GUGGENHEIMER,
Lina and Karl,
The Jewish
Community
of
La
Book Pages 242 - 248
GUGGENHEIMER,
Lina and Karl,
23 Radstrasse
Translated by: Liliana Löwenstein
DR . ANTJE KÖHLERSCHMIDT
[Josef Guggenheimer, born February 10, 1857, died November 19, 1920 in Munich] Helene, called Lina, née Guggenheimer, born on February 24, 1860 in Altenstadt, died on January 11, 1941 in Laupheim.- Karl Guggenheimer, born on May 7, 1882 in Laupheim, Deportation on November 28, 1941, to Riga- [Leopold Guggenheimer, born on June 13, 1883 in Laupheim, deportation from Munich on November 20, 1941, to Kaunas, murdered there on November 25, 1941.]
Once again we can thank the photo
album from the Jewish Senior Citizen home, for the portraits of the two last
Guggenheimers from Laupheim taken in 1940 by an unknown photographer, and
that came to the hands of Ernst Schäll through Gretel Gideon. The 80 years
old mother Lina Guggenheimer is easy to recognize on both pictures, she
wears glasses with marked round lenses and has totally white hair. In
comparison with the other persons she probably was quite small, her seated
size lets us think so. She looks quite friendly, in spite of the general
situation, the small size of the rooming, the miserable conditions to find
food and the reprisals against them. It is noteworthy that all the persons
on these images look very well looked after and are wearing their good
clothing. Evidently the inhabitants of the Jewish Senior Citizen home made
great effort to maintain their posture in those difficult times, and to
create opportunities that created a positive atmosphere which gave them the
possibility for distraction and holding together for support and
consolation.
Lina Guggenheimer has lived in
Radstrasse 23 until she moved to the Jewish Senior Citizen home on September
28, 1939. Just a few months after these photos have been taken, she died on
January 11, 1941 and was buried in the Jewish Cemetery in Laupheim, in the
same tomb as her husband Josef Guggenheimer, who had already died in 1920.
The name written on the tombstone is Lina. Probably it was a nickname
derived from Helene, which was very strongly connected to her person,
replacing the name registered in the Civil Registry. Her death did not only
preserve her from her own deportation, but also from the knowledge of what
happened to her eldest son.
The 58-year-old Karl, who may be seen
on the right side beside the mother at the coffee table on the first photo,
and in the back row on the second photo, holding his head slightly tilted,
looks quite skeptic, very reserved and worried. Karl Guggenheimer was not
completely healthy, in terms of today’s language it would mean that he was
mentally impaired. As from June 6, 1940 he was taken to the institution
“Heil- und Pflegeanstalt Heggbach.
The Jewish section of the Heil- und
Pflegeanstalt Heggbach
There is an estimate that in 1939 100
Jewish patients lived at the Heil- und Pflege Institutions in Württemberg.
In the German Reich the count probably was between 2000 and 2500. Their
destiny showed the same as for all other German Jews, the development of
segregation, loss of rights, and discrimination as the Holocaust drew
closer. In the circular letter Nr. IX, dated October 5, 1939, of the
Minister of the Interior of Württemberg he grants the asylum of the Jewish
mental patients of Württemberg in the institutions of Zwiefalten and
Heggbach. The Heggbach institution, in a document dated October 21, 1939
declared to be ready to install “a small special section for Jewish
patients”. In the period between 1938 and 1942, 38 Jews lived in the section
separated from other patients. Karl Guggenheimer was the only Jewish patient
that came from Laupheim who lived there from June 1940 until November 1940.
13 of them died in Heggbach and were among the last persons to be buried in
the Jewish cemetery in Laupheim. The others were victims of euthanasia and
deportations.
Deportation
The Jewish fosterling Karl
Guggenheimer, together with Martha Aronsohn, who came from Stuttgart to the
Heil- und Pflegeanstalt Heggbach was assigned to the first deportation that
left Laupheim. On November 28, 1941 they were brought to the West Station
and from there, together with the 19 Jews from Laupheim, they were sent to
Stuttgart to the camp at Killesberg, where the Jews from Württemberg were
concentrated for deportation to the West, that is, to the so called General
government. The National Socialists used this opportunity shamelessly for
the violation of the assets of the Jews, in order to loot everything. This
was performed in a really wicked and shameless manner, that is, in
Killesberg the Jews had to accept and pay a Certificate of Service, which
declared that their assets passed to the German Reich. Karl Guggenheimer
received it at the Internment Camp Killesberg on November 29, 1941 and had
to pay 1,15 RM for it. In the Heil- und Pflegeanstalt Heggbach he already
had presented an eight-page long asset declaration for the Financial
Authority Biberach, and on November 22, 1941 he had to sign it. Apart from
the objects he carried with him, it covered all assets in the form of
savings deposits, among others. This meticulousness of the Nazis “allowed”
that we could state in detail the listed assets of Karl Guggenheimer. His
luggage consisted of a travel suitcase and a backpack. His tableware
consisted of two coffee spoons, one soup spoon, an aluminum bowl and an
aluminum-drinking cup. His bed linens were one cover, two sheets, three
pillowcases, two blankets and 12 handkerchiefs. His clothes consisted of
five suits, two winter coats, repair patches and a men’s hat. He also had a
cap, a walking stick, four nightgowns, a dressing gown, 15 shirts, collar
buttons, four ties, three pairs of shoes, two pairs of slippers, eight
collars, eight pairs of socks, one pair of gloves, one scarf, three pairs of
suspenders, 12 long pants and five pieces of underwear. Listed as special
items were seven clothes hangers, three prayer books, one comb, one
washcloth and one hairbrush. At the savings account Laupheim there was a
deposit of 481,79 RM, administered by his guardian Ludwig Stern. Besides he
had mortgage bonds for a value of 3500 RM.
These assets were confiscated in
favor of the German Reich. The listed details make the complicated
operations and instrumentation of the management of the services of the
Nazis very clear.
Both pictures from Killesberg show,
without the need of many words, the degrading situation for the affected
persons and hint the physical and psychical efforts the internees have
suffered. On December 1, 1941 the deportation train left Stuttgart with 1013
Jews from Württemberg, towards Riga. After travelling three days and nights,
without sufficient food or stops, on December 4, 1941 they arrived in
Skirotowa, where the SS-people “received” the Jews from Württemberg.
Immediately part of the luggage was stolen. Most of them were placed in the
Jungfernhof camp, at a distance of two to three kilometers; the others were
taken to the Riga Ghetto. If Karl Guggenheimer really was among the deported
persons, is not really sure, as there is no list of the names of the 1013
deported persons, and the archives of Yad Vashem in Israel “A Page of
Testimony” include one page with the declaration of witnesses that confirm
this. It reads as follows: “ shot to death 1.XII.1941”. This shooting at
said date, that is, on the day of departure of the train, might have still
been in Stuttgart. Possibly due to his mental impairment he was not able to
comply quickly with the indications of the SS, and therefore he might have
been murdered. Reports by witnesses unfortunately describe many examples of
destinies of this type. A letter from Lina Wertheimer from the Jewish Senior
Citizen home in Laupheim to Emma and Margaret Gideon in Winterthur, dated
July 15, 1942 reads as follows: “Karl (Guggenheimer) is miles away since
November and we have heard nothing from him, and we have also had no news
from our former schoolmate Selma E, (Einstein, née Laupheimer, who was
deported on April 24, 1942 to the camp in Izbica, close to Lublin.”
Guggenheimer in Laupheim
In contrast with most Jewish families
the Guggenheimer family was not among the families living in Laupheim for
generations. They came from Altenstadt, near Illertissen / Bavaria. Lina née
Guggenheimer, and Josef Guggenheimer were both born there and married on
August 8, 1881 in Ulm. Their eight children, Karl (1882), Leopold (1883),
Julius (1884), Bertha (1886), Hermann (1887), Max (1889), Heinrich (1893)
and Jette (1897), were all born in Laupheim, that lets us conclude that they
settled there at the beginning of the eighties of the 19th.
Century. In the year 1888 all the members of the family were officially
admitted as Württemberg citizens. Two generations of the family are buried
in the Jewish cemetery in Laupheim. At the side of Josef and Lina
Guggenheimer is the father of the husband, Jacob Guggenheimer, and his
second wife Babette, née Schlesinger. It is possible that the older
generation in this case has followed the younger generation. The date of
arrival is not documented.
In general the researches obtained
interesting findings on the members of the family, but without offering a
complete picture. Lina and Josef Guggenheimer had eight children, and the
youngest, Jette, died just a few months later. It has not been possible to
determine the profession or craft of Josef Guggenheimer. The family lived at
Radstrasse 23. There is only one mention of Lina Guggenheimer in a press
release in the “Laupheimer Verkündiger” in the May 1930 issue under
Laupheim, Heimatsmuseum (Homeland Museum). There she was mentioned, together
with seven other donors, with reference to a donation for the museum from
the Biedermeier time. During the years of this journal several times
donations for the museum by Christian and Jewish donors were mentioned, as
well as for other charities, reflecting the feeling of responsibility of all
citizens towards the welfare of their community. A few years later, 1936,
the conditions under the Nazis had reversed, and Lina herself was in need,
and asked the Jewish Winter Assistance for the supply of a pair of warm
slippers, size 39.
The seven children of the
Guggenheimer family grew up in Laupheim, and attended the Jewish elementary
school, two of them could be found in old school photos. The daughter Bertha
Guggenheimer is on the school photo of the year 1895. Later, in 1912, she
married Heinrich Löwenstein from Rexingen in Laupheim, and left Laupheim.
Therewith all track of her was lost.
The youngest son, Heinrich
Guggenheimer, may be found on the school photo from 1904. We know nothing
else about the rest of his life, as well as with reference to his six year
older brother Max Guggenheimer, about whom it was impossible to find any
information.
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|
Jewish Elementary School 1895. Top row: Obernauer, Dudle, Blumenthal. Middle row: Bertha Guggenheimer; lower row: Wassermann, Hugo Hofstetter. |
Jewish Elementary School 1904/05: Max Einstein, Heinrich Guggenheimer, Julius Weil |
“Julius Guggenheimer
Grete Guggenheimer,
née Levy
Married
Stuttgart
Hohenlimburg
Laupheim
Westphalia
Wedding ceremony on December 22, 1927
in Hohenlimburg”
Julius was the only one of the six
sons of the Guggenheimer family to register in the list created by Jonas
Weil “Directory of the members of the Jewish Community in Laupheim to
participate in the war”. He was admitted on November 5, 1914 in the Infantry
Regiment of the National Army 123 Ravensburg and as he himself has declared,
he participated in the Oberelsass positioning battles, and was discharged on
December 24, 1918, after the ending of the war.
Almost ten years later he published
an ad on December 20, 1927 in the “Laupheimer Verkündiger” announcing his
wedding to Grete Levy. The residence indication on the ad stated the places
of origin of the couple, that is, Laupheim and Hohenlimburg in Westphalia,
as well as Julius Guggenheimer’s possible new residence, that is the city of
Stuttgart, where the last information about his life was found.
The results of the researches for
Leopold Guggenheimer go much further. He lived longer in Laupheim than all
the other brothers. He lived at his parent’s home until the year 1930, at
Radstrasse 23, in Laupheim, and moved to Munich. A confirmation hereof was
found in the “Biographical Commemorative Book of the Jews from Munich 1933 –
1945”, where his name is recorded. According to these records, he moved to
Munich on April 18, 1932. His photo belongs to the identity document.
Leopold Guggenheimer was a
door-to-door salesman, married to Hanna née Ansbacher and had three
children: Salomon, Simon and Joseph. Surprisingly they do not appear again
in the documents of the Civil Registry or in commemorative book, therefore
we cannot determine any further information about their lives. Leopold
Guggenheimer issued a declaration for the Finance Authority, which clearly
states the huge reprisals by the Nazis against the Jewish salesmen in the
times after 1933: at the right is the
passport photo of Leopold Guggenheimer.
“Munich, October 15, 1937
