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Markus Pippersberg * 1901

Axel-Springer-Platz /Ecke Große Bleichen (Hamburg-Mitte, Neustadt)

HIER WOHNTE
MARKUS
PIPPERSBERG
JG. 1901
VERHAFTET 9.9.1939
KZ FUHLSBÜTTEL
1940 SACHSENHAUSEN
ERMORDET 1.6.1940

Markus Pippersberg, born on 3 May 1901 in Berlin, arrested on 9 Sept. 1939 and detained in the Fuhlsbüttel concentration camp, 1940 in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, died there on 1 June 1940

Intersection of Axel-Springer-Platz/ Grosse Bleichen (Fuhlentwiete 4)

Markus Pippersberg was born in Berlin on 3 May 1901 as the son of the upholsterer Chaim Pinkus Pippersberg (born on 5 May 1877) and Bruche, née Mückenbrünn (born on 1879). His parents came from Brzesko and Dembica in Galicia, which at that time belonged to the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy and fell to Poland after the First World War (today Ukraine).

On 7 June 1905, Bruche Pippersberg died at the age of only 26 in a Berlin gynecological clinic, a few days after she had given birth to a stillborn boy. Markus was only four years old at the time, his younger brother Adolf (born 7 June 1902) just three years of age.

Chaim Pinkus Pippersberg married Süssel Heller (born on 24 Jan. 1884 in Leroniowa, died on 7 Dec. 1936 in Altona) in a second marriage. Their daughter Else was born on 28 Nov. 1906. However, the marriage did not last and Chaim Pinkus Pippersberg emigrated to the USA via Bremen in 1922. He changed his name to Charles Pinkus Pipersberg and died in New York in 1943.

Markus Pippersberg had Polish citizenship due to his father’s origin. In 1917, at the age of 17, he arrived in Altona, probably accompanying his stepmother Süssel and half-sister Else. When Else married the merchant William Wolf Kanner (born on 2 Oct. 1898, died on 11 Mar. 1979), born in Zmigrod, Poland, on 25 Oct. 1927, she lived with her mother at Grosse Johannisstrasse 6 in Altona (the street no longer exists). Her mother Süssel married Jakob Götzler (born on 27 Aug. 1892 in Zmigrod) on 7 May 1931. The Götzler couple then ran a men’s fashion business at Grosse Bergstrasse 158.

Markus Pippersberg completed a commercial apprenticeship, which also included stenography, typewriting, and bookkeeping. From 1923, he worked as a department manager for the British Continental Handelsgesellschaft, a trading company and resided at Margarethenstrasse 15 in Hamburg-Eimsbüttel. He married Gusta Fiedler on 4 Oct. 1928. Gusta had been born on 6 Nov. 1906 in Horodenka in Galicia (today Ukraine). Her parents Max/Moses Fiedler (born on 20 July 1856 in Horodenka) and Dora/Debora, née Goldberg (born on 4 Apr. 1868 in Buczacz), had married in 1888. They had left their homeland shortly before the outbreak of the First World War. The Fiedler couple, who had many children, resided in the Barmbek quarter at Hamburger Strasse 34, where they ran a cigar shop. Moses Fiedler did not live to see his daughter’s wedding. Passing away on 8 Sept. 1927, he was buried at the Ilandkoppel Jewish Cemetery in Ohlsdorf.

As a dowry for the wedding, Gusta received from her mother the furnishings of a textile goods shop at Alter Steinweg 49. Doing business as the "Spezialhaus Empe,” the store offered stockings, gloves, and woman’s undergarments. It had to be closed down in 1932 due to the economic crisis. 1932 was also the year in which the Pippersberg couple separated. Gusta moved into her mother’s home with their son Gerd, who had been born on 30 Oct. 1931. By then, she worked as a sales assistant in the cigar shop of her brother Mandl Fiedler (born on 15 Nov. 1897, died on 12 Nov. 1955), who had taken over the store at Alter Steinweg 49 and owned a second store at Schulterblatt 8.

Markus Pippersberg, on the other hand, was unable to find a regular job after leaving the business. After separating from his wife, he lived first at ABC-Strasse 6 and then until the end of 1936 in Eichholz, renting from various landlords. At first, he spent his free time in the reading room of the Norddeutsche Bank, partly because a lunch menu was offered there for 25 pfennigs. As a welfare recipient, he was enlisted in 1935 to perform welfare work (Unterstützungsarbeit). At a workplace specially set up for Jews in Waltershof, he injured his hand while loading a tipper truck. At the end of 1936, he worked as a waiter in an inn at Grosse Bleichen 90, residing in the same building at the "Pension König,” a guesthouse. He lost another job as a waiter in the restaurant "Lissauer” at Kohlhöfen 1 at the end of 1937, when a relative of the owner was hired in his place. In between, he gave language lessons, probably in Polish, and worked in the port.

On 3 Mar. 1937, the Polish consulate informed the separated couple Gusta and Markus Pippersberg that their Polish citizenship had been revoked and that henceforth they were stateless. The following year, they divorced on 6 Oct. 1938. During this time, Markus Pippersberg lived in a room described as well-furnished as a subtenant of the widow F. Wagner in Fuhlentwiete 4, who also ran a lunch service at that address.

Markus Pippersberg did "compulsory work” ("Pflichtarbeit”) again, this time in civil engineering and road construction in Harsefeld near Stade. On 13 Mar. 1939, on his way to work in Hollenbeck, he was run over by a horse and cart. After an extended stay in hospital, he was no longer able to do heavy physical work. On 9 Sept. 1939, Markus Pippersberg, like thousands of other Polish Jews after the beginning of the war in Germany, was arrested. Until 15 Feb. 1940, he was held in the Fuhlsbüttel police prison. On 24 Feb. 1940, he was transferred as a "protective custody prisoner” ("Schutzhäftling”) to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, where Markus Pippersberg died in the "infirmary” ("Krankenbau,” literally "sick building”) on 1 June 1940. There is no record of who arranged the transfer and burial of his urn at the Jewish Cemetery in Ohlsdorf.

Perhaps it was Gusta, who last lived with her son Gerd and her mother Dora Fiedler at Grindelallee 68, in a loggia apartment house. Her siblings managed to leave Germany one after the other. After the "Aryanization” of the tobacco shop at Alter Steinweg 49, Mandl Fiedler was deported without his family to the German-Polish border area near Zbaszyn/Bentschen on 28 Oct. 1938 in the nationwide so-called "expulsion of Polish Jews” ("Polenaktion”). However, he was allowed to return to Hamburg for one day after his wife Sofie, née Iwanier (born on 5 June 1902), had made all the necessary preparations for emigration. In Feb. 1939, they emigrated with their daughters Margot (born on 30 July 1928) and Inge Marion (born on 31 May 1931) via Trieste to Palestine.

His mother, Dora Fiedler, left Hamburg in July 1940 and reached the USA via Moscow and Japan. Gusta stayed behind in Hamburg with her son Gerd, although she too had made preparations for emigration to the USA; she had already been issued a "tax clearance certificate” ("Unbedenklichkeitsbescheinigung”) in Aug. 1939. A former neighbor said in the course of the restitution proceedings that "Mrs. Pippersberg’s son was, I think, mentally not quite up to scratch. I think that was also the reason why she was refused a visa to go abroad.” Whether this circumstance, the start of the war, or the lack of a visa prevented emigration is not known. In the emigration file, a handwritten note dating from Apr. 1940 indicated, "has not yet received a visa to the USA. Will be deported to Poland.” Gusta Pippersberg was deported with her son Gerd to the "Litzmannstadt” Ghetto in Lodz on 25 Oct. 1941, shortly before his tenth birthday; both were murdered in Chelmno/Kulmhof on 15 May 1942.

Translator: Erwin Fink
Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

Stand: September 2020
© Susanne Rosendahl

Quellen: 1; 4; 5; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 6674 u 582/1928; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 8815 u 387/1927; 351-14 Arbeits- und Sozialfürsorge 1679 (Pippersberg, Markus); StaH 351-11 AfW 1283 (Fiedler, Dora); StaH 351-11 AfW 19620 (Fiedler, Mandl); StaH 351-11 AfW 20480 (Kanner, Wolf); StaH 314-15 Abl. 1998 P 277; 314-15 Fvg 9643; StaH 332-5 Standesämter 7076 u 852/1927; StaH 332-5_5405 u 1660/1936; StaH 522-1 Jüdische Gemeinden 391 Mitgliederliste 1935; StaH 522-1 Jüdische Gemeinde Nr. 992 e 2 Band 1; www.jüdischer-friedhof-altona.de/hhfriedhoefe.html (Zugriff 10.6.2016); ancestry: Geburtsurkunde von Markus Pippersberg vom 3.5.1901 in Berlin (Zugriff 18.1.2020); ancestry: Sterberegister von Bruche Pippersberg am 7.6.1905 in Berlin (Zugriff 18.1.2020); ancestry: New York, bundesstaatliche und föderale Einbürgerungaregister, 1794-1943 für Chaim Pinkus Pipersberg (Zugriff 18.1.2020); Bajohr: "Arisierung" S. 355.