Felix Cohn
* 1864

Felix Cohn, born on 2 May 1864 in Freienwalde, murdered on 23 Sept. 1940 in the Brandenburg/Havel euthanasia killing center

Without Stolperstein

Felix Cohn was born on 2 May 1864 in Freienwalde as the son of Moritz and Therese Cohn, née Cohn. The parents were of the Jewish faith. Freienwalde was a small town in the former Saatzig District of Pomerania (today Chociwel/West Pomeranian Voivodeship).

It is not known how Felix’s first decades of life unfolded. In the year 1914, a first short stay in the Friedrichsberg “lunatic asylum” (“Irrenanstalt Friedrichsberg”) is noted. From there, he was admitted to the Langenhorn “lunatic asylum” (“Irrenanstalt Langenhorn”) in Dec. 1914. Soon after the First World War, this institution was renamed “Langenhorn State Hospital” (“Staatskrankenanstalt Langenhorn”). Felix Cohn remained there, as far as the files indicate, with a brief interruption until Aug. 1935. His clinical picture has not been passed down.

From Langenhorn, Felix Cohn was committed to the Rickling Asylum (Ricklinger Anstalten), living there when its director Oskar Epha wanted to exchange four Jewish residents (Felix Cohn, Benjamin Engländer, Erland Walter Friedmann, and Oscar Löwenthal, see corresponding entries) for non-Jewish patients in the spring of 1938. Allegedly, the management of the institution was afraid of losing the status of a non-profit organization and the associated tax benefits “if German patients are not admitted to our institution without exception.” From 22 Apr. 1938, Felix Cohn was again in the Langenhorn institution.

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.

After all Jewish patients from the North German institutions had arrived in Langenhorn, they were taken to Brandenburg/Havel on 23 Sept. 1940, together with the Jewish patients who had lived there for some time – including Felix Cohn – on a transport comprised of 136 persons overall. On the same day, they were killed with carbon monoxide in the part of the former penitentiary converted into a gas-killing facility. Only one patient, Ilse Herta Zachmann, escaped this fate at first (see corresponding entry).

We do not know whether Felix Cohn’s relatives became aware of his death. In all documented cases, it was claimed that the person concerned had died in Chelm (Polish) or Cholm (German). In addition, all dates of death provided were postdated. 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.

For Felix Cohn, it was impossible to establish a personal address in Hamburg, as a result of which so far no individual place can be determined, where he could be commemorated with a Stolperstein.

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