Anna Reichenbach
* 1868

Anna Reichenbach, born on 25 Apr. 1868 in Hamburg, murdered on 23 Sept. 1940 in the Brandenburg/Havel euthanasia killing center

Stolperstein in Hamburg-Neustadt, at ABC-Strasse 2

On 14 Nov. 1858, Anna Reichenbach’s mother, Amalie Koppel, born on 23 July 1840 in Hamburg, married the furrier Bernhard Reichenbach, born in Apr. 1833 in Borbeck (today a part of Essen). Both were of the Jewish faith. The couple initially lived on Fuhlentwiete in Hamburg’s Neustadt quarter and changed residence several times until they finally resided for many years at ABC-Strasse 2, where they also had eleven of their 18 children. Four of the children were stillborn or died at or shortly after birth, seven in their infancy.

The fate of four descendants, namely that of Bertha Reichenbach, born on 8 Nov. 1862, Bruno Reichenbach, born on 4 Feb. 1864, Alfred Reichenbach, born on 2 Feb. 1870, as well as Gretchen Reichenbach, born on 19 June 1874, is uncertain.

Regarding three children, we know that they reached adulthood: Anna Reichenbach, born on 25 Apr. 1868, Mary Reichenbach, born on 2 Feb. 1867, and Carl Reichenbach, born on 3 Oct. 1881.

Bernhard and Amalie Reichenbach, who suffered many strokes of fate from the stillbirths and the early deaths of several children, did not live to see either the subsequent fate of their daughter Anna or that of their daughter Mary. Both parents had died still in the nineteenth century: Bernhard on 23 Aug. 1884, Amalie on 3 June 1899.

Anna Reichenbach, about whose childhood, youth or education we know nothing, was admitted for the first time to the “Friedrichsberg lunatic asylum” (“Irrenanstalt Friedrichsberg”) at the end of the nineteenth century. On the patient file card, which still exists, seven photographs in Friedrichsberg can be reconstructed. The last admission to the institution, renamed “State Hospital” (“Staatskrankenanstalt”) after the First World War, due to a “mental illness” dates from 16 July 1930. Anna Reichenbach was there until June 1935 and was then transferred to the Langenhorn State Hospital (Staatskrankenanstalt Langenhorn) for the next few years.

In the spring/summer of 1940, the “euthanasia” headquarters in Berlin, located at Tiergartenstrasse 4, planned a special operation aimed against Jews in public and private sanatoriums and nursing homes. It had the Jewish persons living in the institutions registered and moved together in what were officially so-called collection institutions. The Hamburg-Langenhorn “sanatorium and nursing home” (“Heil- und Pflegeanstalt” Hamburg-Langenhorn) was designated the North German collection institution. All institutions in Hamburg, Schleswig-Holstein, and Mecklenburg were ordered to move the Jews living in their facilities there by 18 Sept. 1940.

Anna Reichenbach was one of the patients who had already lived in the Langenhorn “sanatorium and nursing home” (Langenhorn Heil- und Pflegeanstalt) before the cut-off date. On 23 September, she was loaded on to a train with a further 135 patients from North German institutions at the Ochsenzoll freight station and transported to Brandenburg/Havel. On the same day, these persons were killed with carbon monoxide in the part of the former penitentiary that had been converted into a gas-killing facility. Only Ilse Herta Zachmann escaped this fate at first (see corresponding entry).

It is not known whether, and if so, when relatives became aware of Anna Reichenbach’s death. In all documented death notices, it was claimed that the person concerned had died in Chelm (Polish) or Cholm (German). Those murdered in Brandenburg, however, were never in Chelm/Cholm, a town east of Lublin. The former Polish sanatorium there no longer existed after SS units had murdered almost all patients on 12 Jan. 1940. Also, there was no German records office in Chelm. Its fabrication and the use of postdated dates of death served to disguise the killing operation and at the same time enabled the authorities to claim higher care expenses for periods extended accordingly.

Anna Reichenbach’s sister Mary married the Jewish mechanic Feodor Stern, born on 1 Dec. 1871 in Borbeck, on 12 Jan. 1894. Feodor Stern came from a plumber’s family.

Mary’s brother Carl Reichenbach was present as witness to the marriage. The marriage certificate reveals that he lived in Manchester. The marriage with Feodor Stern was divorced after only two years. The divorce “from the bond” (Scheidung “vom Bande”) allowed a remarriage. The clause “vom Bande” was pronounced when the law of the Catholic Church applied in the home country of one of the spouses and thus a remarriage after a divorce was actually ruled out. The marriage produced a daughter, Käthe, born on 22 Nov. 1894. She took up the occupation of an office clerk, but died on 22 Oct. 1918 at the age of 24. On 15 July 1942, Mary Stern received the deportation order to Theresienstadt. Two months later, on 21 Sept. 1942, she was transported to Treblinka and presumably murdered there. The Hamburg deportation list dated 15 July 1942 also contains the names of her former husband Feodor Stern and his second wife Johanna, née Jüdell, born on 1 Jan. 1865 in Altona. Johanna Stern died in Theresienstadt on 8 Feb. 1943. Feodor Stern, whose first name was spelled differently from the spelling in his marriage certificate as “Fedor” on his identity card and in the deportation list, was one of the few whose captivity was ended by the Red Army.

A Stolperstein for Mary Stern is located at Isestrasse 21, where she last lived as a subtenant with Carl Richard Sohn, who was also deported to Theresienstadt (see www.stolpersteine-hamburg.de). For Johanna Stern, the Stolperstein is located at Gertigstrasse 22 in Hamburg Winterhude (see www.stolpersteine-hamburg.de). Anna Reichenbach is commemorated by a Stolperstein in Hamburg-Neustadt, at ABC-Strasse 2.

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