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Jacob (Jakob) Ries * 1876

Lindenallee 44 (Eimsbüttel, Eimsbüttel)

HIER WOHNTE
JACOB RIES
JG. 1876
DEPORTIERT 1942
THERESIENSTADT
TOT 9.4.1943

further stumbling stones in Lindenallee 44:
Emanuel Kaletta

Jakob Ries, born on 5 June 1876 in Gailingen, deported on 20 Aug. 1942 from Stuttgart to Theresienstadt, died there on 9 Apr. 1943

Lindenallee 44

The small town of Gailingen, where Jakob Ries was born, is located near Constance on the High Rhine. At the time of his birth, it featured a flourishing Jewish community: 41 percent of residents were of the Jewish faith, including the mayor. Independent of their religious affiliation, the schoolchildren were taught in common classrooms.

Jakob Ries’ parents, the natives of Gailingen Abraham Ries and his wife Rosina "Rosa,” née Schnurmann, were married in Offenburg in 1874. According to the Gailingen civil registers, Abraham Ries was a tradesman – an occupational designation that usually meant livestock dealer in those days. His bride was from Schmieheim (today part of Kippenheim) near Freiburg, and after getting married, the couple lived in Gailingen. The four children were also born there: The oldest son Elias was born in 1875, followed by Jakob about one year later, Jette another two years after that, and the family’s youngest, Lina, in 1880.

Jakob’s siblings Elias and Jette were married in nearby Switzerland, where they lived henceforth. In 1913, Lina Ries celebrated her wedding with Max Kaufmann still in Gailingen, with the couple subsequently moving to Mannheim. Jakob Ries, too, left his place of birth. He covered the greatest distance, for he felt drawn northward, to Hamburg. It is not known when he arrived there, or whether he had already completed his butcher’s apprenticeship by that time. An established fact, however, is that he was drafted as a soldier to serve in World War I and that he was injured.

In Nov. 1915, he married Therese Zimak, alias Freybuschewitz, a sales clerk nearly his age, who came from Gilgenburg (today Dabrowno in Poland) in East Prussia. She had moved to the Elbe River along with her mother Julie and siblings Bertha and Leopold after the death of her father in 1907 (see Stolpersteine in Hamburg-Rothenburgsort, Wilhelm Adler, Bertha Wartelski, née Zimak, and Louis Wartelski).

After the wedding, Jakob and Therese Ries occupied Therese’s existing home at Lindenallee 44. In the basement apartment of the house, Jakob Ries initially opened his own butcher’s shop, subsequently specializing as a trichinella inspector, however. He checked meat for human consumption for worms harmful to human health.

Jakob and Therese Ries’ marriage lasted for 12 years. On 1 Apr. 1927, Therese, aged 51, passed away in the Israelite Hospital; the cause of death is unknown. They had no children together. Jakob Ries still stayed in Hamburg for a few more years, and due to his war disability, he was unable to work from mid-1934 onward. He was 60 years old at the time. Eight months later, he left Hamburg for Mannheim, where his youngest sister Lina continued to live with her husband Max Kaufmann. On 22 Oct. 1940, the Gestapo and French authorities deported about 6,500 Germans of the Jewish faith from Baden, the Palatinate, and the Saarland to the Gurs internment camp in Southern France in connection with the first deportation of Jews from Germany – the "Wagner-Bürkel Operation” ("Wagner-Bürkel-Aktion”); their number included Lina and Max Kaufmann. Via the Drancy transit and assembly camp near Paris, both were taken on Transport No. 1006 to Auschwitz on 10 Aug. 1942 and probably murdered immediately upon arrival.

Jakob Ries, too, was scheduled for this deportation. Accordingly, his Mannheim registration card showed a stamp indicating, "deported to Jews’ internment camp France on 22 Oct. 1940.” Apparently, though, he was not fit for transport, for one day later, the card features a reference to the Israelite Hospital in Mannheim. Nearly two years afterward, on 20 Aug. 1942, he was deported on Transport XIII/1, train no. Da 505, from Stuttgart to Theresienstadt, where he died eight months later at the age of 66. It was not possible to clarify when and why he came to Stuttgart. The Mannheim Memorial for the Jewish Victims of National Socialism features his name just as it does that of his sister Lina and his brother-in-law Max Kaufmann.


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

Stand: October 2018
© Frauke Steinhäuser

Quellen: 1; 4; 5; 8; StaH 332-5 Standesämter, 8707 u. 443/1915 sowie 8089 u. 210/1927; StaH 522-1 Wählerverzeichnis 1930; StaH 522-1 Jüdische Gemeinden, 390 Wählerliste 1930; www.in-gailingen.de (Zugriff 17.2.2012); telefonische und E-Mail-Auskünfte sowie Auszüge aus der Ende 1935/1936 in Gailingen angelegten "Judenkartei" von Herrn Joachim Klose, Verein für jüdische Geschichte Gailingen e.V.; E-Mail-Auskunft Stadtarchiv Mannheim/KZ-Gedenkstätte Sandhofen, Herr Hans-Joachim Hirsch; www.holocaust.cz (Zugriff 22.2.2012); www.mannheim.de/tourismus-entdecken/mahnmal-juedischen-opfer-des-nationalsozialismus (Zugriff 22.2.2012).
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