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Martin Posner * 1913

Wexstraße 34 (Hamburg-Mitte, Neustadt)

HIER WOHNTE
MARTIN POSNER
JG. 1913
DEPORTIERT 1941
LODZ / LITZMANNSTADT
ERMORDET 30.4.1942

further stumbling stones in Wexstraße 34:
Ernst Aron Posner, Frieda Posner

Ernst Aron Posner, born 2 Oct. 1881 in Hamburg, deported 25 Oct. 1941 to Lodz, died 29 Mar. 1942
Martin Posner, born 16 Oct. 1913 in Hamburg, deported 25 Oct. 1941 to Lodz, died 30 Apr. 1942
Frieda Posner, born 28 Apr. 1915 in Hamburg, imprisoned 1941 at Fuhlsbüttel concentration camp, 1941-1942 Ravensbrück concentration camp, killed 12 Apr. 1942 in Bernburg on the River Saale

Wexstraße 34

The living conditions of the Jewish Posner Family were not unusual for the working-class families of Gänge District I in Hamburg’s Neustadt at the time. Their father Ernst Posner, who described himself as "not religious”, had trouble feeding his large family. He was a carriage driver and became unemployed during World War I. For a time, until 1917, he was able to work as a packer at the newspaper General-Anzeiger für Hamburg-Altona. And although Ernst Posner was described as a hard-working man, he was only able to find work as an "irregular” dockworker after the war and during the years of the world economic crisis. His family lived in very humble circumstances, at times under great hardship.

Ernst Posner was born in Gänge District in an apartment in a back courtyard of 2nd Elbstraße (today Neanderstraße). His parents, the workman Joel Posner (born 10 Sept. 1834, died 11 Mar. 1891) and his second wife Fanny, née Levy (born 2 Dec. 1847), had married on 13 Dec. 1876. Following his father’s early death, his mother married a second time on 7 May 1895, this time the non-Jewish Friedrich Wilhelm Schmidtke (born 1 May 1837, died 10 Nov. 1913). The couple lived as traders at Neuen Steinweg 45. Fanny Schmidtke died penniless on 18 Mar. 1924 at the public care home on Oberaltenallee.

Ernst Posner had two siblings. His younger brother Adolf Julius Posner (see his entry) lived with his wife Rosalie, née Streim, and their children Ernst and Rudolf at Carolinenstraße 26, as of 1911 at Schlachterstraße 40/42 at the Marcus Nordheim Foundation. His older sister Bertha (born 1 Jan. 1879) had married the carriage driver Carl Ralf. Nothing more is known about her.

Ernst Posner married the widow Johanna Wolf, née Gans, on 2 Nov. 1911. They lived at ABC-Straße 32, House 1. Their daughter Ella (see Ella Feldheim) had been born two months earlier on 2 Sept. Johanna Posner came from the small Hessian town of Bebra where she was born on 27 Sept. 1873, the daughter of the tailor and temple servant Moses Gans (born 29 Aug. 1841 in Rotenburg, died 2 Oct. 1893) and Esther, née Goldschmidt (born 8 Jan. 1847 in Bebra). Her parents had wed there on 10 Dec. 1872. After moving, Johanna and her siblings grew up in Rotenburg an der Fulda.

At the age of 29, on 26 Apr. 1903, Johanna married the significantly older widower Salomon Wolf (born 27 June 1855 in Emden) in Hamburg. They had three children, Franziska (born 25 Jan. 1904), Bertha (born 1 May 1905) and Selma (born 19 Aug. 1906). Salomon Wolf was a cart seller, and when he died on 3 June 1906, Johanna was heavily pregnant with two small children and no way to provide for them. Johanna’s mother Esther Gans, herself a widow, moved from Rotenburg to Hamburg to help her daughter. Esther Gans died on 14 Mar. 1917 in her apartment at the Jewish Hertz Josef Levy Foundation at Großneumarkt 56, House A.

After marrying Ernst Posner, Johanna had two more children. Following Martin’s birth on 16 Oct. 1913 and Frieda’s on 28 Apr. 1915, there were now six children to provide for. The Posner Family lived at Valentinskamp 28, later at no. 96. From Speckstraße 50 and Rademachergang 39, they moved to the rear courtyard of Schlachterstraße 50. In 1923 they lived at the former Mauerstraße 5, across from St. Michaelis Church, until they finally moved to Wexstraße 34 early in 1934. Their "nearly dark” 3½-room, ground floor apartment was also in a rear courtyard and was accessed via the entrance at Großen Trampgang. Their elder daughters Ella Feldheim, née Posner, and her half-sisters Franziska Starken, née Wolf, and Selma Delfs, née Wolf, were already married and had set up their own households. Their third sister Bertha Wolf had died at the age of twelve on 28 Nov. 1917 at Israelite Hospital.

The younger children Martin and Frieda did not develop like other children. Since their parents could not provide for them adequately, they lived for a period in 1929 at the Israelite Orphanage and Children’s Home in Esslingen at Mülbergerstraße 146, arranged for by the authority for the public care of young people. Frieda then graduated from the Israelite Daughters’ School on Carolinenstraße and attended a continuing education school on Weidenstieg until 1933. Afterwards she would have liked to have taken a housekeeping class, but her mother Johanna, who suffered severely from heart disease, needed her at home. Frieda then worked as a maid in Grindel District. In Oct. 1936 she lost her job in a Jewish household when her employer emigrated. At first Frieda was unable to find a job, allegedly because she was too weak. She came across as much younger than she actually was since she was short for her age. After the Law for the Prevention of Progeny with Hereditary Diseases was enacted, Frieda and her brother Martin were forcibly sterilized by order of the Hereditary Health Court. A welfare office worker who asked Frieda why she had been sterilized noted in her file, "because she was behind. She could read, write and do arithmetic, she had always stayed at home helping her sick mother, [...] she could not do heavy labor.”

Frieda did, however, find two jobs in Jewish households, at Rappstraße 6 with Therese Goldschmidt (born 28 Sept. 1891, deported on 25 Oct. 1941 to Lodz) and at Beneckestraße 16 with Liebermann. Then in 1939 she had to perform "compulsory work” at a wool combing plant in Wilhelmsburg. That same year on 22 Aug., her mother Johanna passed away.

After his wife’s death, Ernst Posner gave up their apartment on Wexstraße and moved in with May as a lodger at Schmuckstraße 6. Frieda was taken in by her brother Martin, who had married in the meantime, at Wexstraße 3.

Martin Posner had begun a tailoring apprenticeship in 1926 which he was forced to stop after a year and a half because he had lost sight in his left eye due to a cataract. In the summer of 1934 Martin had to do heavy compulsory labor in Waltershof as a welfare recipient, despite being described as a young man who was not very strong. In 1935 he worked as a house servant, later as a temporary coal worker.

On 1 Apr. 1939 Martin married the domestic worker Ruth Bielschowsky (born 7 Oct. 1914). Ruth’s sister Henny Feldheim, née Bielschowsky (born 16 Apr. 1919), was the sister-in-law of Martin’s sister Ella Feldheim. Their husbands Siegfried Albert Feldheim (born 26 Sept. 1906 in Dortmund) and Bernhard Feldheim were brothers. Ruth was born in Hamburg as the illegitimate daughter of the Jewish couple Lazarus Frank and Margarethe Bielschowsky (born 28 Nov. 1884, died 4 May 1934). Until her fifth birthday, she lived with her mother who came from Ratibor in Upper Silesia (today Poland). Ruth then grew up in a Jewish orphanage. After graduating from school at Carolinenstraße and spending a year at a continuing education school, she completed a home economics apprenticeship at a "Jewish guesthouse” in the Harz Mountains. From 1932 until her wedding, Ruth worked for Jewish families in their households.

Ruth and her sister-in-law Frieda made the acquaintance of Wasili Bastijans (born 12 Sept. 1908) in June 1938 outside a movie theater on the Reeperbahn. The illegitimate son of a Greek tobacco trader and a woman from Dresden had been born in Hamburg and worked as a shipbuilding assistant for the armaments industry at the shipyard of Blohm & Voss. Disregarding the ban on marriage between Jews and non-Jews decreed by the Nuremberg Laws, Frieda and Wasili became engaged. On 17 Dec. 1940 the couple was arrested after being denounced, and Ruth too came under suspicion of "racial defilement”. Ruth was sentenced on 12 Sept. 1941 to a year in prison. Wasili received a prison sentence of three years and six months, taking into consideration time already spent in detention, which he served until 24 June 1943 at Rodgau-Dieburg Prisoner Camp in Upper Hesse. Following his prison term, Wasili was drafted into Probation Battalion 999 (BB 999) and from Heuberg military training area near Stetten he was transferred to Organization Todt in the Swabian Mountains as unfit for the front due to his overall poor state of health. He survived his work deployment in France where he did cleanup work and guarded prisoners of war.

"I had intended to marry my fiancée at the time,” wrote Wasili Bastijans in 1952 in his redress of wrongs application. "Unfortunate I was never able to because she perished at a concentration camp. I did not have a romantic relationship with my sister-in-law Ruth Posner. The conclusions in the judgment to that effect are wrong. I did not have any documents regarding my parentage and did not know whether I was Jewish, of mixed background or a so-called Aryan. Even if I had known I was an Aryan, I would have still maintained my relationship with Miss Posner.” His application to have his partnership recognized as marriage was rejected by officials in 1960.

With no legally binding conviction, Frieda Posner was released from Fuhlsbüttel Police Prison in 1941 and transferred to Ravensbrück women’s concentration camp. On 12 Apr. 1942 she was among the prisoners no longer able to work who were killed with gas at Bernburg killing center within the framework of "Special Treatment 14f13”.

The fate of her sister-in-law Ruth Posner, who was also transferred to Ravensbrück, is not known. Her name is not noted in any of the memorial books, nor is she listed in the database of victims of Ravensbrück concentration camp.

On 25 Oct. 1941 Martin Posner was deported to Lodz together with his father Ernst and the couple Henny and Siegfried Feldheim who lived at Fruchtallee 135. Ernst Posner died on 29 Mar. 1942. Martin survived his father by a month. He died on 30 Apr. 1942. The Feldheims were probably "resettled” to Chelmno (Kulmhof) extermination camp in June 1942 and killed.

The fate of Ernst Posner’s stepdaughter Franziska Starken, née Wolf, and his sister-in-law Mathilde Brüggemeyer, née Gans:

Madel Gans, called Mathilde, (born 22 Oct. 1881), followed her sister Johanna to Hamburg and married Otto Brüggemeyer (born 16 Sept. 1879 in Bornum), who was not Jewish, in 1917. The couple lived at Gustav-Adolf-Platz 123 (today Steinheimplatz) in Altona and did not have any children. Otto Brüggemeyer died of a pulmonary embolism on 8 Aug. 1925. Until 1932 Mathilde worked at the Reemtsma cigarette factory, then at other companies. In 1938 she gave up her apartment at Gustav-Adolf-Platz 123 where she had lived for many years. Whether she gave up the apartment voluntarily was not documented. Following her sister Johanna’s death, Mathilde looked after her brother-in-law Ernst Posner’s household for a brief period at Wexstraße. She then became a lodger in Altona, at Brunnenhofstraße 16. From there she moved into Louise Simon’s guesthouse (see her entry) at Peterstraße 33b, then to Wilhelminenstraße 24 (today Hein-Hoyer-Straße). In 1940 she rented a small but "nicely furnished” room from Henny Rothstein, née Grünbaum (born 1 Dec. 1872, killed 21 Sept. 1942 in Treblinka), at Reeperbahn 144 where Ernst Posner often visited his sister-in-law. Mathilde Brüggemeyer also staying in contact with her eldest niece Franziska Starken, née Wolf, Ernst Posner’s stepdaughter. Franziska had married the riveter Karl Hermann Starken (born 4 Sept. 1903), who was not Jewish, on 23 May 1931. The childless couple lived at Oelkersallee 25, Building 12, in Altona. On 30 July 1940 Franziska Starken was sentenced to a fine of 20 Reich Marks because she had failed to register the "additional name Sara” at the local civil registry office and to apply to the local police authority for issue of a "Jewish identification card”. She worked at the hemp spinning plant Steen & Co. in Lokstedt, probably as a "compulsory worker”. Her husband was drafted into the navy in Mar. 1941.

Franziska Starken and her aunt Mathilde Brüggemeyer also made the acquaintance of a young man on the Reeperbahn after seeing a movie. The young man was absent without leave from a plant essential to the war effort where he worked in Schleswig to have fun in St. Pauli, Hamburg. They invited him back to their home before going out to several bars. The machine fitter Friedrich Minauf was penniless. He knew that the women were Jewish and that they were banned from going to public establishments and movie theaters. The next morning in her aunt’s apartment, he stole 280 Reich Marks from her purse and believed she would not have the courage to report him to the police.

On 12 Apr. 1941 Friedrich Minauf was picked up in the vicinity of Torgau. Six days later, Mathilde Brüggemeyer was taken into "protective custody” for "aiding racial defilement” and was sentenced on 18 Nov. 1941 to one year in prison which she served at Fuhlsbüttel Women’s Prison. On 6 June 1942 she was transferred with the prisoner number 11549 to Ravensbrück women’s concentration camp. Mathilde Brüggemeyer was killed on 8 Oct. 1942 in Auschwitz.

Her niece Franziska Starken was transferred from Fuhlsbüttel Police Penitentiary 17 Feb. 1942 without any legally binding conviction to Ravensbrück concentration camp. Her "mixed marriage”, which might have still protected her, officially ended in divorce while she was in prison on 23 Jan. 1942. Franziska Starken was killed in Auschwitz on 14 Oct. 1942. A Stolperstein was laid for her at Oelkersallee 24.

Her sister Selma Delfs, née Wolf, who had married the non-Jewish blue-collar worker Hermann Delfs (born 26 June 1886) in 1928 and lived at Marcusstraße 11 (today Markusstraße), was the only member of her family to survive. She and her children were liberated by British troops in Hamburg as they were hiding in a bombed-out building on ABC-Straße.

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

Stand: May 2020
© Susanne Rosendahl

Quellen: 1; 4; 9; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 2008 u 4647/1881; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 2077 u 1908/1884; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 294 u 596/1891; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 3002 u 454/1903; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 14228 u 271/1904; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 572 u 370/1906; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 3173 u 645/1911; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 767 u 316/1917; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 772 u 1020/1917; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 7042 u 339/1924; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 5360 u 970/1925; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 13684 u 433/1931; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 994 u 179/1932; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 13846 u 838/1932; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 1024 u 205/1934; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 1105 u 315/1939; StaH 351-11 AfW 31198 (Delfs, Selma); StaH 351-11 AfW 32870 (Bastijans, Wasili); StaH 351-11 AfW 25761 (Posner, Ottilie); StaH 351-14 Arbeits- und Sozialfürsorge 1707 (Posner, Ernst); StaH 351-14 Arbeits- und Sozialfürsorge 1708; StaH 351-14 Arbeits- und Sozialfürsorge 1004 (Brüggemeyer, Mathilde); StaH 213-11 Staatsanwaltschaft Landgericht 4996/40; StaH 213-11 Staatsanwaltschaft Landgericht 8329/41; StaH 213-11 Staatsanwaltschaft Landgericht 2295/42; StaH 332-4_646 (Anerkennung freier Ehen rassisch und politisch Verfolgter; Schindler-Saefkow/Schnell: Gedenkbuch, S. 490; Auskunft aus der Mahn- und Gedenkstätte Ravensbrück, von Monika Schnell, E-Mail vom 11.6.2014; Opfer des NS-Regimes – Angenrods letzte Israeliten, Mitteilungen des Oberhessischen Geschichtsvereins Gießen, http://www.ohg-giessen.de/mohg/95_2010/13-stahl-opfer-out.pdf (Zugriff 16.2.2014); http://stevemorse.org/dachau/dachau.html (Zugriff 10.12.2014); www.ancestry.de (Sterberegister Moses Gans, Zugriff 16.4.2017).
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