David Glücksohn
* 1876

David Glücksohn, born on 5 Sept. 1876 in Berlin, deported on 29 Nov. 1942 from Berlin to Auschwitz

Borgfelder Strasse 24

“[B]lind! without any means, without any income” is the only note entered on David Glücksohn’s tax card of the Hamburg German-Israelitic Community.

David Glücksohn came to Hamburg in 1926 and moved to Rautenbergstrasse 7 in St. Georg. His parents, Süsskind and Lina Glücksohn, née Rimowitz or Reinowitz, were probably among the Jews having moved from the east to Berlin in the second half of the nineteenth century. David Glücksohn was born there on 5 Sept. 1876. The only detail known about the first 50 years of his life is that he remained unmarried.

In Hamburg, he began working as a broker, with his income staying at a modest level, however. Probably in 1932, he gave up his apartment on Rautenbergstrasse and moved into a room as a subtenant in Amsinckstrasse. In 1934, he went blind. It is unclear how he earned a living. In 1939, he moved in with Mathilde Dyhrenfurth and her siblings at Borgfelder Strasse 24. After only one and a half years, on 30 Oct. 1940, he returned to Berlin. From there he was deported to Auschwitz two years later and likely murdered immediately. The transport also included one Irma Glücksohn, née Boas-Lewin, born on 1 Dec. 1889 in Berlin. She was probably a relative who took care of him.

Translator: Erwin Fink

Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.