The ReichenbachFamily Archive
Search the archive
Language
ENDEעברית

He kept the shop at Breite Straße 7.

Fritz Reichenbach

14 March 1884, Wernigerode — 22 November 1938, Buchenwald

The stone records Fritz Reichenbach’s arrest, imprisonment in Buchenwald and death there on 22 November 1938. The stone was laid outside the Wernigerode house where Fritz had lived and kept the shop. It is a public memorial, not the camp file that records the details of his imprisonment and death.Open source record RB-EXT-CC-0002

Fritz was Jeanette and Gustav’s only son. He took on the clothing shop at Breite Straße 7, married Martha Pohly of Göttingen and raised their son Werner in Wernigerode.

Also in Where the record stops · Buchenwald

Four days before Dolf wrote, Fritz was murdered at Buchenwald.LetterWhere the record stopsJeanette

Fritz grew up in the Wernigerode shop his mother owned. After her long proprietorship he took on the business himself, living with Martha and Werner over the windows marked J. Reichenbach.

A 1932–33 directory names “J. Reichenbach” as third chair of Wernigerode’s Jewish community board. The entry belongs to the clothing house at Breite Straße 7. Fritz was running the shop, but the house name alone does not prove that the officer was Fritz personally.

On 26 August 1938 a notary recorded the sale of the house. A numbered clause in the deed says why official approval was required: the seller was a Jew.

Fritz was arrested in Wernigerode on 10 November, during the November pogrom. The Buchenwald file lists him as prisoner 23976 and gives Breite Straße 7 as his last address. A camp death notice gives 22 November 1938, four in the morning, in the Arrest cell block, and writes the cause as Schlaganfall. The committing authority was Stapo Magdeburg.

He was fifty-four. Four days later, Dolf wrote to Mutti from St. Moritz.

Family and household

People connected to this life

Sources

Sources

  • Peter Lehmann, Harz-Forschungen XXXVI (2023)
  • Stadtarchiv Wernigerode civil registers
  • Führer durch die jüdische Gemeindeverwaltung und Wohlfahrtspflege in Deutschland, 1932–33, p. 115 (RB-DOC-0225)
  • 1938 notarial deed
  • Arolsen Archives 1.1.5.3, prisoner 23976
  • Bundesarchiv Gedenkbuch de2033300
  • Buchenwald memorial records
  • Wernigerode Stolperstein
Reichenbach Family Archive — J. Reichenbach on Wernigerode’s Jewish community board Arolsen Archives — search the Buchenwald file for prisoner 23976 Bundesarchiv Gedenkbuch — Fritz Reichenbach

What remains uncertain

Schlaganfall is the camp’s wording, not an independent medical diagnosis. No private letter written by Fritz is in this archive.

All peopleFamily treeRelated documents