Gustav Goldemann was the ill-fated Jewish German in-law of German spy Josef Jakobs. Goldemann was swept up in a transport of Jews from Berlin to Riga in 1942. He would never return.
I published an earlier blog about Goldemann’s life, as best as I could piece it together based on readily accessible information on the web. Given that Goldemann was the common-law partner of my great great aunt (Josef’s aunt-in-law), we didn’t have a lot of information on him from our family records, other than a couple of photographs and stories about his fate. I decided to submit an application to the International Tracing Service (Arolsen-Archives) and see what they might be able to add to his story. The reply came a few weeks ago…
Arolsen Archives Documents
The file from the Arolsen Archives includes seven pages of documents, some of which I already had:
- Page 1 – Deportation card – which is also available online at Arolsen
- Page 2 – Gestapo report to the Finance Minister re: deportations
- Page 3 – Transport List – also available online at Arolsen – this is linked to page 2, I think
- Page 4 – a cover document with “Berlin” handwritten upon it, also a stamp which reads “Jüdische Gemeinde zu Berlin – Berlin N4, Oranienburger Str. 28”
- Page 5 – “Liste II” (August 1945) and a few paragraphs
- Page 6 – a list of names with birth location, birth date and address
- Page 7 – a working copy of Page 7 of poor quality with some handwriting on it
Let’s work through each document.
Deportation Card
The deportation card lists some basic information on Goldemann:
Name – Gustav Goldemann
Birth Date & Location – 28.3.1874 (28 March 1874) in Bromberg (now Bydgoszcz in northern Poland
Last known Address – Berlin C 2, Neue Rossstrasse 17
There then follows some not so basic information simply listed as “Information”
IX/6035, Transp. v, 19.1.42 Riga
This tells us that Goldemann was deported to Riga (Latvia) on 19 January 1942 via Transport IX and possibly train 6035. A transport in the dead of winter from Berlin to Riga; a journey that would last several days – in unheated freight train cars. One can only imagine that more than a few deportees would have perished on the train journey.
Out of that transport of around 1000 individuals, less than 20 would survive to live the tale. One of the survivors was Salo Stransky (born 1911 in Berlin) who testified at the 1969 trail of Otto Bovensiepen, former head of the Berlin Gestapo:
”On January 17 or 18, 1942 I was unexpectedly picked up from my apartment in the early hours of the morning by two members of the Gestapo and taken by bus to the synagogue on Levetzowstrasse. There 200 – 300 men and women of all ages were already assembled. I had to approach a long line of desks and to hand over my ID card for registration. I can’t remember now if I had to sign a piece of paper or if I was just told that all my property and/or assets were confiscated. To the best of my recollection we were properly treated. I would like to add that we were allowed to take a certain amount of hand luggage with undergarments and shoes. I had taken a very large backpack with personal items like suits etc., which I was allowed to keep. However, it was searched by Gestapo members for valuables. My fellow Jews believed that we were all going to be sent to a camp for a forced labour deployment. At that time I didn’t realize that there were also older people among us who were not able to work. None of us knew where we would be sent. Around lunchtime on January 19, 1942 we had to walk from the synagogue on Levetzowstrasse to Grunewald railway station. We were guarded the whole way by officers in plain clothes. I did not witness any elderly people, children or those unable to walk being driven to the station. I recall that we all had to walk. I have to add that none of us was medically examined for able-bodied work. Obviously this was not a criterion in compiling the transports. At Grunewald station we had to board a long train consisting of freight cars. About 40 – 50 persons had to share one car, and we did not receive food provisions. According to my current estimation the journey took 2 ½ days. We were able to receive some drinking water only when the train stopped between stations. At such times had to walk to the locomotive and the engine-driver gave us the water. Some of my fellow sufferers died during the journey. In my car three elderly people died. I don’t know the cause of death but maybe those unfortunate victims suffered from shock which led to heart failure. We were very anxious about the fate that awaited us. No one knew what would happen to us but we all suspected that it would be a harsh fate. I don’t remember if some nursing staff was with us. Only after our arrival in Skirotawa [also spelled as Schirotawa] it became clear to us what their intentions were. We were received by Latvian SS and had to leave the freight cars as fast as possible. Those not quick enough were beaten. Our guard detail which had accompanied us from Berlin surely witnessed the following scenes. Immediately upon arrival in Schirotawa a selection was conducted. Elderly men were lined up separately from the younger ones, and women and women with children also had to step aside. All our luggage was loaded onto trucks and was never seen again. Those unable to walk were called to use the trucks. As long as we were able to walk we younger ones, including women and children, were marched into the Riga ghetto. No one ever heard anything more about those who were transported by truck. They were probably murdered shortly after.”
Gestapo Report
The second document is a report from the Gestapo (the Police Control Centre) to the Chief Finance President regarding the confiscation of assets from the Jews deported on Transport IX from Berlin on 19 January 1942. The report was written on 9 February 1942 and is quite brief, distressingly so considering the hundreds of lives covered by its impact:
Einziehung von Vermögenswerten evakuierter Juden
Die am 19.1.1942 evakuierten Juden fallen unter die 11. Verordnung zum Reichsbürgergesets vom 25.11.1941 (Reichsgesetzblatt I, S. 722).
Dadurch ist das Vermögen der in Frage stehenden Juden dem Reiche verfallen.
Which reads:
Confiscation of assets from evacuated Jews
The Jews evacuated on January 19, 1942 fall under the 11th ordinance on the Reich Citizenship Law of November 25, 1941 (Reichsgesetzblatt I, p. 722).
As a result, the wealth of the Jews in question fell to the Reich.
It is distressing to see that the Gestapo used the word “evacuated” in relation to the deported Jews, a word which generally carries a connotation of someone being removed from a place of danger to a place of safety. In the case of the Jews however, they were being actually undergoing the reverse process… being transported from a place of presumed safety (their homes) to a place of hideous danger (Jewish ghetto in Riga).
(from Arolsen Archives)
And it is all presented so legally, everything above board here. The Reich Citizenship Law permitted the state to commit robbery, legally. “The wealth of the Jews in question fell to the Reich”. The wording is sooo… sanitized.
The Transport List on the following page is connected to the Gestapo report and lists 15 of the Jews deported on Transport IX. The surnames are not in alphabetical order nor confined to those that start with the letter “G”. Perhaps these were a group of Jews that were rounded up by one team of Gestapo officers. The youngest is 38 and the oldest is 78 with a mixture of men and women with five married couples. I had thought that they might be from the same area, but the residences are from a number of different Berlin districts. One lady was even born in London which makes me wonder at the repercussions of deporting a presumed citizen of Great Britain.
Goldemann appears on this list as Gustav Israel Goldemann. Born 28 March 1874 in Schöndorf. (I was a bit confused by this as other documents say he was born in Bromberg. But his 1911 marriage registration to Philippe Rothmann notes that he was born in Schöndorf Kreis Bromberg, so obviously a village near Bromberg.) According to the list, Goldemann was a worker (arbeiter) who was single and able to work (arbeitsfähig). He was living at C 2, Neue Roesstrasse [sic] 17. The final column for notes, states that he was “nicht laufend”, unable to walk. That last bit of information is quite sad. It is almost certain that Goldemann never survived to reach Riga.
According to the Yad Vashem’s information page on Transport IX,
On January 19 all deportees were taken from the assembly camp to Grunewald station. Those unable to walk were taken there by truck while the others were forced to walk about seven kilometres across the city…
Many elderly and sick people were on the transport, the average age being 55 years of age.
Some of the deportees were selected and suffocated in gas vans or brought to the forest of Rumbula and shot.
Goldemann was an elderly man, unable to walk. He could have died on the train during the three day transport in the dead of winter. If he survived the train journey to Skirotawa station (southeastern corner of Riga), it is highly likely that he, and other frail and elderly folk, were picked out by the Gestapo officers for the gas trucks.
Jüdisch Gemeinde zu Berlin Document
This document contains four pages, a cover sheet, a foreword and a list of deportees (two copies). The cover has a very faint date stamp of 30 July 1946. Another stamp reads: Jüdische Gemeinde zu Berlin – Berlin N4, Oranienburger Str. 28. I looked up the address and realized with a start that I had seen this building on a 2010 visit to Berlin! It is next door to the New Synagogue.
The old synagogue was set alight by the Nazis on Kristallnacht (9 November 1938) and further damaged by allied bombing in 1943. I had no idea when I visited Berlin in 2010, that I was walking by a building which had a tangential connection to the story of Josef Jakobs and his Jewish in-laws.
The second page of this document is titled List II and states:
Verzeichnes jener nach der Befreiung druch die Allierten in Berlin registrierten Juden, welche:
der Pflicht zum Tragen des Judensternes genau so wie die in der Liste I aufgeführten Personen unterworften waren, deren Deportation jedoch aus Rücksicht auf die arische Ehehulfte zurückgastellt war.
Wer am Tage der Registierung der jüdischen Religion nicht angehört hat, ist in diesem Verzeichnis nicht aufgeführt.
List of those Jews registered in Berlin by the Allies after the liberation, who:
were subject to the obligation to wear the Jewish star just like the persons listed in List I, but whose deportation was postponed out of consideration for the Aryan marriage.
Anyone who did not belong to the Jewish religion on the day of registration is not listed in this directory.
The fact that Goldemann is on this list tends to make me wonder if he and my great great aunt, Johanna Catharina Knöffler, actually DID get married. And yet… on the Gestapo list above, Goldemann was listed as single. Which makes me wonder if they got a divorce. The fact that Johanna was the non-Jew in the marriage meant that it would have been considered a non-privileged inter-marriage. In most cases, the Jewish husband would have had to give up their business and source of income. They would then have been drafted into forced labour battalions and the family’s rations would have been reduced over time. Pressure upon the non-Jewish wife was often very strong to divorce her Jewish husband. Or perhaps risk deportation with their husband. But sometimes the Nazis simply rounded up the Jewish husband, marriage or no marriage. Which also leaves me wondering if perhaps they were not married, but pretended to be. Although, at some point, they would have had to show a marriage registration as proof. Johanna never appears with the surname “Goldemann” in any of the documents that I have found sooo… I tend to lean towards the theory that they were not married but pretended to be. My father always said that Gustav never went outside, so perhaps they tried to keep him under the radar of the authorities.
The third page of the document includes an alphabetical list of names, presumably members of the Jewish community from Oranienburger Strasse. Goldemann appears on this list as:
Goldemann, Gustav – born in Bromberg on 28.3.1874 – residing in Schöneberg at Eisenacherstrasse 38/39, II
I have never come across a reference to Eisenacherstrasse as part of my research into Goldemann. As early as 1907, he was living at Neue Roßstrasse 17, which is the same address listed on other deportation documents. His 1906 marriage registration has him living at Lange Strasse 2, not Eisenacherstrasse. Perhaps the Jewish Community documents included a much older address. It would appear that Goldemann’s father, Julius Goldemann lived at Lange Strasse 2 in 1914, so perhaps that was the family home.
Goldemann Family
I started searching backwards through the Berlin address books for Goldemann and his family. I was stymied by the fact that before 1900, most of the address books only list first names as initials. I was able to trace the family at Lange Strasse 2 back to 1899 but beyond that, nothing. With several “J. Goldemann”s, it became guesswork to try and figure out which one was our Julius Goldemann. But… I did some more digging in Ancestry and managed to trace the family back even further.
Our Gustav Goldemann was born in 1874 in Bromberg, Posen, but it would appear that his family moved to Berlin when he was just a toddler. Two of his sisters, Anna born in 1876 and Eva born in 1878, were both born in Berlin. Their father, Julius, was a Handelsmann (merchant) and, while the family was living at Grüner Weg 2 in 1876, two years later, they had moved to Blumenweg 51. Interestingly, an Isidor Goldemann, also a Handelsmann was also living at Blumenweg 51, perhaps a relation of Julius Goldemann. On 7 December 1895, daughter Eva passed away in Berlin at the tender age of 17 years while the family was living at Lange Strasse 2. Between 1878 and 1895, however, I have been unable to confirm their address with any certainty. Either way, I’m not finding any evidence of Eisenacherstrasse!
As for the fate of the family. We know that daughter Eva died in 1895, followed a couple of decades later by her father, Julius Goldemann who passed away at the age of 70 years in 1914. The other daughter, Anna Goldemann, was not so fortunate as to die a natural death.
According to the Yad Vashem site, Anna was deported from Berlin to Riga aboard Transport 19, Train Da 403 on 4 September 1942. Her address was Lange Strasse 2 and she was 66 years old. The average age of the deportees in this transport was 50. The deportees were forced to walk to the freight station at Pulitzstrasse/Quitzowstrasse in Berlin-Moabit. Those unable to walk were taken to the station by truck. The train departed Berlin and after three days, arrived in Skirotava station on the outskirts of Riga on 8 September. According to the Yad Vashem site, 80 men out of the hundreds of deportees were singled out for their skills and send to forced labour. Only six of them would survive the war. The remainder of the deportees were taken to the Rumbula and Bikernieki forests were they were shot.
But… the waters get muddied by Anna’s deportation card on the Arolsen Archives site which has notes that she was sent to Theresienstadt:
XXIX, 15720 H, 58-59 Alterstransp. v.7. – 8.9.42 Theresienstadt
I translate the above to be Transport 29, a transport of elderly which was sent to Theresienstadt on 8 September 1942. The date matches what we know from Yad Vashem. My initial thought is that the Nazi hierarchy falsified documents to cover up the blatant murder of deportees in the forests near Riga.
The Arolsen Archives also has a Transport List, part of a Gestapo report confirming the confiscation of wealth. Anna is listed there (same birth date) as being deported to Riga. It is heartbreaking to think that this elderly senior was shipped off to Riga, perhaps holding onto some shred of hope. Upon arrival, she and hundreds of other women, children and elderly/infirm men were marched into a Latvian forest where they were shot in cold blood.
The massacres that took place in the forests of Rumbula and Bikernieki are quite well known with memorials to the tens of thousands who lost their lives there. The exact number of murdered will remain forever unknown. After the Nazis buried the bodies, they apparently had second thoughts about leaving such obvious evidence of their crimes. They dug up many of the bodies and then burned them. Around 40,000 victims of the Nazis were murdered in Bikernieki forest including Jews from Latvia and Western Europe, Soviet war prisoners, and political opponents of the Nazis.
As for Goldine Goldemann, I finally managed to track down her death registration with some help from My Heritage. Goldine (indexed as Opoldine in Ancestry) passed away on 7 February 1923 in Berlin. She was still residing at Lange Strasse 2 and her son, Gustav, was the death informant. She had reached the ripe old age of 81 and would escape the Nazi horrors that sucked up her two surviving children.
I had a look and Lange Strasse 2 is no longer in existence. The entire length of Lange Strasse is occupied by Soviet era apartment blocks, empty lots of parking lots. There are a few Stolpersteine laid along the street to other Jews who were deported to their deaths. One day, perhaps, I will look into commissioning a Stolperstein for Gustav Goldemann at Neue Roßstrasse 17 and his sister Anna Goldemann at Lange Strasse 2.
Sources
Ancestry
MyHeritage
Arolsen Archives
Yad Vasehm
(Feature Image by David Mark from Pixabay)