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Egon Samuel Kargauer * 1914

Breite Straße / Pepermöhlenweg (vormals Breite Straße 11) (Altona, Altona-Altstadt)

HIER WOHNTE
EGON SAMUEL KARGAUER
JG. 1914
DEPORTIERT 1941
LODZ
ERMORDET 1942 IN
CHELMNO

further stumbling stones in Breite Straße / Pepermöhlenweg (vormals Breite Straße 11):
Regina Kargauer, Judis Kargauer, Denny Kargauer

Denny Kargauer, born 7 Dec. 1940, deported 25 Oct. 1941 to Lodz, where he died 19 Jan. 1942
Egon Samuel Kargauer, born 9 Oct. 1914, repeatedly detained, deported 5 Oct. 1941 to Lodz, killed at Chelmno extermination camp 10 May 1942
Judis (Judith) Kargauer, born 4 Nov. 1939 in Hamburg, deported 25 Oct. 1941 to Lodz, killed at Chelmno extermination camp 10 May 1942
Regina Kargauer, née Finkelstein, born 5 Feb. 1915 in Altona, deported 25 Oct. 1941 to Lodz, where she died 18 Feb. 1942

Breite Straße/Ecke Pepermölenbek (Breitestraße 11)

Twelve members of the Jewish Kargauer Family were included in the "transport lists of Hamburg’s deported Jews, transported to Litzmannstadt (Lodz) on 25 Oct. 1941”. The widow Cäcilie Kargauer, 54 years old at the time of her deportation, and her seven children, some adult, and their families were given the "order to evacuate” on the first mass transport of Hamburg’s Jews to the Lodz Ghetto in German-occupied Poland. They included her eldest daughter Carmen Liebenthal, née Kargauer, and her husband Alfons and their children Fränzel and Salo, her son Egon with his wife Regina and their children Judis and Denny, her son Heinz who had been detained at the Fuhlsbüttel concentration camp in 1938 and his wife Gisela with their sons Gerd and Norbert and their daughters Ruth and Tessa. Tessa, Cäcilie Kargauer’s youngest daughter, was twelve years old and a student at the Israelite Girls’ School on Karolinenstraße. Apart from the couple Heinz and Gisela Kargauer who had lived on Heinrich Barth Straße in Eimsbüttel and Carmen Liebenthal’s family who lived at Rappstraße 7 in Eimsbüttel, Rotherbaum, all of the Kargauers last lived in the Altona "Jewish house” at Breite Straße 11. None of the family survived. The merchant Bernhard Kargauer and his wife Cäcilie, née Vogel, lived at Eckernförderstraße 57 in St. Pauli (today Simon von Utrecht Straße) after their wedding. Around 1910 they moved to Gärtnerstraße 24 and during the 1920s they lived at Bundespassage 6. Their seven children were born between 1911 and 1929. Their eldest son Egon Samuel Kargauer was born on 9 Oct. 1914. He later became a salesman in the textile industry and was employed by various companies. He still lived with his parents who by then lived at Grindelallee 168. On 6 Nov. 1936 he was arrested and held at Hostenglacis remand prison; he had been reported for "racial defilement”. Since 1935, the Nuremberg Laws made extramarital relationships between Jewish and non-Jewish partners punishable by a prison sentence. Those laws called informers to action. Many exposed lovers to state persecution. Other reports to the Gestapo were based on lies and gossip which was obviously the case with Egon Kargauer. After more than four months in remand prison, he was released on 15 Mar. 1937. On 8 Sept. 1938 he married the Jewish woman from Poland Regina Finkelstein, daughter of Aron and Etla Finkelstein. Regina Kargauer, born on 15 Feb. 1915, worked as an office clerk, at the end with Münden and Co. in Hamburg. From Nov. 1938 she was unemployed. Over the course of the November pogrom in 1938, Egon Kargauer, like many Jewish men, was arrested and spent the night from 10 to 11 Nov. in "protective custody” at Fuhlsbüttel concentration camp. Then he was moved to Sachsenhausen concentration camp where he remained in detention until 25 Jan. 1939. Following his imprisonment, the couple began preparing for their immigration to Shanghai; Egon Kargauer, like others, was probably released with the requirement that he leave Germany. At that time the couple lived at Großen Gätnerstraße 6 (today Thadenstraße). Regina Kargauer’s sister Carmen and her two small children also lived with them in their four-room apartment; her husband was in prison. Egon Kargauer who, like his wife, was no longer able to find employment applied for welfare support. After the welfare office visited their home at the beginning of Feb., it was noted in their newly created welfare file: "The husband […] will immigrate to Shanghai on 12 Apr. 1939.” From Feb. 1939, Egon and Regina Kargauer lived off of a weekly allowance of 17.40 Reich Marks (RM) from unemployment benefits. Egon Kargauer’s emigration application was being processed by the foreign currency office of the regional tax office. On his "emigrant questionnaire” he had given Shanghai as his destination. Most countries were not interested in taking in more and more poor people; hence, immigration quotas were issued, sponsorship guarantees and financial resources demanded. Only Shanghai in China did not require a visa. It was a desperate decision to immigrate penniless to a completely unknown country. The welfare office of Hamburg’s Jewish Religious Association wanted to cover their travel and transport expenses. The forms to fill out for the impending emigration included a questionnaire for sending relocation items and moving lists for hand-carried luggage and travel baggage. Egon Kargauer reported purchasing four new suitcases and a trunk, financed through the sale of furniture. He estimated the value of the used items in his possession at 400 RM. He wanted to clear his apartment by the end of Mar. 1939 and store the trunk that was to be shipped to Shanghai under seal. He had to give a detailed report of its contents. His personal suitcase contained clothing, bed linens, a shaver, as well as a prayer book and tefillin. On 21 Mar. 1939 the customs investigation office reported there was no objection to the relocation goods since they only comprised "used linen and clothing as well as used consumer goods”. At the end of Mar. 1939, the foreign currency office certified with its so-called clearance certificate that "no assets were present” and Egon Kargauer owed no contributions. And yet their emigration plans fell through. On 22 Apr. the social administration noted that Regina Kargauer, who as the recipient of unemployment benefits had to perform compulsory labor, was pregnant: "Allegedly Mrs. K. is pregnant. The couple K. want to emigrate. The planned departure was delayed because apparently there was no space on the ship.” In Apr. 1939 the couple moved into a furnished room in the apartment of B. Cohn at Rappstraße 24. Starting in that month, Egon Kargauer was deployed as an "excavator” to various companies as a forced laborer. He was employed for a time in Flensburg. At the beginning of Oct. 1939, Regina Kargauer and Egon Kargauer’s parents, who also lived from welfare, were housed at the "Jewish house” at Breite Straße 11 in old town Altona as part of the resettlement operations to move Jews to so-called Jewish houses which were monitored by the Gestapo. In Nov. 1939, Egon Kargauer’s siblings were also forced to live there. On 4 Nov. 1939, Regina Kargauer gave birth to their daughter Judis (Judith). Now her husband, who intermittently lived at Rappstraße 16 with Bahr, moved in with his family at Breite Straße 11. The building at Breite Straße 11 (Breitestraße until 1938) was previously owned by the High German Israelite Community which had maintained an administrative office and a funeral department there; from 1939 it belonged to the Jewish Religious Association of Hamburg as a department of the Reich Association of Jews in Germany. On Egon Kargauer’s culture tax card, the previously made handwritten note "Withdrew Apr. 1939 Shanghai” was crossed out. The German Reich was now at war, and it was no longer possible for the young family to emigrate legally. On 7 Dec. 1940, Regina Kargauer had a second child, their son Denny. That same month, Egon’s father Bernhard Kargauer died at the age of 71. Two months later, the mass deportations began in Hamburg. On 25 Oct. 1941, Egon and Regina Kargauer were deported from the "Jewish house” at Breite Straße 11 with their children Judis and Denny – their daughter was nearly two years old, their son ten months old – and additional family members to the Lodz Ghetto where the family’s arrival was registered five days later on 31 Oct. Denny did not survive the first hard winter, the hunger and the infectious diseases in the ghetto. He died on 19 Jan. 1942; his mother Regina perished one month later on 18 Feb. 1942. Egon Kargauer’s sister Carmen Liebenthal, his nephew Fränzel, his brother Heinz and his brother’s wife Gisela Kargauer also died in the Lodz Ghetto. Egon Kargauer was deported on with his daughter Judis, his mother Cäcilie, his siblings Gerd, Norbert, Ruth and Tessa, his brother-in-law Alfons Liebenthal and his nephew Salo on 10 May 1942 to the nearby extermination camp Chelmno where SS men killed the ghetto inmates in modified gas vans. The entire Kargauer Family was obliterated by the National-Socialist extermination policy. Stumbling Stones have been laid for the Liebenthal Family at Rappstraße 7, for Heinz and Gisela Kargauer at Heinrich-Barth-Straße 1 (for their biographies visit www.stolpersteine-hamburg.de). Stumbling Stones will be laid at Grindelallee 168, the former center of the family’s life, for Cäcilie Kargauer, née Vogel (born 14 June 1887 in Hamburg), Tessa Kargauer (born 7 June 1929 in Altona), Gerd Kargauer (born 8 Dec. 1920 in Hamburg), Norbert Kargauer (born 29 Sept. 1926 in Hamburg) and Ruth Kargauer (born 14 Oct. 1919 in Hamburg).


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

Stand: April 2018
© Birgit Gewehr

Quellen: 1; 2 (FVg 7522, Kargauer, Egon); 4; 5; 8; StaH 522-1 Jüdische Gemeinden, 992 e 1 Band 1 (Deportationsliste Litzmannstadt, 25.10.1941); AB Altona; StaH 351-14 Arbeits- und Sozialfürsorge – Sonderakten, 1355 (Kargauer, Egon); StaH 213-8 (General-) Staatsanwaltschaft Oberlandesgericht – Verwaltung, Ablieferung 2, 451a E 1, 1c (Abrechnungslisten über Schutzhaftkosten des KZ Fuhlsbüttel); Stiftung Brandenburgische Gedenkstätten/Gedenkstätte und Museum Sachsenhausen, D 1 A/1022, Bl. 488; Archiwum Panstwowe w Lodzi, Ankunfts- und Abgangsdokumente des Gettos Litzmannstadt; Deutsch-Jüdische Gesellschaft Hamburg (Hrsg.), Wegweiser.
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