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John Löwenhardt

Sternlager

6 June 2020 by John Löwenhardt Leave a Comment

Hermann Kleeblatt died in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, in its section named Sternlager, ‘Star Camp’. He was seventy years of age and the last of his family to fall prey to the Nazis. All were dead: his son Arthur with his own family in Auschwitz, September 1942; his son Walter in Sobibor (April 1943) and his wife Lina who had died in Westerbork Transit Camp in The Netherlands on 28 December 1943. The youngest son, Richard, born in 1906, was the only one to survive.

Hermann was brother to my great-grandmother Hannchen ten Brink-Kleeblatt (1861-1930). Most likely he was also the person who introduced her oldest daughter Julia to his young neighbour in Dortmund-Lindenhorst, butcher Adolf Löwenhardt. Julia and Adolf married in 1912.

In official documents such as the Gedenkbuch (‘Memorial Book’) of the German National Archives, Hermann is listed to have died on 12 September 1944. That was his seventieth birthday… which made me suspicious. A coincidence? Would he really have passed away on his seventieth birthday? Bergen-Belsen was not an extermination camp but it knew extreme hunger and a deadly typhus epidemic. Whoever was weak or lost hope, whoever gave up the fight to survive, whoever became apathetic, died. Had Hermann Kleeblatt lost all hope on the eve of his birthday?

Probably the only picture of Hermann Kleeblatt and his wife Lina in their grocer store in Dortmund-Lindenhorst

Reading the book by historian Evelien Gans on Jaap and Ischa Meijer made me write to the Bergen-Belsen Memorial in Germany. In her book, Gans presents an extensive impression of ‘life’ in the Sternlager. But was Hermann really housed in this part of the camp? And why in Bergen-Belsen after all? It was a so-called exchange camp, meant for Jews, mainly from The Netherlands, who the Nazis planned to exchange against Germans from abroad. Hermann was the only member of my extended family who ended up in Bergen-Belsen. Why?

The name Sternlager refers to the fact that its inmates were allowed to wear their civil clothes but had to carry a ‘Jew star’ on their chest. Family members could stay close to each other and for the elderly, there was a separate barrack, the ‘Altersheim’. Is this where they would have put Hermann?

On 24 February 2014 I receive an email sent by Elfriede Schulz of the Bergen-Belsen Memorial. She has been so kind to research Hermann Kleeblatt’s stay at the camp. To my question of why he was sent to Bergen-Belsen she has no answer. It remains a mystery. But she confirms that he was indeed in the Sternlager. And then her surprise: Hermann died on 2 January 1945, having stayed in the camp for eleven months. This is shown on a list made by Josef Weiss.

For four months in late 1944 and early 1945, Josef (‘Jupp’) Weiss (1893-1976) was Judenältester, ‘Senior Jew’ or leader of the Jews in the Sternlager. Weiss, too, had fled Germany for The Netherlands and had been deported to Bergen-Belsen via Westerbork Transit Camp. He had been at Westerbork for twenty months when on 29 September 1943 Hermann and his wife Lina arrived. Lina died three months later, and on 11 January 1944 Josef Weiss and his family were deported to Bergen-Belsen. Hermann Kleeblatt, now a widower, was put on the next transport, on 1 February. Hermann and Josef may have known each other. Both had come from North Rhine-Westfalia and their deportation histories showed partial overlaps.

Josef – ‘Jupp’ – Weiss

Both during and after the war, Weiss enjoyed an excellent reputation. As ‘Judenältester’ he was the pivot between the camp commander and the inmates. Some predecessors had abused this position, but in his behaviour ‘Jupp’ Weiss showed to be a ‘Mensch’ who was respected by both inmates and camp guards. Every day he used to walk alongside the cart on which Sternlager’s deceased were taken away, saying kaddish.

Weiss kept secret lists, one of these with names and dates of the deceased. This list shows Hermann Kleeblatt, born 12 September 1874 and died 2 January 1945. Two months down the same secret list are Margot Frank and her sister Anne.

Josef Weiss himself died in Jerusalem in 1976, aged 83. The day of his death was 12 September, Hermann Kleeblatt’s birthday.

24 February 2014, edited and translated 6 June 2020

Please also read
On Adolf and Julia: Letter to George

Filed Under: Bergen-Belsen, Dortmund, Westerbork Tagged With: Adolf Löwenhardt, Arthur Kleeblatt, Hannchen ten Brink-Kleeblatt, Hermann Kleeblatt, Julia Löwenhardt-ten Brink, Lina Kleeblatt, Walter Kleeblatt

Bald heads

23 April 2020 by John Löwenhardt Leave a Comment

Who is Who?

A mysterious picture from the family archives. Of only one of the ten individuals the identity is known. At the back in German handwriting the words ‘Neuenahr, Summer 1924’. Second from the left is my grandfather Adolf Löwenhardt, obviously much younger than the bald heads. No doubt about it. The meeting took place in spa town Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler, south of Bonn in Rhineland-Paltz.

What made fourty year old Adolf travel from Dortmund to Bad Neuenahr, unaccompanied by his wife Julia? Who were the five bald headed men who, mysteriously, did not differ in age very much? And the seated couple with, presumably, their daughter and son… who were they? I cannot recognize one face. Do you have any idea?

Filed Under: Bad Neuenahr Tagged With: Adolf Löwenhardt

House arrest

9 April 2020 by John Löwenhardt 2 Comments

4-5 April 1945 <-> 4-5 April 2020

Seventy-five years since the liberation of my home town Almelo (The Netherlands) I write about the hiding of my parents and many other Jews in the town. For more than two and a half years they had to hide until Canadian troops came to liberate them. 

At the moment when I am writing this, almost all European citizens are under house arrest in a more or less strict sense. In this unexpected pandemic, unheard of in modern times, the virus forces us to stay at home. With our partner and children or alone, we are locked up. [Read more…] about House arrest

Filed Under: Almelo Tagged With: Mimi Löwenhardt-de Leeuw

Meet Kurt Ikenberg

11 December 2019 by John Löwenhardt Leave a Comment

Meet Kurt Ikenberg, distant relative of the same generation as I. He was born six years prior to me. I’ve known him for eight years although he was only three years of age when he died. Seventy five years after his death I have been able to give him a face.

Filed Under: Theresienstadt, Westerbork Tagged With: Clara Ikenberg-Löwenhardt, Friedericka Löwenhardt, Kurt Herbert Ikenberg

Moving pictures

27 January 2019 by John Löwenhardt 2 Comments

‘GenTalk’ at the Famillement conference, 3 June 2018 in Leeuwarden, The Netherlands
Translated from Dutch by the author

What is special about Jewish genealogists and writers on family history? To their non-Jewish colleagues, having an extended ‘hinterland’ is no big deal. They grew up with grandpa’s and grandma’s, uncles and aunts, nephews and nieces. Not us. [Read more…] about Moving pictures

Filed Under: Denekamp, Leeuwarden, Mauthausen - Schloß Hartheim Tagged With: Anne Ottema, Hannie ten Brink, Hennie ten Brink, Julius ten Brink, Lida Carla ten Brink

All that remains…

19 December 2018 by John Löwenhardt Leave a Comment

All that remains: four pictures of the De Jonge family that lived in Groningen (Netherlands) at Folkingedwarsstraat 5. Parents, two children and a son-in-law and grandchild Eva born in February 1942, all murdered in Auschwitz. After November 1942 no one was left to tell. The four pictures were waiting in a tinplated box, I need to show them. [Read more…] about All that remains…

Filed Under: Almelo, Groningen

Five years in the Internet

27 January 2018 by John Löwenhardt Leave a Comment

A happy occasion: five years ago today, this trilingual website went on-line. During this period 24 stories have been published in English, 21 in Dutch and 8 in German. Thus the histories of the Löwenhardt, De Leeuw, Ten Brink and Weijl families have been preserved for posterity – with the help of archiving by the Netherlands Royal Library. At the foot of this first milestone we find a small surprise: [Read more…] about Five years in the Internet

Filed Under: 's-Heerenberg

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