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Susanne Silber
© Kirchengemeinde Eben-Ezer, Hamburg-Eppendorf

Susanne Gertrud Silber * 1874

Eppendorfer Landstraße 33 (Hamburg-Nord, Eppendorf)

HIER WOHNTE
SUSANNE GERTRUD
SILBER
JG. 1874
DEPORTIERT 1942
THERESIENSTADT
1944 AUSCHWITZ
ERMORDET

Susanne Gertrud Silber, born on 29 Oct. 1874 in Berlin, deported on 15 July 1942 to Theresienstadt, deported further on 15 May 1944 to Auschwitz

Eppendorfer Landstrasse 33

Susanne Silber’s grandfather, Fabian Silber, born in 1806 in Märkisch Friedland (today Miroslawiec in Poland), was an outstanding artist and lithographer in Berlin. In the work entitled Die Judenbürgerbücher der Stadt Berlin ("The Jewish Citizens’ Books of the City of Berlin”), his professional career is described: From 1839 until 1840, he was writing master at the boys’ school of the Berlin Jewish Community. He became court lithographer, academic artist, and owner of a lithographic institute as well as a stone printing, copperplate printing, and zincographic printing company, a seal engraving operation, as well as a commercial writing academy. According to his great-grandson, one of the works published by him on lithography and graphic arts is apparently even among the holdings of the New York Public Library. Fabian Silber passed his artistic abilities on to at least two of his grandsons, Johannes and Paul, the brothers of Susanne.

Fabian Silber was a practicing Jew. His son August Friedrich, Susanne’s father, lived in just as secular a way as did probably her mother, Elise Heymann-Silber, who was a native of Königsberg (today Kaliningrad in Russia). For several years, the family lived in the USA, where they had emigrated with their children, three at that time, the oldest son Johannes, Susanne, called "Maus” ("Mouse”), as well as their younger brother Eugene. In Hoboken, New Jersey, another daughter was born, Margret. In 1881, Elise Heymann-Silber, pregnant with her son Paul, returned with the four small children but without her husband to Berlin. In order to support her children, she took in subtenants. The house was apparently located in a sought-after residential area, within eyeshot of the imperial residence. Nothing is known about Susanne’s childhood and schooldays. As a grown-up woman, she spoke fluent English, suggesting a secondary education.

Her brother Johannes, who also called himself Hans Friedrich, born in 1873, became a sculptor and subsequently moved to Hamburg. There he successfully operated a company producing decorative sculptures, which were very popular in the Wilhelmine period. Apparently, his contracts included appointing German ocean liners. Johannes, who had never married, joined the Jewish Community in 1919. He bought the house at Eppendorfer Landstrasse 33, where Susanne lived. This address, however, is indicated on this Jewish religious tax (Kultussteuer) file card only as a "board address” ("Kostadresse”). The card lists as "apartment” the address at "Eilbekthal 54.” Therefore, it seems as if he received board from Susanne. Perhaps she also did his accounting, for the deportation list specifies "accountant” as her occupation. In her nephew’s recollection, Susanne worked also as a sales assistant, possibly in a department store or a women’s clothing shop. In 1922, Johannes died of cancer, and soon afterward, Susanne also lost her mother. Brother Paul had gone to Hamburg as well after his training. Like his brother Johannes, he was also a sculptor and went to the USA in 1902 to help work on the constructing and furnishing the German pavilion at the World Exhibition in St. Louis.

In 1930, Susanne visited his family in Texas. One of her nephews remembered her as a woman with a pretty, wide face, a very warm-hearted and friendly person in her own ways. In many respects, she had apparently been like a grandmother and very kind.

After her return to Hamburg, the family stayed in contact by mail. Susanne wrote to her brother in German and to the nephews on their birthdays in "fairly good” (according to John Silber) English. Until the outbreak of World War II, she sent Christmas presents to Texas and in turn received homemade cake (with white icing and coconut flakes, as the nephew recalls) as well as food items such as coffee, tea, and chocolate. Expensive in Germany, these were sealed in aluminum or tin containers and shipped to her in Hamburg.

From 1934 onward, Susanne Silber was a member of the United Methodist Church (evangelisch-methodistische Kirche) parish in Eppendorf. We do not know when she first sought contact to this congregation. Bremen-based Pastor Voigt, who does research on the history of "Jews” in Methodist church congregations, conjectured in his address marking the laying of the Stolperstein initiated by the parish in Sept. 2006 that "Perhaps she went to the parish rooms on Abendrothsweg because they bore the hopeful Jewish name EBEN-EZER – stone of help. What kind of hopes did she move within her heart? Here, she heard a different message than that one could read on an election poster of the Nazis: ‘Our last hope: Hitler!’”

In Apr. 1933, Susanne Silber was accepted into the church "on a trial basis.” This possibility was stipulated according to the church constitution in effect at the time for "all persons expressing desire to lead a pious life … Susanne Silber was ... assigned to …. a small group. She sewed clothing for the "Young Girls” ("Jungmädel,” a branch of the Hitler Youth including girls aged 10 to 14), triangular scarves and white blouses that were part of the outfit. She also took on teaching one class at Sunday school.

At this time, she was entered in the Hamburg directory as residing on the third floor of the house at Eppendorfer Landstrasse 33 as the homeowner, with her own telephone and the additional information referring to "arts and crafts.” Regardless of whether she produced arts and crafts objects herself or sold them – she must have had an eye for things beautiful. In this respect, probably her grandfather’s heritage came through.

On 18 May 1934, Susanne Silber was baptized, at her own request with only a few people attending, something that was probably prohibited already by then. Four years later – in 1938 – she stopped working at the Sunday school. Supposedly, the pastor at the time demanded that she withdraw from the parish – possibly a defensive lie on his part vis-à-vis the Gestapo, for according to the church constitution "no Methodist pastor has the right … to exclude a parishioner from parish life.” The new pastor, taking up his office in 1939, resumed the pastoral visits in her home. She also participated in church services again, though trying to avoid attracting any attention. Mrs. Lein, in those days a young girl sitting in her spot on the opposite side of the gallery, commented on this: "Frau Silber – called Susi Silber – would always arrive last for the church service. At the end, she left first, even during the closing song. She covered up her Jews’ star with her purse.”

Despite these precautionary measures, the Gestapo learned "that a Jewess had become known as a keen visitor of the parish.” Susanne Silber was interrogated on the matter. By the spring of 1942 at the latest, the Gestapo wanted to examine the membership lists of the church, which the pastor refused. For a whole year, letters went back and forth between the pastor, the superintendent, the bishop, and the Reich Church Office (Reichskirchenamt). By the time the authorities lost interest in pursuing the matter any further, Susanne Silber had already been deported. She had withdrawn from parish life long before that.

For quite some time, her brother Paul had urged her in letters to relocate and join him in the USA, and she had applied for a visa. In fact, she did get one in 1939, almost at the same time as her sister Margaret, who – because she was born in the USA – held US citizenship. Susanne Silber passed her visa on to her nephew Werner Appelbaum, Margaret’s son, enabling the two to reach the USA aboard the "Bremen” on the ship’s last crossing shortly before the outbreak of war. Nephew Werner described his aunt in 1960 as a "highly competent, hard-working woman full of empathy and energy. She was a very pleasant person one liked to have around, someone who encouraged others and saw the positive throughout.” Her other nephew suspects that this attitude, characteristic of her, contributed to the fact that she was unable to assess the situation in Germany properly.

In 1940, she had to sell her house. According to the 1941 phone directory, she continued to live on the third floor, though by then without a phone and a business. The ground floor was now occupied by the Nazi Women’s League (NS-Frauenschaft), the "German Labor Front,” the National Socialist local group Eppendorf-West, as well as the National Socialist People’s Welfare authority (Nationalsozialistische Volkswohlfahrt – NSV). Just how might Susanne Silber have felt with such neighbors in the house? In Jan. 1941, she moved to Eichenstrasse 14 as a subtenant, living there only "in a room” ("auf Zimmer”), as Mrs. Lein put it. Probably by this time, she had already entrusted parts of her furnishings as well as her personal effects to friends and acquaintances. Some of her Nativity figures continued to be located at the Diakoniewerk Bethanien, a branch of the Protestant social welfare network, as late as the end of the 1990s. After contact was established to her nephew, Professor John Silber, the figures were sent to him in the USA.

The "house registration” card file (Hauskartei) for Eichenstrasse indicates under the heading "note” the following: "Use for air defense.” Did Susanne Silber perhaps have to keep fire watch during air raids? One year later, in Mar. 1942, she was forced to change her abode one more time. She moved to a "Jews’ house” ("Judenhaus”). The last residential address entered before the deportation is Agathenstrasse 3. A member of her church congregation apparently stood by her side during the last night, four months later, and accompanied her to the assembly point.


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

Stand: January 2019
© Sabine Brunotte

Quellen: 1, 4; StaH 522-1 Jüd. Gemeinden, 992e2 Band 6; AB 1931, 1941; StaH 332-8 Meldewesen, A 51/1 (Susanne Silber); Auskünfte Prof. John Silber, E-Mails vom 1.6.2009 und 18.6.2010; Die Judenbürgerbücher der Stadt Berlin 1809–1851 von Jacob Jacobson 1962 in: http:/books.google.de/books, Zugriff 13.5.2010; Gespräch mit Frau Lein, Eben-Ezer-Gemeinde, am 12.1.2008; Eben-Ezer-Kirche 100 Jahre Bezirk Hamburg-Eppendorf, Geschichte in Bildern 1897–1997; Eben-Ezer-Kirche, Evangelisch-methodistische Kirche Hamburg-Eppendorf, Gemeindebrief Oktober-November 2006; Auszug aus der Ansprache von Pastor Karl Heinz Voigt (Bremen) am 10. September 2006 anlässlich der Verlegung des Stolpersteins.
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