Stumbling Stones Bornstraße 16

These small, brass, memorial plaques ( Stolpersteine or stumbling stones) commemorate:

* Emma Cohn, born 1874, deported 1941, Minsk, murdered.
* Jenny Pincus, born 1871, deported 1941, Minsk, murdered.
* Sophie Oljenick née Horowitz, born 1866, deported 1942, Theresienstadt, murdered 21 April 1943.
* Gertha Pincus, born 1872, admitted Sept. 1940 Heilanstalt Langenhorn, "relocated" 23 September 1940 Brandenburg, murdered 23 September 1940, "Aktion T4".

Background

Emma Cohn worked as an accountant. She lived at a number of different addresses in Hamburg. In 1931 she was joined by her friend, Jenny Pincus, who was the head of the household department of the Tietz Department Store. Emma was the bookkeeper there. In 1933, department stores were among the first businesses targeted during the anti-Jewish boycott. In 1935, all Jewish employees were fired. The financial situation of both women deteriorated. In 1938 they were sharing a single room in a "Judenhaus" at this Bornstrasse 16 address. In 1941, Emma Cohen, age 77 and no longer working, was impoverished. Jenny Pincus had a small pension from Tietz of RM 95.60. Both women were deported from Hamburg on 18 November 1941 and arrived in Minsk two days later. Of the approximately 7,000 prisoners in the Minsk ghetto, fewer than a dozen survived. The date and circumstances of the deaths of Emma Cohn and Jenny Pincus are unknown.

No information was found about the life of Sophie Oljenick other than that she was married to Louis Oljenick. Documents show she was deported from Hamburg on 15 July 1942 to Theresienstadt. She was dead nine months later.

Gertha Pincus, born in Hamburg, was Jenny’s older sister. She was admitted to the Langenhorn psychiatric hospital in September 1940 and deported in the same month to the Brandenburg euthanasia center. Her precise date of death in the Nazi’s "Euthanasia" program is not known.

"Stolpersteine" is an art project for Europe by Gunter Demnig to commemorate victims of National Socialism (Nazism). Stolpersteine (stumbling stones) are small, 10x10cm brass plaques placed in the pavement in front of the last voluntary residence of (mostly Jewish) victims who were murdered by the Nazis. Each plaque is engraved victim’s with the name, date of birth, and place (mostly a concentration camp) and date of death. By doing this, Gunter Demnig gives an individual memorial to each victim. One stone, one name, one person. He cites the Talmud: "A human being is forgotten only when his or her name is forgotten."

For more information and pictures, please visit the Stolpersteine Hamburg website in the Sources.

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Source

• Text: Fedor de Vries & Anne Palmer
• Photos: MIgracionTOtal (1), Hinnerk11 (2), Bernd Carstensen (3)
• Stolpersteine Hamburg
• Stolpersteine.eu