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Agathe Cohn (née Frank) * 1885

Breitenfelder Straße 60 (Hamburg-Nord, Hoheluft-Ost)

HIER WOHNTE
AGATHE COHN
GEB. FRANK
JG. 1885
DEPORTIERT 1941
ERMORDET IN
RIGA

further stumbling stones in Breitenfelder Straße 60:
Ludwig Frank

Ludwig Frank, born on 25 Aug. 1887 in Schotten/Hessen, murdered on 23 Sept. 1940 in the "euthanasia” killing center in Brandenburg/Havel
Agathe Cohn, née Frank, born on 19 Jan. 1885, deported to Riga on 6 Dec. 1941, murdered

Breitenfelder Strasse 60, Hamburg-Hoheluft-Ost,

Ludwig Frank was born on 25 Aug. 1887 in Schotten, a small town near Giessen. He was the son of the Jewish religious education teacher Wolf (called William) Frank and his wife Regina, née Simon, also Jewish. Ludwig had three siblings: Agathe, born on 19 Jan. 1885; Carl, born on 9 May 1886, died on 20 July 1886; and Friedrich, born on 3 Nov. 1888, died on 4 Nov. 1888.

We know nothing about Ludwig Frank’s childhood, youth, and education. In 1909, his sister Agathe Frank married in Hamburg the authorized signatory Leopold Cohn, born on 6 Mar. 1859 in Hamburg. The couple lived for many years at Breitenfelder Strasse 60 in the Hoheluft-Ost quarter. Ludwig Frank followed his sister to Hamburg. When he was admitted to the "Friedrichsberg lunatic asylum” ("Irrenanstalt Friedrichberg”) in 1911, he stated "errand boy” as his profession. From Friedrichsberg, he was transferred to the "Langenhorn lunatic asylum.”

Ludwig Frank’s fate in the following decades, which he may have spent in the asylum in Hamburg-Langenhorn or another North German institution, is in the dark. In any case, he was still or again living in Langenhorn when in the spring/summer of 1940, the "euthanasia” headquarters in Berlin, located at Tiergartenstrasse 4, planned a special operation aimed against Jews in public and private sanatoriums and nursing homes. The Reich Ministry of the Interior had the Jewish persons living in the institutions registered and moved together in what were officially so-called collection institutions. The Hamburg-Langenhorn "sanatorium and nursing home” ("Heil- und Pflegeanstalt” Hamburg-Langenhorn) was designated the North German collection institution. All institutions in Hamburg, Schleswig-Holstein, and Mecklenburg were ordered to move the Jews living in their facilities there by 18 Sept. 1940. After all Jewish patients from the North German institutions had arrived in Langenhorn, they were taken to Brandenburg/Havel on 23 Sept. 1940, together with the Jewish patients who had lived there for some time – among them, Ludwig Frank – on a transport comprised of 136 persons overall. On the same day, they were killed with carbon monoxide in the part of the former penitentiary converted into a gas-killing facility. Only one patient, Ilse Herta Zachmann, escaped this fate at first (see corresponding entry).
We do not know whether, and if so, when Ludwig Frank’s relatives became aware of his death. In all documented death notices, it was claimed that the person concerned had died in Chelm or Cholm. Those murdered in Brandenburg, however, were never in Chelm (Polish) or Cholm (German), a town east of Lublin. The former Polish sanatorium there no longer existed after SS units had murdered almost all patients on 12 Jan. 1940. Also, there was no German records office in Chelm. Its fabrication and the use of postdated dates of death served to disguise the killing operation and at the same time enabled the authorities to claim higher care expenses for periods extended accordingly.

Ludwig Frank’s brother-in-law, Agathe Cohn’s husband, died on 10 July 1934. She subsequently worked as an accountant. She probably also kept in touch with her brother. Around 1940, she was forced to leave her apartment and move into the "Jews’ house” ("Judenhaus”) at Frickestrasse 24 in Hamburg-Eppendorf. Agathe Cohn was deported to Riga on 6 Dec. 1941. There was never any sign of life of her again.

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

Stand: July 2020
© Ingo Wille

Quellen: 1; 4; 5; 8; 9; AB; StaH 133-1 III Staatsarchiv III, 3171-2/4 U.A. 4, Liste psychisch kranker jüdischer Patientinnen und Patienten der psychiatrischen Anstalt Langenhorn, die aufgrund nationalsozialistischer "Euthanasie"-Maßnahmen ermordet wurden, zusammengestellt von Peter von Rönn, Hamburg (Projektgruppe zur Erforschung des Schicksals psychisch Kranker in Langenhorn); 352-8/7 Staatskrankenanstalt Langenhorn Abl. 1/1995 Aufnahme-/Abgangsbuch Langenhorn 26.8.1939 bis 27.1.1941; UKE/IGEM, Archiv, Patienten-Karteikarte Ludwig Frank der Staatskrankenanstalt Friedrichsberg; Stadt Schotten, Geburtsregister Nr. 28/1887 Ludwig Frank. Müller, Hanno/Kingreen, Monica/Eckhardt, Frank, Juden in Schotten 1629–1945 und Einartshausen 1800–1942, Lich 2016, S. 29.
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