Search for Names, Places and Biographies

John Feldmann * 1883

Grindelhof 89 Haus Nr. 7 (Eimsbüttel, Rotherbaum)

1944 Theresienstadt
1944 Auschwitz ermordet

further stumbling stones in Grindelhof 89 Haus Nr. 7:
Rebecka Feldmann, Egon Feldmann, Leonie Hartogsohn, Kurt Jacob Hartogsohn, Jenny Moczydlower, Salomon Moczydlower, Ronald Leonhard Moczydlower

John Feldmann, b. 1.14.1883 in Hamburg, fled on 5.1.1933 to the Netherlands, interned at Westerbork on 11.3.1941, deported on 1.18.1944 to Theresienstadt, and deported from there on 5.16.1944 to Auschwitz, murdered
Rebecca Feldmann, née Nathan, b. 6.21.1885 in Hamburg, fled on 5.1.1933 to the Netherlands, interned at Westerbork on 3.1.1941, deported on 1.18.1944 to Theresienstadt, and deported from there on 5.16.1944 to Auschwitz, murdered
Egon Feldmann, b. 7.21.1914 in Hamburg, fled to the Netherlands, deported in 1941 to Mauthausen, murdered

Leonie Hartogsohn, née Feldmann, b. 5.30.1913 in Hamburg, fled on 5.1.1933 to the Netherlands, deported to Auschwitz in 1942, murdered
Kurt Jakob Hartogsohn, b. 6.12.1913 in Emden, fled to the Netherlands on 9.3.1935, deported to the Buchenwald concentration camp, deported from there on 2.28.1941 to the Mauthausen concentration camp, murdered there on 1.16.1942

Jenny Moczydlower, née Feldmann, b. 8.19.1914 in Hamburg, fled on 5.1.1933 to the Netherlands, interned at Westerbork in 1942, deported from there to Auschwitz, murdered
Salomon Moczydlower, b. 7.20.1910 in Offenbach am Main, fled to the Netherlands, interned at Westerbork, deported from there to Auschwitz in 1942, murdered
Ronald Leonhard Moczydlower, b. 6.3.1938 in the Netherlands, deported to Auschwitz in 1942, murdered

Grindelhof 89, House 7

John Feldmann was the son of the master painter Theodor Feldmann. He attended the Talmud Torah School. Around 1900, his studies took him to Heidelberg. What subjects he studied and whether he graduated is not revealed in the sources. He later settled in Bielefeld, learned the furrier’s trade, and specialized in furs and hats. In 1906 he established the Hansa Hat Factory in Hamburg and operated it for around twenty years.

On 3 October 1907 in Hamburg, he married Rebecca Nathan, the daughter of the engraver H. H. Nathan and his wife Helene, née Israel. They had five children: Helene (b. 27 July 1908), Egon, Röschen, who was later called Rosa or Rose (b. 13 July 1910), Leoni and Jenny. By 1918 at the latest, the family lived in a basement apartment at Dillstrasse 21 in the Grindel quarter. (The house still stands today, although the basement apartment has sunk somewhat, so that it now has large windows. In addition it has its own entryway from the street.)

In 1925, the Feldmann family moved to Grindelhof 89. It is in front of this house that their commemorative stones lie. The front building was destroyed in the war, however the attached terrace house, no. 7, in which their apartment was situated, still stands. The apartment had four rooms and was about 860 sq. ft. in size.

In 1932, the family moved to Eimsbüttel, in a ground floor apartment at Gneisenaustrasse 26 (the house is no longer standing, but the surviving neighboring house at 28 gives an idea of what it must have looked like. It was a slotted building with narrow windows.)

The Feldmann family belonged to the Jewish Congregation. In 1930, John Feldmann’s Communal Religion Tax amounted to RM 9; in the following three years prior to his flight, he was assessed but payment was suspended.

From 1926, John Feldmann was wholly devoted to politics. He worked as a freelance publicity manager for Social Democratic newspapers in Hamburg and Bremen, among others, including the Social Democratic "Echo.” In 1930 as well as 1932, he worked in Lübeck.

From 26 June 1928 to 15 January 1931, he was placed in custody. The grounds for this cannot be determined because no documentation has survived.

In Dresden in 1933, John Feldmann directed his last publicity campaign. Because of it, on 20 January 1933, he was thrown out the second story window of the town hall by Nazis. Seriously injured, he spent almost two months in a Dresden hospital and then returned to Hamburg in April 1933.

On 30 April 1933, John Feldmann, his wife Rebecca, and their two daughters, Jenny and Leonie, left Hamburg, taking flight to the Netherlands. Their entire household furnishings, including the furniture, and a great part of their clothing was left behind. They said farewell to their daughter Helene and her future husband Andre M. Caiado at the Hamburg Main Railroad Station. When, on the next day, Helene went to the Gneisenaustrasse apartment in order to retrieve a few of her parents’ things, she found the apartment door sealed and SA guards posted at the front of the house. Instinctively, Helene walked past, giving no sign of who she was. Subsequently, her neighbor reported that two days later the SA had cleaned out the apartment. Helene and her siblings therefore could not rescue anything from their parents’ place.

In an announcement of 2 December 1937, the German Reich revoked the citizenship of John and Rebecca Feldmann.

In Amsterdam, John Feldmann lived until 6 March 1941 at Krome Mijdrechstraat 16 II. His wife Rebecca moved into Peperstraat 16 II. The two daughters were also registered under their own addresses. Whether Rebecca and John already lived separately in Hamburg, as an entry in the Communal Religion Tax record indicates, or, as the eldest daughter Helene stated after the war, they had always lived together, is no longer possible to clarify. The registration data from the Netherlands is, however, unambiguous. On 16 April 1935, Rebecca gave notice of departure in Amsterdam, in order to visit her daughter Röschen in Hamburg, who lived at Grindelberg 70, with Meyer. On 4 May 1935, she returned to Amsterdam and her apartment on Peperstraat, where she lived until 6 March 1941. Where she moved to after this date is unclear. Her last address before incarceration at Westerbork was Valkenburgerstraat 102.

John Feldmann was arrested on 3 November 1941 and sent to the "transit camp” Westerbork, where he remained until his deportation to the Theresienstadt ghetto on 18 January 1944. On 16 May 1944, he was deported from there to the concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz where he was murdered.

Rebecca Feldmann was interned at Westerbork on 6 October 1942. She, like her husband John, was deported to the Theresienstadt ghetto on 18 January 1944 and then deported again on 16 May 1944 to Auschwitz, where she was murdered.

The Feldmann children moved frequently during the 1930s. Most lived as sub-lessees.

Egon was the only son of John and Rebecca Feldmann. After leaving the parental home on Gneisenaustrasse, he lived as a sub-lessee with Cantzler at Hallerstrasse 2, fifth floor. He belonged to the Jewish Congregation as of 16 May 1924. He worked as a traveling salesman. In early July 1933, he also emigrated to Amsterdam. From 5 July 1933 until 10 August 1938, he lived at Peperstraat 15 I, a neighbor to his mother. On 11 May 1938 in Amsterdam, he married Frieda Julie Franke, b. 16 May 1909 in Gräben, Brandenburg. Her parents were Otto Franke and Emilie, née Beier. Frieda was an office worker. Frieda and Egon Feldmann lived together at Valkenburgerstraat 102, with Egon’s mother Rebecca. On 9 July 1939, their son Heinz Kart Theodor was born. As of 2 May 1942, all Jews in the Netherlands had to wear the "Jewish star.”

Egon Feldmann was deported to the Mauthausen concentration camp on 16 December 1941 and murdered there. Frieda Feldmann and her son Karl Theodor survived and emigrated to the USA. After the war, she lived at 90 Pinehurst Avenue in New York City.

Leonie Feldmann was the family’s fourth child. She learned to become a bookkeeper. She emigrated with her parents to the Netherlands on 30 April 1933. From 21 June until 10 July 1933, she lived near the Snoekgesgracht district of Amsterdam. In July 1935, Leonie visited her sister Rose on Grindelberg street in Hamburg and took a position there. In that period, she also paid the Religion Communal Tax. In April 1936, she returned to Amsterdam. On 1 May 1936, she again gave notice of departure from Amsterdam in order to travel to Rotterdam. Via Haarlem, she returned on 25 July 1936. From 25 July 1936 until 14 November 1940 she was registered at Peperstraat 15 I, where her brother Egon also lived. Leonie Feldmann married Kurt Jakob Hartogsohn in Amsterdam. He had been born in Emden, East Frisia and had also fled to the Netherlands, where he lived since 3 September 1935. The couple moved to Krome Mijdrechtstraat 16 II. Leonie Hartogsohn was deported to Auschwitz on 21 July 1942 and murdered. Her husband Kurt Hartogsohn was sent on 28 February 1941 to the Buchenwald concentration camp and then to the Mauthausen concentration camp, where he was murdered on 16 January 1942.

Jenny Feldmann was the family’s youngest daughter and had trained to be a sales person. According to her sister Helene, she fled with her parents to Amsterdam on 30 April 1933. She registered there on 22 June 1933 and lived until 6 October 1933 at Koveniersburgwal 59 I. From 16 August until 27 October 1934, she visited Hamburg where she worked and also paid the Communal Religion Tax. She moved several times and lived, among other places, with her brother Egon with Cantzler at Hallerstrasse 2, with her sister Helene for four weeks at Grindelberg 5, with Schwartz, and finally at Rappstrasse 13, with Klösel. On 27 October 1934, Leonie returned to Amsterdam. From 8 January 1935 until 14 August 1936, she lived at Peperstraat 15 I with her brother and sister, Egon and Leonie. She married Salomon Moczydlower, who was born on 20 July 1910 in Offenbach am Main, Hesse. Salomon had also emigrated to the Netherlands. The Moczydlower couple also lived at Valkenburgerstraat 102 I with Jenny’s mother Rebecca. On 3 June 1938, their son Ronald Leonhard was born in Amsterdam. In 1942, the Moczydlower family was interned at Westerbork and, on 17 July 1942, deported to Auschwitz. Jenny and Salomon Moczydlower were murdered on 18 October 1942, as was their four-year old son Ronald.

Helene Feldmann was the oldest daughter of Rebecca and John Feldmann, born on 21 July 1908. She attended the Israelite Girls School on Karolinenstrasse from 1914 to 1926. After her schooling she worked as an office clerk for Elektronikbedarf, L.L.C, at Jungfernstieg 8. From 1932, she was assessed for the Communal Religion Tax. She lived at first at Hallerstrasse 2. On 22 December 1936, she moved to Altona at Nachtigallenstrasse 28, where she was a sub-lessee of her later husband, Andre Caiado. The two married on 19 August 1939 at the Feldstrasse registry office. Andre Caiado was Portuguese, born in Faro on 5 February 1893, and a Catholic. He ran a firm dealing in canned fish. Before her marriage, Helene once again visited her parents in the Netherlands. On 1 September 1939, she left Hamburg together with her husband on the last Portuguese steamer, "Gonzalo Velho.” The two could carry only a little cash with them. But because their common household goods in Hamburg were in Andre’s name, it was possible for him, through the Portuguese Consulate in Hamburg to send them out to a friend living in Belgium. From there, the furniture and objects of value succeeded in getting to Portugal. The pair settled in Faro. Prior to his emigration, Andre Caiado had sold his firm in Hamburg. Members of the Fish Industry Professional Association had suggested to him that he separate from the Jewess Helene Feldmann, otherwise he would no longer be able to do business. In Portugal he struggled with the fact that he could not conduct business with customers in Germany because he was married to a German Jew. On the other hand, potential English customers rejected his business because he was considered pro-German and had a German wife. In the following year, both sold a considerable portion of their household in the struggle to make ends meet. Helene Caiado died on 18 September 1964.

Röschen Feldmann, born in Hamburg on 13 July 1910, was the second oldest daughter of Rebecca and John Feldmann. She trained as a clerk and was employed, among other places, by a firm at Rutschbahn 5. After the National Socialist takeover, she fled to Czechoslovakia. In the summer of 1934, she returned to Hamburg. Since 17 September 1934, she worked as a salesperson at the Vorwerk Company and sold vacuum cleaners. There she got to know her future husband, Hans de Beer. Röschen was an autonomous member of the Jewish Congregation. She was assessed in 1934, but did not have to pay the Communal Religion Tax. That changed in the following years, until 1937. Until her marriage, Röschen was a sub-lessee with Schwartz at Grindelberg 5 and with Kösel at Rappstrasse 13. Afterwards, she lived at Grindelberg 70, with Meyer. On 24 November 1935, Röschen Feldmann married Hans de Beer, who came from Beuthen, Upper Silesia, having been born there on 26 January 1899. His mother was Emilie de Beer, née Lange. His father Leopold worked in Beuthen as the chief cantor. Hans moved to Hamburg in 1935 and was also a sales representative for vacuum cleaners at the Vorwerk Company. On 1 September 1937, Röschen and Hans de Beer’s daughter Sylvia was born in the Altona Israelite Hospital, but she died four days later.

In September 1938, due to pressure exerted by the German Labor Front, Hans and Röschen de Beer were fired from their company and thereby became jobless. They already had applied for a visa for the USA. Because the granting of it was delayed, they decided to flee to the Netherlands to Röschen’s family. However, the border of the Netherlands was closed to German refugees as of 15 December 1938, and thus the couple was turned away three times, because they lacked an entrance visa. On 9 December 1938, they illegally crossed over, with the aid of a smuggler, at Dinxperlo, a place on the border between the Netherlands and the present-day North Rhine Westphalia. Egon, Röschen’s brother, paid the smuggler 500 Dutch Gulden. In Amsterdam, they were in the refugee camp Zeeburgerdijk 321, where in 1940 there son Leopold was born. Finally, they received the visa to the USA. On 8 March 1940, the three-member family de Beer left the Netherlands, sailing to New York on the SS "Pennland.”

Translator: Richard Levy
Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

© Peter Steckhan

Quellen: 1; 2; 5; StaH 351-11 Amt für Wiedergutmachung 6578, 8236, W210709, R160509, 22524, 34740, 15911 u. 130719; StaH 213–13 Landgericht Hamburg Z28 280.
Zur Nummerierung häufig genutzter Quellen siehe Link "Recherche und Quellen".