From across the street, you may notice its bright red finish and tree-lined front yard.
From above, you may notice that it is the only apartment building on this block that faces a large, building-sized opening rather than another building.
Holsteinische Straße 34 and its neighbors are Mietskasernen, an apartment building style we already met in episode 3. Mietskasernen were often structured in a front and a rear building, just like this block of Holsteinische Straße. The large open space opposite Holsteinische Straße 34 is where its front building once stood before it was destroyed during the Second World War.
Here’s an image from 1954, showing the rubble that remained of the front building long after its destruction.
If you walk down Holsteinische Straße today, you probably won't notice the large opening or its significance, but you may spot four engraved brass cubes, laid into the sidewalk in front of it.
These four Stolpersteine/stumbling blocks are part of the world’s largest decentralized memorial, the Stolperstein project, which commemorates more than 90,000 people, across 30 European countries, who fell victim to the Nazi regime between 1933 and 1945. Each Stolperstein is engraved by hand and set into the street or sidewalk in front of the last chosen residence or workplace of the person it memorializes.
The four Stolpersteine on the sidewalk in front of Holsteinische Straße 34 remember Regina Lewitt, her daughter Johanna, her son-in-law Werner, and her grandson Jürgen, who lived in the front building of Holsteinische Straße 34 for almost 15 years before they were forced to leave their home and were deported and killed by the Nazis.
Unfortunately, Regina, Johanna, Werner, and Jürgen aren’t the only of Bernhard’s and Friedel’s family members who were deported and murdered by the Nazis. Bernhard and Friedel were part of a large Jewish family. In the late 1920s and early 1930s, many of them lived in Berlin. Here’s a map indicating the homes of Bernhard’s aunts, uncles, and cousins from his father’s side. Note that this map doesn’t include Bernhard’s mother’s family or more distant family members on his father’s side.
At least 13 related Lewitt families live in Berlin in the late 1920s and early 1930s.
Here’s what the map will look like in 1944, one year before the end of the Second World War.
There’s not a single Lewitt family member left in Berlin.
In the early 1930s, 160,000 Jews lived in Berlin. About 80,000 of them left Germany between 1933 and the beginning of the war in 1939. Until the end of the war in 1945, about 55,000 Jews from Berlin were deported to ghettos, concentration, and extermination camps. Only 1,900 of them survived. The other 53,000 were murdered by the Nazis. After the war, about 8,000 Jews lived in Berlin. Most of them escaped deportation because they were married to non-Jews. Of the about 7,000 Jews who had gone into hiding in Berlin, only 1,700 survived. Most of those in hiding were arrested or betrayed, perished in air raids, or died of illness.
Bernhard, Friedel, and their Jewish family members all were part of one of these groups. Many were deported and killed by the Nazis, some died of illness, and some fled Germany, never to return. Here is a glimpse into how the terror of the Nazi regime ended or changed their lives forever.
Motzstraße 25: Moritz and Louise Lewitt, born Braun (Bernhard’s uncle and aunt)
Moritz, a medical doctor and university professor, and his wife Louise Braun die before and shortly after the Nazis come to power, but they have a daughter, Felicitas Käthe Lewitt, who is born in 1898.
Käthe (her preferred name), who works as a lab technician in Berlin, marries Siegfried Kantorowicz, a manager, in 1924. A year later, they welcome their daughter, Ilse Ruth Kantorowicz. The Kantorowiczs stay in Berlin until at least 1938, after which their address book record disappears. At this time, the Nazis have been in power for 5 years, and Jewish people have been alienated and excluded from almost all aspects of German life. Siegfried, Käthe, Ruth, and their extended family find themselves in an increasingly hostile environment, and they decide to leave.
Siegfried's parents, Isidor and Clara Kantorowicz, immigrate to Tel Aviv. It’s not clear if Siegfried, Käthe, and Ruth go with them at the time, or if they decide to go somewhere else, but in 1952 they leave England–where they have been living for an undetermined amount of time–for New York on the SS Liberté, a German ocean liner that was awarded to France after the Second World War.
As you can see on the above passenger list from the SS Liberté, Siegfried and Käthe’s country of citizenship is given as “Stateless”, as the Nazis had annulled their German citizenship in 1941.
You may also notice that both Käthe and Siegfried have additional names on these records: Sara and Israel. This is due to the law on alteration of family and personal names; another cruel policy instituted by the Nazis in 1938 to further separate Jews from the rest of the German population. The law requires all German Jews whose first names are of “non-Jewish” origin to take on an additional name: “Israel” for men and “Sara” for women. The law further requires all German Jews who have to take on an additional name to personally report the name change to the registrar’s office and local police within one month. Not taking on the additional name or failing to report the name alteration is punished with up to 6 months in prison.
Siegfried and Käthe never report the name change to their local registrar, as both their birth certificates nor their marriage certificate include a record of the change. By the time the law goes into effect, on January 1st. 1939, they have probably already left Germany.
Siegfried’s daughter Ruth, who married George Moss in England, in 1946, joins her parents in the U.S. in the mid-1950s. Siegfried’s three sisters emigrate to the U.S. as well, and his mother Clara joins them there after his father Isidor dies in Tel Aviv. Siegfried and Käthe become U.S. citizens in the late 1950s and spent the rest of their lives in the United States. They both die in the 1970s and are buried together in New York.
Their daughter Ruth stays in the U.S. as well, remarries, and dies in 1991, at the age of 66. She is buried together with her husband Arno in New Jersey.
Sybelstraße 49: Bertha Lewitt and Chajm Salomon Horowitz (Bernhard’s aunt and uncle)
Bernhard’s aunt Bertha is born in 1864 and marries Chajm Salomon Horowitz in 1895. They have one son named Richard who is born in 1897. Salomon dies in 1927 in Berlin, and Bertha dies 11 years later, in 1938, from stomach cancer.
Uhlandstraße 28: Richard Horowitz, Hilda Wolff and Katherine Horowitz (Bernhard’s cousin and his family)
Bertha’s and Salomon’s son Richard marries Hilda (sometimes also Hilde) Wolff in 1931. They have one daughter, Katherine (later Karen) who is born in Berlin in 1933. Richard and Hilda own a women’s clothing store at Uhlandstraße 28 in Berlin. The record for the store as well as their home, at the same address, disappear in 1937. The Horowitzs reappear in 1945, when Richard, now Ricardo Horowitz, requests a visa for Brazil.
It seems like the family is living in Uruguay at the time, as the address on Richard’s visa is given as Av. Agraciada 4039, Montevideo. A passenger list, dated three years later, in August of 1948, lists his wife Hilda and daughter Katherine as passengers traveling from Uruguay to New York on the SS Brazil.
Hilda and Katherine join Richard, who arrived in New York a few months earlier. Together the family moves to 124B Santa Maria, in Ponce, Puerto Rico. 5 years later, they apply for U.S. citizenship. Katherine, now Karen, marries Martin Mellman in 1953 and moves to Ohio. Richard and Hilda stay at 124B Santa Maria in Puerto Rico until at least 1962. Sometime between then and Richard’s death in 1981, they move to Sacramento where they are buried together after Hilda’s death in 1992.
Neue Bayreutherstraße 2: Albert Lewitt and Erna Jacoby (Bernhard’s uncle and aunt)
Bernhard’s uncle Albert is born in 1880 and marries Erna Jacoby in 1906. They have one son, Kurt Max, who is born in 1909.
Albert and Erna stay in Berlin long after the start of the Second World War. Their address book entry is the last Lewitt entry left in 1941 before all Lewitts disappear from the Berlin address book in 1942. Albert and Erna have lived at Neue Bayreutherstraße 2 (today Welserstraße 2) for more than 8 years when Erna is deported from there in 1943, at the age of 61, to the concentration and extermination camp in Auschwitz.
The 33.Osttransport/East Transport leaves Berlin for Auschwitz on the 3rd of March 1943 with 1731 Jews on board. Erna is one of them.
Erna’s husband Albert is deported to the ghetto in Theresienstadt just two weeks later.
He is forced to leave Berlin, together with 1341 other Jews, on March 17th, 1943, on the 4. and last großer Alterstransport/large Transport for the Elderly.
After Albert arrives in Theresienstadt, he is forced to work as a metal worker and killed and cremated 13 months later, on June 21st, 1944.
Neue Bayreutherstraße 2: Kurt Max Lewitt and Ruth Abraham (Bernhard’s cousin and his wife)
Albert’s and Erna’s son Kurt marries Ruth Abraham in Berlin in 1936, and they move to Tel Aviv where they have two children, Marion and Edna in 1936 and 1938.
Kurt and his family return to Berlin in 1954. Ruth and Kurt divorce in February of 1956, and Kurt marries Ruth Eva Käthe Schinkopf (born Rheden) at the end of the same year. Together they immigrate to Canada in 1957 where they will spend the rest of their lives. Kurt dies in 1989. His second wife Ruth dies 22 years later, in 2011. They are buried together in Ontario.
Kottbusser Damm 88: Doris Lewitt and Heimann Wilk (Bernhard’s aunt and uncle)
Bernhard’s aunt Doris is born in 1869 and marries Heimann (sometimes also Heymann) Wilk in 1900. They have one son, Gerhard Hermann, who is born in 1902 in Berlin. Heimann dies in 1936, and Doris dies 6 years later, in 1942, of a heart condition.
Leibzigerstraße 123: Gerhard Wilk and Betty Schimmel (Bernhard’s cousin and his family)
Doris’s and Heimann’s son Gerhard, a lawyer, marries Betty Schimmel in Berlin in 1931. They divorce four years later, and Gerhard immigrates to the United States. He settles in New York and marries Susanne (later Susan) Ruth Frankl in 1949. They have one daughter, Jane, in 1950. Jane marries Martin Schmidt in 1982, and the two move to Iowa. Gerhard dies in 1990. After his death, his wife Susan joins their daughter Jane and her husband Martin in Iowa. Susan dies 15 years later, in 2005, and is buried with Gerhard in New Jersey.
Choriner Straße 53: Jenny Lewitt and Mochel David Karpf (Bernhard’s aunt and uncle)
Bernhard’s aunt Jenny is born in 1871. She marries Mochel (sometimes also Michael) David Karpf in 1898, and together they open a store at Choriner Straße 61 the same year. Mochel and Jenny, have two children: Edith, who is born in 1900, and Max, who is born in 1904. In 1921, the Karpfs move their store and their home to Choriner Straße 53. Mochel dies in 1932, and according to phone book records, Jenny continues to own the store and live at Choriner Straße 53. The record for the store disappears in 1940. Two years later, Jenny is deported from her home at Choriner Straße 53 to the ghetto in Theresienstadt. Jenny is forced to leave Berlin on the 39.Transport for the Elderly on August 7th, 1942.
20 months later, on May 16th, 1944, Jenny is transported to the concentration and extermination camp in Auschwitz.
Holsteinische Straße 9: Edith Karpf (Bernhard’s cousin)
Jenny’s daughter Edith lives at Holsteinische Straße 9 when she is deported from Berlin in 1942.
She is forced to leave her home on the 18.Osttransport/East Transport for the ghetto in Riga, on August 15th. 1942, together with 1003 other Jews.
Edith is murdered only three days later, on August 18th, 1942 in Riga, at the age of 42.
Tellstraße 13: Emma Lewitt and Hugo Dattel (Bernhard’s aunt and uncle)
Donaustraße 86: Hildegard Dattel, Herbert Schack, and Hans Dieter Schack (Bernhard’s cousin and her family)
Bernhard’s aunt Emma, who is born in 1874, marries Hugo Dattel in 1904. They have one daughter, Hildegard Dattel, who is born in 1905. Hildegard marries Herbert Schack in 1931. They welcome their son, Hans Dieter, in 1932.
The Dattels manage to hide and escape the Nazis. Hildegard, Herbert, and Hans Dieter flee to Shanghai and immigrate to the United States in 1948. It’s not clear if Hugo and Emma move with them, but Emma dies in 1951 in Pennsylvania. Hugo dies 14 years later, in 1965. Their grandson Hans Dieter marries Shirley Ethel Slomo in 1957 and they have two children. Hans Dieter dies in 2003. Shirley Ethel dies 12 years later, in 2015. They are both buried in Pennsylvania.
Reuterstraße 64: Sidonie Lewitt and Adolf Goldberg (Bernhard’s aunt and uncle)
Bernhard’s aunt Sidonie is born in 1877. She marries Adolf Goldberg in 1907. Together they move to Reuterstraße 64 where Adolf dies from illness in 1936. 5 years later, Sidonie is deported from their home at Reuterstraße 64 and forced to leave Berlin for Minsk on the 5.Transport/Transport V on the 14th of November 1941.
Berlin: Emma Ella Friedländer and Paul Spandau, Lisbeth Friedländer and Gustav Pfingst, Rosalie Friedländer (Bernhard’s aunts and uncles on his mother’s side)
I wasn’t able to find as much information on Bernhard’s mother’s family as I did on his father’s, but Bernhard’s mother Regina had three sisters, Ella, Lisbeth, and Rosalie. Unfortunately, I don’t have much information on Rosalie, other than that she was born in 1867 in Berlin. I don’t know if she ever gets married, has children, or if she dies before, during, or after the war.
Regina’s sisters Ella and Lisbeth get married to Paul Spandau and Gustav Pfingst.
Both men die before the Nazis come to power, and while my research indicates that Ella might be able to flee Germany, Lisbeth doesn’t.
Lisbeth gets deported from her home at Roscherstraße 16 in 1942, at the age of 74.
She is forced to leave Berlin on the 24.Alterstransport/Transport for the Elderly for the ghetto in Theresienstadt on July 17th, 1942.
Lisbeth is killed in the ghetto in Theresienstadt on the 28th of November, 1943, and cremated two days later.
Both Lisbeth and Ella had children, and it seems like they were all able to flee Germany and escape the Nazis. Lisbeth’s husband Gustav, who died in 1925, had 13 siblings: Moritz, Emil, Margarete, Siegfried, Leo, and Georg died before the war; Rosa survived it; and Marie, Heinrich, Therese, Olga, Bertha, and Alfred were deported to ghettos, concentration, and extermination camps all over Europe where they were all killed between 1942 and 1944.
To: Frl. Joh. Kuhnt Berlin S.O. 36 Dresdenerstr. 11
8.8. Liebe Jopie, Du hast mir zwar von Deiner Reise nicht geschrieben, aber ich will mal wieder Böses mit Gutem vergelten. Ich sitze nun hier seit Dienstag und habe furchtbar schlechtes Wetter. Traurig was? Bei der Arbeit schwitzt man, und in den Ferien sitzt man zu bibbern. Wie hat es Dir in Gablonz gefallen? Drück mal den Daumen, vielleicht wird es nächste Woche noch besser. Ich bleib hier noch bis zum 15. ___* allen herzliche Grüße Eure Friedel**
Dear Jopie, you did not write to me during your travels, but I want to repay bad with good again. I've been sitting here since Tuesday and the weather is terribly bad. Sad what? At work you sweat, and during the holidays you sit shivering. How did you like it in Gablonz? Keep your fingers crossed, maybe it will be better next week. I'll stay here until the 15th ___* warm greetings to all your Friedel**
It’s August 1941 and this is the first and only postcard the Kuhnts exchange during the Second World War. We won’t hear from anyone again until June of 1950.
Friedel is on vacation in ‘T Gooi, about 20 miles east of Amsterdam. The front of the card shows several local scenes such as a farmhouse, sheep, and women preparing meals and doing laundry.
Friedel is on vacation in ‘T Gooi, about 20 miles east of Amsterdam. The front of the card shows several local scenes such as a farmhouse, sheep, and women preparing meals and doing laundry. Friedel seems to be on vacation alone, or at least she doesn’t mention anyone else. 15 months ago, the Netherlands was invaded and taken over by the Nazis. The postcard has several post markings, amongst them a red stamp with the Reichsadler of Nazi Germany, confirming that the postcard was checked by the Nazis.
So it makes sense that Friedel doesn’t mention Bernhard, her Jewish partner, no matter if he was with her or not. The postcard is sent just a few months before Bernhard’s mother, sister, brother-in-law, and nephew are deported and killed by the Nazis.
I don’t know if and how Bernhard and Friedel stay in touch with their family back in Berlin over the next 9 years, but I know that they are in hiding while their Jewish family members back in Berlin flee Germany or get deported and killed. Bernhard and Friedel will survive the Second World War and will get married shortly after the end of the war. Bernhard will become a Dutch citizen and will never live in Germany again. Friedel, however, will return to Berlin after his death and work tirelessly on getting her husband’s family the recognition and remembrance they deserve. The Stolpersteine in front of Holsteinische Straße 34 were set in 2010 due to her efforts. A family obliterated but never forgotten. Continue here to part 6.
*I’m marking words and letters that I can’t decipher with “_” to call them out. If you can read them, please let me know at unansweredcommunity@gmail.com. I appreciate your help!
**Deciphered and transcribed with the help of johannadambergk from the Genealogy subreddit. Thank you so much for sharing your time and skills with me <3.
Background music in voiceover: Awakening Dew by Keys of Moon https://soundcloud.com/keysofmoon music promoted by https://www.chosic.com/free-music/all/ Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Melanie,
a few corrections: my great-grandfather Gustav Pfingst had 13 siblings. Of the 14, 7 died before the war, 6 perished in the holocaust and one survived (Rosa Bunzel geb Pfingst). Julius Pfingst was a cousin of Gustav, not a brother. Do you want a photo of Gustav & Lisbeth Pfingst?
It’s fascinating to learn how throughout history of wars and genocides you see how diasporas unfold. The world would be a much calmer place if refugees didn’t have to disperse in form of survival to save their and their family’s lives.
In this episode, having read how some family members made it to the US, Puerto Rico, and other parts of Europe feels hopeful while hearing others ended up in execution camps is just devastating.