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Erich Borchardt
© Yad Vashem

Erich Borchardt * 1899

Hochallee 123 (Eimsbüttel, Harvestehude)

1941 Minsk

further stumbling stones in Hochallee 123:
Caroline Borchardt

Erich Borchardt, born on 18 Nov. 1899 in Oschersleben, deported to Minsk on 8 Nov. 1941

Hochallee 123

Erich Borchardt was born on 18 Nov. 1899 in Oschersleben in the Harz Mountains. His parents were the master butcher Louis Borchardt (1854–1919 or 1922) and Hedwig Borchardt, née Löwenthal. The father owned his own butcher’s shop in Oschersleben. Erich Borchardt completed school in Oschersleben up to the age of 14 and then trained as a butcher in his father’s business. After his journeyman’s examination, he worked temporarily in Frankfurt/Main and Hamburg as a butcher. As late as 1918, he was drafted for war and then returned to his father’s business. When his father passed away, he was still too inexperienced to take over the butcher’s shop and so the business was leased out.

His brother Paul Borchardt, six years older and also a butcher, married Alida Stern (born on 21 Nov. 1890) in 1923 and moved to join his wife in Balduinstein (about 10 kilometers [just over 6 miles] southwest of Limburg on the Lahn River/Rhineland-Palatinate), where their son was born in 1925.

Erich Borchardt moved to Hamburg and worked in the 1920s at the Gebr. [Bros.] David & A. Silberberg meat, sausage, and vegetable canning plant (Grindelallee 170) and at the Willy Oppenheimer meat and sausage plant (Grindelberg 82). According to Erich Borchardt’s membership card with the Jewish Community of Hamburg, which was on file since 1928, his job title was "salaried employee/butcher.” As of 1931, he no longer paid any Jewish religious taxes (Kultussteuer), possibly he had become unemployed due to the economic crisis and (like so many others) could no longer find work.

The Nazi policy of exclusion toward Jews made employment with non-Jewish companies almost impossible, and the companies in Jewish ownership had to struggle with boycotts, impediments, and stigmatization of their businesses. For the years 1935 and 1936, the Jewish Community noted "unemployed” on Erich Borchardt’s Jewish religious tax file card. From 1939 on, he was also called upon by the Nazi state to do so-called "compulsory work,” so henceforth the card file included the entry of "excavator” under occupation. According to his siblings, Erich Borchardt did not wish to leave Germany.

He married Caroline Grossmann (born on 5 June 1905 in Hamburg) on 26 May 1940, and the couple had no children.

His residential addresses in Hamburg were Lehmweg 2 with "Miss” M. Rohde in Eppendorf from 1928 to1936; Rutschbahn 31 with cigar dealer Albert Levisohn (born on 17 Mar. 1891 in Hamburg) from 1936 to 1938; Eschenstieg 3 with Olga Rosenthal (born on 8 Oct. 1878 in Goch) from 1 Sept. 1938; Rappstrasse 15 with porcelain art dealer Gustav Ross Sr.; and Rappstrasse 15 with Benno Stein (born on 24 May 1891 in Hamburg) and Käthe Stein, née zur Nedden (born on 20 Mar. 1885 in Hamburg); as well as Grindelberg 40(?) with Post. The last residential address in Hamburg starting on 6 Oct. 1941 was Hochallee 123 with Hugo Bernhard (born on 23 June 1866 in Tessin/Mecklenburg).

Erich and Caroline Borchardt were deported to the Minsk Ghetto on 8 Nov. 1941. Since the exact date of Erich Borchardt’s death could not be determined, he was later declared dead by the district court (Amtsgericht) on 8 May 1945.

Stolpersteine in front of the house at Hochallee 123 commemorate the Borchardt couple.
Stolpersteine were laid at Gluckstrasse 22 for the landlord Albert Levisohn and his family.

Four siblings of Erich Borchardt survived the Holocaust because they were able to leave Nazi Germany in time:
Paul Borchardt (1893–1969) emigrated with his wife and son via England to the USA in 1937. Rosa Borchardt (1897–1972), married name Grootkerk, had already moved to Java in 1925.
Henny Borchardt, married name Bernheim (1902–1995), emigrated to the USA in 1938, where she married in 1947.
Hildegard Borchardt, married name Mayer (born in 1907), emigrated to Brazil in 1938.

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

Stand: December 2020
© Björn Eggert

Quellen: Staatsarchiv Hamburg (StaH) 351-11 (Amt für Wiedergutmachung), 22316 (Erich Borchardt); StaH 522-1 (Jüdische Gemeinden), 992b (Kultussteuerkartei der Deutsch-Israelitischen Gemeinde Hamburg), Erich Borchardt, Caroline Borchardt geb. Grossmann; Hamburger Adressbuch 1930, 1937, 1939; www.tracingthepast.org (Volkszählung Mai 1939), Erich Borchardt; www.ancestry.de (Paul Borchardt: Passagierliste der SS Washington, Ankunft in New York 5.2.1937, Einbürgerungsaufzeichnung mit Passfoto 5.10.1937); https://www.myheritage.com/FP/genealogy-search-ppc.php?lang=DE&type=&action=person&siteId=224678941&indId=1514152&origin=profile (zu Paul Borchardt, eingesehen 5.12.2017).