The shopkeeper, Benjamin Emmering, his wife, Sara, and their three children, Aron Adolf, Elena and Eva, had lived in their home at St. Annen-Straße 12 since 1919.

Benjamin Emmering was born in 1870 and grew up in Loppersum, a town located in the north western part of the Province of Groningen in Holland.  He was the middle child of a family of seven children. It is not known how he became acquainted with Sara Goge, who came from Moisling, now a suburb of Lübeck,.  It is assumed that since he was a cattle trader he met her while on business in Lübeck.  They were married in Lübeck in 1903.  Soon after Benjamin had married Sara, his younger brother, Simon (born in 1873), also married a woman from Lübeck.  Upon marrying the Emmering brothers both women lost their Lübecker citizenship and became citizens of Holland as were their children when they were born.

In the Jewish Congregation in Lübeck registry of births, marriages and deaths one finds the following entry regarding the marriage of Benjamin Emmering and Sara Goge:

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No. 235 = 129

 

Heute, Mittwoch den einundzwanzigsten Oktober Ein Tausend neun Hundert und drei ward von mir, dem unterzeichneten Rabbiner, hierselbst in Lübeck nach jüdischen Gesetzen getraut der Vieh-händler

Benjamin Emmering

wohnhaft Godlenze, geboren am 21.August 1870 in Loppersum bei Groningen in Holland                als Sohn des Aron Emmering und dessen Ehefrau Rebekka geborene Schryver, mit der              Jungfrau

Sara Goge,

wohnhaft hierselbst, geboren in Moisling am 25.April 1871, als Tochter des Schneiders Jacob  Salomon Goge und dessen Ehefrau Eva geborene Holländer, nachdem die bürgerliche                   Trauung hierselbst am Tage zuvor unter No. 547 vollzogen worden war

gez. Dr. Carlebach,  Rabbiner

Today, Wednesday the twenty-first of October nineteen hundred and three, the following people were married by me, the below signed Rabbi, in Lübeck according to Jewish Law:  the cattle dealer

Benjamin Emmering

residing at Godlenze, born on 21 August 1870 in Groningen in Holland, the son of Aron Emmering and his wife, Rebekka nee, Schryver, and the maiden

Sara Goge

residing in this city, born in Moisling on 25 April 1871, the daughter of the tailor Jacob Salomon Goge and his wife, Eva nee Holländer, following their civil ceremony which was performed here in this city yesterday and duly registered (No. 547).

Signed, Dr. Carlebach, Rabbi

Benjamin Emmering's brother, Simon, lived with his family in the immediate vicinity at Schildstraße 5 in Lübeck.  Sara Emmering's mother, Eva Goge, who was born in Holland, had already died in 1907.  Sara's sister, Bertha, died in 1909.  Her father had been dead for many years. Her only brother, Marcus Goge, lived with his family in Hattingen not far from Dortmund, Germany.

Elena, Eva and Aron Adolf grew up in Lübeck and went to school there.  Eva attended the St. Marien Girls' Primary School from Easter 1916 to 1922 and then the St. Jürgen Girls' Middle School.  She attended religious classes in the Synagogue kitty corner / diagonally opposite from her parental home.

Aron Adolf completed his middle schooling and then in 1919 began a vocational training course offered by the company owned by Isaak Frankenthal.  Eva also became a sales clerk while it is assumed that her older sister had not completed any vocational training but rather worked as a domestic.

Sara Emmering must have been suffering from a serious case of mental illness at this time. The fact that a large mortgage on their home at St.-Annen-Straße 12 was incurred while Benjamin Emmering was alive indicates that her medical care had cost quite an amount.  After his death it was necessary to admit Sara to the Strecknitz Mental Hospital. The building at St.-Annen-Straße 12 was rented out, so that the income from the rent money could pay for her hospital care. 

Benjamin Emmering died on 2 September 1932 at 62 years of age.  His death announcement in the Lübeck Generalanzeiger indicates that he died suddenly even though he had "long suffered heart problems."   Benjamin and Sara's children, now adults, had left home some time ago but at the death of their father both daughters, who were living in Hattingen, Germany, returned to Lübeck to be with their mother.

Their son, Aron Adolf Emmering, married in 1930.  His wife, Franzika Rosa, nee Blumenthal, was born in Hamburg, Germany. Their daughter, Ingrid, was born in Lübeck on 8 January 1931. At first the family lived at Beckergrube 74 moving in 1932 to Engelswisch 29. Since Aron Adolf was a Dutch citizen, his wife became one upon marrying him, and their daughter at her birth. In 1930 Aron Adolf Emmering was already operating his own business. An application dated 14 April 1930 describes the business as "Dealing in Rags, Bones, Used Paper and Scrap Iron."  Later he and his wife had a shop for men's clothing at Marlesgrube 13. Then on 13 June 1934 Aron Adolf Emmering was permitted to conduct his business only door to door. 

At the beginning of August 1934 Franzika, Aron Adolf and Ingrid Emmering left Lübeck, fleeing to Holland, where they started anew in Amsterdam. 

Elena and Eva Emmering also fled to Holland in 1933, while their mother remained at the Strecknitz Hospital.  On 9 June 1936 the Lübecker Sara Emmering was declared an "unwanted foreigner" by the authorities and deported to Holland.  The Emmering's home at St. Annen-Straße 12 became the property of the Hansestadt Lübeck through an enforced auction.  Once in Holland Sara Emmering was admitted to Het Apeldoornsche Bosch but under her maiden name, Sara Goge.  Het Apeldoornsche Bosch was a hospital established in Apeldoorn in 1909 for Jewish people.

According to the death certificates for Elena and Eva Emmering they died in the Auschwitz Concentration Camp Main Camp, also called Auschwitz I. The attending doctor who signed the certificates was the notorious Dr. Johann Paul Kremer, who performed "experiments" on selected prisoners.   Therefore it can be assumed that these young women were treated horribly.  They were 33 and 36 years old, respectively, when they were murdered.

In the night of 21 January 1943 and continuing into the morning of the 22nd the psychiatric clinic in the Apeldoorn Hospital was "emptied."  All 1,250 patients, including Sara Goge, were kicked and beaten as they were loaded onto trucks / lorries and then transferred to cattle wagons / cattle cars destined for the Auschwitz Extermination Camp, also called Auschwitz II or Auschwitz-Birkenau. Immediately upon their arrival on 25 January 1943 everyone who had survived the trip, including Sara Goge, was murdered in the gas chambers.  Sara Goge was 71.

Aron Adolf Emmering, his wife and their daughter were deported to Sobibor, Poland.  Ingrid Emmering was 12 years old when she and her mother were murdered on 11 June 1943, while her father had been murdered just two days before on 9 June 1943.

As to their other relatives, who were sacrificed in the Shoa, they were the brother of Sara Goge and his wife, as well as Markus Goge (born in Lübeck in 1875), Malli Goge-Bilstein (born in Soest in 1876) and Malli's sons, Max (born in 1904) and Jacob.  They were all murdered in Auschwitz.  Malli's daughter, Sofia Rozental, nee Goge, completed a Page of Testimony for each of them in Yad Vashem. 

In front of the building located at Engelswisch 29 are three Stolpersteine memorializing Ingrid Emmering, her mother Franziska Emmering, nee Blumenthal and her father, Aron Adolf Emmering.

At Schildstraße 5 six small memorial stones hold vigil to memorialize Betty Emmering, nee Lissauer, and her family.

[1] Institute of Concrete Matter, Haarlem, Niederlande (This picture was found together with ther pictures and documents of the Emmering Family when renovating a building in Amsterdam)
[2] Heidemarie Kugler-Weiemann
[3] Archiv der Hansestadt Lübeck, Personenstandsregister der Israelitischen Gemeinde, Band 2, Eheschließungen
[4] Lübecker Generalanzeiger 19.10.1922
[5] Lübecker Generalanzeiger 3.9.1932
[6]+[7] Archiv des Museums Auschwitz, Sterbebuch

• Archiv der Hansestadt Lübeck,
  • Staatliche Polizeiverwaltung 8, 109, 110,
  • Hauptbuch der St. Marien-Mädchenschule,
  • Personenstandsregister der israelitischen Gemeinde,
  • Grundbuch Lübeck innere Stadt, Band 58, Blatt 1717, St. Annen-Straße 12

• Bundesarchiv: Gedenkbuch, Opfer der Verfolgung der Juden unter der nationalsozialistischen Gewaltherrschaft in Deutschland 1933-1945,
• www.bundesarchiv.de/gedenkbuch
• Datenpool JSHD der Forschungsstelle "Juden in Schleswig-Holstein" an der Universität Flensburg
• Digital Monument to the Jewish Community in the Netherlands: www.joodsmonument.nl/
• Institute for Concrete Matter (ICM), Haarlem, Niederlande, Fotos und Dokumente der Familie Emmering, die bei Renovierungsarbeiten in einem Haus in Amsterdam gefunden wurden
• Memorbuch zum Gedenken an die jüdischen, in der Schoa umgekommenen Schleswig-Holsteiner und Schleswig-Holsteinerinnen, hrsg. V. Miriam Gillis-Carlebach, Hamburg 1996
• Sterbebuch Auschwitz, Archiv des Museums Auschwitz
• Wikipedia zu Het Apeldornsche Bosch
• Wim de Wagt, Post voor de Familie Emmering, Essay, in Auszügen veröffentlicht auf
• www.wimdewagt.nl/
• ders.: Het geheugen van de kunst (The Memory of Art), erscheint Februar 2013, ein Kapitel des Buches schildert die Geschichte der Familie Emmering in Groningen, Lübeck und Amsterdam
• Yad Vashem, The Central Database of Shoah Victims' Names
• Converstations with contemporaries of the Emmerings

Heidemarie Kugler-Weiemann, 2013

Translation: Glenn J. Sellick and Martin Harnisch, 2013