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Moses Karlsberg 1939
© Evelyn Karlsberg

Moses Karlsberg * 1865

Hansastraße 14 (Eimsbüttel, Harvestehude)

1943 Sobibor
ermordet

further stumbling stones in Hansastraße 14:
Bertha Emilie Karlsberg

Moses (Moritz) Karlsberg, born 26 Apr. 1865 in Fränkisch-Krumbach, fled to Amsterdam, deported 20 July 1943 from Westerbork transit camp to Sobibor extermination camp, date of death 23 July 1943
Bertha Emilie Karlsberg, née Simon, born 12 Nov. 1872 in Mainz, fled to Amsterdam, deported 20 July 1943 from Westerbork transit camp to Sobibor extermination camp, date of death 23 July 1943

Hansastraße 14

On 19 Mar. 1918, Moritz and Emilie Karlsberg were given a family album by their children for their silver wedding anniversary. Written in calligraphy, the book included the family tree, table of contents, the early life events of Moses Karlsberg, called Moritz, and his later wife Emilie Bertha Simon. Their children’s dedication to their "Beloved parents” closes with the words "and may joy fill these pages! And pain stay far away from you. We launch it with this wish: Ilse, Alfred, Ernst and Bernd.”

The empty pages filled up. Moritz Karlsberg wrote in Hamburg, the city where the Karlsbergs lived and worked, about his family and his company B. Karlsberg. He continued writing in Amsterdam where he and his wife moved in 1938. Their son Bernhard Karlsberg and their daughter-in-law Ilse Karlsberg (see www.stolpersteine-hamburg.de) had immigrated there to save themselves from persecution in Hamburg. Their rescue attempt failed, but the family album remained largely intact and survived. As a family chronicle it offers not only insight into the personal life of Moritz and Emilie Karlsberg, it also gives an indication of how strong the Jewish religion was for them both as a faith and a way of life, providing a guiding principle, stability, comfort and hope.

Moses Karlsberg, called Moritz, was born on 26 Apr. 1865 in Fränkisch-Krumbach as the only son of the merchant Bernhard Karlsberg (born 1829 in Fränkisch-Krumbach) and his wife Louise née Moos (born 1830 in Johannesburg). He had three sisters, Bella, Ida and Leopoldine.

He stated about his childhood and adolescence: "In May 1868 I came to Hamburg with my parents and siblings from Fränkisch-Krumbach. I have vague memories of the war in 1870–71, especially the French prisoners and the celebration at the city hall square. At age 7 I changed from kindergarten to the Talmud Torah School and from there, after several years, to the Johanneum High School. Sunday mornings and twice during the week before school started, I had lessons in religion and Hebrew.”

Regarding his later professional activity, he noted: At age 17 I began an apprenticeship in my father’s shop, in 1897, a few months after my father Bernhard Karlsberg’s death I was made representative of the Cunard Steam Ship Company of Liverpool in the Reich. The respresentation of this oldest North Atlantic Ship Company has stayed in our family since 1849. The founder of the enterprise in Hamburg was George Hirschmann, my grandmother’s brother, who came to Hamburg from Offenbach am Main in 1849 and first founded a passenger and freight company. My father later joined the company, eventually taking it over completely. The 1892 outbreak of cholera forced us to set up branches abroad, in Vienna, Basel, Rotterdam, Liepaja, Odessa, Winnipeg, New York, Vilnius, Liverpool, and Triest. When war broke out, we lost them all. Then after the war I founded a branch in New York and, together with the Hamburg-South branch, one in Buenos Aires. Yet after initial success, they had to be closed again. Between the World Wars, I managed to keep my entire staff, even those afield and the ones who had become prisoners of war. I did this by taking on the representation of Swedish and Dutch factories, having their products delivered to the appropriate official purchasing agencies here. After the war, I sold to the Cunard Ship Company and have since then received a salary & commission. The purchase amount was completely lost to inflation.”

The official addresses of the B. Karlsberg company were Ferdinandstraße 55 and Neuer Jungfernstieg 5 (Cunardhaus).

Details are missing on the policies and operations of the B. Karlsberg passenger and freight business. Moritz Karlsberg may have thought they were well known. His son Bernhard explained in his dissertation "History and Meaning of the German Inspection of Transit Migrants”, which he dedicated to his father, the requirements for emigrants and transit migrants. It was the responsibility of the ship company to check emigrants before the voyage so that they did not become a burden to the country where they disembarked. This included their health, finances, provisions, skills, and proof of accommodation in the country of immigration. At immigration ports like New York, these checks were specified by the so-called pauper laws. If an immigrant was rejected by the immigration country, the ship company had to transport him back.

Moritz Karlsberg married Bertha Emilie Simon, born on 12 Nov. 1872 in Mainz. She was the eldest daughter of the wine wholesaler Heinrich Simon (born in 1847) and his wife Antonie née Strauss (born in 1852). Emilie had met him on a journey to Hamburg in 1890 on her 18th birthday. In the ensuing period, they corresponded and became engaged in 1892. At that time, cholera ravaged Hamburg, so the Karlsberg Family spent some time in Frankfurt. On 19 Mar. 1893, the couple married there, returned to Hamburg and lived for three years at Hansaplatz, across from their parents. Afterwards they lived five years on Grindelallee.

When Moritz Karlsberg’s father died in 1896, the son purchased a house at Klosterallee 8 where they lived a further 28 years. The couple had three children, Ilse, born in 1893, Ernst, born in 1895, and Bernhard, born in 1899. Their son Ernst died in 1935 from complications related to war injuries.

Moritz and Emilie Karlsberg were active in the Henry Jones Lodge, named after Hamburg’s founder of the B’nai B’rith Lodge and Hamburg’s German-Israelite Community. Moritz Karlsberg wrote in his family book: "Worthy of note during our marriage is our activity on behalf of the Henry Jones Lodge where I have held many offices over the course of my 48 years of membership: secretary, chairman and member of the aid committee, vice-president, director of the lodge home, director of the humanitarian women’s association – of which my wife was a board member – member of the representative council of the Jewish Community, and finally a member of the board of the Neue Dammtor Synagogue (from 1895, Beneckestraße 2–6, today part of the university campus). I revered my father above all else, and my entire life I strove to follow his example and forge peace and harmony between all people who crossed my path. My father was sought out by peasants, nobility and workers in Fränkisch-Crumbach when they had disputes; his judgment was authoritative. That’s why he was called ‘peace maker’ (or Scholem).”

Moritz Karlsberg was able to manage his business until spring 1938, when an inquiry was made of the Cunard See Transport GmbH, founded in 1920 by the Cunard Steam Ship Company in conjunction with the company B. Karlsberg as the main representative of the Cunard Line for Germany. The letter asked whether the company was "Aryan”. Moritz Karlsberg stated: "In order to be able to reply to the inquiry in the affirmative, I immediately gave notice on my position as co-owner and director of the Company. The department head of the transit section at once came to see me in Hamburg to express the Company’s sympathy and learn of my plans for the future, and counsel me on my situation. It goes without saying, I offered my lifetime services to the Company, in any permissible capacity. But Mr. Brown (the department head) did not want to hear of my staying at the company, and to my objection that my top priority was to think of my wife’s well-being he said: Go under any circumstances. The Company will look after you.”

Moritz Karlsberg prepared to emigrate. He transferred representation of the corporation to the Cunard White Star, paid his portion of the share capital of 1,000 RM, including taxes, and distributed the rest of his assets among his siblings, children and other relatives. His valuable home furnishings, which he still could have taken with him in 1938, were sold "dirt cheap” in a last-minute auction. He received an English permanent stay visa for his wife and himself.

On 31 Aug. 1938 they left Hamburg, but went to Amsterdam instead of England where they settled because they did not want to be separated from their son Bernhard’s and daughter-in-law Ilse Karlsberg’s family (see www.stolpersteine-hamburg.de). They lived with their son’s family at Merwedeplein 23, also for a time with their three children Rachel, Ruth and Walter. Ilse Karlsberg’s mother Franziska Heilbron lived in the neighboring house (see www.stolpersteine-hamburg.de). She arrived in Amsterdam in Feb. 1939.

After the Wehrmacht’s invasion in May 1940, the persecution of the Jews also began in the Netherlands. While searching for Bernhard Karlsberg, who was wanted in Germany for treason, the Gestapo arrested their daughter-in-law Ilse Karlsberg. She was taken to Hamburg, detained at Fuhlsbüttel concentration camp and ultimately deported to Theresienstadt on 18 July 1942.

The correspondence that Moritz Karlsberg kept up with Max Plaut, the Director of the Jewish Community in Hamburg, shows his worry about his daughter-in-law Ilse Karlsberg and his sister Leopoldine, who he also suspected was in Theresienstadt. "Even now, after the destruction of all that my parents & grandparents and we ourselves built up over many decades, after our expulsion from our beloved homeland, after our separation from our children, grandchildren, relatives and friends, after the inhuman, barbaric suffering of the Jewish people as well as a large part of humanity, we live with and for each other in gratitude to providence. We believe that even the most terrible tests of human society will only serve the purpose of improving the same, and we hope that precisely this suffering ultimately will serve the happiness of all humanity.”

In 1943 the Gestapo started raids, searching systematically house for house. Emilie and Moritz Karlsberg were arrested and taken to Westerbork transit camp. Their granddaughter Ruth was also detained in Westerbork. She lived in a different barrack but was able to see her grandparents occasionally. Later Ruth managed to escape. Following a brief stay at the camp, Emilie and Moritz were forced to board a train to Sobibor on 20 June 1943. Their date of death was set as 23 June 1943.

In Sobibor, two memorial stones have been laid on the "Street of Remembrance” for Moritz and Emilie Karlsberg, donated by their descendents. An additional memorial plaque is located on the grave of Bernhard and Louise Karlsberg, the parents of Moritz Karlsberg, at the Jewish Cemetery in Hamburg-Ohlsdorf. The plaque contains the names and dates of Moritz and Emilie Karlsberg, along with the words: In Memoriam.

Information as of April 2016


Translator: Suzanne von Engelhardt

Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

Stand: November 2017
© Ursula Erler

Quellen: 1; 2; 8; Hamburger Adressbuch 1920–1939; StaH, Amt für Wiedergutmachung, 351-11, 201/978; Staatsbibliothek Hamburg, Dissertation Bernhard Karlsberg, Geschichte und Bedeutung der deutschen Durchwanderkontrolle, vorgelegt der staats- und rechtswissenschaftlichen Fakultät der Universität Hamburg, Promotion 23.12.1921; Ursula Wamser/Wilfried Weinke (Hrsg.): Ein Niederländer aus Überzeugung: Bernhard Karlsberg, in: Ehemals in Hamburg zu Hause, Jüdisches Leben am Grindel, Hbg. 1991, S. 189–195; Mündliche und Mail-Auskünfte: Ruth Meissner, geb. Karlsberg, Chester/USA, Enkeltochter von Moritz und Emilie Karlsberg und Franziska Heilbron, Besuch Mai 2014; Familienbuch-Kopie der Familie Karlsberg, hauptsächlich verfasst von Moritz Karlsberg. Dank: Mein herzlicher Dank geht an Ruth und Harry Meissner (2014 verstorben) für die Gastfreundschaft in ihrem Haus in Chester/USA, Erzählungen über die Familie Karlsberg/Heilbron und Überlassung von Fotos und der Familienbuch-Kopie.
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