Auguste Hirschkowitz
* 1891
ermordet am 23.9.1940 in der Tötungsanstalt Brandenburg an der Havel
ohne Hamburger Adresse
Related Stolpersteine in ohne Hamburger Adresse : Salo Weinberg | Anna Luise (Louise Hedwig) Weimann | Wilhelm Süsser | Dorothea Dorthy Silberberg | Lucie Rothschild | Karl Friedrich Michael | Bronislawa Luise Dorothea Mattersdorf | Hannchen Lewin | Richard Levy | Ernestine Levy | Sophie Kasarnowsky | Albert Hirsch | Martha Havelland | Richard Guth | Erland Walter Friedmann | Moraka Farbstein | Felix Cohn | Dr. Hans Bloch | Carl Nickels | Dr. Kurt Adams
Auguste Hirschkowitz (Hirschowitz, Hirshowitz), born on 12 Nov. 1891 in Orlau (today Orlova in the Czech Republic), murdered on 23 Sept. 1940 in the Brandenburg/Havel euthanasia killing center
Without Stolperstein
Auguste Hirschkowitz, born on 12 Nov. 1891 in Orlau, was of Jewish faith. We know nothing about her family background, her childhood, and youth, or when and why she moved to Northern Germany.
In Aug. 1939, she was reportedly transferred from the Schleswig-Stadtfeld State Sanatorium (Landesheilanstalt Schleswig-Stadtfeld) to the diaconal institution in Kropp in today’s Schleswig-Flensburg administrative district. She was probably returned to Schleswig on 7 July 1940.
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.
Auguste Hirschkowitz arrived on 17 Sept. 1940 from Schleswig at the Hamburg-Langenhorn “sanatorium and nursing home” (Heil- und Pflegeanstalt Hamburg-Langenhorn). On 23 Sept. 1940, she was transported to Brandenburg/Havel with a further 135 patients from North German institutions. The transport reached the city in the Mark (March) on the same day. In the part of the former penitentiary that had been converted into a gas-killing facility, the patients were immediately driven into the gas chamber and murdered with carbon monoxide. 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 Auguste Hirschkowitz’ 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.
A residential address of Auguste Hirschkowitz in Hamburg is not known, so that no individual place can be determined where she could be commemorated with a Stolperstein.
Translator: Erwin Fink
Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.