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Ruth Warneck
© Yad Vashem

Ruth Warneck * 1920

Rutschbahn 15 (Eimsbüttel, Rotherbaum)

HIER WOHNTE
RUTH WARNECK
JG 1920
DEPORTIERT 1941
RIGA
1944 STUTTHOF
ERMORDET

further stumbling stones in Rutschbahn 15:
Jacob Blankenstein, Sophie Blankenstein, Heinz Heymann, Elisabeth Silbiger, Hermann Silbiger, Frieda Warneck

Frieda Warneck, née Jacob, born on 4 Aug. 1884, deported on 6 Dec. 1941 to Riga-Jungfernhof, murdered there
Ruth Warneck, born on 5 Oct. 1920, deported on 6 Dec. 1941 to Riga-Jungfernhof, murdered in the Stutthof concentration camp

Rutschbahn 15 Eimsbüttel

"Please forgive me for bothering you again in writing with my urgent plea. I know that you are very busy, so it is doubly difficult for me to turn to you again with the request to intercede on my behalf. Sincerely, Frieda Warneck,” wrote the latter to the Hamburg Welfare Office in 1936.

Who was Frieda Warneck? She was born as the second of eight children of the Jewish couple Aron Jacob and his wife Hannchen, née Salomon, in Hamburg on 4 Aug. 1884. Her father Aron was the son of a cap maker from Lissa in the Province of Posen (today Leszno in Poland), who had settled in Hamburg-Neustadt at Grossneumarkt 32. On 16 Feb. 1883, the newspaper publisher Aron Jacob (born on 16 Feb. 1857) and Hannchen Salomon (born on 26 Dec. 1855) had married in Hamburg.

Hannchen Jacob, born in Schleswig, had moved with her widowed mother, Rosa Salomon, née Abraham, to Peterstrasse 63 in Hamburg. (Aron Jacob died on 10 July 1919; Hannchen Jacob on 3 Aug. 1940. Both were buried in the Ohlsdorf Jewish Cemetery on Ilandkoppel).

We know nothing about the childhood of Frieda Jacob. What we do know is that she never received any training. The documents show that later she worked quite often as an embroiderer.

On 30 May 1919, Frieda Jacob and non-Jewish Adolf Warneck got married at Registry Office 3 in Hamburg.

Adolf Warneck had been born on 14 Apr. 1887 in Huchenfeld near Pforzheim as the child of the master goldsmith Wilhelm Adolf Warneck and Christine, née Morlock. His mother died when he was four years old.
The fact that Adolf Warneck had grown up without a mother often led to problems in his marriage to Frieda later on. Frieda said that Adolf had attachment problems, which were the trigger for her subsequent separation from Adolf.

Adolf Warneck had moved from Berlin to Hamburg in 1919 and had become self-employed as a jeweler. He traded in gold and gemstones, initially at ABC-Strasse 6/Hamburg-Neustadt, then at Gerhofstrasse 2–4/Hamburg-Neustadt, and later at Hohe Bleichen 38. However, he did not earn a regular income based on his self-employment.

On 5 Oct. 1920, the Warneck couple’s only child, daughter Ruth, was born in Hamburg. From 1922 to 1932, the family lived in a ground-floor apartment at Rutschbahn 26. This five-and-a-half-room home was located in the Rotherbaum quarter. Frieda Warneck secured a secondary income by renting out rooms, thus contributing to the family’s livelihood as well. She rented out four rooms and advertised them in the newspapers.

However, the secondary income was irregular, because often the tenants did not pay when they themselves were destitute, and when she took in family members, they did not pay regular rent. This kept their incomes low. Since the tenants were often in arrears, Frieda Warneck in turn was unable to pay her rent to the caretaker and had to turn to the welfare office for assistance. From there, she usually received negative notices and repeatedly appealed against them.

In 1929, the Warneck family was already several months behind with the rent, and they were threatened with a lawsuit for eviction. Court costs, lawyer’s fees, and rent added up to outstanding debts of 750 RM. At this point, the welfare office questioned the profitability of the five-and-a-half-room apartment and demanded that Warnecks look for a cheaper home.

However, a change of accommodation was out of the question for Ms. Warneck. She wanted to keep the apartment. With financial support from her family and friends, they were able to pay their outstanding debts and thus barely avert the loss of the apartment.

In the meantime, however, the marriage had fallen apart. On 18 Feb. 1932, the Warneck couple divorced. After the separation, mother and daughter continued to live at Rutschbahn 26.

Ruth was a delicate and sickly child with a heart defect, who suffered from anemia. She, like her mother, was dependent on regular heart medication. In Nov. 1931, Ruth contracted scrofula, an infectious disease of the lymph nodes. She could no longer be cured of the skin tuberculosis, as it was also called. Because of her illness, she was prescribed a stay at a health spa in Bad Nauheim in the summer of 1932, during which time she fell ill with severe pneumonia. The stay was therefore extended by one month.

On 1 Apr. 1933, mother and daughter moved to Rutschbahn 15, into a one-and-a-half-bedroom apartment. Frieda Warneck also rented out one room there in order to secure at least a small amount of money toward their living. She continued to be dependent on additional support from the welfare office.

Until 1936, she still received alimony for Ruth from her divorced husband. Then he stopped the payments. He had given up his jewelry store, at the time located at Hohe Bleichen 38 in Hamburg-Neustadt, and moved back to his old hometown, Pforzheim, on 1 Sept. 1938.

At the age of eight, Ruth had been enrolled in the Jewish girls’ school, which she attended until 1938. In 1936, the welfare office suspended payments for school attendance because Ruth’s period of compulsory education had ended. Those in charge at the office recommended that Frieda Warneck turn to the Jewish Community. The latter then covered the costs for the last two years of school.

On 4 Sept. 1936, Frieda Warneck was ordered to do "compulsory labor” ("Pflichtarbeit”) in return for the welfare assistance. She was assigned to a sewing shop for three days a week. Because of her heart and eye problems, she felt overstrained by this work, and even getting there was too difficult for her. She would then often call in sick and present medical certificates to that effect. In response, the welfare office refused to support her. The medical examiner by the name of Schlüns, whom she had to see, declared her fit for work. Frieda Warneck filed an appeal, but it was rejected.

On 12 Apr. 1939, Ruth Warneck began an apprenticeship as a domestic worker at the girls’ orphanage of the Paulinentift, a charitable foundation located at Laufgraben 37. She was not paid for her work. The girls’ orphanage insisted that she profess the Jewish faith. Since her father was not Jewish, the Nazis classified Ruth Warneck as a "half-Jewess” ("Halbjüdin”) but because she attended a Jewish school and joined the Jewish Community, she was not treated as "half-Jewish” but instead as a "Jewess by definition” ("Geltungsjüdin”). This meant that she was subject to all anti-Jewish measures.

Beginning on 8 Apr. 1940, Ruth Warneck worked as a domestic worker in a Jewish residential home at Hochallee 66. The plan was that she would go to Britain or Sweden for a period to expand her knowledge after her training. However, this did not happen.

On 30 Apr. 1939, a number of buildings in Jewish ownership were declared "Jews’ houses” ("Judenhäuser”), including the house at Rutschbahn 15. Frieda Warneck had to reduce the amount of living space in her apartment to a minimum.

Because of the cramped living conditions, Ruth moved in with Frieda’s sister Martha and her husband Adolf Cohn at nearby Rappstrasse 24.
At this time, she had to work as a care nurse in the "infirmary” ("Siechenheim”) at Schäferkampsallee 29, for which she received board and 5 RM (reichsmark) in allowance.

Frieda and Ruth Warneck were deported to the Jungfernhof subcamp of the Riga Ghetto on 6 Dec. 1941. When and how Frieda Warneck perished there is not known.

Most inmates of the camp who had survived the hunger and cold during the winter of 1941/42 were murdered in the course of a mass shooting ("Aktion Dünamünde”) in Mar. 1942. Ruth Warneck was one of the few people capable of work that were spared the mass shooting and committed to the Riga Ghetto.

From there, she was transferred to the Stutthof concentration camp on 1 Oct. 1944, where all traces of her disappear.

The following details are known about the fate of Frieda Warneck’s siblings:
John Jacob (born on 3 Aug. 1885) died in Hamburg on 6 Apr. 1886.

Seraphine Jacob (born on 18 Apr. 1887) died on 18 July 1887 in Hamburg.

Leopold Friedrich Jacob (born on 18 Dec. 1893) was killed in Russia on 9 Nov. 1916, during World War I. An inscription on the memorial to the victims of the world wars buried in the Memorial Grove (Ehrenhain) commemorates him.

Delfred Jacob (born on 29 Apr. 1883) and his wife Jenny (born on 3 Sept. 1886) were deported to the "Litzmannstadt”/Lodz Ghetto and murdered there. The Stolpersteine for them are located at Pilatuspool 15. See www.stolpersteine-hamburg.de

Martha Jacob (born on 3 May 1888) married Adolf Cohn on 25 Oct. 1936. She committed suicide on 15 Dec. 1941, and Adolf Cohn was deported to Auschwitz on 5 May 1943. The Stolpersteine are located at Rappstrasse 24. See www.stolpersteine-hamburg.de

Zerline Jacob (born on 16 Aug. 1889) and her husband Hermann Peritz (born on 16 Sept. 1882) were deported to the Minsk Ghetto. The Stolpersteine are located at Wandsbeker Chaussee 104. See www.stolpersteine-hamburg.de

Anna Sekkel, née Jacob (born on 10 Feb. 1891), was deported to Riga Jungfernhof and murdered there. The Stolperstein to commemorate her is at Rappstrasse 2. See www.stolpersteine-hamburg.de

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

Stand: December 2020
© Bärbel Klein

Quellen: 1; 2; 4; 5; 8; StaH 213-13_13965; 213-13_14661; 213-13_25396; 214-1_203; 351-11_14363; 351-11_34951; 351-11_39751; 351-11_44595; 351-11_45670; 351-11_7643; 351-11_47894; 351-14_1041; 351-14_1321; 351-14_1807; 351-14_1959; 351-14_1974; 332-5_1012/1881; 332-5_114/1883; 332-5_2077/1883; 332-5_3664/1884; 332-5_4281/1885; 332-5_4438/1886; 332-5_2009/1887; 332-5_2255/1887; 332-5_2231/1888; 332-5_3886/1888; 332-5_754/1891; 332-5_4719/1893; 332-5_3487/1889; 332-5_3296/1890; 332-5_51/1903; 332-5_245/1913; 332-5_677/1913; 332-5_255/1916; 332-5_288/1916; 332-5_778/1916; 332-5_2136; 332-5_759/1918; 332-5_240/1919; 332-5_475/1919; 332-5_1029/1921; 332-5_576/1929; 332-5_607/1936; 332-5_213/1937; 332-5_406/1940; 332-5_445/1941; 331-5_3 Akte 1945/1941; 522-1_1066; Stadtarchiv Gudensberg Nr. 52/1886; ITS Archives Bad Arolsen Digital Archive Korrespondenzakte 1.2.4.1 / 7105 Archivnummer [12650952] Einsicht am 9.3.2017; ITS Archives Bad Arolsen Digital Archive Korrespondenzakte 1.2.4.1 / 7105 Archivnummer [99094924] Einsicht am 9.3.2017; www.Ancestry.de; www.wikipedea.de.
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