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Paula Danziger * 1876

Hohe Bleichen 5 (vormals Nr. 51) (Hamburg-Mitte, Neustadt)

HIER WOHNTE
PAULA DANZIGER
JG. 1876
DEPORTIERT 1941
RIGA
ERMORDET

further stumbling stones in Hohe Bleichen 5 (vormals Nr. 51):
Selma Danziger

Paula Sophie Danziger, born 2/26/1876 in Altona, deported to Riga-Jungfernhof on 12/6/1941
Selma Danziger, born 12/16/1872 in Altona, deported to Riga-Jungfernhof on 12/6/1941

Hohe Bleichen 5 (Hohe Bleichen 51)

The sisters Paula and Selma Danziger were born in Altona, which then did not yet belong to Hamburg. Their parents David Danziger (born 1839) and Goldchen/Golde, née Wagner (born 1838), lived at Kibbelstrasse 1 (that street no longer exists) and had at least eight children. David Danziger made his living as "colporteur”, an old designation for a trader of scriptures and religious books. In the census of 1890, he was listed with a "newspaper store.” After their parents died in 1901 and 1904, Paul and Selma moved to Kleine Bergstrasse 1. Selma must have received very sound training, as she worked as a bookkeeper. At the beginning of 1900, her sister Paula opened a stationery store at Kaiser-Wilhelm-Strasse 19, which, however, did not last long. Later, she worked as a salesgirl. On October 6, 1896, Paula, aged 20, had given birth to a daughter, Agnes Martha, who grew up with adoptive parents.

Selma and Paula Danziger remained single. They first appear in the 1916 Hamburg address book with their residence at Hohe Bleichen 51, in spite of the fact that they continued paying their culture taxes to the Jewish Community of Altona until 1936.

Their elder sister Bertha Danziger (born 4/24/1870) worked as a salesgirl, and married the merchant Moses Os (born 6/22/1869 in Lingen) on July 27, 1893. The couple lived at Schrötteringksweg 3 in Hamburg-Uhlenhorst until they moved in with Selma and Paula in 1932. Moses Os died on October 6, 1933.

In March 1938, the sisters temporarily took in their brother John Jesaias Danziger (born 12/20/1879) and his wife Gertrud; the couple had been forced to give up their home at Kleiner Schippsee 10 in Harburg.

After his commercial apprenticeship, John Danziger had worked as an employee in Münster, Westphalia. During his military service in Mörchingen, Lorraine, he had met Gertrud Schömann (born 10/30/1878 in Sankt Wendel) in 1901, and married her in 1904.

After World War I, in which John Danziger had served as a soldier, he "as a German” was forced to give up his existence in Alsace-Lorraine and returned to Hamburg with his family. His elder brother Moses Max Danziger (born 11/10/1877), who had also been drafted, was killed as a reserve soldier of the 39th infantry regiment near Staroje in the Ukraine on August 2, 1918.

In 1920, John Danziger became a shareholder in Stern & Co. at Gerhofstrasse 3–5, a textiles wholesaler. In 1922, he opened a shoe shop, initially at Lüneburgerstrasse 7.

As a Jewish business owner, John Danziger was forced out of commercial life in 1938. His company was closed, respectively was in the process of liquidation. In September, John and Gertrud Danziger moved to an apartment at Isestrasse 104. On November 10, 1938, he was dragged out of his home at 6:00 a.m. and taken to Sachsenhausen concentration camp. After his release, he and his wife in March 1939 succeeded in emigrating to South Africa to join their children Paula (born 4/26/1905) and Erich (born 5/16/1909).

Selma and Paula Danziger stayed at Hohe Bleichen until the beginning of 1939, when they moved to Isestrasse 94, second floor. In the middle of 1940, Berthold Bucki (born 1/23/1897) moved in with them into their 3 ½ room apartment, the son of their late sister Louise Bucki, née Danziger (born 1/17/1867, died 5/11/1915), a widowed commercial assistant. His wife Emma, née Heiland (born 9/21/1893) had died on May 19, 1940 at the psychiatric and neurological clinic of the University of Hamburg. Berthold Bucki was the first of the family to receive a deportation order. On November 8, 1941, he was deported to the ghetto in Minsk. A Stumbling Stone for him was laid at Malzweg 21 in Hamburg-Borgfelde (s. Stolpersteine in Hamburg-Borgfelde).

When Paula received her "evacuation order” Selma decided to accompany her and volunteered for deportation to Riga on December 6, 1941.

Their household effects they left behind at their home in Isestrasse were confiscated to the benefit of the German Reich. The auction to be conducted at 10.00 a.m. on February 9, 1942 at Drehbahn 36 was announced by the bailiffs in several Hamburg dailies. It comprised 70 lots, including lamps, flower pots, various glass items, vases, 1 chaise longue, oil paintings, books, 1 coat rack. Even a men’s bicycle without tires found a buyer. The last entry in the auctioning record reads "Everything is sold.” The yield of 1327,50 reichsmarks plus the sisters’ savings books went to the Hamburg treasury.

The deportation was spared Paula and Selma’s sister Bertha Os, née Danziger. She died of diabetes on October 19, 1942 at the Jewish retirement home at Schäferkampsallee 25/27 and was laid to rest at the Jewish Ilandkoppel cemetery in Ohlsdorf next to her husband. A further sister, Auguste Lilienthal, née Danziger (born 5/28/1868), died in September 1934, her husband Martin (born 5/19/1853) in May 1935 in Hamburg.

Frieda Rieke Wackwitz, née Danziger (born 7/2/1882), the probably youngest of the Danziger children, lived in a "privileged mixed marriage” with her husband Julius Berthold Wackwitz (born 1/19/1877 and their two children, until this protection expired when her husband died on September 21, 1942. Frieda Wackwitz was deported from Heinrich-Barth-Strasse 21 to Theresienstadt) on January 19, 1944. She survived and was liberated on May 8, 1945, and returned to Hamburg. She died on November 6, 1957 in Altona.

Paula Danziger’s daughter Agnes, who had married the non-Jewish bookkeeper Fritz Anton Karl Maak (born 6/3/1896) on February 19, 1924, also lived in a "privileged mixed marriage” with her husband and their daughter Margot Gertrud (born 6/14/1926 in Altona).

Like most Jewish women and men living in "mixed marriages”, she, too, was assigned to forced labor by Willibald Schallert, head of the "Special Bureau J” at the employment agency at Sägerplatz. Agnes Maak worked as a charwoman, a seamstress and at a chemical factory, where she filled rat poison into paper bags. As a "person related to Jews by marriage” (jüdisch versippt), her husband was assigned to clearing work in the aftermath of bombing attacks from Oktober 1944 on. When the deportation of persons living in "mixed marriages” began, Agnes Maak was deployed to "exterior work” shortly before the end of the war and deported to Theresienstadt on February 14, 1945. She survived and was liberated on May 8, 1945 too.

John Danziger returned to Germany in 1958. He died at the Jewish retirement home in Schäferkampsallee on April 12, 1967.

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

Stand: May 2020
© Susanne Rosendahl

Quellen: 1; 4; 6; 9; StaH 351-11 AfW 15090 (Maak, Agnes); StaH 351-11 AfW 14950 (Maak, Fritz); StaH 351-11 AfW 48123 (Wetzel, Margot); StaH 351-11 AfW 4387 (Danziger, John); StaH 351-11 AfW 5918 (Wackwitz, Frieda Rieke); StaH 314-15 OFP, Fvg 3840; StaH 522-1 Jüdische Gemeinde 628c; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 6189 u 611/1876; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 6222 u 1847/1882; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 5309 u 1107/1915; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 8179 u 490/1942; 522-1 Jüdische Gemeinde Abl. 1999/01, 181; StaH 214-1 Gerichtsvollzieherwesen 220; StaH 522-1 Jüdische Gemeinden 160 Verzeichnis der am 1. Dezember 1890 in Altona anwesenden Israeliten; StaH 522-1 Jüdische Gemeinden 374; StaH 522-1 Jüdische Gemeinde Nr. 992 e 2 Band 2; StaH 522-1 Jüdische Gemeinde Nr. 992 e 2 Band 3; StaH 522-1 Jüdische Gemeinde Nr. 992 e 2 Band 5; StaH 522-1 Jüdische Gemeinde, 628 c; Thevs: Stolpersteine, S. 105; Meyer: Verfolgung, S. 79–87.
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