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Tabbertstr. 14

Tabbertstr. 14

Treptow-Köpenick
The site of the dye works, date and photographer unknown. Source: Archive of the Treptow-Köpenick Museums
There was a long-established cotton dye-works, S. Feldmann, as well as residential accommodation in this property. The names of 13 Jewish people who lived here after 1939 are known. Nine of them were deported and murdered; four committed suicide or died of diseases. Remarkably, the building is not in the inner city but in the industrial area that came to be known as “Elektropolis”.

The Feldmann family established a silk, wool, and cotton-thread dye-works at Tabbertstraße 14 in Oberschöneweide in 1900. Following the death of founder Simon Feldmann in 1925, ownership of the property passed to his widow Sophie Feldmann. By 1927, her youngest son Fritz Feldmann had taken over the business. The dye-works prospered: It employed 100 members of staff for a time, and had a private railway siding and access to the river Spree. Some members of staff lived at Tabbertstraße 14. There were other businesses on the grounds as well as the dye-works. Günther Skotzki, Sophie Feldmann’s son-in-law, set up a knitting yarn and button tape factory here in 1936. But the Nazis’ special taxes and increasing discrimination and persecution of the Jewish population caused the business to collapse and ruined Fritz Feldmann. S. Feldmann closed on December 16, 1939, and was deleted from the commercial register on September 22, 1941.

Apartments

Unknown location

Apartment Feldmann

Sophie Feldmann came from a Breslau merchant family. She lived with some of her children in the residential building at Tabbertstraße 14. Her husband had died in 1925. Her youngest daughter Alice Ruth Feldmann was an unmarried office worker. Her daughter Charlotte Feldmann had married Günther Skotzki, who also ran a factory on the grounds, in 1926. Günther was the youngest child of a Breslau textile merchant named Philipp Skotzki. After his death in 1917, his wife Berta Skotzki carried on the family business with her two sons.

Birthday celebration for Sophie Feldmann in the villa at Tabbertstraße 14, July 30, 1935
Birthday celebration for Sophie Feldmann in the villa at Tabbertstraße 14, July 30, 1935, photographer unknown. Source: private collection

In 1934, Sophie Feldmann’s son Fritz Feldmann married Berta Lindheimer. The newly-weds moved in together at Tabbertstraße. Two years later, Berta Feldmann’s widowed mother Rega Lindheimer also moved to Oberschöneweide. Sophie Feldmann’s younger sister Berta Skotzki moved in at Tabbertstraße in 1938. In November 1938, Fritz Feldmann died aged 42. It is unclear whether he committed suicide or died of a heart attack. His widow Berta Feldmann fled with her mother in July 1939 to Brussels, where she remarried. She was arrested in Belgium and taken to Malines transit camp near Antwerp. From there she was deported on August 4, 1942, to Auschwitz and murdered.

Alice Ruth Feldmann died on November 12, 1939, of tuberculosis. She had been admitted to the Westhospital in Charlottenburg a few weeks before her death, even though Jewish people were officially banned from being treated in “Aryan” hospitals. Sophie Feldmann committed suicide on January 15, 1942. After the death of her sister, Berta Skotzki returned to Breslau. She was deported on July 26, 1942, with another sister of hers to the Theresienstadt ghetto, where she died. Her three children had fled to Palestine, the United States, and Cuba.

Ernst Friedenstein and his elder sister Jenny Friedenstein were evidently subtenants living at Tabbertstraße 14. Ernst Friedenstein was deported on March 3, 1942, to Auschwitz and probably murdered there. By that time, Jenny Friedenstein had already been deported to the Theresienstadt ghetto and was no longer alive.

Apartment Cohn/Danziger

Heinrich and Gertrud Cohn, née Weiß, who had married in 1901, lived together on Tabbertstraße. Heinrich Cohn died in March 1942 in the Jewish hospital. A year later, his widow was deported with their daughter Bertha Danziger, née Cohn, and her four-year-old son Denny to Auschwitz. It is most likely that all three were murdered on arrival.

Apartment Salm

Fanny Salm, née Lehmann, moved to Berlin after her divorce in 1926. She had two children who lived in an orphanage in Cologne. Around 1939 she worked as a housemaid for Sophie Neumann. Fanny Salm was deported on January 19, 1942, to the Riga ghetto. It is not clear whether she was murdered on arrival or made to perform forced labor, but she did not survive. Neither did her son Rolf Sam. Her daughter Erna Salm managed to escape to Australia in 1938.

Neighborhood

From 1890 on, the Schöneweide area along the river Spree became the location of several major industrial plants. One of the first here was the electricity company AEG, which built Germany’s first three-phase power station in Oberschöneweide in 1897. Soon afterwards, a battery works and a cable-manufacturing plant were also built here, earning Oberschöneweide the nickname “Elektropolis”, standing for the electrified city. Thousands of people were made to perform forced labor in the industrial plants in Oberschöneweide. In August 1941, AEG announced that it was looking for replacement staff following the “planned discharge of Jewish workers”, meaning their impending deportation.

Author

Yves Müller

In remembrance of the Jewish residents of Tabbertstraße 14

Gertrud Cohn, née Weiß

Born April 26, 1878, in Mislowitz (Mylowice)
Deported March 3, 1943, to Auschwitz, murdered

Heinrich Cohn

Born April 2, 1878, in Hohenlinde bei Beuthen (Łagiewniki)
Died March 13, 1942, in the Jewish hospital Berlin

Bertha Danziger, née Cohn

Born February 11, 1905, in Myslowitz (Mylowice)
Deported March 3, 1943, to Auschwitz, murdered

Denny Danziger

Born December 24, 1938, in Berlin
Deported March 3, 1943, to Auschwitz, murdered

Alice Ruth Feldmann

Born December 24, 1899, in Berlin
Died November 12, 1939

Fritz Feldmann

Born September 1, 1896, in Berlin
Suicide or heart attack November 29, 1938

Sophie Feldmann

Born July 30, 1866, in Breslau (Wrocław)
Suicide January 15, 1942

Ernst Friedenstein

Born September 4, 1879, in Breslau (Wrocław)
Deported March 3, 1943, to Auschwitz, murdered

Jenny Friedenstein

Born June 12, 1869, in Breslau (Wrocław)
Deported September 14, 1942, to the Theresienstadt ghetto, died there February 20, 1943

Rega Lindheimer, née Stern

Born December 16, 1889, in Meudt
Fled to Brussels, deported August 4, 1942, from Belgium to Auschwitz, murdered

Berta Rubens, née Lindheimer, widowed Feldmann

Born November 29, 1911, in Nassau an der Lahn
Fled to Brussels, deported August 4, 1942, from Belgium to Auschwitz, murdered

Fanny Salm, née Lehmann

Born October 15, 1889, in Cologne
Deported January 19, 1942, to the Riga ghetto, murdered

Berta Skotzki, née Wagner

Born January 10, 1868, in Breslau (Wrocław)
Deported July 26, 1942, from Breslau to the Theresienstadt ghetto, died December 27, 1942