Erwin Cohn 1923 - 1941

Born 9.6.1923 in Hamburg
Died 25.8.1941 in Mauthausen

Biography

The Cohn family already lived in the Isestraße before 1933. Max Cohn (1891–1941) had attended the higher vocational school by the Holstentor gate and then studied business. With his first wife, Selma, née Sonn, he had a daughter, Erika Lotte, born in 1922, and a son, Erwin Julius, born in 1923. His wife died in February 1927, and a good year later he married Gretchen Magnus. The second marriage remained childless.

In February 1938 the parents sent their son Erwin to Amsterdam. His cousin reported in 2010: ‘Erwin was sent to his aunt, the sister of his father, to Amsterdam. Minna Spijer, née Cohn, was already living there before the First World War, was married to a Dutchman and had a son, about one year older than Erwin. This cousin, who now lives in Australia, visited us this year and told us a bit about his cousin. It seems he was a curious, boisterous and perhaps headstrong boy, who did not take the warnings of his aunt and older cousin seriously not to leave the house alone and unprotected any more after the arrival of the Germans in Holland, and who didn’t obey the prohibitions. So it was that in 1941, during one of these unauthorised “outings” he was simply seized on the street and deported. “Shot while attempting to escape”, his relatives were notified from Mauthausen concentration camp. He was 18 years old.’ It is conceivable that he was a victim of the large-scale round-up in February 1941 and was among the 400 predominantly young men who were deported to Mauthausen and Buchenwald via Westerbork.

In August 1938, Max Cohn, having been issued an ‘Unbedenklichkeitsbescheinigung’ (literally: ‘certificate of harmlessness’) by the Senior Finance President, received permission for a journey to Holland. On his application he had given the reason for his visit his intention to prevent the prolonged emigration of his son. Probably he just wanted to visit the family and see how his son was doing. Whether he actually undertook the journey is unknown. In any case, Erwin did not return to Germany, but lived another three years in Amsterdam. His date of death is 25 August 1941. We do not know whether Erwin’s parents learned of his fate before their deportation.

On 25 October 1941, Max and Gretchen Cohn were deported to Łódź.

The furnishings in their apartment and all their personal property at 85 Isestraße were confiscated by the Gestapo and auctioned off, with the proceeds going to the Regional Finance Office.

In Łódź, Max and Gretchen Cohn were quartered at Kühlen Gasse 14/38. Until 1942 Alfred Cohn continued to receive news of his brother and his sister-in-law and was able to send them money. After this trace of them vanishes. It is likely that Max and Gretchen Cohn were murdered in May 1942 in Chełmno.

Christa Fladhammer

 

Translation into English: Joanna White

 

This text is an abridged version of Christa Fladhammer’s text for the Hamburger Stolpersteine project (http://www.stolpersteine-hamburg.de/). For the full version see: http://www.stolpersteine-hamburg.de/en.php?&LANGUAGE=EN&MAIN_ID=7&BIO_ID=1512.

 

 

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