Annotations
Hamburg
10/24/1941
The photo shows deportees arriving at the Masonic lodge on October 24, 1941. The sidewalk in front of the house at Moorweidenstraße 36 in Hamburg is crowded with people standing in small groups among labeled luggage, greeting each other, talking and waiting. The photograph was taken from an elevated position probably from inside the building.
Annotations
Keywords
8
Historical context
Deportation von Hamburg nach Litzmannstadt am 25.10.1941
The first deportation of Jews from Hamburg took place on October 25, 1941. Most of the 1,034 deportees were under the age of 65. According to the “Evakuierungsbefehl” (literally: evacuation order), they had to present themselves at the assembly point at Moorweidenstraße 36 on October 24, 1941. The assembly point was located in a building that had formerly belonged to the Provincial Grand Lodge of Lower Saxony. They had to bring luggage – including bedding, provisions for two days and 100 Reichsmarks – with a maximum weight of 50 kg. On site, members of the Jewish community looked after them. After spending a night in the Masonic lodge building under very difficult conditions, they were taken to the Hannoverscher Bahnhof railway station by police vans. Escorted by municipal police officers from Reserve Police Battalion 101, the train left the station at 10.10 a.m. and arrived at the Litzmannstadt ghetto on October 26, 1941. The death rate in the ghetto was high. Some of the people were subjected to forced labor. In August 1944, the ghetto was dissolved, and the survivors were deported to Auschwitz. Only nine of the deportees survived the persecution.
Sources
About the image series
The series consists of three photographs preserved in a photo album owned by Bernhardt Colberg. Colberg’s album follows a chronological order. The date indicated on the three photographs was “Oct. 1941”. The photographs show the arrival of the Jewish deportees from Hamburg at the assembly point in the building once owned by the Provincial Grand Lodge of Lower Saxony, at Moorweidenstraße 36, their departure, members of the Jewish community looking after the deportees at the assembly point, uniformed police officers and probably officials from the Gestapo and the tax authorities.
None of the people in the photos have yet been identified by name.
Photographer
Bernhardt Colberg, Police man
It is unclear whether Bernhardt Colberg took the photos or received them from someone else and added them to his album. He was born in Hamburg in 1900; in 1924, he married Emmi Berger; in 1925, they had a son, John Hans. Bernhardt Colberg was a commercial clerk and, as of late in 1935, a reservist with the police. According to his personnel record, he was not a member of the NSDAP or the SS. From October 1940 to April 1941, he was stationed with Reserve Police Battalion 101 in the Litzmannstadt ghetto. On December 20, 1941, he joined the active police force as an “Oberwachtmeister” (literally: senior watchmaster) with the municipal police. He was promoted on several occasions. He died in a car crash in 1951. Colberg loved photography and took many pictures, mainly recording family events for close family and friends. The photographs from the series analyzed here are included in one of the three surviving photo albums.
Provenance
The three photos of the series originate from a private photo album owned by Bernhardt Colberg, a policeman from Hamburg. The photo archives of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) acquired the album together with two others from a trader named Michael O’Hara. The albums include a total of more than 1,200 photographs. It is a private collection that shows family snapshots, leisure and work activities. Initially, the USHMM interpreted the photos as showing deportations of Jews from Hamburg. According to information provided by the Hamburg State Archives, however, they were cataloged as photos depicting the evacuation of homeless people after Allied air raids.
Call number at source archive
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Photo Collections #47462
Title at source archive
Germans who are the victims of Allied air raids are gathered at an assembly point on the Moorweidenstrasse in Hamburg prior to their evacuation by members of Police Battalion 101.
Acknowledgements
Special thanks go to Dr. Jürgen Matthäus who drew our attention to the photographs. We would like to extend our heartfelt thanks to the following colleagues who shared their expertise with us in a digital colloquium on March 13, 2025: Hendrik Althoff, Dr. Linde Apel, Dr. Wolf Gruner, Wolfgang Kopitzsch, Dr. Anna Menny and Dr. Maximilian Strnad.
Text and research by Alina Bothe, Henriette Hartung, Kristina Vagt und Johanna Schmied.
Kooperationsverbund #LastSeen. Bilder der NS-Deportationen Dr. Alina Bothe Projektleiterin
c/o Selma Stern Zentrum für Jüdische Studien Berlin-Brandenburg
Freie Universität Berlin
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14195 Berlin
lastseen@zedat.fu-berlin.de
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