Search for Names, Places and Biographies

Rebecka Glaser (née geb. Kapost) * 1879

Grindelberg 77 (Eimsbüttel, Harvestehude)

HIER WOHNTE
REBECKA GLASER
JG. 1879
DEPORTIERT 1943
THERESIENSTADT
ERMORDET 31.8.1943

further stumbling stones in Grindelberg 77:
Albert Glaser, Hanne Kahn, Hertha Kahn, Mirjam Kahn, Bernhard Kahn, Salomon Kahn, Hermann Kapost

Albert Glaser, born 8.11.1866 in Hamburg, deported to Theresienstadt 9.6.1943, on 18.12.1943 to Auschwitz, murdered
Rebecka Glaser, née Kapost, born 16.8.1879 in Schweich, deported to Theresienstadt on 9.6.1943, death there on 31.8.1943
Hermann Kapost, born 2.1.1887 in Esens, 10.11.-21.12.1938 Sachsenhausen concentration camp,
Langenhorn Sanatorium and Nursing Home 29.7.1941-17.11.1941, transferred 17.11.1941 to Bendorf-Sayn Sanatorium, deported 30.4.1942 to Krasniczyn, murdered

Grindelberg 77

Albert Glaser was born into a Jewish family in 1866 in Hamburg's Neustadt, Neuer Steinweg 57, and spent his childhood and youth there. He had an older brother, Ludwig, born August 12, 1862, and was joined ten years later by a sister, Julchen. His mother, Adelheid, née Aron, had been born in Hamburg on December 12, 1831, and his father, Jacob Glaser, born June 20, 1832, came from Festenberg in Lower Silesia, popularly known as "Tischlerstadt" (town of carpenters).

He had come to Hamburg in 1857 "because he had a better existence here". He found this as a commis with Peter Manns, who ran a lottery office on the Kehrwieder. Eight days after joining the Jewish community, Jacob Glaser received his Hamburg naturalization certificate on September 14, 1860. He began dealing in household goods and furniture, and his sons followed him in this, though with varying degrees of success. Julchen apparently received no education.

The first to marry was Ludwig Glaser on May 24, 1888. His wife Bertha, born November 4, 1863, was the daughter of the delicatessen dealer Ephraim Bachrach, also of Jewish origin. They had been neighbors on 2 Elbstraße and after their marriage moved to 3 Elbstraße, where their two sons John (March 4, 1889) and Siegmund (December 10, 1890) were born. Their third son, Dalbert David, born March 17, 1894, was born at 36 2nd Elbstraße. (1st, 2nd and 3rd Elbstraße, today Neanderstraße, were the sections between the side streets).

In the meantime, Albert Glaser had also married a Jewish woman, Emma Müller, born July 19, 1863 in Tessin in Mecklenburg-Schwerin. Her parents, the produce merchant Adolf Müller and his wife Hanchen, née Heßlein, had moved with their family to Friedrichstadt an der Eider. There the wedding took place on August 14, 1891. Both parents were still alive, but Albert's family was not represented by his father or brother, but by the Friedrichstadt manufactured goods merchant Leser Masur. After their marriage, Albert and Emma Glaser moved to Flensburg, where Albert Glaser started his own business as a furniture dealer. The first of their children to be born there was their daughter Paula on September 21, 1892. On her birth card, both parents were registered as Protestant; in the case of their son Manfred, born two years later on March 28, 1894, it was correctly stated as "Mosaic." The parents sent their son Manfred to the Oberrealschule in Flensburg and, after graduation in 1908, to a private commercial school for one year. Paula also attended the secondary school, but then remained in the parental home without further education.

In Hamburg Jacob and Adelheid Glaser changed apartments several times between Elbstraße and Peterstraße in the Neustadt until they moved to Grabenstraße 31 on St. Pauli in 1902. Two months before his 71st birthday, Jacob Glaser died of liver disease in the Israelite Hospital on April 27, 1903. He was buried in a double grave in the Jewish cemetery at Ilandkoppel in Ohlsdorf.

His widow Adelheid remained living in Grabenstraße with her daughter Julchen until her death on October 14, 1910. In January 1910, Julchen had sought medical treatment for a heart condition, to which she succumbed shortly before her 38th birthday, also in the Jewish Hospital. She was buried in a single grave, far from that of her parents, in the Jewish cemetery in Ohlsdorf.

Adelheid Glaser moved in with Salomon Levy, a butcher who had moved to Hamburg from Friedrichstadt in 1881 and lived with his family at Peterstraße 8 in Neustadt. She also went along with his moves to Hütten 63 and in 1915 another one to the Grindelviertel to Beneckestraße 20.

Ludwig Glaser remained with his family in Neustadt, where on February 14, 1897, Bertha gave birth to their youngest son, Arthur, in Fuhlentwiete. In 1904, the family moved to the Hertz Joseph Levy-Stift, Großneumarkt 56, a housing complex for Jews with low incomes. Here they lived until emigrating to the United States, and here, as an afterthought, their only daughter, Rosie, was born in 1909. Ludwig performed the duties of first born and reported the deaths of his parents Jacob and Adelheid Glaser, sister Julchen and later his sister-in-law Emma to the registry office. His occupation was merchant or trader, without a more precise designation.

Albert and Emma Glaser sent their son Manfred to Hamburg for an apprenticeship at the import and export company Paul W. Ornstein, Hohe Bleichen 20, on September 1, 1909. The year before, Emma Glaser had already been to Hamburg once, for treatment at the Eppendorf Hospital. She returned five more times for the same reason until 1913. After her discharge, she stayed a few times with a business friend (S. Behrend at Heinrich-Barth-Straße 6), but never lived with her relatives. Where Manfred stayed is not known.

In 1914, the family returned from Flensburg to Hamburg and settled in the Grindelviertel. In December 1914, Manfred Glaser enlisted in the Kaiser's army and suffered permanent ear damage in 1915 during a mission as a mine thrower, without being considered unfit for military service because of it. After the end of World War I, he returned to Hamburg and started his own business as a sales representative and later as a furniture wholesaler. The grandmother Adelheid Glaser died on February 27, 1916 in her apartment at Beneckestraße 20 and was buried next to her husband in the Jewish cemetery in Ohlsdorf.

Albert Glaser had initially rented an apartment at Dillstraße 21 and in 1916 moved to Grindelberg 77, which remained his residence for the next seventeen years. As a furniture dealer, it was easy for him to furnish the large apartment with valuable furniture and household goods, and the income was enough to employ a maid. On May 17, 1918, at the instigation of Rabbi Wolf S. Jacobson, he joined the Jewish community as a taxpaying member and joined the synagogue association.

Equipped with a dowry, Paula Glaser married the engineer Gustav Brockmann, born May 8, 1893 in Flensburg, on December 30, 1920 in Hamburg. His father was a civil servant of a health insurance company and not Jewish. Gustav Brockmann until then lived as a subtenant at Schäferkampsallee 24. Albert Glaser had financially supported his engineering education and now acted as best man at the wedding ceremony together with Gustav's father, who still lived in Flensburg. Paula moved in with her husband until he started his own business at Grenzstraße 17. When they took an apartment at 111 Lohmühlenstraße (renamed Esmarchstraße in 1939) in Altona, Paula apparently joined the Jewish community there.

The connection to Friedrichstadt continued in Manfred Glaser's own family. He married Minna Josias, born October 23, 1894 in Friedrichstadt, of the same age, in Hamburg on June 22, 1923. She had previously worked in many Hamburg households as a "support" (Dienstmädchen/”Stütze”) and as a cook, and she managed her own family's household. On August 10, 1924, her daughter Ilse was born, and in 1925 she and her husband joined the Jewish community. Their only son, Heinz, was born on March 9, 1927. Five months later, on August 31, 1927, Emma Glaser died. She suffered from bronchial asthma and had been under medical treatment for this since 1919. Now she succumbed to heart failure at home. Her brother-in-law Ludwig Glaser also reported her death to the registry office. She was buried in the Jewish cemetery in Ohlsdorf in the double grave intended for her and her husband Albert.

Albert Glaser married a second time in 1928 with Rebecka Rieke, née Kapost, born August 16, 1879 in Schweich an der Mosel. Where they met and married is not known. Rebecka, called Becky, had a younger sister, Sophie Louise, born Sept. 15, 1880 in Schweich, who lived in Berlin, and a younger brother, Hermann, born Jan. 2, 1882 in Esens in East Frisia, who still lived in Hanover, where the family had moved after their father retired. They were the only children of a large band of siblings who had survived early childhood. Their father, Joseph Kapost, was from the Vilnius area, and their mother, Mathilde, was a native of Gruenspan (whether there was any kinship with the Herschel Gruenspan/Grynszpan family could not be determined).

Although Gustav Brockmann was not Jewish, his business suffered as a result of the calls for boycotts issued by the Nazi government immediately after it came to power in 1933. His wife Paula transferred to the Hamburg Jewish community, where she was taxed as of April 1, 1934. The source of her income is not known. Mail to her should be sent by the community in neutral envelopes.

Becky's father, Joseph Kapost, had graduated from the Jewish teachers' seminary in Hanover and was hired as an elementary teacher, prayer leader and shepherd in 1876 by the Jewish community of Wittmund in East Frisia for one year on three months' notice. The position was extended for one year. His next position was in Schweich, where his daughters Rebecka and Sophie were born. He applied for a corresponding position in Esens, not far from Wittmund, in response to an advertisement in the newspaper "Der Israelit" and took it up on April 8, 1881. When he retired in 1895, Rebecka and Sophie had already completed their compulsory schooling.

Hermann Kapost completed his schooling at the Jewish secondary school in Hanover. He then attended a commercial school. Weak from childhood and 149 cm tall, he was not called up for military service. Like his father, he would have liked to become a teacher, but at first he took a job as a trainee in a retail store, prepared for the entrance examination to the teachers' seminary, and then was unable to continue his education because he became ill with lung disease. After his recovery, he looked for commercial jobs in Hanover and elsewhere. These were interrupted several times by stays in hospital and at health resorts, e.g. in Bad Soden, St. Blasien, Meran and in Hanover itself. After he had last worked as an accountant and had become unemployed, he set up his own typing business and managed to get by with home work. He wrote addresses, advertising material, gave lessons in shorthand and in commercial subjects, collected contributions for various Jewish associations against commission. Whether Rebecka and Sophie Kapost received professional training, as he did, could not be ascertained. The family led an orthodox, ritualistic life.

Joseph Kapost died at the age of 71 on July 11, 1921, in the Israelite Hospital in Hanover. His widow Mathilde remained with her son Hermann in the parental apartment at Wiesenstraße 31. They supplemented their meager income by renting out rooms. After Hermann had been excluded from unemployment and health insurance, i.e. no longer received benefits, he received supplementary welfare support. After a nervous breakdown, Mathilde Kapost was placed in the Provinzial-Heil- und Pflegeanstalt (sanatorium and nursing house) Hildesheim, where she died on May 4, 1930, at the age of 75.

Suffering from stomach ailments since childhood, Hermann Kapost found it increasingly difficult to adhere to diet and ritual rules, which is why he spent the Passover holidays of 1929 with his sister Rebecka and his brother-in-law Albert Glaser in Hamburg, who took good care of him. Nevertheless, he fell ill with angina and was admitted to the Israelite Hospital. Neither he nor his brother-in-law were able to pay the costs of RM 201.60. He had also used the stay in Hamburg to look for a job, which was unsuccessful, and he returned to Hanover. Since he had his residence there, the Hamburg welfare authorities were not prepared to cover the costs.

After Hitler's "seizure of power" in January 1933, Manfred Glaser no longer saw a future in Germany and emigrated with his family to Palestine in the fall of that year. Whether he kept in touch with his family in Hamburg after his emigration and whether his father and sister also wanted to emigrate is not known.

Albert Glaser's business had already been declining since the Great Depression and deteriorated further as a result of the Nazi government's call for a boycott. If he had earned a regular, albeit declining, income until 1934, he was exempt from taxes and community contributions in 1935 and 1936 and only paid a one-time amount to the Jewish community of 3.36 Reichsmark in 1937. In 1936 his trade license was revoked, but he still hoped to be able to make a living as a salesman. He did not succeed, so he rented out rooms until he and his wife occupied only two rooms in his 5 ½-room apartment and also sold furniture and household goods.

Despite cramped conditions, Rebecka and Albert Glaser were willing to help their brother and brother-in-law Hermann Kapost, who had not recovered either in health or professionally. When he suffered severely from a stomach ulcer at the turn of the year 1935/1936, he traveled from Hanover and stayed with them for a few days until the Israelite Hospital took him in for ten days starting on January 28. With date of January 29, 1935, he was listed as a member of the Jewish community. He now registered with the welfare authorities and applied for ongoing support. In Hamburg, because of the great unemployment, there had been a ban on job-seekers moving in since August 1934. Since Hermann Kapost was still registered in Hanover, however, he was referred to the welfare office there, but refused to return there on the grounds that he could be better cared for with his sister. He was considered a "haphazard migrant" who received the lowest rate of maintenance.

Although he was not fit for work when he was admitted, he went to the employment office for a stamp check. In May 1935, a welfare worker paid him a house visit. She found that he received neither a pension nor additional income, and that of the 5 RM weekly maintenance payment from the welfare office, he paid 4 RM for the furnished room. She ruled that Hannover was obligated to pay for Hermann Kapost and concluded her report by stating that "K." was "to be described as an undesirable influx."

After Hermann Kapost had lived with his sister and brother-in-law for five months, he needed a new place to stay. Thus began a series of more than a dozen moves. All of them were "accommodations for convenience" with a weekly rent of about 3 RM. Nevertheless, he did not have enough to live on. In the Jewish community he could get the necessary diet food for 15 Pfennig. In addition, his sister invited him to dinner from time to time and occasionally gave him cash, as did an unnamed friend. He received winter aid from the Jewish community. He tried to find work, including at the Jewish employment agency, where he hoped for a chorister position, but his voice proved too weak, and he was too old for manual training.

At regular intervals, medical officers examined him and certified his incapacity or recommended light work. In August 1935, he claimed his pension with reference to this, but first the application and then in May 1936 the appeal were rejected, since his reduction in earning capacity had been estimated at only 40%. In the meantime, he had been cured of a stomach ulcer once again in the Israelite Hospital. The Welfare Office considered his expulsion to Hanover. With reference to his "considerably closer contact with the Jewish community in Hamburg" and to the proximity of his sister, the support was continued. The Hanover Welfare Office agreed to reimburse the Hamburg authority for expenses.

In April 1936, Albert and Rebecka Glaser gave up their apartment and moved into a smaller place at Isestraße 94. Hermann Kapost had already been living with Benjamin at Blücherstraße 15 since the end of 1935, when he was called up for work ("compulsory labor"/”Pflichtarbeit”) three days a week at Köhlbrand in Waltershof on December 3, 1936, which was considered the easiest job available. He had to interrupt it several times due to illness. He managed to get a job as a temporary cantor, also called temple helper or temple goer, at the Orthodox association "Kelilath Jofi and Agudath Jescharim" in Hoheluftchaussee 25 a. Hermann Kapost was, so to speak, the tenth man, through whom it was ensured that the morning and evening prayers could take place. His salary was 12 RM per month. He proved his willingness to work by taking advantage of a ride to Hanover to look for work with the Jewish community there, which proved to be in vain.

At the turn of the year 1937/1938, Rebecka Glaser fell seriously ill. During her hospitalization, her brother was able to stay with her husband. Hermann Kapost's next work assignment was at Kruppstraße in Tiefstack, five days a week. This increased his subsistence to RM 33 per month. After three weeks he collapsed under the heavy work. The head of the workers insulted him and belittled him, but he was admonished that he should have assigned Hermann Kapost light work.

On November 21, 1938, Mrs. Blumann (Gärtnerstraße 33), Hermann Kapost's landlady, appeared at the Fürsorgestelle and informed them that she had not seen him since November 10 and suspected that he was in protected custody in Oranienburg. In fact, he returned from there on December 21. Nothing is known about any conditions.

On February 18, 1939, his file was handed over to Sonderdienststelle B, which was responsible for Jews, for further processing. At first, Hermann Kapost no longer received any support. His livelihood was supported by the delivery of his gold watch, for which he received 40 RM, and he was also helped by acquaintances.

Meanwhile, Ludwig and Bertha Glaser and their sons and their families prepared their emigration to the USA, which they managed before Great Britain entered the war. Paula and Gustav Brockmann had suffered harassment by the Gestapo and experienced immediate consequences of the November pogrom. As a result, Paula Brockmann decided to leave the Jewish community effective April 17, 1939, an attempt to escape further repression.

In the meantime, Albert Glaser had turned 70 and had no income. He could no longer keep the apartment in Isestraße and in September 1939 moved to Bornstraße 22, the Louis Levy-Stift, where Hermann Kapost could live with them again. Again, Albert and Rebecka Glaser had to downsize. After only four months, they moved to the retirement home of the Jewish community at Blücherstraße 20 in Altona, where they lived for a year and a half near their daughter Paula. For only one week, the Jewish community housed them in the former emigrants' home at Westerstraße 27, before they moved to the old people's home at Sedanstraße 23 in May 1941, thus returning to the Grindelviertel once again.

Hermann Kapost had now found accommodation in the Opperheimers' Foundation at Kielortallee 22-24. He lacked the care of his sister, was undernourished in the meantime, and felt the old symptoms of illness again, felt dull and frail, and sometimes staggered in the street, making a disjointed and forbidding impression. Apparently he returned to Bornstraße 22 on a visit, where he was noticed by the welfare worker of the Jewish community (Gemeindepfleger) Heinemann on July 28, 1941. He arranged for him to be transferred to the Langenhorn sanatorium and nursing home to determine his state of health.

At that time there were only a few Jewish patients in the institution. As of September 23, 1940, 136 Jewish patients from northern Germany had been rounded up there and transported to Brandenburg for gassing. By circular of the Reich Minister of the Interior of December 12, 1940, "mentally ill Jews" had to be accommodated from then on in the sanatorium and nursing home Bendorf-Sayn near Koblenz.

During the admission, Hermann Kapost gave factually correct information, mentioned his concentration camp imprisonment in Sachsenhausen/Oranienburg "following the Grünspan case," and only gradually spoke of slanderous accusations with which he was to be put to death: he was committing "racial defilement" and had stolen from others. "On various street corners he hears a chant by which he is mocked with 'the little Jew,' 'scrounger,' etc. He is not insulted by persons, it all comes through the air." He accused his relatives and community members and declared himself innocent of all accusations.

The hallucinations lasted for ten days, making him afraid of the prosecution, the penitentiary, a "deportation", making him cry and lose sleep. Then he became calmer, spent the day in the dayroom, read the newspaper, talked with other patients and slept well. This went on for two months. Meanwhile, a guardianship in absentia was established for him, limited to personal law matters.
The patient's file ends with the entry on November 13, 1941, "Continues to be under the influence of vivid sensory delusions" and the note of November 17, "Transferred unhealed to Sayn Sanatorium." Together with a patient Anna Cohn he was transferred there. It is not known whether there was any contact with his relatives in Hamburg or with his sister in Berlin.

The sanatorium and nursing home Bendorf-Sayn went back to the Jacoby'sche Anstalt, one of four institutions founded in the 19th century as "sanatoriums and nursing homes for the mentally ill" in Bendorf and expanded to Sayn. The Jacoby'sche Anstalt had been founded around 1870 by Meier Jacoby for the care of Jewish sick people in compliance with Orthodox regulations, which was not guaranteed in the other three institutions. Thanks to an aid society founded in 1903, it was the only one to survive the inflationary period. Not only wealthy private patients were admitted, but also patients maintained by the welfare authorities. On April 1, 1940, the institution was handed over to the "Reichsvereinigung der Juden in Deutschland" (Reich Association of Jews in Germany) with the stipulation of an expansion, and the number of beds was increased from 190 to 474. On March 22, 1942, the deportations of the sick from Sayn, as the institution was abbreviated, began with 93 patients.

The second Aachen-Koblenz transport with 770 - 1000 persons left Koblenz on April 30, 1942 and was on its way until May 3. Hermann Kapost, Anna Cohn, Jenny Reich (see www.stolpersteine-hamburg.de) and three other sick persons transferred from Hamburg to Sayn were also assigned to him. Originally the transport was supposed to go to Trawniki, then it was redirected to Izbica and finally ended in Krasnikow/Krasniczyn near Lublin, where the deportees were taken to the ghetto. There their traces are lost. After three more transports, the Sayn sanatorium and nursing home of the Reich Association of Jews in Germany was closed on November 11, 1942, and held in readiness as a reserve hospital.

Sophie Kapost's life ended in the Sobibor extermination camp, to which she had been deported from Berlin on June 13, 1942.

In Hamburg, Albert and Rebecka Glaser were housed separately on September 8, 1942, because of their poor health. Rebecka was sent to the nursing home of the Jewish community Grünestraße 5 in Altona, Albert stayed in the Grindel area in Beneckestraße 6, the former administration which was an elderly home now, a so-called Judenhaus.

They were deported together to Theresienstadt on June 9, 1943, where the transport arrived three days later. Rebecka suffered from old-age depression, as it was said, and died of pleurisy on August 31, 1943. Albert Glaser wrote to his daughter and son-in-law on October 9, 1943: "My dears, unfortunately my dear Becky closed her eyes forever on August 31, even though she has been released from her long-term suffering, I still miss her everywhere. ... Please write immediately. It is strange that Becky died on the same day and at the same age as dear mother." Both Emma and Rebecka Glaser lived to the age of 64.

Albert Glaser was further deported to Auschwitz on December 18, 1943. The transport included 2503 people, of whom 488 survived. Albert Glaser was among those murdered. He lived to the age of 77.

Epilogue
Paula and Gustav Brockmann's mixed marriage had remained childless, so it was not considered by the Nazis as a "privileged mixed marriage”. Paula Brockmann occasionally took refuge with acquaintances in a circle of supporters out of fear of the Gestapo. During the air raids in July 1943, the apartment in Esmarchstraße was destroyed. Brockmanns rented a room on Große Brunnenstraße in Ottensen and another with a widow in Tornesch, where they did not register. They stayed there overnight from the middle of 1944 to escape the Gestapo's grasp. Gustav Brockmann had lost his business in the meantime and had been conscripted into service. On February 10, 1945, Paula Brockmann received a summons "for a special work assignment" on February 14, i.e., for the last deportation, which now concerned Jews living in mixed marriages. She evaded this summons. A relative of the landlady in Tornesch, who lived in Heidgraben near Uetersen, took Paula in and hid her from neighbors and authorities. After five weeks, Gustav and Paula Glaser and their landlords decided that the Gestapo had other things to do than look for Paula, and she moved to Tornesch. There she experienced liberation.

Translation by Beate Meyer
Stand: February 2022
© Hildegard Thevs

Quellen: 1; 3; 4; 5; 7; 9; StaH 232-5, AG Hamburg - Vormundschaftswesen, 892; 332-5 Standesämter, 639-593/1910 StA 2a, 2727-624/1888 StA 2, 8743-909/1920 StA 3, 8779-363/1923 StA 3; 332-7 B I a Staatsangehörigkeitsaufsicht, 1860 Nr. 1023; 351-11 AfW, 14665, 15046, 15047; 351-14 Fürsorgeakten, 1358; 352-5 Todesbescheinigungen, 1903 StA 2 Nr. 690, 1910 StA 2a Nr. 593; 352-8/7 Staatskrankenanstalt Langenhorn, Abl. 1995/1, 28822; JFHH (A 10-506), (0 2 – 299), (ZZ 10-445); Stadtarchiv Friedrichstadt, Standesamt Friedrichstadt Nr. 13/1891; de/namelist.php?ofb=juden_nw&lang=de&modus=fabian&nachname=KAPOST;
http://www.alemannia-judaica.de/esens_synagoge.htm#Aus%20der%20Geschichte%20der%20j%C3%BCdischen%20Lehrer, Zugriff: 27.1.2017; freundliche Mitteilungen von Cornelia Bosler-Meister.
Zur Nummerierung häufig genutzter Qeullen siehe Link "Recherche und Quellen".