15 because he could not find an apprenticeship in his desired trade of carpenter. Kurt came to stay with his father in Hamburg, who lived in Eilbek at Jungmannstrasse 21. He began an apprenticeship as a painter with the Ivan Levy Company located at Kippingstrasse 25 in Eimsbüttel, which he successfully completed in 1936. During his apprenticeship, he moved once again to Eilbek, to Auenstrasse 9a as a subtenant of Wulfken, and then relocated to the Grindel quarter. In 1937, he first moved to Dillstrasse 20, and, after two further moves, as a subtenant of Cossloff to Dillstrasse 16.

In 1936, Kurt Schmul, by then a painter, earned a taxable income. He worked as a painter’s assistant for various companies, until he was imprisoned in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp and then in the Fuhlsbüttel concentration camp in connection with the November Pogrom of 1938. Soon after his release, he was again placed as a painter’s assistant by the employment office. At the same time, he undertook efforts toward emigrating to Shanghai with the support of the Relief Organization of Jews. In Mar. 1939, he had gathered the necessary tax clearance certificates, but found no passage to Shanghai. His file closes with an entry on 8 Sept. 1939 stating "emigration indefinite.” Like Liselotte Keibel, the beginning of the war thwarted his emigration.

When Liselotte Keibel and Kurt Schmul had married, she moved in with him at Dillstrasse 16, also as a subtenant of Cossloff. She was gainfully employed and had health insurance with the local statutory health insurance company (AOK).

Nissan/Ernst Keibel died on 19 Feb. 1940. His widow, Rosa Keibel, over 85 years old, was immediately transferred with her daughter Johanna to the Samuel-Levy-Stift at Bundesstrasse 35, which had meanwhile become a "Jews’ house” ("Judenhaus”).

Berl Schmul was born on 5 Apr. 1941. His parents chose this name from the list of Jewish names prescribed by the Reich Minister of the Interior in 1938. Kurt Schmul was meanwhile employed by the Wilhelm Baastrup company, located at Rutschbahn 5, as a painter’s assistant, earning a weekly wage of 33 to 35 RM. On 12 Aug. 1941, he was summoned to the Gestapo. He had omitted the compulsory name of "Israel” when re-registering with the "Hammonia” health insurance company, assuming that this was only necessary in dealings with government authorities. Kurt Schmul was arrested and taken to the Fuhlsbüttel police prison, as the concentration camp was now called, but released on the same day. His employer had made representations to Willibald Schallert, who was responsible for the deployment of Jews at the employment office, and had asked for a replacement for the imprisoned painter’s assistant. However, since none was available, Schallert demanded Kurt Schmul’s release from prison because the work in question, relating to new submarines, was extremely urgent. The company was in great difficulty, "especially since a detachment of French painter’s assistants had just been pulled out of the company these days.” Company owner Baastrup described Kurt Schmul as a hard-working, willing worker who had never given cause for complaint. "After a serious reprimand,” Gestapo Kriminaloberassistent [approx. equivalent to detective technical sergeant] Götze approved Kurt Schmul’s release, which took place at 2 p.m. On 4 Sept. 1941, an order of punishment was issued for his offense, which became final two weeks later: Kurt Schmul was sentenced to a fine of 35 RM and payment of the procedural costs amounting to 2.50 RM. With a weekly income of 35 RM and without any reserves, he found himself unable to pay the fine in one sum. His application for payment in installments of 3 RM per week was approved, and following an installment of 6 RM on 27 Oct.1941, he had paid off 21 RM overall. At the beginning of Nov. 1941 he, his wife Liselotte and their son Berl, Rosa Keibel and her daughter Johanna, Erwin and Erna Keibel with their children Ruth and Hans and Ida Silberberg received the "resettlement” ("Aussiedlung”) order, Erwin Keibel on 8 November, the other family members on 18 November. Erna Keibel’s occupation was indicated as "seamstress,” her husband Erwin’s as a "linen cutter” and their daughter Ruth’s as "gardener.” Erwin Keibel, like many other men, was deported to the Minsk Ghetto ten days before the other members of his family. Erna Keibel wrote her sister-in-law Elsa Kittler a letter on the way:

"Schneidemühl, 19 Nov. 1941
My dear Else,
That is how far we are now, 23 hours on the road in frantically shaking old Czech railcars, without water pipes, totally dirty, a little foretaste. Since we are ten people per compartment (passenger train, of course), sleep is out of the question, and this will be the third night. Yet still the mood is not bad, we do not let it get us down. We are on good terms with our railcar representative, having worked together for the previous transports. Children under six years of age are accommodated with their families in special cars equipped with small hammocks. The escorting unit (Landespolizei [translator’s note: the state police forces in Germany, by then absorbed into the Ordnungspolizei, the centralized uniformed police force]) is not as grim as it first appeared with rifles at the ready. The train engineer is also good, but the further you go east, the more you notice the increasing anti-Semitism at the stations.

The Community has organized everything fabulously; as an example, I would just like to tell you that the financing of the last transport comprised of 1,000 men cost 70,000 marks. The trip will take five days, very pleasant, especially as Ruthi and I do not have a permanent seat and camp with our luggage in the aisle. Moreover, washing is a luxury due to the lack of water, which we are allowed haul to the cars at some stations.

Mama fell down the stairs in the Masonic lodge when she wanted to go to the bathroom at night. The doctor found that there was no concussion or fracture, but the forehead and especially the eye sockets and eyelids are completely bruised and bloodshot, as if painted with copy ink; it looks gruesome. Under the load of my monster of a backpack, I broke down and cried already in Hamburg. If only we will get picked up in M.! Otherwise, I am going to have to throw away half of it. I hope our men can pick us up. Well, it is going to be okay. Only I am so horrified of the nights.

If possible, I will write you another letter. This will probably be the last one for now.”

Whether it remained the last one is not known.

As the Minsk chronicler Heinz Rosenberg reported, the German occupiers had "cleared” the ghetto of local Jews immediately before, so that the new arrivals first had to remove the bloody traces of this operation. The family probably lived together again until they were extinguished one person after the other by disease, emaciation, the cold, and the "selections.”

Siegfried and Gertrud Silberberg, together with their adopted son Peter, were deported from Berlin to the Auschwitz extermination camp on 12 Mar. 1943 and murdered there.

On 5 Dec. 1941, a letter from the District Court (Amtsgericht) addressed to Kurt Schmul – without the additional name of Israel – arrived at Dillstrasse 16I, Hamburg 13. It was returned as undeliverable. This letter contained a summons to begin serving, "after you have been found to be unseizable, instead of the fine of 14 reichsmark imposed on you by the executable order of punishment issued by the District Court dated 4 Sept. 1941, the alternatively determined prison sentence of three days.”

On 15 Jan. 1942, the residents’ registration office sent the District Court a message to the effect that "Schm. has been resettled with his family to Minsk as of 18 Nov. 1942.” The case was filed with the note "Zur Verjährung nach zwei Jahren” ("subject to the statute of limitations after two years”) and considered as settled effective 22 Jan. 1944.

The Stolpersteine for Erna Keibel, Erwin, Ruth, and Hans Keibel, as well as the stumbling blocks for Kurt, Liselotte, and Berl Schmul, are located at Marienthalerstrasse 145.

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

© Hildegard Thevs, Eva Acker, Ergänzungen von Petra Schmolinske

Quellen: 1; 2; 4; 5; 8; 9; StaH 213-1 Oberlandesgericht 0701/44; StaH 314-15 Oberfinanzamt FVg 5732 u. FVg 7925; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 2395 u. 1776/1896; 8168 u. 118/1940; 8741 u. 260/1920; StaH 332-8 Meldewesen K 6357, 6983; StaH 351-11 Amt für Wiedergutmachung 16420; StaH 361-3 Schulwesen – Personalakten A 1253; Archiv FZH, 6262; StaH 522-1, Jüdische Gemeinden 992 e 2 Bde. 2 u. 3; Friedhof Hamburg-Ohlsdorf Bestattungsregister; Deportationsliste Berlin – Auschwitz 12. März 1943 digitalisiert unter www.statistik-des-holocaust.de; Rosenberg: Jahre; Randt: Talmud-Tora-Schule.
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