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Albert Josephi * 1883

Grindelallee 6 (Eimsbüttel, Rotherbaum)

1941 Minsk

further stumbling stones in Grindelallee 6:
Minna Gottschalk, Maximilian Gumpel, Edith Horwitz, Dr. Leonhard Lazarus, Hedwig Lazarus, Laura Mosbach, Johanna Rosenberg

Albert Josephi, born on 11 Dec. 1883, deported to Minsk on 8 Nov. 1941

Albert Josephi was born on 11 Dec. 1883 as the son of Meta and Siegmond Josephi in Hamburg. As an adult, he married Julie Meyer of the same age, leading a childless marriage with her that ended in divorce on 16 Nov. 1937. This also explains why after moving four times, he lived as a subtenant of Edith Horwitz at Grindelallee 6.

Originally, he had earned his livelihood with street trading, but he was registered as unemployed since 1927. As an unemployed, unmarried man and Jewish on top of that, the only means to make ends meet at this time was probably to rent a room as a subtenant. In 1934, Albert Josephi paid his Jewish religious tax (Kultussteuer) to the Jewish Community in Hamburg for the last time. Prior to that, however, he had not been able to pay it either except for the year 1923.

Starting in Sept. 1941, Albert Josephi had to wear the so-called "Jews’ star” sewn clearly visible to his clothes. On 8 Nov. 1941, he was deported to Minsk. The journey to the ghetto there took two days. It was the first deportation train from the German Reich to Minsk.

Prior to that, approx. 12,000 of the previous Belarusian-Jewish occupants of the ghetto had been murdered to "make room” for the expected German-Jewish deportees. Thus, like the other new arrivals, Albert Josephi was initially confronted with the shock of a blood-soaked ghetto in which they were now supposed to live.

According to reports by contemporary witnesses, the Hamburg residents arriving together in Minsk viewed themselves as a group living together in the "Red House” and organizing their lives jointly. This sense of togetherness apparently continued to last until the very end. If Albert Josephi did not fall victim to the strains, epidemics, and frequent shootings in the camp, it is very likely that he was shot during the massacre on 8 May 1943 or suffocated in a gas van. Officially, he has been considered missing since the end of the war.

His niece, Fanny Spiegel, submitted a Page of Testimony (Gedenkblatt) for him at Yad Vashem.

Translator: Erwin Fink

Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

Stand: October 2016
© Melanie Hermann

Quellen: Staatsarchiv Hamburg, 522-1 Jüdische Gemeinden, 992b, Kultussteuerkartei der Deutsch-Israelitischen Gemeinde Hamburgs; Beate Meyer: Die Verfolgung und Ermordung der Hamburger Juden 1933-1945. Geschichte. Zeugnis. Erinnerung. Hamburg 2007; Yad Vashem, Central Database of Shoa Victim’s Names.