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Veit (jüdische Berliner Familie)

Die deutsche, jüdische Familie Veit war von den späten 1730er Jahren bis 1942 in Berlin ansässig. Der Berliner Zweig der Familie Veit beginnt mit dem Textil-Produzenten Juda(h) Veit Singer (1710 oder 1719–1786), der sich 1738 in Berlin niederließ.

Juda(h) Veit (Singer) (geb. 1710[1] oder 1719[2] in Witzenhausen, gest. 8. Januar 1786 in Berlin) war ein Sohn von Veit Singer, dem Kurhessischen Landrabbiner in Witzenhausen, und dessen Frau Eidel Fränkel. Juda(h) Veit heiratetet im Jahr 1740 Beylle („Bella“) Hirsch, eine Tochter von David Hirsch (Prager) (1700–1773), Inhaber einer Textil-Manufaktur in Potsdam, in der Samt- und Seidenstoffe hergestellt wurden. Das Ehepaar hatte fünf Söhne:[3]

  1. Joseph Veit (geb. 1745 in Berlin, gest. 1831 ebenda), verheiratete mit Bella Heumann (geb. circa 1747 in Berlin, gest. 1838 ebenda)
  2. Salomon Veit (geb. 6. November 1751 in Berlin; gest. 24. April 1827 ebenda), verheiratet mit Male Marcus (1751–1820),
  3. David Veit (geb. 24. April 1753 in Berlin; gest. 28. Januar 1835 ebenda), verheiratet mit Veilchen (Philippine) Lazarus Braunschweig,
  4. Simon Veit (geb. 25. Mai 1754; gestorben 1. Oktober 1819), verheiratete mit Brenda (Brendel) Mendelssohn (geb. 1763 in Berlin, gest. 1839 in Frankfurt am Main). Das Ehepaar wurde 1799 geschieden,
  5. Philipp Veit (1758–1838), verheiratet mit seiner Nichte Caroline Veit (1774–1857)
  6. Eidel (Adele) Veit, (1759–?), verheiratet mit Moses Marcus, später Moses Mertens, (geb. 1757 in Berlin, gest. 1839 ebenda).

Drei dieser Söhne – nämlich: Salomon, David und Simon – gründeten 1789[4] zusammen das Berliner Bankhaus Gebrüder Veit. Im Jahr 1783 erhielt Juda Veit das Generalprivileg.

Aus der Ehe von Joseph Veit (1745–1831) mit Bella Heumann (ca. 1747–1838) ging unter anderem der Arzt David Veit (geb. 1771 in Breslau, gest. 1814 in Hamburg) hervor.

Aus der Ehe von Salomon Veit (1751–1827) mit Male Marcus (1751–1820) ging Caroline Veit (1774–1857) hervor, die einen Bruder ihres Vaters heiratete, nämlich ihren Onkel Philipp Veit (1758–1838).

Aus der Ehe von David Veit (1753–1835) mit Veilchen (Philippine) Lazarus Braunschweig ging unter anderem Uhde David Veit (geb. 1794 in Berlin, gest. 1837 ebenda) hervor, der zusammen mit seinem Vetter Uhde Philipp Veit (1799–1863) das Bankhaus Veit fortführte.

Aus der Ehe von Simon Veit (1754–1819) mit Brenda (Brendel) Mendelssohn (1763–1839) gingen die Maler Jona (Johannes) Veit (geb. 1790 in Breslau, gest. 1854 in Rom) und Philipp Veit (geb. 1793 in Berlin, gest. 1877 in Mainz) hervor. Brenda, Jona und Philipp ließen sich taufen und wurden katholisch. Nach der Scheidung von Simon und Brenda im Jahr 1799 heiratete Brenda, die ihren Vornamen nach ihrer Taufe in Dorothea geändert hatte, im Jahr 1802 den neun Jahre jüngeren Schriftsteller Friedrich Schlegel (1772–1829). Sie war eine Tochter des jüdischen Aufklärers Moses Mendelssohn (1729–1786).

Aus der Ehe von Philipp Veit (1758–1838) mit seiner Nichte Caroline Veit (1774–1857) gingen unter anderem der Bankier Uhde Philipp Veit (geb. 1799 in Berlin, gest. 1863) hervor, der zusammen mit seinem Vetter Uhde David Veit (1794–1837) das Bankhaus Veit fortführte, ferner der Autor, Verleger und Politiker Moritz Veit, (geb. 1808 in Berlin, gest. 1864 ebenda) und Henriette Veit (1798–1877).

Henriette Veit (1798–1877) heiratete Hirsch (Herman[n]) Simon (geb. 1793 in Berlin, gest. 1847 in Berlin-Schöneberg). Durch die Heirat zwischen Hirsch (Herman[n]) Simon und Henriette Veit im Jahr 1816 trat zu dem ursprünglichen Familiennamen Veit der Familienname Simon hinzu.[5] In der Generation der Kinder dieses Ehepaares erhielten manche männliche Nachkommen den zweiten Namen Veit, später erhielten auch einige weiblichen Nachkommen diesen „Mittelnamen“.[6]

Aus ihrer Ehe gingen unter anderem die Brüder Carl Berthold Simon (geb. 1828 in Berlin, gest. 1901 ebenda) und Theodor August Simon (geb. 1832 in Berlin, gest. 1903 ebenda) hervor, die das Bankhaus Veit fortführten.

Carl Berthold Simon (1828–1901) heiratete Therese Schneider (geb. 1835 in Berlin, gest. 1899 ebenda). Aus ihrer Ehe ging unter anderem der Rechtsanwalt und Notar Herman Veit Simon (geb. 1856 in Berlin, gest. 1914 in St. Blasien) und der Bankier Paul Veit Simon (geb. 1869 in Berlin, gest. 1935 ebenda) hervor. Paul Veit Simon (1869–1935) führte gemeinsam mit seinem Vetter Moritz Veit Simon (geb. 1867 in Berlin, gest. 1934 ebenda) und dessen Schwager Edgar Rosenthal (geb. 1855 in Czarnikau, gest. 1927 in Berlin) das Bankhaus Veit fort, das im Jahr 1931 aufgrund wirtschaftlicher Schwierigkeiten liquidiert werden musste. Der Rechtsanwalt Hermann Veit Simon (1856–1914) heiratete Hedwig Stettiner (geb. 1861 in Berlin, gest. 1943 in Theresienstadt). Aus dieser Ehe ging der Rechtsanwalt und Notar Heinrich Veit Simon (geb. 1883 in Berlin, ermordert 1941 ebenda) hervor.

Heinrich Veit Simons (1883–1941) Schwestern Eva Anna und Katharina (Käthe) Theresa wurden am 3. Oktober 1942 zunächst nach Theresienstadt deportiert. Im Mai 1944 wurden sie dann von dort in das Konzentrationslager Auschwitz verbracht und dort ermordet. Heinrichs Sohn Rolf Gabriel (1916–1943) schien zunächst in den Niederlanden sicher zu sein, wurde jedoch nach der deutschen Besetzung der Niederlande mit seiner Frau Sabine nach Auschwitz verschleppt und dort ermordet.[7] Heinrichs Töchter Ruth Agnes (1914–1943) und Etta Ottilie (1918–2009) mussten Zwangsarbeit bei Zeiss-Ikon in Zehlendorf leisten. Am 7. Juli 1942 wurden die beiden jungen Frauen über das Sammellager Große Hamburger Straße 26 nach Theresienstadt deportiert. Ein Jahr später, am 26. Juli 1943, starb Ruth Veit Simon dort in Theresienstadt im Alter von 29 Jahren. Ihre Schwester Etta überlebte als einzige der deportierten Familienangehörigen das Lager.[8] Heinrich Veit Simons Frau Irmgard Gabriel (geb. 16. Dezember 1889 in Batavia (Niederländisch-Indien), gest. 1971, eine Schwester des Staatsanwalts Helmuth Gabriel) und vier ihrer sechs Kinder überlebten die Zeit des Nationalsozialismus. Sohn Herman (1911–2011) und Tochter Ulla Phillipine (1915–2004) gelang in den 1930er Jahren die Flucht nach Großbritannien bzw. nach Chile. Die jüngste Tochter Judith Leonore (* 1925) gelangte mit dem Kindertransport vom 30. Dezember 1938 nach Großbritannien.[9] Irmgard überlebte den Krieg in Berlin und folgte nach Kriegsende ihrer Tochter Etta nach London. Etta zog später nach New York und nahm den Nachnamen ihres Mannes Erwin Japha an. Ihre Geschwister Ulla und Judith lebten ebenfalls in den USA, Harro in Chile. Damit erlosch der Berliner Zweig der Familie Veit.

Familienmitglieder (Liste)

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„“

Dr. Herman Veit Simon (1856-1914) und seine Ehefrau Hedwig, geb. Stettiner (1861–1943 Theresienstadt), hatten vier Kinder:

  1. Heinrich (1883–1942, Polizeigefängnis Berlin-Alexanderplatz),
  2. Eva (1884–1944, Auschwitz),
  3. Katharina (* 1887),
  4. Martin (* 1890) »a son who died young«

Heinrich Veit Simon war seit 1910[9] verheiratet mit Irmgard Gabriel (geb. 16. Dezember 1889 in Batavia (Niederländisch-Indien), gest. 1971). Sie war die Tochter des kaiserlich deutschen Generalkonsuls in Batavia Hermann Gabriel (1852–1897), eines Studienfreundes von Heinrichs Vater Herman Veit Simon. Aus dieser Ehe gingen sechs Kinder hervor:

  1. Harro Herman (1911–2011),
  2. Ruth Agnes (1914–1943),
  3. Ulla Phillipine (1915–2004), verheiratete Sonntag,
  4. Rolf Gabriel (1916–1943),
  5. Etta Ottilie (1918–2009), verheiratete Japha, und
  6. Judith Leonore (* 1925), verheiratete Klein.[10]

Verwandtschaftsbeziehungen

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  • Philipp (Feibel Witzenhausen) (1758–1838), Farbwarenhändler in Berlin, Mitglied der Börsencorporation, war der Vater von Moritz Veit, (geb. 12.9.1808 in Berlin, gest. 5.2.1864 Berlin), Politiker, Verleger, Buchhändler, Journalist.
  • Philipp (Feibel Witzenhausen) (1758–1838) war der Sohn von Jehuda (Juda) Witzenhausen (V. Singer) (1710/16–1786), Kaufmann in Berlin, und der Bela (Beile) Hirsch Praeger (um 1719–1787)
  • Karoline Veit (1774–1857) war die Mutter von Moritz Veit (1808–1864) und die Ehefrau von Philipp (Feibel Witzenhausen) (1758–1838)
  • Karoline Veit (1774–1857) war die Tochter von Salomon Salman Witzenhausen (Veit) (1751–1827), aus Berlin, Gründer des Bankhauses Gebrüder Veit
  • Salomon Salman Witzenhausen (Veit) (1751–1827), aus Berlin, Gründer des Bankhauses Gebrüder Veit, Mitglied der Börsencorporation, Ältester der jüdischen Gemeinde in Berlin, Vater von Karoline Veit (1774–1857)
  • Sara Mozes Marcus (?) (1751–1820), Ehefrau von Salomon Salman Witzenhausen (Veit) (1751–1827), Mutter von Karoline Veit (1774–1857)

Carl Berthold Simon (1828-1901)

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„“

Carl Berthold Simon (1828-1901) (geb. 9. Dezember 1828, gest. 5. April 1901) Carl Berthold Simon war ein Enkel des Bankiers Philipp Veit (1758-1838) und ein Neffe des Verlegers und Politikers Moritz Veit (1808-1864). 1856 trat er der Gesellschaft der Freunde bei, deren Vorstand er ab den 1870er Jahren angehörte. 1862 wurde er Teilhaber und später Seniorchef des Familienbankhauses Gebr. Veit & Co., 1891 Kommerzienrat.

Sebastian Berlin, „Carl Berthold Simon (1828-1901)“, in: Flickr, Hochgeladen am 5. Mai 2015, https://www.flickr.com/photos/panwitz/17350400866

Verheiratet mit Therese Schneider (gest. 1899)

Katharina »Käthe« Veit Simon (1887–1944)

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Katharina (1887–1944, Auschwitz)

geb.: 25. November 1887

Katharina Veit Simon war nahezu gehörlos, traute sich aber die selbständige Führung eines Obstguts zu. Und sie behielt Recht, wie der 25-jährige Erfolg des Betriebs zeigen sollte. Gemeinsam mit ihrer älteren, ebenfalls nahezu gehörlosen Schwester Eva, die häufig auf dem Katharinenhof zugegen war, prägte sie die Gründerzeit des Obstguts.

In den Jahren 1912/13 wurde ein neues Obstgut angelegt, der Katharinenhof am Meseberger Weg. Es war eine junge Frau, die hier eine Existenz als Obstgärtnerin begründete: die am 25. November 1887 geborene Katharina Theresa Veit Simon. Hilfreich zur Seite stand ihr dabei ihr Vater, der Justizrat Herman Veit Simon, ein wohlhabender jüdischer Rechtsanwalt in Berlin.

Die Geschichte des Katharinenhofes in Gransee, Herausgeber: Stadt Gransee, 2013. Diese Broschüre ist ein Kooperationsprojekt der Stadt Gransee und des Treffpunkt Katharinenhof e.V. Redaktion: Tilman Santarius, Autoren: Kapitel 1– 4: Hermann Aurich (www.maerkische-landsitze.de), Kapitel 5 – 12: Tilman Santarius (www.santarius.de), http://www.santarius.de/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Der-Katharinenhof-in-Gransee.pdf

S. 5:

Eva und Katharina hatten zwei jüngere Brüder. Einer von ihnen beging im Jahr 1914 Selbstmord. Der andere Bruder, Dr. Heinrich Veit Simon, der in rechtlichen und betriebswirtschaftlichen Angelegenheiten des Obstguts ein wichtiger Berater für Katharina war, wurde Rechtsanwalt und Notar in Berlin und war mit der nichtjüdischen Irmgard, geb. Gabriel, verheiratet. Sie hatten sechs Kinder.

Die Geschichte des Katharinenhofes in Gransee, Herausgeber: Stadt Gransee, 2013. Diese Broschüre ist ein Kooperationsprojekt der Stadt Gransee und des Treffpunkt Katharinenhof e.V. Redaktion: Tilman Santarius, Autoren: Kapitel 1– 4: Hermann Aurich (www.maerkische-landsitze.de), Kapitel 5 – 12: Tilman Santarius (www.santarius.de), S. 5, http://www.santarius.de/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Der-Katharinenhof-in-Gransee.pdf

»a son who died young«

Hedwig Simon, geb. Stettiner (1861–1943)

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Hedwig Stettiner kam am 17. Oktober 1861 in Berlin als Tochter des Maklers Martin Stettiner und seiner Frau Mathilde geborene Schwarzschild auf die Welt. Sie hatte einen Bruder Richard, der ein bekannter Kunsthistoriker wurde, und eine Schwester Martha, die den Sohn des Reformrabbiners Abraham Geiger, Ludwig Geiger, einen Kunsthistoriker, heiratete. 1881 heiratete Hedwig den Justizrat Dr. Herman Veit Simon, einen Fachmann für Handelsrecht. Die Kinder wurden geboren: Heinz Heinrich (1883), Eva Anna (1884), Katharina Theresa (1887) und Martin Veit (1890). Beide Töchter waren taubstumm. Herman Veit Simon starb am 16. Juli 1914 während eines Kuraufenthaltes in der Schweiz. Die Tochter Katharina (Käthe) hatte 1912/1913 mit Unterstützung ihres Vaters in Gransee ein Obstgut, den Katharinenhof, gegründet und ihn fünfundzwanzig Jahre lang erfolgreich geleitet. Ihre Schwester Eva, die eine künstlerische Ausbildung in Rom erhalten hatte, wurde dort auch aufgenommen. 1938 musste Käthe den Hof unter seinem Wert verkaufen, sie zog mit ihrer Schwester Eva zu ihrer Mutter in die Gelfertstraße. Dann zogen alle drei zu dem Sohn und Bruder Heinrich in den Hindenburgdamm 11. Von dort wurde Hedwig Simon mit ihren Töchtern Käthe und Eva am 3. Oktober 1942 nach Theresienstadt deportiert. Hedwig Simon starb in Theresienstadt am 1. April 1943. Eva und Käthe wurden weiter in das KZ Auschwitz deportiert und dort ermordet.

Hedwig Veit Simon geb. Stettiner. In: stolpersteine-berlin.de. Koordinierungsstelle Stolpersteine Berlin, https://www.stolpersteine-berlin.de/de/hindenburgdamm/11/hedwig-veit-simon

„Biedermeier Desk in Seattle“

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„“

Helmuth Gabriel hatte zwei ältere Schwestern, nämlich die am 8. Februar 1891 in Batavia geborene Giesela und die am 16. Dezember 1889 in Batavia geborene Irmgard. Irmgard heiratete im Jahr 1910 den 1883 geborenen Rechtsanwalt und Notar Dr. Heinrich Veit Simon aus einer Berliner jüdischen Familie. Heinrich Veit Simon starb am 18. Mai 1942; zu Tode geprügelt im Polizeigefängnis Berlin-Alexanderplatz.[2]

  • S. 2: The Veit Simons were a wealthy family.
  • S. 3: The Veit Simons were one of the oldest Jewish families in Berlin: they had resided in the city since the seventeenth century, when they were admitted by Elector Frederick William III.16 In 1816, Herman Simon married Henriette Veit 17 ; after the marriage, the family continued as ‘Veit Simons’, ‘Veit’ being an additional family middle name. Their grandson Hermann had four children with his wife, Hedwig Stettiner: Heinrich (1883), Eva (1884), Katharina (Käthe, 1887) and a son who died young.18
  • S. 3: The Veit Simons also held shares in the Brothers Veit bank. Hermann read law at the University of Göttingen where he met and became friends with the gentile Hermann Gabriel. Theirs was an unusual friendship, as they did not share the same social background, nor could either expect to gain social capital from their association. The men named each other as legal guardians of their children in case of a premature death.19 Hermann Gabriel moved as German consul general to colonial Dutch Batavia. He died in 1897 and his widow Zella returned with her three young children – Irmgard (1889), Helmuth (1892) and Gisela (1891) – to Berlin and bought a large house in Lichterfelde.

Our story begins around 1908, when Heinrich Veit Simon and Irmgard Gabriel fell in love (Figure 1). Their marriage in 1910 ... Irmgard gave birth to six children: Harro (1911), Ruth (1914), Ulla (1915), Rolf (1916), Etta (1918)21 and, seven years later, Judith (1925).22 Somewhat unusually, neither of the spouses left their religious community after marriage; the children were raised within the reformed Jewish community, and the household was religiously observant. The daughters had bat mitzvahs (introductions to religious maturity), something still progressive at the time.23 ... ... Heinrich played a key role in Jewish community life: he was on the board of trustees of the Higher Institute for Jewish Studies, an organization co-founded by his grandfather Karl Berthold in 1872. The Veit Simon family led a grand lifestyle. They owned two cars and employed a maid, a cook and a gardener.24 Along with Hedwig, they lived in a Dahlem villa designed by ...

  • S. 4: ... Alfred Breslauer, one of Berlin’s most popular architects (and the father of the photographer Marianne Breslauer).25 ... Heinrich’s sisters Käthe and Eva, who were both hearing- and speech-impaired, never married. In 1912, Hermann acquired a plot of land outside Gransee, north of Berlin. Breslauer also designed the estate built there, which was named Katharinenhof, and served as the sisters’ home and a fruit plantation; Katharinenhof, with its beautiful countryside and lakes, also served the family as a weekend house. Although Käthe was a trained and keen gardener, the enterprise was only marginally profitable. 28 Eva, who was a painter, spent long periods in Paris and Rome.29 ... Heinrich was offered a position at the University of St Andrews, but turned it down because he could not bring his mother and sisters.33 Like many countries of the time, the United Kingdom did not grant visas to the elderly and disabled.
  • S. 5: In 1934, the Veit Simons downsized and moved to Irmgard’s family house in Lichterfelde.37 ... As members of the Jewish community, all six Veit Simon children were Geltungsjuden. Accordingly, they were subject to the persecution all German Jews suffered. ...

Like other German Jews, the Veit Simon children started leaving Germany, dispersed over the world.39 For the daughters, the way to emigration was more difficult and often linked to marriage. 40 Harro, the eldest of Heinrich and Irmgard’s children, went abroad first. In early 1930 he joined a metals-trading company and was sent to Spanish Bilbao. In 1935, Harro married 18-year-old Harriet Friedeberg, the daughter of a wealthy intermarried family who were family friends; their son Hanno was born in 1936. When Franco’s army approached Bilbao in 1938, foreign nationals were evacuated to France. 41 Due to Harro’s adultery, Harriet and Harro’s marriage turned sour. Harriet continued to Great Britain, Hanno spent the next year with his grandparents in Lichterfelde, and Harro was posted to Melilla. Heinrich arranged a divorce for the couple, with Harriet maintaining custody of their son.42 Harro was dispatched to Chile, to work as manager of a copper mine. In the course of three years, the Nazi persecution, Spanish Civil War and more banal infidelity spread one branch of the family over four countries and three continents. Ruth, the family’s second child, read philosophy at the University of Freiburg, which she soon left, however, following unhappy love affair with a young man considered an unsuitable leftist.43 In 1934 the family was still able to send her to study in London for a year and come into the fold. 44 Upon her return, she trained in graphic design at the Reimann School of Applied Arts, a renowned institution in the Bauhaus and Werkbund Tradition.45 She also illustrated Jewish children’s books. 46 Ruth’s emigration attempts as a single adult woman were in vain.

  • S. 6: ... Ulla, Ruth’s younger sister, became engaged to her Zionist boyfriend Hans ‘Hietze’ Friedensohn, who left for Palestine in 1933. But Heinrich would not allow Ulla to leave for Palestine; he and his father were anti-Zionists, and Palestine was in his eyes not a legitimate emigration destination. Instead, Ulla married a friend, Erich Sonntag, the son of a well-known Jewish Berlin physician. 48 The Sonntags immigrated to England in 1938 following the birth of a daughter.49 The second son, Rolf, was everyone’s favourite: friendly and good-looking, he was the opposite of the more difficult Harro.50 Even Harro’s son remembers being told that his mother had been infatuated with Rolf but settled for Harro, who enabled her a way out of Germany, instead. In 1936, Rolf moved to Cologne for work; when his girlfriend immigrated to Chile, Rolf tried in vain to follow her. In October 1938 he was in the Netherlands, effectively stranded.51 Etta graduated, in spite of anti-Semitic incidents, from the Gertrauden-Lyceum in 1937 and began an apprenticeship as a graphic designer at the Reimann School. She showed great talent, but had to leave in November 1938 when Jews were excluded from skilled-worker training.52

Judith, the youngest, was able to emigrate thanks to her sister’s commanding upper-classhabitus. Judith began her schooling at the Gertrauden-Lyceum, but in 1937, as anti-Jewish discrimination worsened, she was sent to the Lore Goldschmidt’s Jewish school in Dahlem. In December 1938, weeks after Kristallnacht, Ruth enforced Judith’s departure at the British Embassy. As a member of haute bourgeoisie, she was accustomed to treating civil servants as subordinates. The clerks, keen to appease the young lady, co-operated. On 30 December 1938, Judith left Germany for Great Britain with a Kindertransport.53 It is symptomatic that from two sons and four daughters, two daughters were not able to emigrate; of those two daughters who were able to leave, one emigrated via a marriage, another in a Kindertransport. In 1938 the Veit Simon family situation took a significant turn for the worse: more family members were expelled from home, the professional and economic persecution radicalized, and the first family member was arrested and physically maltreated. Until 1938, Eva and Käthe lived at Katharinenhof. Following a decree dictating that Jews had to declare their assets, Heinrich, weary of falling property prices, negotiated a hasty sale of Katharinenhof.54 Furthermore, in September 1938, Heinrich’s licence to practise law was revoked ... Heinrich was allowed to belong to that small fraction of Jewish lawyers who continued as Konsulent, or legal advisers for Jews.55 ...

  • S. 7: ... Finally, during Kristallnacht on 9 November 1938, Heinrich was arrested and imprisoned at Sachsenhausen; he was released several weeks later, his health severely damaged. 59

... Ruth contracted tuberculosis. The disease made her ineligible to immigrate to Britain, unlike her siblings. 60 Great Britain demanded a medical check prior to emigration, and TB was on the list of diseases that marked the applicant as undesirable. 61 In the 1930s, tuberculosis was a wide–spread, often fatal, disease. ... Yet, the family was still able to send Ruth for treatment in various sanatoriums, corresponding with their social standing: in 1938 in Bad Neuenahr 63 and in 1940 in Nordrach in Baden and Heidelberg. ... In late July 1940, Ruth moved to the Thoraxklinik in Heidelberg-Rohrbach, a public hospital founded by the eminent Jewish physician Albert Fraenkel.69 ...

  • S. 8: She was operated on for pneumothorax, which seems to have improved her condition although the operation was painful and left scars. However, she was still ill and returned back to Berlin. 74 ...

... for their gentile uncle, Helmuth Gabriel, the year following 1933 was a period of both professional and social ascent. Helmuth joined the NSDAP after May 1933 and worked at the Superior Court of Justice in Celle.75 Although he was trained in early 1920s at the office of Maximilian Kempner and Albert Pinner, two eminent Jewish figures of the Weimar legal profession, Helmuth developed anti-Semitic views. In spite of praise as an eminently talented lawyer – one of his evaluations described him as ‘material to be transferred to Berlin’76 – Helmuth avoided the capital possibly because he did not want to live in the same city as his Jewish relatives. He refused to shake hands with his brother-in-law Heinrich at his mother’s funeral in 1934, and afterwards severed family ties. 77 In 1937 he acquired the position of General State Attorney in Hamm (his Catholic predecessor was considered unreliable); the court was known as a grouping of anti-Communist hardliners. 78 As a state employee, he earned 9,200 RM per annum, much less than his brother-in-law.79 In October 1938, Gabriel was appointed to oversee the restructuring of the state’s attorneys when the Sudetengau was being merged into the German Reich. In April 1939, Helmuth was named Senior Prosecutor at the German appellate court80 and, half a year later, he rose to the position of General State Attorney for the Protectorate Bohemia and Moravia. 81 Helmuth’s life in Prague was like that of other high-ranking occupation administrators, with good pay and excellent housing. Having just turned 40, he used this promotion to marry. With his wife Hertha, he moved from a first apartment in a modernist central building to a six-bedroom villa in Prague-Hanspaulka.82 Both addresses had Jewish owners and inhabitants; the first was even designed by the architect Otto Zucker, the later deputy Elder of the Jews in Theresienstadt. With large gardens, wide streets and spacious villas, the second address in Hanspaulka was among the finest residential areas in the city. ... By January 1943 Helmuth was eager to return to Hamm, but the war brought about personnel shortages.84 As a result, his responsibilities grew. According to post-war documentation, Gabriel oversaw all instances of capital punishment in the Protectorate.85 He also apparently participated in the martial law after the Heydrich assassination, when the German occupiers executed hundreds of Czech intellectuals and razed to the ground the villages of Lidice and Ležáky, killing the men and children and deporting the women to Ravensbrück camp. Later, Helmuth arranged death penalties for Czech forced labourers absent from their draft in Germany.86 Until April 1942, Irmgard’s and Heinrich’s lives did not change greatly. They still lived in a happy marriage. Their living quarters in Lichterfelde were more crowded; the two apartments housed eight adults: Heinrich and Irmgard, Ruth and Etta, Eva and Käthe, Hedwig, and Irmgard’s sister Gisela (the official proprietor). In the summer of 1940, the spouses could still enjoy a holiday in Wiesbaden. Around this time, the family met Harald Poelchau, the priest in the Plötzensee prison. ...

  • S. 9: ... This friendship with Poelchau would prove important for Irmgard in the following years. In September 1941, Klatt was executed in the prison Brandenburg-Görden. 88 In April 1941, the Labour Office sent Etta to the Zeiß-Ikon Görzwerke camp in nearby Schönow. She worked 12-hour shifts as a machine operator in the Jewish workforce barrack.89 ... While their father was protected from deportation through his mixed marriage, Etta and Ruth were in danger. Heinrich developed an escape plan for them: he purchased false papers with the help of a colleague from Zeiß-Ikon identifying the sisters as Belgian forced labourers. Ruth and Etta were to join a group of women leaving Berlin for furlough to Belgium and from there go to France and then neutral Spain.91 ... On the morning of 18 April 1942, Etta said farewell to her last gentile friend and went to Berlin’s Anhalter train station. However, the escape plan fell through: a Görzwerk colleague who was spiteful at not being included in the escape betrayed the plan to the Gestapo. Etta got out of the subway on Potsdamer Platz only to realize ‘the whole place was crawling with the Gestapo; you could recognize them on their trenchcoats.’94 She was arrested during the ensuing raid. Etta was able to warn Ruth as they passed each other. Heinrich was arrested a few days later. The Gestapo brought both father and daughter to the police headquarters prison at Alexanderplatz.95 ... Heinrich, whom Poelchau described as ‘a small, gentle, aristocratic man’, had little chance.96 He was beaten to death on 18 May 1942. 97 Opening her mail the next day, Irmgard found a scribbled note in pencil stating that ‘your husband Heinrich Israel Simon has died in the prison Alexanderplatz pol-headq. The corpse is in the morgue.’ 98 She was not allowed to open the coffin; she buried her husband at the family lot in the Jewish cemetery at Schönhauser Allee. Heinrich is the last family member to be buried there.
  • S. 10: In early July, Etta was transferred to the collection camp for Jews at the Große Hamburger Straße. Leo Baeck, dispatched by Irmgard, visited Etta and sat with her in silence: there was nothing he could do, apart from be present.105 The departure from Berlin signified the end of protection of home and the old networks. Ruth’s health had drastically deteriorated and she was transferred to the Jewish hospital in the Iranische Straße, the only place she could be treated. However, she chose to join Etta on the transport to Theresienstadt. ... Three years later, at liberation, Etta was one of four survivors from her transport.

... On 4 October 1942, Hedwig with her daughters Eva and Käthe were deported to Theresienstadt, carrying away Irmgard’s remaining Jewish family.

  • S. 11: The next three years, 1942–45, brought the three Veit Simon children in continental Europe into forcedly transnational communities in concentration camps and ghettos. In the Netherlands, Rolf was part of the new German Jewish emigré culture. ... Like his brother Harro, Rolf worked for a metal company, Oxyde.113 In May 1940, the Netherlands were occupied. In June 1941, following a raid by German security police (SiPo), Rolf was sent to the Schoorl camp along with 310 other young Jewish male hostages. 114 He was one of only two prisoners released on account of their mixed background; all others were murdered in Buchenwald and Mauthausen in an attempt to exert SiPo control over the Dutch Jewry.115 The remaining Jewish prisoners were organized into the newly founded Dutch Jewish Council. Rolf was hired by the Council in the autumn of 1941. He was among several thousand clerks working for the Jewish council in the Netherlands.116 ... In June 1942 Rolf had married the fellow emigrant Zionist Sabine Smuk. Her family were Orthodox merchants originally from Western Ukraine who had settled in Essen. Sabine left for Palestine in the 1930s, where she attended the Agricultural School Nahalal. She later left Palestine for the Netherlands.118 ... Sabine held a Palestine certificate and thus was to be considered for exchange for Palestine; Germany was trying to exchange Jews with valid certificates for immigration to Mandate Palestine for German citizens in Allied hands.120 Yet in marrying Sabine, Rolf weakened his status as a Geltungsjude, even if as clerks for the Jewish Council, Rolf and Sabine were protected pending further notice. At the Jewish Council, Rolf ’s employment file card stated: ‘impression: hardworking’ and Sabine’s ‘very hardworking’.121 The couple lived with Sabine’s little sister Mirjam, whose parents had been sent to the Netherlands after Kristallnacht.

In June 1943, after the Germans arrested a large portion of the Jewish Council, the little family was deported to Westerbork. While at Westerbork Rolf held a post in the Security Service, assisting at the departing transports; Sabine worked as a nurse. 122 Mirjam was eligible for deportation to Theresienstadt because her parents were already there and she was under 14 years of age123

  • S. 12: ... Sabine and Rolf, trying to escape their looming deportation, lobbied to have prioritized status on an exchange transport for Palestine via Bergen-Belsen, even hoping (unrealistically) they could include Sabine’s parents in Theresienstadt.124 The couple could have ‘qualified’ for Theresienstadt as ‘deserved employees’ of the Jewish Council and the Westerbork administration. In addition, Rolf begged his mother to reach out to Helmuth, hoping his uncle could help him. Irmgard was not pleased; she commented ‘Imagine this!’ on the request.125 We do not know whether Irmgard wrote to Helmuth, or whether Helmuth did anything., and left Westerbork in September.

After avoiding 10 transports to ‘the East’, the couple was deported to Auschwitz on 16 November 1943.126 ... The couples’ traces end in Auschwitz: Sabine was murdered immediately in the gas chamber. 128 Rolf survived the selection and lived for at least another two months. 129 For Etta, hitting rock bottom in Theresienstadt meant the final break from her old world. Arriving in Theresienstadt in July 1942, Etta and Ruth experienced a pronounced invalidation of their class background. In summer 1942, the place was at its worst. Theresienstadt was opened in November 1941 and operated as a transit ghetto 130 ... ... Thirty years later, Etta described the experience of Theresienstadt as ‘permanent rape’.132 In the first year, she contracted dysentery, typhoid, scarlet fever, jaundice and heart weakness, and lost 15 kilograms.133 ... The arrival of the grandmother and aunts in October 1942 brought back Etta’s agency: her relatives needed her help. ... The fact that Hedwig, a frail 81-year old woman, was able to live there for the comparably long time of six months before dying in April 1943, indicates that Etta must have taken care of her grandmother. Käthe and Eva lived in Theresienstadt, working in the sewing room until their deportation in May 1944. Around this time, their old home, Katharinenhof, changed hands again when Rudolf Nadolny, a former Wilhelmine and Weimar diplomat, bought it as his old-age residence.137 In autumn 1942, Etta received a summons for a transport. She

  • S. 13: immediately contacted the Jewish administration, citing her and Ruth’s exception status as Geltungsjuden, successfully securing their transport protection until autumn 1944.138 Three months after arrival, Etta was already well informed about the infrastructure and could negotiate a critical resource. ... Etta’s job as a lettering artist in the Graphic workshop, part of the Technical department, aided her integration into Theresienstadt. She designed posters and official papers for the Jewish self-administration. She made friends with her colleagues, including her boss, the well-known painter Tomáš Fritta. ... When Hedwig died, Etta followed the custom and claimed her grandmother’s wedding ring. ‘I sold it for fifty cigarettes,’ she remarked 40 years later.142 Etta also fell in love with Bedrich (Fritz) Lerner, an engineer from Brno, who acted in the ghetto theatre. Fritz was, in fact, married. His wife Ilse was arrested in Brno and sent to Auschwitz; he did not know she perished in October 1942. 143 To her mother, Etta announced Fritz as an engagement. News of the relationship travelled through Irmgard and reached Rolf in Westerbork and Ulla in London. 144 ... She moved into her boyfriend’s kumbál – in Theresienstadt slang, a self-timbered room of one’s own defining for the social elite.145 Lerner’s first language was German (he came from chiefly German-speaking Brno); therefore, unlike other German or Austrian women prisoners dating Czech Jews, Etta learnt only a little Czech. She was a friend of, and gave assistance to, her parents’ Berlin friends, including the Smuks and later their daughter Mirjam. ...
  • S. 14: ... Ruth, however, grew worse. Thus confirming the above trend. She died on 26 July 1943. ...

Irmgard asked Käthe to acknowledge and repay the loan Heinrich issued her in the 1920s for Katharinenhof. 152 ... At the same time, however, Irmgard participated in resistance, assisting Jews in hiding and sheltering people – Jews as well as escaped forced labourers – for short periods. To this end, she spent all of her independent funds and Heinrich’s life-insurance policy. 157 We do not know with whom specifically Irmgard worked. She had grown close to the Quakers, and ...

  • S. 15: was connected to Harald Poelchau as well as the Confessing Church in Dahlem; all three helped Jews in hiding. In spite of our exhaustive research, no one had ever heard about Irmgard Veit Simon. 158 Irmgard never mentioned persons other than Poelchau, and she was her own sole witness of her resistance activity. It seems that Irmgard’s strict keeping of the rules of conspiracy, her sex and the fact that she left Berlin immediately after the war led to her absence in the records. ...

The arrival of the Red Army brought a violent end of the war to the Gabriel siblings. ... Helmuth was arrested during the Prague Uprising. The Soviets sent him to the Bautzen special camp, following a NKVD order to arrest all high-ranking Nazi functionaries. He was likely to stand trial, but died on 22 August 1945 as consequence of the poor conditions.161 ... Later, Irmgard was sexually assaulted by the Soviet soldiers.162 ... ... Etta continued working for the Jewish self-administration 164; ... ... Arranging Irmgard’s emigration epitomized the peak of Etta’s resourcefulness, triggered by years of persecution. She organized her mother’s emigration, a particularly difficult enterprise, not least because the situation in Berlin was so chaotic. Etta went to Berlin twice to co-ordinate the return of Theresienstadt survivors. The first time she saw her mother she realized she had been assaulted. Irmgard was now just another wounded, humiliated and malnourished Berlin woman: the experience of sexual violence erased all vestiges of her former patrician life. Etta used her mother’s Dutch birth certificate and her Theresienstadt connections to get her out of the war-torn capital: she registered Irmgard as a former Dutch prisoner and brought her to Terezín in August 1945. 167 Both women then accompanied a transport of Jewish orphans to Windermere in the Lake District. 168

  • S. 16: In October 1945, Irmgard moved to London and stayed there until the late 1960s, long after her daughters left. Ulla moved to Los Angeles, Etta to New York and Judith to DC. Etta could not find her way in England: she found the country isolating and antisemitic, and she also found it hard to reintegrate into the ‘normal’ world. 169 ...

Irmgard lived very simply, working menial jobs, never complaining. Eventually, when her eyesight and arthritis grew too bad – she turned 70 in 1959 – she moved in with Judith. Judith studied at the London School of Economics, where she fell in love with an American economist and moved with him to Washington, D.C. Today, there is no one left carrying the surname Veit Simon. Harro’s son Hanno changed his surname after his adoption by Harriet’s second husband; he and his son are the last of the family in Great Britain. Other descendants live in Chile, Sweden and the United States. Harro converted to Catholicism, remarried and had two sons. When Hanno visited in the 1970s, his father, who had become a Pinochet supporter, suggested they not mention the fact that he was a Jewish divorcé. Ulla divorced and became an artist in the Californian Arroyo Grande. When she was in her 80s, her old boyfriend Hietze Friedensohn found her. They spent their last three years living happily between Israel and California. Etta married a friend of her siblings, the widowed Chicago physician Erwin Japha; she became mother to his two children, and had another daughter, Irene, named after her Berlin childhood friend. In 1971, her husband died and Etta moved near Ulla. Even though she lived to 91, she never gave testimony about her persecution; unlike most survivors in the United States, she was not interviewed as part of any of the large Holocaust oral-history collections. When she occasionally talked about her wartime years, she would carefully select her topics and refused to answer other questions. We learn of her boyfriend, or taking care of the little Mirjam Smuk, only from other sources. She passed away in Seattle in 2009. ... ... as an old woman Judith reconnected with her native city, wooed by post-war Berliners who wished to atone. The family restituted Katharinenhof 171 and sold the house to a group of Berlin leftists who again use it as weekend house. Theirs is, understandably, a different history: of two young women Jewish gardeners, who built a little utopia in the March of Brandenburg. 172

Anna Hájková, Maria von der Heydt, „Biedermeier Desk in Seattle: The Veit Simon Children, Class, and the Transnational in Holocaust History“, in: European Review of History (Taylor and Francis), 2016, S. ??, https://hcommons.org/deposits/item/hc:11635/ ; https://hcommons.org/deposits/objects/hc:11636/datastreams/CONTENT/content?download=true&usg=AOvVaw25mfubWsuMtgFkYQI0q7l

Deportation von Hedwig, Eva und Käthe nach Theresienstadt

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On 4 October 1942, Hedwig with her daughters Eva and Käthe were deported to Theresienstadt[10]

The fact that Hedwig, a frail 81-year old woman, was able to live there for the comparably long time of six months before dying in April 1943, indicates that Etta must have taken care of her grandmother. Käthe and Eva lived in Theresienstadt, working in the sewing room until their deportation in May 1944.[11]

Joseph von Eichendorff – Orte, Adressen und Reiserouten

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Schutzprivileg für Juda Veit Singer, den Schwiegersohn des Fabrikanten David Hirsch, und seine sechs Kinder (die namentlich erwähnten fünf Söhne gründeten 1780 das Bankhaus Gebrüder Veit), eigenhändig unterschrieben von Friedrich II, 12.3.1764. Simon Veit, der viertälteste Sohn, heiratete Dorothea Mendelssohn, Tochter von Moses Mendelssohn. Ihre Söhne waren die bekannten Maler Philipp und Johannes Veit, die zu den „Nazarenern“ gehörten. Adressbuch 1812 [=Veit, Salomon, Banquier 1812: Spandauer Str. 68 = Haus Joseph Mendelsohns] Simon Veit starb 1819

Ursula Regener, Joseph von Eichendorff – Orte, Adressen und Reiserouten, https://www.uni-regensburg.de/assets/sprache-literatur-kultur/germanistik-ndl-1/pdf/Eichendorff_Adressen-2023.pdf

Siehe auch (Wikipedia-Links)

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Literatur und Quellen

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[Zur Internationalen Bank: Im Jahr 1888 von Ludwig Max Goldberger und Sigismund Born gegründet; siehe: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigismund_Born]

Einzelnachweise

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  1. so: Hanns G. Reissner, „VEIT“, in: Encyclopaedia Judaica, https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/veit
  2. so: Meike Rademacher, „Veit, Juda(h)“, S. 271, in: Elke-Vera Kotowski (Hrsg.), Juden in Berlin, Band 2: Biografien, Redaktion: Elke-Vera Kotowski, Helen Thein, Moritz Reininghaus, unter Mitarbeit von Catherina Günther, Mario Huth, Christina Mestrom, Henschel-Verlag, in Zusammenarbeit mit dem Moses Mendelssohn Zentrum Potsdam und dem Bildarchiv Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin, Berlin, 2005, ISBN 3-89487-461-9, S. 271
  3. Hanns G. Reissner, „VEIT“, in: Encyclopaedia Judaica, https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/veit
  4. Andrea Sorgenfrei, „Veit, Salomon“, S. 271, in: Elke-Vera Kotowski (Hrsg.), Juden in Berlin, Band 2: Biografien, Redaktion: Elke-Vera Kotowski, Helen Thein, Moritz Reininghaus, unter Mitarbeit von Catherina Günther, Mario Huth, Christina Mestrom, Henschel-Verlag, in Zusammenarbeit mit dem Moses Mendelssohn Zentrum Potsdam und dem Bildarchiv Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin, Berlin, 2005, ISBN 3-89487-461-9, S. 271
  5. American Jewish Historical Society, Center for Jewish History, Japha-Veit-Simon Family Collection, Identifier: AR 25908, Biographical Note, https://archives.cjh.org/repositories/5/resources/20996
  6. Stolpersteine in Berlin, „Ruth Agnes Veit Simon“, https://www.stolpersteine-berlin.de/de/rothenburgstrasse/18/ruth-agnes-veit-simon
  7. Stolpersteine in Berlin, „Dr. Heinrich Veit Simon“, https://www.stolpersteine-berlin.de/de/hindenburgdamm/11/heinrich-veit-simon
  8. Stolpersteine in Berlin, „Ruth Agnes Veit Simon“, https://www.stolpersteine-berlin.de/de/rothenburgstrasse/18/ruth-agnes-veit-simon
  9. Stolpersteine in Berlin, „Dr. Heinrich Veit Simon“, https://www.stolpersteine-berlin.de/de/hindenburgdamm/11/heinrich-veit-simon
  10. Anna Hájková, Maria von der Heydt, „Biedermeier Desk in Seattle: The Veit Simon Children, Class, and the Transnational in Holocaust History“, in: European Review of History (Taylor and Francis), 2016, S. 10, https://hcommons.org/deposits/objects/hc:11636/datastreams/CONTENT/content?download=true&usg=AOvVaw25mfubWsuMtgFkYQI0q7l
  11. Anna Hájková, Maria von der Heydt, „Biedermeier Desk in Seattle: The Veit Simon Children, Class, and the Transnational in Holocaust History“, in: European Review of History (Taylor and Francis), 2016, S. 12, https://hcommons.org/deposits/objects/hc:11636/datastreams/CONTENT/content?download=true&usg=AOvVaw25mfubWsuMtgFkYQI0q7l