User:Eli185/Judenhaus

Weimar, Belvederer Allee 6, Commemorative plaque

In the official language of the Nazi state, Judenhaus was the term used to describe residential buildings of (formerly) Jewish property into which only Jewish tenants and subtenants were forcibly admitted. Who was considered a Jew in this context was regulated in § 5 of the First Ordinance to the Reich Citizenship Act of November 14, 1935; so-called privileged mixed marriages were excluded.

This freed up living space for the so-called German-blooded population at the expense of the Jews. The measure facilitated discrimination against Jewish residents and interrupted established neighborly relations.

The term Judenhaus was adopted into the everyday language of the Third Reich. As an alternative to the National Socialist term, the term ghetto house is also used today.

Relaxation of tenant protection

Memorial plaque on the house at Brühl 6 in Weimar

The Ordinance on the Use of Jewish Property (RGBl. I, p. 1709) of December 3, 1938, obliged Jewish homeowners to sell their real estate. Hermann Göring announced on December 28, 1938, that the "Aryanization" of businesses and stores was a priority, and that the "Aryanization" of house property was to be "placed at the end of the overall Aryanization". It was namely desired:

… in Einzelfällen nach Möglichkeit so zu verfahren, daß Juden in einem Haus zusammengelegt werden, soweit die Mietverhältnisse dies gestatten würden.

The Law on Tenancies with Jews (RGBl. I, p. 864) of April 30, 1939, relaxed tenant protection for Jews. Legal commentaries on the "special housing law for Jews" stated as justification:

Es widerspricht nationalsozialistischem Rechtsempfinden, wenn deutsche Volksgenossen in einem Hause mit Juden zusammenleben müssen.

Jewish tenants could be terminated by the "German-blooded" landlord, provided that proof of replacement housing was provided. A contractually agreed long-term rental period could be reduced to the statutory time limits. Jewish tenants could be instructed to accept other Jews as subtenants in their apartments. The rental agreement and the amount of rent could be determined by the municipal authority

Already in anticipation, an "Ordinance on the Reorganization of the Reich Capital Berlin and the Capital of the Movement Munich" (RGBl. I, p. 159) of February 8, 1939, had introduced a registration requirement for vacant Jewish apartments in Berlin and Munich; these were to serve as replacement housing for "German-blooded tenants." When the concentration efforts in the major cities of Berlin, Munich and Vienna failed to achieve the desired success, tenant protection was restricted there on September 10, 1940, also for Jewish tenants and subtenants if the building had passed to an "Aryan" owner or was administered by the Kultusgemeinde or the Reich Association of Jews in Germany. Exemplary is the history published by the city of Cologne of the Bier house at Hülchrather Straße 6 in Cologne, for which the artist Gunter Demnig laid a stumbling block for an Aryanized residential building for the first time in 2012.

Incarceration and housing

Immediately after the November pogroms in 1938, Hermann Göring was already considering the establishment of ghettos. Reinhard Heydrich, however, considered police surveillance there to be difficult; he recommended housing in Jewish houses, counting on control "by the watchful eye of the entire population".

Beginning in the fall of 1939 (in Vienna and in the Sudetengau even before), but also much later, for example in Hamburg from April 1942, all Jews who had to be identified were assigned to "Jewish houses" on the orders of the Gestapo and partly with the enforced cooperation of the Reich Association of Jews in Germany and housed there in very cramped conditions. Numerous buildings were transferred to the Reich Association of Jews in Germany because smaller religious communities could no longer finance their upkeep or dissolved. Jews were often assigned to these facilities: makeshift kindergartens and schools that had been converted into living quarters, old people's homes and hospitals, offices and meeting rooms, prayer halls and cemetery halls.

In addition to ideological reasons, tangible material interests also determined this measure. In the fall of 1941, for example, the Düsseldorf police department called for the consolidation of several Jewish families into one apartment; it was to be "taken for granted that only the most unhealthy and worst apartments would be left for the Jews. Housing space would be freed up for the German-blooded population "without this resulting in a financial burden on the Reich or the communities." However, the dwellings were "not to be located next to each other (ghettoization ban).

The general housing shortage in large cities was continually exacerbated by air raids. In Hamburg, more than 1,000 apartments had already been destroyed by bombs by the end of 1941. A confidential transcript stated:

„Der ursprüngliche Plan, die Juden an mehreren Stellen im Stadtgebiet zusammenzuziehen, ist aufgegeben worden. Nunmehr hat der Führer auf Antrag des Reichsstatthalters entschieden, dass die hier wohnenden Juden bis auf ganz Alte und Sieche nach Osten evakuiert werden sollen. […] Gerechnet wird [alsbald] mit einem Zugang von ca. 1.000 freien Wohnungen auf Grund dieser Maßnahme.“

The "Judenhaus" Knochenhauerstraße 61 (left) was inspected by the chairman of the Jewish community in Hanover, Max Schleisner.Photo from 1898, Image Archive Historical Museum Hanover

In Hanover, the "resettlement action" was already completed in September 1941: Around 1500 Jews were clustered in fifteen buildings; in addition to residential buildings, former offices, a community center with a school, and the Israelite hospital were also occupied. Jewish houses in Braunschweig existed from 1939 until mid/end 1943, after which all Jewish residents had either emigrated, been deported, or were dead. In Hamburg, from April 1942 onwards, all holders of "Jewish stars" who had not yet been deported were forcibly admitted to Jewish houses; from autumn 1942 onwards, this also affected partners from "non-privileged mixed marriages". From 1943 on, partners from "privileged mixed marriages" also had to move into Jewish houses in some Reich districts.

In Hamburg, six to eight square meters of living space were allotted per person. An employee of the Reichsvereinigung reported from Hanover in 1941: "Bed next to bed, no room for corridors. [...] Tables and chairs are missing because of lack of space. [...] No 3 sq. m. floor space." Victor Klemperer noted about a Dresden Jewish house: "Cohns, Stühlers, us. Bathroom and toilet together. Kitchen shared with Stühlers, only half separated - one water point for all three [...] It is already half barrack life, one stumbles over each other, through each other."

According to an order of the Reich Security Main Office, the Jewish houses and Jewish apartments had to be marked with a black Jewish star printed on white paper on the entrance door by March 15, 1942, and were under Gestapo control Klemperer writes in his diaries several times about "house search pogroms" reported to him as well as experienced by himself, during which the residents were insulted, spat on, slapped, kicked, beaten and robbed by Gestapo officers. "In waking up: Will 'they' come today? In washing...: Where to put the soap if 'they' come now? Then breakfast: getting everything out of hiding, carrying it back to hiding.[...] Then the ringing... Is it the letter carrier, or is it 'they'?"

Planning for Berlin

From January 1941 and increasingly from the end of March 1941, numerous Jews in Berlin had to leave their apartments in order to make room or free up replacement living space, because the Reich capital was to be remodeled on a large scale according to plans by General Building Inspector Albert Speer. In August 1941 alone, over 5,000 "Jewish apartments" were to be vacated.

Plans discussed in connection with the introduction of the Jewish star in the Reich Ministry of Propaganda in August 1941 were not realized. According to these plans, more than 70,000 Berlin Jews were to be expelled from their homes and concentrated in barracks camps. As deportations of Reich German Jews to Litzmannstadt (Łódź), Minsk and Riga began in the fall of 1941, numerous forced evictions and apartment consolidations remained.

So-called collective housing in Vienna

The system of "Aryanization" of residential property was comprehensively researched and presented using the example of the entire residential building and especially the apartment of Sigmund Freud at Berggasse 19 in Vienna.

Hungary

After the German occupation of Hungary in March 1944, the Jews in Fejér County were crammed into houses of Jews by the intact Hungarian local government from May 1944, which were then marked with a yellow star.

Literature

• Karin Guth: Bornstraße 22. Ein Erinnerungsbuch. „… wir mußten ja ins Judenhaus, in ein kleines Loch.“ Dölling und Galitz, Hamburg 2001, ISBN 3-935549-06-7.
• Roland Maier: Die Verfolgung und Deportation der jüdischen Bevölkerung, in: Ingrid Bauz, Sigrid Brüggemann, Roland Maier (Hrsg.): Die Geheime Staatspolizei in Württemberg und Hohenzollern, Schmetterling, Stuttgart 2013, ISBN 3-89657-145-1, S. 259–304.
• Guy Miron (Hrsg.): The Yad Vashem encyclopedia of the ghettos during the Holocaust, Yad Vashem, Jerusalem 2009, ISBN 978-965-308-345-5, dort: Judenhäuser in Germany. Bases on excerpts from articles by Marlis Buchholz and Konrad Kwiet, S. 999–1001.
• Willy Rink: Das Judenhaus: Erinnerungen an Juden und Nichtjuden unter einem Dach. Aktives Museum Spiegelgasse für Deutsch-Jüdische Geschichte, Wiesbaden 2008, ISBN 978-3-941289-02-4.
• Willy Rink: Stolpersteine: Späte Gedanken über das Leben im Judenhaus. Epubli GmbH, Berlin 2015, ISBN 978-3-7375-4758-1.
• Susanne Willems: Der entsiedelte Jude. Albert Speers Wohnungsmarktpolitik für den Berliner Hauptstadtbau. Edition Hentrich, Berlin 2002, ISBN 3-89468-259-0 (Publikationen der Gedenk- und Bildungsstätte Haus der Wannseekonferenz 10, zugleich Dissertation an der Universität Bochum 1999 unter dem Titel: Stadtmodernisierung, Wohnungsmarkt und Judenverfolgung in Berlin 1938 bis 1943.).
• Renate Hebauf: Gaußstraße 14, Ein Ghettohaus in Frankfurt am Main, Die Geschichte eines Hauses und seiner jüdischen Bewohnerinnen und Bewohner zwischen 1912 und 1945, Cocon-Verlag Hanau 2010.
• Jan Oestreich u. a.: Verdrängt – Verfolgt – Vergessen. Das „Judenhaus“ Weender Landstr. 26 und seine BewohnerInnen, in: Schriften der Göttinger Gesellschaft für Christlich-Jüdische Zusammenarbeit, Heft 6, Göttingen 2016.

External links

• Gesetz über Mietverhältnisse mit Juden vom 30. April 1939 (RGBl. 1939 I, 864)
• Archived at www1.uni-hamburg.de , Hamburg
• „Judenhäuser“ in Leipzig 1939–1945. Ein Schülerprojekt
• „Judenhäuser“ in Düsseldorf, Fachbereich Sozial- und Kulturwissenschaften der Hochschule Düsseldorf. (Website mit interaktiver Karte)

References

[[Category:Law in Nazi Germany]]