Paul Reinhardt 1879 - 1943

Born 13.1.1879 in Heuberg
Died 13.1.1943 in Mauthausen

Biography

Paul Reinhardt was the son of Klara Pauline Babette Schneck, born 10 January 1852 in Neuhengstett in the Calw district, and of Otto (also: ‘Odon’) Michael Reinhardt, born 9 April 1852 in Anzelingen in the Bolchen district of Lothingen in France. Paul’s birth was registered on 13 January 1879 in the birth register at the Pfedelbach registry office in the Öhringen district in northeast Württemberg.

Paul Reinhardt is listed in the 1905 ‘Gypsy Book’ compiled by Alfred Dillmann of the Munich police headquarters as the son of the ‘gypsy’ and stone breaker Odon Michael Reinhardt.

On 27 November 1926, Paul Reinhardt married Christiane Reinhardt, née Guttenberger, in Pfedelbach. Christiane was born on 2 June 1894 in Möhringen, now part of Stuttgart. Her widowed name was Terber; her first husband had died in 1916 fighting as a soldier in Austria.

Paul Reinhardt and his family were registered on 14 June 1937 by the Adelmannsfelden branch of the Aalen constabulary, i.e. the chief constable there reported them to the headquarters of the Criminal Police in Stuttgart in response to an order to report ‘Yenish clans’. At the time of registration the couple had eight children: five daughters and three sons. They were: Pauline (*21 April 1921 in Bühlerzell), Paul (21 April 1922 in Laufen am Kocher), Pateritzka Hedwig Anna (*7 July 1925 in Stein am Kocher), Robert (*17 September 1926 in Schwäbisch Gmünd), Marie (*7 August 1928 in Unterrot), Andreas (*16 August 1929 in Kochertürn), Ottilie Johanna (*16 December 1930 in Rauenberg) and Klara (*11 August 1933 in Röhlingen).

In December 1942 their father, Paul Reinhardt, was deported to Mauthausen concentration camp. He was classed as an ‘SV’ prisoner, i.e. registered under the category ‘Sicherungsverwahrung’ (‘preventative detention’). His prisoner number was 19292. According to the findings of the International Tracing Service, this prisoner number was assigned around 19 December 1942. Paul Reinhardt died after barely four weeks in the camp on 13 January 1943, according to the camp files at 7.05am of ‘old age’. It seems he died on his 64th birthday. The Mauthausen department of the special registry office in Bad Arolsen certified his death in 1952 under number 4894.

His wife Christiane was deported to the Auschwitz concentration and extermination camp. She died on 5 March 1943 at 8.20am ‘in the Kasernenstraße (Barracks Street)’. The prisoner records list her as having ‘no fixed abode’. The Auschwitz department of the special registry office in Bad Arolsen certified her death in 1991 under number 1305.

The children of Paul of Christiane Reinhardt, with the exception of Marie, were also deported to Auschwitz and died there or were murdered. What happened to them during the war unfortunately still remains unknown. According to a report by Mrs. Michelle Crawford from the USA, Marie survived the persecution that killed her family. After the end of the war she married an American soldier, Lucius Pickett, and followed him to the USA. She has since died there. She was cremated and her ashes scattered in the Pacific Ocean. It is not known whether she had any children.

The fate of Paul Reinhardt’s daughter Pateritzka also still remains unclear. The last trace of her is in September 1944, when she was being held in the Altenburg subcamp of Buchenwald concentration camp.

Udo Grausam

 

Sources:

Bundesarchiv Berlin (BArch), R 165/6 5451; R 165/112, Bl. 7 Rückseite.

International Tracing Service (ITS) Bad Arolsen, information given on 12.7.2010.

Mahn- und Gedenkstätte Ravensbrück, information on Pateritzka Reinhardt given on 17.6.2010.

Bad Arolsen special registry office, information given on 22.6.2010.

Registry office of the town of Gaildorf, information on Marie Reinhardt given on 28.7.2010.

Registry office of the town of Schwäbisch Gmünd, information given on 18.6.2015, by email.

Internet database at: www.auschwitz.org/en/museum/auschwitz-prisoners/, accessed on 10.6.2015.

Permanent exhibition at the Documentation and Cultural Centre of German Sinti and Roma in Heidelberg, panel text about Pauline Reinhardt and her daughter Rita, as in summer 2014.

Internet database of the Gedenkweg Buchenwaldbahn initiative and the Gedenksteine Buchenwaldbahn project, http://gedenksteine-buchenwaldbahn.de/637/?suchfeld=Andreas, accessed on 29.6.2015, about Andreas Reinhardt. Compiler: Chloé, Internationaler Bauorden, 2010.

Information given by Mrs. Michelle Crawford [then of: Fort Polk, Louisiana State], USA, in November 2014, in several telephone conversations, notes made by the author, and on 29.6.2015 by email.

References:

Danuta Czech: Kalendarium der Ereignisse im Konzentrationslager Auschwitz-Birkenau 1939–1945 [Almanac of Events in the Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camp] (Reinbek bei Hamburg 1989).

“Zigeuner-Buch“, herausgegeben zum amtlichen Gebrauch im Auftrage des K[öniglich] B[ayerischen] Staatsministeriums des Innern vom Sicherheitsbureau der K[öniglichen] Polizeidirektion München. Bearbeitet von Alfred Dillmann [“Gypsy Book” published for official use, commissioned by the Royal Bavarian State Ministry of the Interior, by the Security Office of the Royal Police Headquarters in Munich. Edited by Alfred Dillmann] (Munich 1905), p. 203f.

Michail Krausnick: Auf Wiedersehen im Himmel. Die Geschichte der Angela Reinhardt [See you in Heaven. The Story of Angela Reinhardt] (Würzburg 2009), p. 163 and p. 169.

 

Johannes Meister: Schicksale der “Zigeunerkinder” aus der St. Josefspflege in Mulfingen [Fates of the “Gypsy children” from St. Josefs home in Mulfingen]. In: Württembergisch-Franken. Jahrbuch des Historischen Vereins für Württembergisch-Franken. vol. 68 (=N.F. 58) (Schwäbisch-Hall 1984), pp. 197–229.

Translation into English: Joanna White

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