Search for Names, Places and Biographies

Georg Philipp
© Privat

Georg Philipp * 1894

Bogenstraße 15 (Eimsbüttel, Eimsbüttel)

1941 Minsk
ermordet 1943

further stumbling stones in Bogenstraße 15:
Lore-Emma Philipp, Henriette Worms, Louis Worms

Georg Philipp, born 4/5/1894 in Berlin, deported to Minsk on 11/8/1941
Lore-Emma Philipp, née Wolf, born 3/7/1903 in Elberfeld (now Wuppertal), deported to Minsk on 11/8/1941

Bogenstrasse 15

On November 6th, 1941, the Jewish couple Georg and Lore Philipp and their 14-year-old son Horst received the order to "resettle” in the east. They had been living at Bogenstrasse 15 since the beginning of 1939, where they shared an apartment with the childless couple Alfred and Helene Katz, who lived in a "mixed marriage.” Alfred Katz worked as a "sportsmaster”, i.e. he took care of tennis courts, after being forced to give up his work as a salesman. The Philipps had two rooms and a kitchen. There were further Jewish tenants living in the house: the medical doctors Max Besser, Alfonso de Castro and Alfred Alexander with their families, the couple Louis Worms and Henriette, née Schürmann, and, on the ground floor, two widows, the retired schoolteacher Caroline Magnus, née Arends, and Regina Salomon, née Klein. The Bessers were served their "evacuation” order concurrently with the Philipps; they committed suicide the same day.

Georg Philipp’s parents, the merchant Bernhard Philipp and his wife Natalie, née Feld, lived in Rathenow, Brandenburg. They had three children: Gertrud, born 7/26/1897, Herta, born 8/11/1898, and Georg, born 4/5/1894. Bernhard Philipp ran a furniture store in Rathenow. Georg followed his father’s example and became a merchant. He took part in World War I and was decorated as a front fighter. Both of his sisters married Polish citizens and lived in nearby Berlin with their families.

Lore Philipp was born as Lore Emma Wolf on May 7th, 1903 in Elberfeld (now Wuppertal); her parents were the merchant Louis Wolf and his wife Rosalie, née Grünberg. She had three elder sisters, Ernestine, Dorothee, called Thea, and Margarethe, called Grete. The four girls received a solid middle-class education.

Lore Philipp’s mother Rosalie Grüneberg had already suffered an eviction. She was born on June 17th, 1868 in Enniger in Westphalia. In 1873, there was a sex killing in the village, and a Jew named Spiegel (an ancestor of Paul Spiegel, longtime chairman of the Central Council of the Jewish Communities in Germany) was blamed. Although the official investigation declared Spiegel innocent, anti-Jewish riots followed, causing the resident Jewish families to move away. Thus, Rosalie Grüneberg’s parents, the tradesman Emanuel Grüneberg and his wife Esterchen, née Mosheim, came to Gütersloh with their children Rosalie and Albert, where Rosalie married Louis Wolf on August 8th, 1890; the couple presumably settled in Elberfeld (now Wuppertal). Albert Grüneberg became a medical doctor, settled in Cologne after his studies, and started a family.

It is not known where and when Georg Philipp met Lore Wolf, who was nine years younger. They married in Cologne in 1926, one after the death of Lore’s father. Louis Wolf had died in Elberfeld and was buried at the town’s Jewish Cemetery. At Lore’s wedding, Albert Grüneberg not only substituted her father as witness to the marriage, he also paid for the ceremony. Lore Philipp moved to Rathenow to join her husband, where their son Horst was born on November 6th, 1927.

Presumably influenced by Kommerzienrat ("commercial councilor”, an honorary title) Hermann Schöndorff, member of the board of the Rudolf Karstadt AG, Georg Philipp moved to Hamburg soon after the birth of his son to assume a well-paid position in the furniture department of the large Karstadt store in Mönckebergstrasse. At first, the Philipps lived at Hansastrasse 77, but soon after moved to Borgfelde, first to Eiffestrasse 464, finally settling at the very respectable address Oben Borgfelde 27. Lore Philipp assured that Horst enjoyed unburdened years of childhood. They regularly visited Lore’s parents in Elberfeld, but there was little contact with Horst’s father’s family. The Philipps were assimilated Jews who also socialized with non-Jews. They frequented the Liberal Synagogue in Oberstrasse. The duration of their membership of Jewish Community cannot be documented exactly.

Due to the world economic crisis, Georg Philipp lost his job the latest in 1931, and was unable to find work again. Therefore, he became self-employed, delivering hot coffee, sausages and other snacks with his bicycle; this enabled him to support his family. Apparently, the Philipps later sold the study furniture, which helped assure their subsistence. In 1936, they moved to Grindelberg 33.

Horst had started school at the Talmud Thora Schule in Grindelhof in 1934 and stuck to it when it moved to Karolinenstrasse. He wasn’t comfortable at school because there were hardly subjects left that interested him after the language courses had been reduced. He loved the theater, movies and pop music. At home, there was a gramophone with a collection of about thirty records, plus his mother, who enjoyed playing the violin. By recommendation from Alfred Katz, he worked as a ball boy at the Hoheluft tennis courts to make some money for his hobbies.

Besides school, anti-Semitic experiences troubled his zest for life. A neighbor denounced his parents because Horst had worn a pair of Lederhosen, Tyrolean leather pants, which was forbidden for "non-Aryans.” His parents were summoned by the Gestapo and had to pay a fine. Horst’s anxiousness and sadness grew, but he did not feel hate.

Lore Philipp’s eldest sister Ernestine, married for the second time, lived in Berlin. Dorothee, married Frohwein, was divorced and was quartered in the mental hospital for Jewish patients in Bendorf-Sayn run by the Reich Association of Jews in Germany. Grete, married Ullmann, had emigrated to Great Britain and on to the USA with her husband Leo and their son. Georg Philipp’s sister Herta Koplowitz and her family had also left the country – Herta and her daughter Ruth lived in Spain, Herta’s son Peter in San Diego, and Georg’s niece Hannah had gone to Palestine.

Lore Philipp thought it was high time to leave Germany, but her husband refused even to consider emigration, thinking that he, a decorated soldier of World War I, was safe. Lore nonetheless wrote to her relatives in the USA, asking for an affidavit, but in vain. At the turn of the year from 1939 to 1940, Lore’s mother Rosalie from Elberfeld came to visit. She was 71 years old, widowed and ill. Rosalie Wolf died of a stroke in the Israelitic Hospital, which was then at Johnsallee 54. She was buried at the Jewish Cemetery in Ohlsdorf.

The second "evacuation” transport from Hannover Station left Hamburg for Minsk (Soviet Union) on November 8th, 1941. Upon arrival at the Minsk ghetto two days later, the deportees first had to remove the traces of the gory massacre that had preceded their arrival to make room for them. Later, Georg and Horst Philipp were assigned to work outside the ghetto. Horst worked in the woods, transporting cut trees together with other 14- to 16-year-old boys. He succeeded in making friends among predominant people, which enabled him and his parents to survive in the ghetto until 1943. Then, the boy was separated from his mother and father. Horst later learned that Lore and Georg Philipp had been shot in the course of an "operation” outside the ghetto.

As the Germans considered 16-year-old Horst Philipp fit for work in a camp, they transferred him and two of his friends to a concentration camp – the first of 14 he was to pass through, the last was Sachsenhausen. From there, he was driven on a "death march” to Neustadt near Flensburg, where the prisoners were taken aboard a ship that apparently was supposed to be sunk. However, A Swedish Red Cross nurse saved him, and he lived with her and her family for a few months. In the summer of 1945, he went to the USA, where he absolved an apprenticeship as a hairdresser, and changed his first name to Gary Harlan.

Lore Philipp’s sister Ernestine had married Willy Simonson in Berlin in 1939 – her third marriage. The couple was deported to Riga on August 15th, 1942, where they were shot immediately upon arrival two days later. At the end of April, beginning of May 1942, Lore and Ernestine’s sister Dorothee was deported from Bendorf-Sayn to the ghetto of Krasniczyn, near Lublin in Poland; the ghetto was closed on June 6th, all the inhabitants were taken to the extermination camps Sobibor, Belzec, Treblinka and Auschwitz.

Georg Philipp’ sister Gertrud, married Klesczewski, had emigrated to Poland, where she perished together with her children Hilde/Chaja and Heinz Baruch.

Lore Philipp’s uncle Albert Grüneberg and his wife Philome, who lived in Cologne, escaped the transport to Theresienstadt by fleeing from the city’s transit camp, apparently with help from non-Jewish Germans, and survived in hiding until the end of the Nazi regime.

Translated by Peter Hubschmid
Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

Stand: February 2018
© Hildegard Thevs

Quellen: 1; 4; 5; 9; Hamburger Adressbücher; Gedenkbuch; StaH, 332-5 Standesämter, 8168-18/1940; 351-11 AfW, 48905; 522-1 Jüdische Gemeinden, 992 e 2 Deportationslisten, Band 2; Werkstatt der Erinnerung, persönliche Aussagen von Gary H. Philipp; Photos aus Privatbesitz; Stadtarchiv Gütersloh; Stadtarchiv Rathenow; Stadtarchiv Wuppertal; Neue Deutsche Biographie (digital); Firmenzeitung Karstadt; mündliche Mitteilungen von Remigius von Boeselager, 4.9.2013 mit freundlichem Hinweis auf Der Spiegel 24/1984 und 38/1985.
Zur Nummerierung häufig genutzter Quellen siehe Link "Recherche und Quellen".