Remembering Ralph Blankenstein and Family

I believe that the most effective way to keep the Holocaust in our memory is by remembering individuals—rather than talking about numbers, which are just so hard to comprehend.

Ralph Blankenstein was born in Hamburg on September 29, 1922. His father, Isidor, lived in Hamburg, where he met his future wife Helene Blankenstein née Bluman, born on November 17, 1892, in Hamburg. The couple married on October 22, 1921, and on September 29, 1922, their only child, Ralph Blankenstein, was born. Since 1932, Isidor worked as a general representative in tobacco products for the companies Kuhlenkampf & Co. and Altmann and Budde. His wife, Helene, worked as a secretary for the French Consulate General in Hamburg from 1932 to 1935. Ralph attended the Talmud Torah School from 1932 to 1937.

In April 1937, Isidor Blankenstein lost his job because of his “non-Aryan” origins. He then left Hamburg with his wife Helene and his son Ralph and traveled with them to the Netherlands. Due to discrepancies about the 6,000 Reichsmarks owed to the companies Kuhlenkampf & Co. and Altmann and Budde, an arrest warrant was issued against Isidor for the alleged attempt to illegally obtain assets from strangers. When he wanted to visit his mother in Germany, he was arrested in Kleve (Düsseldorf) and transferred to the prison in Hamburg on June 3, 1937. Isidor denied having committed a criminal offense and was successful in having the arrest warrant revoked. He was released from prison on July 7, 1937, and returned to his family in the Netherlands. However, in doing so, he evaded the requirement to report to the police—and an arrest warrant was once again issued. Isidor had German citizenship until September 1938, but he lost it when he left the country and became stateless.

His last stay in the Netherlands was at the internment Camp in Hoorn (North Holland). He was arrested again in 1940 and first taken to Amsterdam before being transferred again to the prison in Hamburg. In the criminal case against Isidor Blankenstein, he was represented by his “consultant” M. Israel Samson. (Jewish lawyers were referred to as consultants when their general license to practice law was revoked—but had permission to legally represent or advise other Jews.) On July 21, 1941, Isidor was released from the prison in Hamburg. On October 1, 1941, the Hamburg District Court, Department 135, pronounced the verdict according to which the defendant Isidor Blankenstein had been acquitted of the charge of fraud to the detriment of the Altmann Company, but at the same time was sentenced to nine months in prison for breach of trust to the detriment of the Kuhlenkampf & Co. Company. The sentence was deemed served through pre-trial detention.

Isidor Blankenstein was not able to enjoy his freedom regained for long. About three weeks later, he received the deportation order at his last home address in Hamburg, Heinrich-Barth-Straße 10 (near Seligmann). Isidor Blankenstein was deported to Łódź on October 25, 1941. He died in the ghetto on April 5, 1942.

Helene Blankenstein was arrested and sent to the Westerbork Transit Camp in the Netherlands on July 16, 1940. She stayed there until September 4, 1944, and then deported to Theresienstadt. She was liberated on May 8, 1945, and survived World War II.

Their son, Ralph, was deported to Westerbork on June 6, 1942. He was then moved to Theresienstadt, and then on September 29, 1944, to the Auschwitz Extermination Camp. Ralph Blankenstein was declared dead after the war on February 2, 1945. However, most likely, he was murdered in September 1944 in Auschwitz.

Source

https://www.joodsmonument.nl/nl/page/584642/over-ralph-blankenstein-en-zijn-ouders

Ernst Rudolf Reiss—Murdered a Day Before Liberation

On 27 January 1945, the Russians entered the gates of the Auschwitz Concentration Camp complex and liberated the remaining prisoners. Let me show you what led up to the day before—26 January 1945.

On 20 January, shortly after the evacuation, the remaining SS functionaries blew up crematoria and gas chambers II and III. The next day, no longer able to ship out all the stolen goods, they set fire to the ‘Kanada’ warehouses in Birkenau. The fire lasted a few days and destroyed virtually all the belongings. On 26 January 1945, the SS finally blew up the Crematorium V building. This was not the only thing they did on 26 January.

In 1934, a Quaker school was founded in Eerde (municipality of Ommen), and young German refugees attended that school. There, they trained for a farming life in Israel. The Quakers wanted to provide education and safe shelter in the Netherlands to young people who had to flee fascism from their own country.

Ernst Rudolf Israel Reiss was born in Hamburg on 12 August 1927. Rudolf grew up in a Jewish family that had converted to the Protestant faith. Despite that, the Nazis made their lives miserable. Ernst Rudolf was sent to the Netherlands for safety in September 1938.

Ernst Rudolf Reiss was only 11 years old when he arrived at the Eerde estate near Ommen. At the Quaker school, he trained to be a future farmer in Israel. While at Eerde, he became friends with Klaus Seckel. They slept in the same room. Klaus wrote in his diary that he and Rudolf were better suited to each other than he thought—previously. Rudolf, like Klaus, loved reading.

On 9 April 1943, Rudolf and other students from Eerde were forced to go to Camp Vught. From Vught, they transported him to Westerbork on 20 May 1943. There, he stayed in Barrack 37.

Protestant Jews were temporarily exempt from transport. However, on 4 September 1944, they were placed on one of the last transports. Ernst Rudolf was sent to Theresienstadt and then transferred to Auschwitz on 28 October 1944. He was shot to death at Auschwitz during the evacuation of the camp on 26 January 1945 at the age of 17.

Sources

14 scholieren Quakerschool Eerde vermoord in WO 2

https://www.joodsmonument.nl/en/page/29282/ernst-rudolf-reiss

https://www.oorlogsbronnen.nl/tijdlijn/Ernst-Rudolf-Reiss/27/105051

https://www.stolpersteine-hamburg.de/index.php?MAIN_ID=7&BIO_ID=2615

https://www.4en5mei.nl/oorlogsmonumenten/zoeken/3203/eerde-joods-monument

14 scholieren Quakerschool Eerde vermoord in WO 2

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Dr. Leonhard Levy.

I often wonder how many really died during the Holocaust and where they did stop being considered a fatality of the Holocaust?

I think the real numbers are much higher because I don’t think the numbers include victims who died after the war as a direct result of the Holocaust.

Dr. Leonhard Levy was born July 14, 1898, in Hamburg .He married Gertraud Friedländer  in April 1943. I wish I could say more about him, but unfortunately there is not much more I found out. The only thing I know, but I don’t even know for certain is that at some stage he moved to the Netherlands.

What I do know for certain is that he had been imprisoned in Bergen Belsen concentration camp and was liberated from there. However due to the hardships he had endured while imprisoned, he had become very ill.He eventually still succumbed to the horrors of Bergen Belsen and died on November 23,1945,in Vaals , the Netherlands more then 6 Months after the liberation of the Netherlands.

He was laid to rest on November 26,1945 in a Cemetery in Maastricht.I know it’s not much but the only consolations is that he died a free man surrounded by people who loved him. His wife survived the war.

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Hamburger SV-Altona 93:Final score 4-2. The match on April 29, 1945.

There was a bit of a scandal this week in Dublin. On of the Dublin based soccer teams,Ballybrack, pretended that one of their star players was killed in a car crash. The team wanted to postpone an up coming match and came up with the death as an excuse. The ting is though there was no crash, the player didn’t die in fact he knew nothing of this  at all.

This bizarre incident reminded me of another bizarre soccer event. On April 29, 1945 two Hamburg teams, Hamburger SV and Altona 93 played a league match.

 

Some of you might think how bizarre was that.Well, compared to the aforementioned Irish team that was desperate to avoid playing, the 2 Hamburg teams were desperate to play the match despite a remarkable backdrop.

Hamburger SV was without 3 of its star players Rudi Noak, Werner Höffmann and Eugen Kahl, but that wasn’t what made this match so remarkable. The date was April 29 1945. Nearly everyone in Germany must have known the war was coming to an end. Even Hitler knew because on that same day he married Eva Braun, knowing quite well that they would end their lives the following day.

The Dachau concentration camp was liberated by American forces. Nearer to Hamburg about 50 km away at Lauenburg,British forces crossed the Elbe river just a few hours before the match started.

Despite all this ,hundreds of football fans would make their way to the stadium, not knowing what fate awaited them.

Hamburger SV beat Altona 93 by 4-2in what would be the last soccer match of the third reich.

 

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May 1944 Gestapo raid in Hamburg’s Chinatown- The forgotten victims

This is a little known story which took place on the 13th of May 1944. The victims were Chinese citizens, not tortured and killed by Japanese but by the Gestapo in Hamburg,Germany.

It requires a lot of imagination to recollect the past history that the Schmuckstraße as the center of a lively Chinese district of St. Pauli. Today only two houses of that time are still standing with an emptied site next to it, nothing remained or reminds the once lively Chinese district that connected close between Talstraße and Grosse Freiheit, one of the popular street in the red light district of St. Pauli, Hamburg.

In the early 20’s, a small Chinese colony had formed in Hamburg as a result of the employment of Chinese in the German merchant shipping. Soon Chinese infrastructure were arisen in some of the European’s harbor cities. The Chinese have settled down there and opened up restaurants, Marine equipment stores, laundries. At that time, it had as many as about 2000 Chinese living in Hamburg.  They were hard-working, well-educated, went to dance and sports clubs, some were married to German women and had children with them.

The harmony living with one another were ended abruptly when the Nazis came. 165 Chinese were detained on 13 May 1944, in the so called “Chinese action” under the pretext of collaboration with the enemy. In the Langer Morgan labor camp in Hamburg-Wilhelmsburg, 17 of them died. All that remains today of the camp is a plaque.

More then a 100 people died in the camp due to inhuman conditions.

One of the Chinese victims was Woo Lie Kien  He died in the Allgemeinen Krankenhaus Barmbek(General Hospital Barmbek) as result of torture by the gestapo on the 23rd of November 1944.

Many of the Chinese left Germany for America or have gone back to their homeland China eventually ,as the 2nd World War ended. A few stayed back in Hamburg , leaving a forgotten chapter of Hamburg History behind

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sources

https://www.hamburg-travel.com/see-explore/historic-hamburg/chinatown/?PageSpeed=noscript&cHash=2204095e23aa4a8baf79d97366f9916a

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I am passionate about my site and I know you all like reading my blogs. I have been doing this at no cost and will continue to do so. All I ask is for a voluntary donation of $2, however if you are not in a position to do so I can fully understand, maybe next time then. Thank you. To donate click on the credit/debit card icon of the card you will use. If you want to donate more then $2 just add a higher number in the box left from the PayPal link. Many thanks.

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