This is Kurt of the 12 April 1942 Halberstadt transport, Paula’s brother. Not the later Kurt of the gut-casings firm.
Registered as Curt in 1889, Kurt was Paula Wollenberg’s and Antonie Weiss’s brother. The records follow him from the family household to Buchenwald, a forced address in Halberstadt and the April 1942 transport to Warsaw.
Also in Where the record stops · Buchenwald and Warsaw
His named record stops with Paula and Hans in Warsaw, 16 April 1942.One DayPaulaHans
Halberstadt birth act no. 535 records that Curt Reichenbach was born at 4:30 in the morning on 26 May 1889. His father was the merchant Ludwig Reichenbach of Hoherweg 47; his mother was Pauline née Asch. A note dated 14 June records that the child was given the name Curt. Later records use Kurt.
Paula’s 1877 and Antonie’s 1879 civil birth acts name the same parents, with their mother written as Lina in 1877 and Pauline in 1879. A National Refugee Service tracing card filed in 1945 independently names Kurt, Paula and Antonie as siblings. The card now agrees with three separate civil birth acts rather than standing alone as the evidence for their relationship.
Kurt lived at Richard-Wagner-Straße 55 before the forced moves. Halberstadt directories list a Kurt in the J. Reichenbach clothing house while another man of the same name ran the M. Reichenbach gut-casings firm. The different trades and addresses show that they were two people; the clothing merchant is the probable match here.
A Buchenwald envelope records Kurt as prisoner 30536 during the November 1938 internments. That camp record belongs to 1938 and is separate from the later deportation list.
A marginal note on the birth act records that the forced additional name “Israel” was entered on 5 January 1939 and struck on 7 February 1947. It was an administrative imposition, not a name given to him at birth.
By April 1942 Kurt was at the forced address Dominikanerstraße 23. Halberstadt ordered him to Domplatz on 12 April; the train left Magdeburg on 14 April and was recorded in Warsaw at six in the morning on 16 April. His name is carved on the Domplatz memorial. No surviving record now places him after Warsaw.
Family and household
People connected to this life
- Ludwig Reichenbach · father · named in Kurt’s 1889 birth act
- Lina Reichenbach née Asch · mother · named as Pauline in Kurt’s 1889 birth act
- Paula Wollenberg née Reichenbach · sister · civil births name the same parents; also named on the 1945 tracing card
- Antonie Weiss née Reichenbach · sister · civil births name the same parents; also named on the 1945 tracing card
Sources
Sources
- Halberstadt civil birth act no. 535 for Curt Reichenbach, 26 May 1889, naming 14 June 1889 and later forced-name annotations (FamilySearch)
- Halberstadt civil birth acts no. 343 for Paula Reichenbach and no. 312 for Antonie Reichenbach (FamilySearch)
- National Refugee Service tracing card, Arolsen Archives DocID 131596011
- Arolsen Archives Buchenwald envelope, prisoner 30536
- Original 14 April 1942 transport list, page 14, row 176
- Yad Vashem item 6719646, frame 2 of 3, file 379, record group O.41
- Bundesarchiv Gedenkbuch de947915
- Halberstadt address books, 1928 and 1938
- Domplatz memorial
What remains uncertain
Civil birth act no. 535 establishes Kurt’s parents and preserves Curt as the form given at birth; later records use Kurt. The three civil births now support the sibling relationship recorded on the 1945 tracing card. The clothing-business directory entries probably refer to this Kurt, but the 1921 Martiniplan land entry still cannot be assigned between the two men of that name. No surviving record now establishes what happened to him after Warsaw.