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Siegmund Schenk * 1872

Hasselbrookstraße 154 (Wandsbek, Eilbek)

HIER WOHNTE
SIEGMUND SCHENK
JG. 1872
DEPORTIERT 1941
ERMORDET IN
MINSK

further stumbling stones in Hasselbrookstraße 154:
Siegmund Fiebelmann, Ruth Fiebelmann, Dan Fiebelmann, Clara Schenk

Siegmund Schenk, born 8 Nov. 1872 in Marienburg, West Prussia, deported 18 Nov. 1941 to Minsk
Clara Schenk, née Katzenstein, born 21 July 1882 in Wetzlar, deported 18 Nov. 1941 to Minsk

Hasselbrookstraße 154

Siegmund Schenk went to school in Marienburg and finished his education there at the high school for business. Following a brief stay in Emden, he completed commercial training in Hamburg. In 1900 at the age of 28, he opened a men’s clothing store in Hamburg Altstadt at Kattrepel 23 which he temporarily had to move to the nearby Niedernstraße when the building was demolished.

Siegmund Schenk was already well established in Hamburg when he married the ten-year-younger teacher’s daughter Clara Katzenstein from Wetzlar in Central Hesse. They wed in Berlin in Sept. 1911. Both were of the Jewish faith. The address book from 1913 already listed Siegmund Schenk’s residential address at Hasselbrookstraße 154 in Eilbek. The Schenk Family lived there for nearly thirty years.

Their first daughter Betty was born on 26 Aug. 1912, their second daughter Margot on 2 Apr. 1914. The children enjoyed a sheltered childhood. Every year the family undertook summer trips. Both daughters attended high school and received solid vocational training. Betty completed a seamstress apprenticeship at the company Hirsch & Cie., Margot became an office clerk at the same company. Hirsch & Cie. was a Belgian clothing company. It became known through the fashion of the Belle Epoque and maintained branches in Amsterdam, Cologne, Dresden and Hamburg in addition to the main store in Brussels.

The Schenk Family lived in very good financial circumstances. Their home at Hasselbrookstraße had 5 rooms, including a dining room and a library, and was well furnished with, among other things, a lavish library and a Bechstein grand piano. The family employed a maid and a nanny. Siegmund Schenk’s clothing story provided them with their affluent lifestyle. Their daughter Betty’s redress of wrongs application shows that Siegmund Schenk’s business even prospered during the 1920s and early 1930s. He had two employees. His financial situation made it possible for Siegmund Schenk to support the two orphans of his brother Sally and his sister-in-law Sara who lived in Hamburg. He took Meta, born on 11 Aug. 1898, and Max Schenk, born on 11 June 1901, into his family’s home at Hasselbrookstraße 154.

There is no record explaining Siegmund Schenk’s motives for moving his commercial activities to Hammerbrook in 1932. The 1933 Hamburg address book lists his business address at Banksstraße 38, its purpose noted as "workers’ apparel”. Like all Jewish stores, the Schenk Clothing Store was also boycotted from the start of 1933. His sales collapsed. Apparently Siegmund Schenk tried to side-step the anti-Jewish boycott measures by finding a niche in workmen’s clothing. During the first two months of 1933, he sold goods on commission in Wandsbek. His revenues were so low that he was not able to pay his rent. From mid Mar. 1933 he continually drew welfare support.

During that time, Siegmund Schenk was already in poor health. He suffered from cardiac insufficiency and was not able to work from Mar. to the end of 1933. Again and again he made attempts to earn a living for himself until 1938. For instance in early July 1935 he again started a clothing store, but he had to give it up after two months, having earned a profit of 4.22 RM. The retailer chamber at the time, an advocacy group set up by law in 1904 to lobby for the retail sector, evidently did not want a competitor to be successful. It turned to the welfare office to lobby against his business and wrote: "Further support through public funds should […] be made dependent on his giving up his store. The present communication is confidential; we request, in particular, that this communication not be made known to the person in need.”

Siegmund Schenk was unemployed from spring 1936 to Mar. 1937. The welfare office informed him that he was not allowed to re-start his business selling used clothing because it would be futile and he would be forced to forego welfare support. Nevertheless, Siegmund Schenk once again started to sell used men’s clothing on 1 June 1937 which he kept going until 1938-39. However he was unable to earn any significant amount of income.

The businesses of Jewish used-goods sellers were systematically obstructed by "Aryan” competitors. In an undated letter received on 24 Jan. 1938 by the welfare office, the "Trade Group of Retailers, Used-Goods Sellers’ Partnership of Convenience” sent "a list of used-goods sellers” with the following request:

"I thank you in advance with the expectation that the welfare office will draw on the Aryan used-goods sellers more than ever before to provide the needy with used clothes, etc., signed Heil Hitler Frau Martha Menger."

Attached was a list of 21 "non-Aryan" used-goods stores in Hamburg and Altona, which included the name of Siegmund Schenk.

As of 1938-39, Siegmund Schenk no longer worked. As a welfare recipient, he was obligated to do support work as of 3 July 1939, according to the redress of wrongs file in Moorredder. That likely refers to the street Moorredder in Hamburg-Volksdorf. It was there that Jewish support workers were deployed in 1939 to set up a shooting range. As early as 1935 the Hamburg Department of Public Welfare had set up special support jobs for Jewish welfare recipients to separate them from the other people in need.

Like all Jews, Clara and Siegmund Schenk had to surrender jewelry and other valuables in 1938.

Their daughter Betty became unemployed on 1 Jan. 1939, her sister Margot a little later. It was then, at the latest, that the family began discussing their future in Germany. Their daughters Betty and Margot were determined to leave the country. Apparently their parents could not bring themselves to do the same. There is no evidence that the parents made any preparations to emigrate. It is not known whether it had to do with Jewish men and women assessing their situation in Germany differently or whether the parents’ advanced age was the decisive factor. Betty and Margot left Germany on 3 June 1939 for Bolivia. At the time they were 25 and 27 years old. Siegmund’s niece Meta and nephew Max emigrated with them.

Clara and Siegmund Schenk’s income was so low that they had to live off the sale of their furniture following their daughters’ emigration. Ten days after his 69th birthday, Siegmund Schenk and his wife Clara were deported on a transport train with a total of 407 Jewish women and men from Hamburg to the Minsk Ghetto on 18 Nov. 1941.

Their daughter Betty reported in her redress of wrongs proceedings that she learned from neighbors in the building at Hasselbrookstraße 154 that her parents were forced to leave their apartment there in 1941 and deported to Minsk. "We never heard from our parents again."

Clara and Siegmund Schenk were declared dead as of 8 May 1945.


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

Stand: January 2019
© Ingo Wille

Quellen: 1; 4; 5; 8; 9; AB; StaH 351-10 I Sozialbehörde I WA 10.18; 351-11 Amt für Wiedergutmachung 1999, 5865; 522-1 Jüdische Gemeinden 992 e 2 Deportationslisten; Lohalm, Uwe, Völkische Wohlfahrtsdiktatur, S. 401ff.; http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hirsch_%26_Cie (Zugriff am 17.8.2013).
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