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Egon Jacobsohn * 1907

Colonnaden 47 (Hamburg-Mitte, Neustadt)

HIER WOHNTE
EGON JACOBSOHN
JG. 1907
DEPORTIERT 1941
ERMORDET IN
MINSK

further stumbling stones in Colonnaden 47:
Günther Ehrich, Alfred Jacobsohn

Alfred Jacobsohn, born on 20 May 1869 in Bublitz, deported from Berlin on 14 Sept. 1942 to Theresienstadt, died on 3 Mar. 1943
Egon Jacobsohn, born on 25 Nov. 1907 in Breslau, imprisoned in 1937, deported on 18 Nov. 1941 to Minsk

Colonnaden 47

Alfred Jacobsohn spent most of his life in Breslau, Silesia (today Wroclaw in Poland). Before he settled there on 1 Apr. 1899 as a self-employed dental technician, he had run a practice in Hamburg at Grossneumarkt 58 for several years. Alfred Jacobsohn was born in Bublitz (today Bobolice in Poland) as the son of the Jewish merchant Sally Jacobsohn and his wife Ernestine, née Heinsius. His brother Hugo, who died at the age of 69, was a merchant like their father and had received the first name of their grandfather, the master glazier Hugo Jacobsohn. On 30 Mar. 1903, Alfred Jacobsohn married Martha Melke, who came from a Protestant family, in Breslau. She was born on 4 Jan. 1879 in Breslau, a seamstress by profession and ran a "Plissee-Brennerei” (a pressing operation to produce pleated fabrics). Their son Martin had already been born on 19 Dec. 1901. Georg followed on 25 Aug. 1903, son Egon on 25 Nov. 1907, and Horst on 24 Oct. 1918. Although their mother had converted to the Jewish faith at the time of the marriage, the brothers attended the Catholic boys’ school in their hometown. Martha Jacobsohn died on 8 Nov. 1920, when the youngest son was just two years old.

Alfred Jacobsohn entered into another marriage, which was later divorced. His second wife was Alma Mandowski, Jewish and born on 7 May 1880 in Klein Zabrze/Hindenburg O.S. in Upper Silesia (today Zabrze in Poland). Alma Jacobsohn died on 20 Oct. 1938 in a Jewish "nursing home” in Breslau.

Alfred Jacobsohn had to give up his practice at Schuhbrücke 17 at the beginning of 1931. Due to new regulations, only state-certified dental technicians were allowed to practice. Since he saw no future for himself in Breslau, he moved with his youngest son Horst to stay with his married son Martin Melke who lived in Bremerhaven at Rampenstrasse 40. After the death of his mother, Martin had adopted her birth name of Melke and went to sea as a steward between Bremen and New York.

In the hope of finding a job again more quickly as a 60-year-old, Alfred Jacobsohn moved with Horst to Hamburg after a short time. The city was home to his son Georg, who earned his living as a pianist. Alfred and Horst Jacobsohn moved into a room in the apartment of Georg’s bride Anna Gustmann at Colonnaden 47, but Alfred Jacobsohn found no employment in Hamburg either. In June 1931, he applied for welfare assistance. Horst finished school in Hamburg and began an apprenticeship as a radio technician in Jan. 1933 in the "Radiohaus Nordmark,” located at Alter Steinweg 46. However, he was already dismissed that August because of his Jewish descent. Afterward, he attended a technical school for radio technicians for one year and worked until Feb. 1937 at the "Radiohaus Carl Kessler” at Grosse Allee 33 in Hamburg-St. Georg. Because Jews in Germany were no longer allowed to practice technical professions, however, Horst was unable to take his exam and he went to the Netherlands accompanied by his girlfriend Vera Kotzleva (born in 1916 in Moscow). During a check by the Dutch police, he was arrested and on 1 Mar. 1937 expelled to Germany as a Jewish emigrant and handed over to the Gestapo. Although Horst made assurances that he only wished to take his exam and had not intended to emigrate illegally, he remained in custody in Emmerich. On 10 Apr. 1937, he was transferred to the Dachau concentration camp, where he was assigned prisoner no. 12,037. Since the camp was overcrowded, he was transferred to the Buchenwald concentration camp in Sept. 1938. With prisoner number 1,315, he was committed to Block 10 there.

Meanwhile Alfred Jacobsohn lived as a subtenant at Rentzelstrasse 14 with Löwenthal and appealed to the foreign currency office of the Chief Finance Administrator (Oberfinanzpräsident) in an effort to arrange for the emigration of his son:
"I ask politely, if possible immediately, for a tax clearance certificate [Unbedenklichkeitsbescheinigung]. My son has been in the Dachau concentration camp since the end of Feb. 1937, and in Weimar Buchenwald, no. 1315, Block 10 since Sept. 1938. The Düsseldorf public prosecutor’s office would release him only if I sent this certificate immediately and obtained the passport.”

Horst was released on 15 Apr. 1939 and emigrated on 17 June together with his girlfriend Vera on the steamer "Saarland” via Trieste to Shanghai, because no visa was required there. The travel expenses had been paid by the Jewish Community. His older brother Martin had also left Germany in the meantime, emigrating to the USA.

The second youngest son, Egon Jacobsohn, who had trained as a waiter in Görlitz, Silesia (today Ogorzelec in Poland), had followed his family to Hamburg on 15 Aug. 1931. In the very end, he worked as a waiter in the "New China” dance hall at Grosse Freiheit 11 and as a stagehand for the Jewish Cultural Federation (Jüdischer Kulturbund). On 4 Aug. 1937, Egon was arrested in his quarters at Kleine Seilerstrasse 4 on charges of "racial defilement” ("Rassenschande”). He had been denounced, according to the investigation files: "It was found out in confidence that the Egon Jacobsohn, then residing on Colonnaden, who is apparently Jewish, had a love affair with a German-blooded woman.” The indictment reads: "The accused Jacobsohn is a Jewish crossbreed of the first degree [Mischling I Grades], but according to Sec. 2a of the Reich Citizenship Law [Reichsbürgergesetz] dated 14 Nov. 1935, he is considered a Jew, since his mother, who is of Christian origin, accepted the Mosaic faith at her marriage.” He was accused of "having sought the acquaintance of German-blooded girls in public dance venues in full awareness of the criminality of his actions, without a deeper spiritual bond, only following his drives, and of having frightened them with the demand not to say anything to anyone, in genuine Jewish manner, in order to ensure that their racially defiling activity not be discovered.”

On 19 Nov. 1937, Egon Jacobsohn was sentenced to one year and three months in prison. After having served his sentence on 4 Nov. 1938, he remained in pretrial detention, since this time, he was charged with a relationship dating from 1936 with a checkroom attendant of the "Kaffee Laage” and from 1937 with a "Tanzmädchen” ("dance girl”) in the St. Pauli quarter. While in the first trial the court still assumed a casual instance "in which the witness made things extraordinarily easy for the accused,” Egon Jacobsohn was now sentenced to three years in a penitentiary as a "habitual racial rapist” and transferred to the Bremen-Oslebshausen penitentiary on 18 Aug. 1939. Previously, he had been examined at the Fuhlsbüttel police prison for his fitness for military service. Egon Jacobsohn was in freedom only for a short time after the end of his second prison term.

He was already deported to the Minsk Ghetto on 18 Nov. 1941. His last address in Hamburg, no longer freely chosen, was Schlachterstrasse 40/42, which no longer exists today, in the "Jews’ house” ("Judenhaus”), the former Marcus-Nordheim-Stift.

Alfred Jacobsohn’s last residential address was at Rappstrasse 11, before he moved in at Nollendorferstrasse 35 in Berlin with his son Georg on 11 June 1940. Alfred Jacobsohn was deported from Berlin to Theresienstadt on 14 Sept. 1942. There he died at the age of 74 on 3 Mar. 1943.

After fleeing, Horst and Vera were ghettoized as "enemy aliens” in Shanghai by the Japanese occupying forces until 15 Aug. 1945. It was not until Apr. 1948 that both were able to leave for the USA, where Horst later called himself Jake Jacobson.

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

Stand: May 2020
© Susanne Rosendahl

Quellen: 1; 9; StaH 351-11 AfW 42090 (Jacobson, Jake); StaH 314-15 OFP, FVg 4928; StaH 213-11 Staatsanwaltschaft Landgericht –Strafsachen 00023/38; StaH 351-14 Abl. 1999/2 Arbeits- und Sozialfürsorge, Jacobsohn, Alfred; StaH 242-1 II Gefängnisverwaltung II, Abl.16, ältere Kartei der männlichen Untersuchungshaftgefangenen; StaH 218-1 Oberlandesgericht-Verwaltung, Abl. 8, 143E, L4b; Nationalarchiv in Prag/Theresienstädter Initiative, Jüdische Matriken, Todesfallanzeigen Theresienstadt (Alfred Jacobsohn).
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