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Max Markus * 1882

Wandsbeker Chaussee 5 (Wandsbek, Eilbek)

HIER WOHNTE
MAX MARKUS
JG. 1882
FLUCHT 1939
HOLLAND
DEPORTIERT 1943
ERMORDET IN
AUSCHWITZ

Max Markus, born 27 Dec. 1882 in Pyritz/Pomerania, emigrated to the Netherlands on 10 Jan. 1939, deported on 24 Sep. 1943 to Auschwitz.

Wandsbeker Chaussee 5

In 1920, Max Markus opened a manufactured goods store in a small salesroom at Wandsbeker Chaussee 154/156, on the corner of Beckersweg (between Ruckteschellweg and Rossberg) in Eilbek (This site was destroyed in an air raid at the end of July 1943 and turned into a residential area after World War II). Markus‘enterprise flourished, and during the following 15 years, he was able to acquire the adjoining premises with their adjacent living quarters to create a department store for clothing with 35 employees, 500 square meters of sales area and offices and store rooms on the second floor. He called his store "AMLES”, and the neighbors in Eilbek knew the unusual name was the name of his sister Selma spelled backwards. Max Markus successfully steered his enterprise through the economic crises of the days of the Weimar Republic.

Besides his sister Selma (born 12 Mar. 1886), Max Markus (born 27 Dec. 1882), had four brothers: Georg (born 7 Dec. 1881), Otto (born 6 July 1884), Hugo (born 8 January 1889) and Alfred (born 31 Mar. 1894). All the children were born in Pyritz and left their place of birth, as did their parents, Isidor Markus and Johanna, née Grünberg. Georg moved to Western Pomerania, married, and, at his death 1923 in Anklam, left behind his widow and their ten-year-old daughter Gerda. Hugo married Minna Schubert and lived in Stettin, where their son Hans Horst was born in 1926, before moving to Berlin. Georg Markus died in the German capital on 2 Jan. 1938, his son’s twelfth birthday.

Max Markus came to Hamburg in 1900, his parents and other siblings following in different years and joining the German-Israelitic Community; Max and Selma became members of the Liberal Temple Association. Selma had married Arthur Neumann, a linen merchant born in Anklam; the marriage produced a daughter and a son. The Neumanns lived at Carolinenstrasse 6; their store was at Alter Steinweg 46. Max’ brother Alfred came to Hamburg in 1920 and started a linen store at Hamburger Strasse 26 in Barmbek. He was married to Meta, née Aronsohn, born 15 June 1894 in Gnesen; they lived at Hamburger Strasse 38; their marriage remained without issue. In 1923, Max Markus‘ parents bought the property Eilenau no. 3 in Eilbek. At that time, Isidor, the father, a cigar maker, had already retired, living as an independent gentleman; he died on 3 Sep. 1931 at the age of 75 and was buried in the Jewish cemetery Ilandkoppel in Hamburg-Ohlsdorf.

Already in 1928, Max Markus had move to a three-room apartment at Wandsbeker Chaussee 5, having previously lived behind his store.

Once the National Socialists had consolidated their power, the first public anti-Jewish action was the call to boycott Jewish goods on April 1st, 1933. Amles, Max Markus‘ department store, however, was not affected. He entered his company into the commercial registry in 1935, sales and earnings having risen continuously since the end of the inflation period. All of his assets were in the company; he owned neither securities nor precious furniture, nor gold or jewelry.

Max Markus was officially engaged to an "Aryan” lady 25 years his junior and had planned to marry her, which, however, was no longer possible following the enactment of the Nuremberg race laws in 1935. In 1938, he as well as his siblings started preparing their emigration. With regard to Max Markus‘ plans for leaving the country, the Customs Investigation department issued a temporary security order depriving Max Markus of the disposition over his private assets, but, with regard to his "Aryan” employees and the impending aryanization, not over his business assets. The Chief Finance Administrator allowed Max Markus a monthly withdrawal of 1,500 RM from his business to cover his own subsistence and to support his relatives.

Max Markus was also largely deprived of the management of his company. The experienced "Aryan” clerk Anny Mair, considered as reliable by the authorities on account of her membership in the NSV (National Socialist welfare organization) and the DAF (German labor front) was enlisted as co-responsible for the management, handling all financial transactions and endowed with a bank mandate.

The authority for "commerce, shipping and industry” set the purchase price for the AMLES department store at 170,000 RM, consisting of approx. 160,000 RM for the stock of goods and approx. 10,000 RM for the fixtures. Max Markus wanted to pay the "Reich Flight Tax” and the Levy on Jewish Assets amounting to approx 86,000 RM that the tax authority demanded as a condition for issuing the tax clearance certificate required for emigration. But the payment of the purchase price for the department store to a blocked account was delayed. The Chief Finance Administrator then, following an application by Max Markus’ brother Alfred, allowed the bank keeping the blocked account to pay the "Reich Flight Tax” and the Levy on Jewish Assets in advance.

Thus, Max Markus received the tax clearance certificate. He then compiled a list of his relocation goods, in which he included the items belonging to his fiancée. For newly purchased goods, he had to pay almost 3,000 RM on top of the purchase price to the "Deutsche Golddiskontbank", the "Dego levy”; of that sum, 480 RM alone fell upon a portable typewriter that had cost 240 RM, i.e. 200%, and for a portable Elektrola radio set worth 90 RM the levy charged amounted to 300%. The relocation goods were shipped to Los Angeles, the freight expenses amounting to approx. 3,000 RM.

Before Christmas 1938, Max Markus applied for the release of approx. 38,000 RM to finance Christmas bonuses and presents for his employees and further purchases for his own and his mother’s emigration, which was granted. A part of these funds was used to providently support Joseph Nathan, a penniless war invalid, an acquaintance who lived in Lübecker Strasse.

By this time, Max Markus‘ sister Selma, her husband Arthur Neumann and their children Ilse und Ernst were on their way to the USA, stopping over in Amsterdam, where brother Otto Markus was already staying; he and his wife were on their way from Berlin to Montevideo. Johanna Markus joined them on Dec, 31st, 1938. At the age of 84, Johanna Markus embarked to Los Angeles with the family of her daughter Selma, and settled there. She died on June 11th, 1941 in Los Angeles.

At the turn of 1938/1939, Max Markus, his brother Alfred and Alfred’s wife Meta arrived in the Netherlands with the intention of proceeding further. On Jan. 13th, the couple was officially registered as residents of Amsterdam. Having already booked and paid their passages to the USA for April 11th, 1939, they did not board their boat, for unknown reasons, and their incurred expenses of 3,640.80 RM were subsequently refunded to their blocked account.

At the beginning of January, 1939, Max Markus from the Netherlands requested a further sum of 15,000 RM to be released to cover Levies to the Jewish Religious Organization and the Customs Office. He also paid an additional Dego levy of nearly 3,000 RM for taking along "special relocation goods”.

Further invoices for goods, the authorized representative’s fee and other expenses related to the emigration amounted to an additional 5,000 RM.

By decision of the Administration for Commerce, Shipping and Transport of Nov. 8th, 1938, Karl Lindner, of whom no further particulars are known, took over the department store. In their memoirs "Kindheit und Jugend unter Hitler” (Childhood and Youth Under Hitler), Helmut und Loki Schmidt give an account of the November pogrom, mentioning that "policemen were guarding the Amles department store in Wandsbeker Chaussee to prevent stealing and plundering.” Lindner did not continue the name "AMLES”. On account of allegedly later detected faults of the stock, he withheld an amount of approx. 20,000 RM of the purchase price. In a settlement in January, 1939, this sum was reduced by half. Besides his previous company account, Max Markus now had a "Foreigner’s Blocked Account” at the Bank M. M. Warburg & Co. K. G., to which the outstanding sum was paid. His interests were represented by the attorney Herbert Samuel, until Samuel appointed the chartered accountant Franz Hermann Ruckick as plenipotentiary. Ruckick also represented the interests of Alfred Markus. Max Markus not only kept in touch with Hamburg by these representatives, but also by his former neighbors Emil Jacobson and Paul Naschke, who visited him in Beethoven Street in Amsterdam. Max‘ fiancé collected the papers necessary for their marriage and sent them to Amsterdam. The marriage and the couple’s planned emigration, however, were foiled by the outbreak of world War II.

Franz Ruckick lost his general power of attorney when, after the occupation of Poland, he began acting by order of the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (the Supreme Command of the Army) at different places in Poland, without being a member of the Wehrmacht. When settling his principal’s financial affairs with the Jewish Religious Organization, he remained short on one account, so that Max Markus cancelled his appointment and issued a new general power of attorney to the "consultant” Alexander Bachur, who negotiated an amicable settlement of the conflict between Ruckick and the Jewish Religious Organization.

On March 24th, 1940, Max Markus’s remaining assets amounted to 18,000 RM. Hamburg’s "Reichsstatthalter” (vice-regent) Karl Kaufmann "allowed” the sale of the property at Hagenau no. 3 for the benefit of the community of heirs represented by Max Markus at a price of 21,500 RM. After deduction of the costs of the transaction, the remaining amount was paid into Max Markus’ blocked bank account; augmenting his total assets to approx. 30,000 RM. This sum was subsequently transferred to Markus’ previously mentioned foreigner’s account.

In May 1940, the German Wehrmacht occupied the Netherlands, which had no immediate consequences for the German Jews who had fled or emigrated to the country.
The period between then and November 1941, when Max Markus again contacted his general agent in Hamburg, remains obscure. He now requested Bachur to ask former business partners of his and his brother Alfred to issue letters of recommendation in Spanish for a possible emigration to join their brother Otto already living in Montevideo, attaching a list of eleven former business partners (they needed five such letters). Alexander Bachur wrote to ten people on the list, with the result that the Markus brothers in Amsterdam received six letters of recommendation in Spanish. They did not, however, obtain the Uruguayan visas for themselves and Meta Markus they had hoped for.

On March 25th, 1943, Alfred and Meta Markus were taken to the Westerbork transit camp, from where they were deported to the Sobibor extermination camp an May 4th, 1943, where they were murdered immediately after their arrival on May 7th. Max Markus lived in the relative liberty of Amsterdam until September 18th, 1945, when he, too, was interned in Westerbork and deported to the Auschwitz extermination camp only three days later, where he was murdered at the age of 58. His relocation goods were in storage in Los Angeles, where they were eventually auctioned off to pay for the accumulated storage fees.


Translation by Peter Hubschmid, April, 2016

Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

Stand: October 2017
© Hildegard Thevs

Quellen: 1; 4; AB; StaH 213-13 Landgericht Wiedergutmachung Z 1553; 314-15 OFP Oberfinanzpräsident F 1638, R 1938/1980, Abl. 1998, M 24; 351-11 Amt für Wiedergutmachung 6182, 6183, 6185; 621-1 Firmenarchive 82/7; Joodsmonument, José Martin – Gedenkstätte Westerbork, E-Mail 27.3.2012; Schmidt, Helmut und Loki, Kindheit und Jugend unter Hitler, S. 143.
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