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Willy Mendel * 1879

Rutschbahn 7 (Eimsbüttel, Rotherbaum)

HIER WOHNTE
WILLY MENDEL
JG. 1879
VERHAFTET 13.9.1939
KZ FUHLSBÜTTEL
FLUCHT 1941
UNGARN
SCHICKSAL UNBEKANNT

further stumbling stones in Rutschbahn 7:
Albert Kaufmann, Herta Kaufmann, Ida Seligmann, Helene Streit, Ludwig Streit

Willy Mendel, born on 18 Aug. 1879, arrested on 13 Sept. 1939 in Hamburg, "protective custody” ("Schutzhaft”), interned in the Fuhlsbüttel concentration camp, escape in May 1941 to Hungary

Rutschbahn 7

Willy Mendel was born in Hamburg on 18 Aug. 1879 as the first of five children of the Jewish married couple Moritz Mendel and Frieda Mendel, née Gumpel-Fürst.

His father, Moritz Mendel, had been born in Altona on 25 Jan. 1847 and died in Hamburg on 4 Oct. 1916. The burial took place at the Ohlsdorf Jewish Cemetery on Ilandkoppel. His mother Friedchen (Frieda) Mendel had been born on 11 July 1857 in Lübeck, and she died on 27 May 1931 in Hamburg, She, too, was buried in the Ohlsdorf Jewish Cemetery on Ilandkoppel.

The ancestors of the Gumpel-Fürst family came from Moisling near Lübeck and originally bore the family name of "Gumpel.” The first Jews from Poland-Lithuania had settled in Moisling in 1656. They had fled there and they had not been granted a residence permit in Lübeck itself. Only when the Jewish inhabitants had received full civil rights in 1848 and were no longer restricted to Moisling as their place of residence, did numerous Moisling Jews move to the city of Lübeck. They then had to take on a permanent, unmistakable family name. Frieda Mendel’s grandfather Jacob Gumpel had chosen the name of "Gumpel-Fürst.” Thus, the original family name of "Gumpel” became the family name of "Gumpel-Fürst,” which Willy Mendel’s mother had borne until her marriage.

Willy Mendel attended a secondary school (Realschule) in Hamburg from 1885 to 1894. He then completed a three-year apprenticeship as a druggist at the Medizinal Drogen Grosso-Haus, Schröder & Krämer, at Spaldingstrasse 120 in Hammerbrook, where he found employment as a druggist after completing his training. Until 1901, he then worked for various companies within Hamburg.

On 8 Dec. 1901, the office worker Jenny Kaufmann moved from Kassel to Hamburg and from then on lived with Willy Mendel’s family at Kleiner Schäferkamp 28 in Eimsbüttel. On 8 Oct. 1902, the Mendel family moved with Jenny Kaufmann to Osterstrasse 5 in Eimsbüttel.

From 1901 to 1903, Willy Mendel did his military service training. Afterward, he worked as a freelance sales agent in the pharmaceutical industry.

On 26 Aug. 1904, Willy Mendel and Jenny Kaufmann married in Hamburg. The Jewish Jenny Kaufmann was born on 5 Apr. 1877 in Bleicherode near Nordhausen. Her father Sussmann Kaufmann was born on 27 Sept. 1848 in Borken/Hessen and died on 14 July 1930 in Kassel. Her mother Olga Sussmann, née Morgenstern, had been born on 29 Apr. 1848 in Singhofen near Koblenz and died on 6 Feb. 1926 in Kassel.

Willy and Jenny Mendel had two daughters: Herta was born on 6 June 1905 and Elsa on 10 Dec. 1908 in Hamburg. By this time, the family lived at Sillemstrasse 34 in Eimsbüttel.

However, as he later recorded it, Willy Mendel felt unhappy in his marriage with Jenny; he did not give reasons for this. In Sept. 1909, he met the non-Jewish woman Kätchen Wilhelmine Emilie Went and fell in love with her. He separated from his wife Jenny Mendel, who did not agree to a divorce until her death. She lived at Hallerstrasse 28 in Eimsbüttel. Jenny Mendel died on 8 June 1937 in the Jewish Hospital in Hamburg and she was buried on 10 June 1937 in the Ohlsdorf Jewish Cemetery on Ilandkoppel in Grave ZX 10 No. 487. (The cause of her death is not known.)

It was not possible for Willy Mendel and Kätchen Went to marry, on the one hand due to the refused divorce, on the other hand because of the ban on marriages between Jews and "German-blooded” people, which the Nuremberg laws [on race] contained.

Kätchen Went was born on 8 Apr. 1890 in Ottensen in Altona. Her parents were Johannes Went and Anna Wilhelmina Christina, née Blöcker, both of whom came from Hamburg.

Willy Mendel and Kätchen Went had three children in Hamburg: Hildegard, born on 28 Apr. 1912; Heinz, born on 22 Aug. 1913; and Anni, born on 12 Sept. 1914.
In August 1914 – even before the birth of their youngest daughter Anni – Willy Mendel volunteered for military service. He took part in the Battle of Tannenberg in the area south of Allenstein in East Prussia against the Russian army and later in battles of the Masurian Lakes near East Prussia in present-day Poland.

During the war, Kätchen Went and the three children suffered great hardship. Later, Willy’s family reported that the oldest daughter Hildegard had been put up with foster parents in Hennstedt, Dithmarschen District, in Schleswig-Holstein at the age of five. Moreover, the two younger siblings Heinz and Anni were also living with foster parents by then. All three children remained in their foster families until they were grown up and they only learned about each other again after many years.

Obviously, Kätchen Went did not keep in touch with the children, and when daughter Hildegard wished to invite her to her wedding, Kätchen Went did not take the time for her. A reunion between mother and daughter did not come about. Jenny Mendel’s children Elsa and Hert in turn also knew nothing about their half-brothers and sisters for many years. How they fared during this time is not known to us.

After the end of the war, Willy Mendel was discharged. He had several entries in his military passport, among others, "leadership very good and punishments none.” After his return, he resumed his trade as a self-employed druggist and lived together with Kätchen Went at Bogenstrasse 65 in Eimsbüttel, his mother’s place, until 1930.

From 1930 onward, Willy Mendel operated a small chemical factory for the production of creams and similar products on Merkurstrasse in St. Pauli next to the old slaughterhouse (Merkurstrasse no longer exists today). The business went better and better in time. Willy Mendel’s income was between 3,000 and 4,000 RM (reichsmark) per year. Kätchen Went quit her job as an advertising accountant at the daily newspaper Die Welt to support her partner in his factory. From 1930 to 1933, the couple lived at Baumkamp 9 in Lattenkamp.

In 1935, they were able to rent a three-room apartment at Lattenkamp 88, in the house of Kätchen Went’s father. In 1937, they had to vacate the apartment due to inheritance disputes with Kätchen Went’s stepbrothers and stepsisters and they then moved into a four-room apartment at Dillstrasse 1 in the Rotherbaum quarter. Due to the restrictions imposed by the Nazis, Willy Mendel’s income decreased steadily. Later, Kätchen Went therefore reassumed her employment as an advertising accountant with the daily newspaper and worked there until her retirement.

After Jenny Mendel, still the wife of Willy Mendel, had died in 1937, Willy Mendel and Kätchen Went finally wanted to marry, which, as mentioned, was not possible due to the Nuremberg Laws. Although unmarried but cohabitating Jewish and non-Jewish partners were persecuted by the Gestapo, they continued to live together. In Sept. 1939, Willy Mendel was imprisoned for disregarding the "Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor” ("Gesetz zum Schutz des deutschen Blutes und der deutschen Ehre”) and committed to the men’s prison in Fuhlsbüttel. The reason for his arrest was "racial defilement” ("Rassenschande”). In Feb. 1940, Willy Mendel was sentenced to two years imprisonment, taking into account his pretrial detention. According to the prisoner’s file, Willy weighed 62 kilograms (approx. 136.5 lbs) at that time, was 1.62 meters (nearly 5 ft 4 in) in height, had brown eyes, was beardless, and had an oval face and grey hair.

An obviously good non-Jewish friend, Paul Stüve, wrote the following lines to him in prison on 4 Oct. 1940

"My dear, good old Mendel!
Hoping, above all, that you are well, I arrived happily at my dear wife’s at lunchtime on Tuesday, around 12 o’clock, after a smooth journey, and met her in the best and most delighted state ... [reports on his family life]. Now my good boy, keep yourself healthy, take care of your health and be aware that excitement is poison for you with your high blood pressure. I mean it well from my heart when I tell you this again and again. Keep your head up, extend greetings to everyone, and above all, accept the warmest regards from your Paul Stüve.”

Daughter Herta from the first marriage visited her father at least once a month in the Fuhlsbüttel prison, and they wrote to each other regularly. Willy Mendel’s sister Bella Pariser also wrote to him from Stockholm in Sweden.

At the urging of his (Jewish) lawyer Manfred Zadik, Willy Mendel was granted a two-month suspended sentence at the beginning of 1941, which was later extended by another two months. The condition for this was for him to leave Germany within four months. In May 1941, Willy Mendel fled to Hungary, in order to reach Panama via a tortuous route. Before his flight, Willy Mendel had been registered with the authorities as residing with his daughter Herta Kaufmann at Rutschbahn 7 in Eimsbüttel.

After his arrival in Budapest, Willy Mendel lived at Columbus Utca (street) 42. The approximately 3,000–3,600 Jews along the 1 kilometer-stretch (about 1,100 yards) of Columbus Street were under the protection of the International Red Cross and had "letters of protection.” Either Willy Mendel felt safe enough in Budapest not to pursue his original escape plans to Panama for the time being, or he found no way to realize them quickly.

Until Apr. 1944, Kätchen Went and Willy Mendel were in correspondence. Kätchen Went later wrote that only the thought of a reunion had given Willy Mendel new courage to live again and again. According to her, she, on the other hand, had suffered so much from the interrogations of the Gestapo and the criminal investigation department that she had often toyed with the idea of taking her own life.

A last postcard from Willy Mendel is dated 24 Apr. 1944, after Germany had already occupied the formerly allied Hungary and Adolf Eichmann from the Reich Security Main Office, with the support of the Hungarian Fascists, was already preparing the deportation of thousands of Jews:

"My dear good Kati!
I thank you for your lines. I am in good health. Please wait until I write to you again.
Greetings and warm kisses,
Vilmos (Hungarian for Willy)"

The sender’s name on the postcard was Vilmos "Lesengeri.” This suggests that Willy (Vilmos) had adopted a pseudonym and was traveling with forged papers. The sender’s address was: Rökk Szilárd Street, Budapest in Hungary. After this sign of life, all traces of Willy Mendel disappear.

Apparently, he received help from the Jewish Community in Hamburg. Kätchen Went testified on 10 Nov. 1947 at the Advisory Center for Restitutions that the Hamburg Jewish Community had covered part of the costs of Willy Mendel’s flight. Perhaps he had received forged papers from those quarters as well. From 1939 to 1941, between 10,000–20,000 Jews from Poland, Austria, Germany, and Slovakia had fled to Hungary, which had also passed anti-Jewish legislation, but until 1943 had deported mainly Jews from the territories it had occupied. When Willy Mendel wrote his last card, more than 63,000 Jews had already been deported and thousands had been arrested in Budapest. In total, 565,000 Jews who had lived in Hungary had perished by 1945; 260,000 survived. Willy Mendel was not among them.

In 1952, Kätchen Went received a letter from the Red Cross in Budapest: Willy Mendel had died without a death certificate and he had been buried on 4 Feb. 1945. Where this had happened could not be determined. It is no longer possible to reconstruct whether Willy Mendel was actually murdered in Budapest or in Auschwitz-Birkenau. His exact fate ultimately remains unknown.

Willy Mendel’s brother Samuel Isca Mendel and Hermine Stüve later testified in lieu of an oath that Willy Mendel and Kätchen Went had lived in a marital community and had wanted to marry after the Nuremberg Laws were repealed. On 14 Mar. 1953, Willy Mendel was declared dead by the Hamburg District Court (Amtsgericht) as of the end of 1945. The "free marriage” between Willy Mendel and Kätchen Went was retroactively recognized as a marriage on 24 June 1953.

Kätchen Went-Mendel died on 4 Aug. 1961 in Hamburg-Barmbek/Uhlenhorst as a result of a stroke.

Information regarding the fate of Willy Mendel’s siblings:
One sister died on her birthday on 9 Sept. 1896.
His brother Gustav Mendel, born on 26 Sept. 1880 in Hamburg, had already passed away in Hamburg on 10 Apr. 1881.

His sister Bella, née Mendel, divorced name Pariser, was born on 5 July 1882 in Hamburg, fled to Sweden in Mar. 1939 and died there "by suicide” on 4 Dec. 1940. Her Stolperstein is located at Jungfrauenthal 6 in Harvestehude.

His brother, Samuel Isca Mendel, born on 15 Feb. 1898 in Hamburg, emigrated to Shanghai in 1940 with his non-Jewish wife Anna Hedwig Helene Mendel, née Blume, born on 11 Feb. 1899 in Hamburg. They later returned to Hamburg. Helene Mendel died on 16 June 1977, Isca Mendel on 31 Jan. 1987 in Hamburg. Both were buried in the Ohlsdorf Jewish Cemetery on Ilandkoppel.

Information regarding the fate of the joint children of Willy and Jenny Mendel:
His first child, Herta Kaufmann, and her husband, Albert Kaufmann, born on 8 Feb. 1894 in Hamburg, were deported to Minsk on 8 Nov. 1941 and murdered there. No children resulted from the marriage. Their Stolpersteine are located at Rutschbahn 7 in the Rotherbaum quarter.

His second child, Elsa, emigrated as early as 1938 with her husband, Edgar van Cleef, born on 30 Mar. 1906, and their two small children to South America, where a third child was born. They returned to Hamburg after the war. Edgar van Cleef died on 15 Feb. 1982 in Hamburg, Elsa van Cleef died on 2 Aug. 1991, also in Hamburg. Both were buried in the Ohlsdorf Jewish Cemetery on Ilandkoppel.

Information regarding the fate of the joint children of Willy Mendel and Kätchen Went-Mendel:
Daughter Hildegard Jensen and her non-Jewish husband Theodor Jensen, born on 14 Dec. 1907 in Kleve, Dithmarschen District, Schleswig-Holstein, had ten children together. Two of these children died in early childhood. Theodor Jensen died on 3 May 1974, Hildegard Jensen on 4 Nov. 1986. They were both buried in the Hennstedt Cemetery, District of Dithmarschen, Schleswig-Holstein.

Willy Mendel’s son Heinz Went studied in Dresden and later had two children.
Willy Mendel’s daughter Anni Müller grew up in Hamburg and she was later adopted.

Willy Mendel has 15 grandchildren overall, dozens of great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren whom he was unable to meet. Today they live in Germany, the USA, and in South America.

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

Stand: September 2020
© Britta Jensen / Bärbel Klein

Quellen: StaH 1; 2; 3; 4; 5; 7; 8; 242_1 II_21571; 332-4_595; 351-1_12118; 332-5_3996/79; 332-5_298/1890; 332-5_563/04; 332-5_238/37; 332-5_2307/61; 3332-5_14499+967/1905; 332-5_620/1916; 741-4 K6335-1; 741-4_K7407; 741-4_K4580; Anerkennung der Ehe 387/53; Todeserklärung Amtsgericht Hamburg 14. März 1953 – 54 II 1415/51; Eidesstattliche Versicherung Isca Mendel 503/1947; Wiedergutmachungsakte Kätchen Went 11554/47; ITS-Arolsen-Archiv-Nr. 7105; www.wikipedia.de, www.yadvashem.org, www.geni.com; degob.org (Lager Rökk Szilard); Geschichtsbuch.hamburg.de.
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