St.-Annen-Straße 7 - Franziska Sussmann
Franziska Sussman together with her mother Jette Sussmann (nee. Philipp) had lived at St.-Annen-Straße 7 since 1919. After Simon Levin Sussmann died on 26 August 1918 his wife and daughter left the house they had been living in the Lübeck suburb of Moisling and moved into a new flat in the home of the married couple Alexander Heimann and Betty Lissauer.
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The Sussmanns were part of those Jewish families, who had been long time residents of Moisling and had become citizens of Lübeck in 1848. In 1850 Simon Levin Sussmann was born in Moisling. Like his father, he and his brother, Bernhard, became butchers and cattle dealers. They were responsible for supplying the Jewish community with kosher meat products. In the 1916 address book one finds the listing “Simon Sussmann, Moisling, Master Butcher.”
Jette Sussmann, née Philipp, was also born in Lübeck 1850. She belonged to a very large extended family, who had long been resident in Lübeck and Moisling.
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Simon and Jette Sussmann’s wedding took place on 19 January 1876. Six children were born to the couple: Leopold Bergold Levin (1876), Siegfried Levin (1878), Hannchen (1879), Franziska (8 July 1881) and twins, Herrmann and Salomon (September 1882), both of whom died two months after their birth in November 1882.
Upon completion of their schooling the two oldest sons, Franziska’s brothers, were trained in the traditional occupation of butcher at their Uncle Bernhard Sussmann’s firm at Schmiedestraße 12. It is presumed that the eldest son, Leopold, was supposed to take over his father’s business. Leopold had attended the Johanneum Gymnasium, a university preparatory high school.
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The youngest surviving son, Siegfried, enlisted in the military in 1898 and became a soldier. According to an entry into the Jewish community’s directory of individual members Siegfried died on 28 April 1917 in Military Hospital 3.
According to the register of the Ordnungsamt (town clerk) it is certain that it was Siegfried’s brother, Leopold Bergold, who died on 28 April 1917. It is most likely that Leopold had volunteered for active duty during World War I and became a casualty. His grave stone can be found in the Moisling Cemetery and his name is on a plaque for “The Sons Killed in the War,” which is in the cemetery chapel. Whether the Sussmann family lost both of their sons or that one of the entries in the directories is in error, cannot be clarified to this day. Also it has not been possible to determine what had happened to their daughter, Hannchen.
It is certain that Simon Levin Sussmann died the following year on 26 August 1918 at 68 years of age. After his death his widow, with her daughter, Franziska, left Moisling and moved to Lübeck. For many years they lived on St.-Annen-Straße, only a few steps from the Synagogue and community centre, as well as close to relatives in the Hüxstraße, where Bernhard Sussman’s flat and business were located.
Jette Sussmann (nee Philipp) was 86 years old when she died on 30 March 1936.
Six months later, on 12 September 1936, her 52 year old daughter was admitted to the Strecknitz nursing home.
The last entry into her health records reads that she is to have died at the nursing home on 16 September 1940, but this cannot be verified for there are no corresponding entries in the death records at the Standsamt (Registry Office), or Jewish Community’s records and there is no existing death certificate.
According to several other sources Franziska Sussmann was transfred to the nursing home at Hamburg-Langenhorn on 16 September 1940 and from there to the Landesanstalt Brandenburg (another nursing home, known to be a euthanasia centre (see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hartheim_Euthanasia_Centre)) on 23 September 1940. On the same day she was “admitted” she was murdered along with some 30 Jewish patients from two Lübecker nursing homes, Strecknitz and Vorwerk. 8,989 people met their deaths in the gas chamber at the Brandenburg NS euthanasia centre between February and December 1940.
One could only wish that Franziska Sussmann had actually been spared her fate.
Franziska Sussmann last residence at St. Annen-Straße 7 was soon occupied by others, who did not move there voluntarily. After the death of the childless Lissauer couple, the building became the property of the Jewish community. Starting in 1938 several Jewish families had their quarters there, since they had been forced from their previous flats.
Hermann Opler was taken from St. Anne-Straße 7 in July 1941 and was admitted “ex officio” to a nursing home in Bendorf-Koblenz. The Jakobysche Heil- und Pflegeanstalt, a nursing and care home named after the Jakoby family, was at that time the only place where Jewish patients with mental illness were being treated and it already resembled a “collection” camp. From 22 March 1942 until 11 November of the same year 573 people were deported to one of the several extermination camps in the east, after which the nursing home was closed. According to the National Archive’s Memorial Book Hermann Opler was murdered in Izbica, Poland, 320 km (200 miles) south west of Warsaw.
In 1939 Jakob and Rosa Fordonski came from Rendsburg, located some 100 km (60 miles) northwest of Lübeck. Jakob had been the last lay official of the Jewish congregation in Rendsburg. Since he had converted to the Christian faith, he was able to carry out his duties on the Sabbath. The married couple was supposed to have been sent back to Poland in the so called “Operation Poland” to the place where they had left Poland in 1919 in order to come to Germany. Jacob Fordonski was taken into custody in 1939 while living at St.-Annen-Straße 7 and was first incarcerated in the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp, 32 km (20 miles) north of Berlin. He was transferred to the Dachau Concentration Camp north of Munich on 3 September 1940, dying there on 14 May 1941 at the age of 54 years.
Likewise Emma Katz, née Cohn, as well as Salomon Selman Selmanson and his son, Heinz, were forced to leave St.-Annen-Straße 7 and were deported to Riga. Stolpersteins in memory of these three people have already been placed in front of this building, since it was the last place they had freely chosen to live in. A Stolperstein for Hermann Opler has not yet been dedicated, while memorial plaques for the married couple Fordonski have been erected in Rendsburg.
Both of Franziska Sussmann’s cousins, Mimi and Margarethe Juliane Sussmann were among those deported to Riga on 6 December 1941. Stolpersteins in memory of these two women have been laid at Hüxstraße 64.
Verzeichnis der Quellen außerhalb der Standardfachliteratur:
- Adressbücher und Meldekartei der Hansestadt Lübeck
- Archiv der Hansestadt Lübeck, Staatliche Polizeiverwaltung 109, 110, Personenstandsregister der Israelitischen Gemeinde, Schulen / Johanneum 139
- Auskünfte von Dr. Peter Delius über die Patientenakte von Franziska Sussmann, und Dr. Frauke Dettmer, Rendsburg, über Jakob und Rosa Fordonski
- 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
- Delius, Peter: Das Ende von Strecknitz, Die Lübecker Heilanstalt und ihre Auflösung 1941, Ein Beitrag zur Sozialgeschichte der Psychatrie im Nationalsozialismus, Kiel 1988
- Klatt, Ingaburgh: “...dahin wie ein Schatten”, Aspekte jüdischen Lebens in Lübeck, Lübeck 1993
- Lilienthal, Georg: Jüdische Patienten als Opfer der NS-"Euthanasie"-Verbrechen, in: Medaon, Magazin für Jüdisches Leben in Forschung und Bildung 5/2009, www.medaon.de
- Memorbuch zum Gedenken an die jüdischen, in der Schoa umgekommenen Schleswig-Holsteiner und Schleswig-Holsteinerinnen, hrsg. V. Miriam Gillis-Carlebach, Hamburg 1996
- Museen für Kunst und Kulturgeschichte der Hansestadt Lübeck, Fotoarchiv
- Albrecht Schreiber, Zwischen Davidstern und Doppeladler, Illustrierte Chronik der Juden in Moisling und Lübeck, Lübeck 1992
- Yad Vashem, The Central Database of Shoah Victims’ Names
- Zeitzeugengespräche
Heidemarie Kugler-Weiemann, 2011
Translated by Glenn Sellick and Martin Harnisch, 2012