Engelsgrube 50 - The Fisch family

One of Hanna’s school-friends at Burgschule was Gisela Schäfer, who lived with her parents and three siblings at An der Untertrave 44/45. On their way to school they went along Engelsgrube past No. 50, where Hanna’s father sold and repaired bicycles. Every Saturday one of the girls of Hanna’s class picked her up from home and carried her satchel, which she was not allowed to do on the Shabbat. Her class teacher, Herr Gabriel, always saw to it that this task wasn’t forgotten.

Hanna was small and petite, more a quiet and very dear girl, who Gisela Schäfer often played with. One of their meeting places was the green near the Swing Bridge, where a whole group of girls used to play with clay marbles or “Picker” as they were called locally. Hide and seek was also among their popular games.

Once, when tobogganing down the hill to Hafenstrasse, Gisela Schäfer had an accident with a cyclist, who was enraged and carried the damaged bike to her father. Hanna’s father immediately repaired the bike for free, which helped her get out of trouble with her father.

After public school Gisela Schäfer started her vocational training at Margarethe Vitense’s milliner’s workshop at Hüxstraße 13. Her way to work also went along Engelsgrube, passing Wolf Fisch’s business. One morning in November 1938 the windows of the cycle shop were shattered, as well as those of a furniture showroom, which was on her way as well. That day she had lessons at her vocational school in St.-Annen-Straße. From her seat she could see the synagogue across the street and suddenly observed flames. Her teacher cut short the lesson and upon dismissing the class admonished them to go home at once.

She never saw Hanna and her family again after Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass 9 November 1938). She had however once met Hanna’s brother Siegfried after the war.

In the letters from Dora and Bertha Lexandrowitz to their relatives in Shanghai the Fisch and Schapse families are quickly mentioned a few times. Among other things one letter dated 7 June 1940 says:

"By the way Frau D. just told me that Frau Fisch and the children had received their permit today. She is very angry that she hasn’t received hers yet, though one didn’t know yet, whether the Fisch family could travel to Shanghai and how. For the stateless people transit visas via Siberia are also hard to get and we’ll have to wait to find out what will happen. " (.p. 95)

Betty Fisch and her two children didn’t manage to leave Germany. In a conversation in June 1993 with Siegfried Fisch, who survived the deportation and the years in Riga, he shared what he remembered about that time.  His family, as well as many other Jewish families, had to come to the Jewish old people’s home next to the synagogue at St.-Annen - Straße 11. They were told that they would be employed in Riga. Besides their personal baggage they could take woollen blankets, food and a stove. They had marched from the synagogue to the train station in close formation in broad daylight on the 6th of December, through various streets including the Holstenstraße, one of the main streets in Lübeck.   At the train station a passenger car and a freight car were waiting. They loaded their baggage themselves and never saw it again.

The train went via Bad Oldesloe, where the Hamburg Jews were added, to Riga. They arrived at Jungfernhof, a former estate. There was an old dilapidated barn, in which thousands of people were accommodated on four-tiered wooden racks.  The winter of 1941 was very cold.   It was snowing through the broken roof. Siegfried Fisch was immediately separated from his mother and sister. Months later he had seen his sister once again in the Riga ghetto, but he never saw his mother again, and it can be assumed that she had been killed immediately.

Hanna Fisch lost her life at Stutthof concentration camp (Poland) at the end of 1944 after three years of hard work, hunger and harassment.

After the war Wolf Fisch first lived in Palestine, later Israel, and then returned to Lübeck. Wolf’s son, Siegfried, was also living in Lübeck after returning from Riga. Siegfried had married and lived in Lübeck with his wife and children until his death in 2002.

References in Addition to Standard Reference Materials:

• Adressbücher und Meldekartei der Hansestadt Lübeck (Address and Registration Records of the Hanseatic City of Lübeck)
• Archiv der Hansestadt Lübeck, Schul- und Kultusverwaltung 375,
• Staatliche Polizeiverwaltung 8, 25, 109, 110, 124, 126
• Buch der Erinnerung, Die ins Baltikum deportierten deutschen, österreichischen und tschechoslowakischen Juden, bearbeitet von Wolfgang Scheffler und Diana Schulle, München 2003
• Datenpool JSHD der Forschungsstelle "Juden in Schleswig-Holstein" an der Universität Flensburg
• Gespräche mit Siegfried Fisch, Juni 1993 und Mai 2000
• Kugler-Weiemann, Heidemarie / Peperkorn, Hella (Hrsg.): "Hoffentlich klappt alles zum Guten ", Die Briefe der jüdischen Schwestern Bertha und Dora Lexandrowitz (1939 - 1941 ), Neumünster 2000
• Memorbuch zum Gedenken an die jüdischen, in der Schoa umgekommenen Schleswig-Holsteiner und Schleswig-Holsteinerinnen, hrsg. v. Miriam Gillis-Carlebach, Hamburg 1996
• Staatsarchiv Hamburg  362-6/10 Talmud Tora
• Yad Vashem, The Central Database of Shoah Victims Names
• Conversations with contemporaries of the Fish family

Heidemarie Kugler-Weiemann, 2008

Translation:  Martin Harnisch and Glenn Sellick, 2010