The Jewish
Community
of
Laupheim
and its
Annihilation
Book Pages 337 - 342
The
Siblings LAUPHEIMER
30 Kapellenstrasse
Translated by:
Maja Mrahovcic
CHRIST OPH SCHMID
Regina
Laupheimer,
born in Laupheim on January 4, 1868, deported
to Theresienstadt on August 19, 1942.
Adolf
Laupheimer,
born in Laupheim on August 29, 1870, deported to Theresienstadt on
August 19, 1942.
Frieda Laupheimer,
born in Laupheim on October 28, 1872, deported to Thersienstadt on
August 19, 1942.
Emma Laupheimer,
born in Laupheim on August 3, 1874, deported to Theresienstadt on August
19, 1942.
Lina Richter,
neé Laupheimer,
born in Laupheim on October 13, 1875, deported to Theresienstadt on
August 19, 1942.
Mina Spengler, neé Laupheimer,
born in Laupheim on February 8, 1877, date of death is unknown.
Sigmund Laupheimer,
born in Laupheim on February 12, 1880, died in the concentration camp
Dachau on December 9, 1938.
Sara
Laupheimer,
neé
Stern,
born in Obersdorf on June 19, 1851, died in Laupheim on March 17, 1933.
Regina
Laupheimer
Regina Laupheimer was probably named after her grandmother Regina Bernheim who
lived in Buchau at the Federsee. The first daughter of Regina’s mother Bertha
Laupheimer, neé Bernheim, was also named Regina but died in the first year or
already during birth.
Little is known about Regina Laupheimer’s childhood and adolescence. She worked
as a domestic helper. It is assumed that she already moved to Ludiwigshafen
before 1933 as she is not registered as a resident in Laupheim. On December 12,
1938 she returned to Laupheim. Regina firstly lived in the rabbinate building
that was poorly redesigned into a home for senior citizens. Regina Laupheimer
was deported with the last transport from Laupheim to Theresienstadt on August
19, 1942.
With a further transport, she was deported to the concentration and
extermination camp Treblinka on September 26, 1942 where she was murdered at the
age of 74.
Adolf Laupheimer
Little is known about Adolf Laupheimer’s childhood and adolescence. Adolf
Laupheimer was businessman and was married to Isabella Weil from Haigerloch,
whom he married on May 12, 1921. The couple had two sons: Manfred Laupheimer
(born in Laupheim on November 13, 1912) and Willy Laupheimer (born in Tübingen
on November 8, 1915). However, Adolf’s second son Willy drowned at the age of 9
in Haigerloch (town in the south-east of Stuttgart) in October 1925.
Adolf Laupheimer was called up for military service rather late, on March 4,
1918, and was assigned to a field artillery regiment. Apparently he was not
involved in any bigger fightings as he was dismissed from military service in
November 1918.
Later, Adolf’s marriage with Isabella Weil was divorced and his children
probably left Laupheim. It is known that Adolf’s first son, Manfred, was able to
immigrate to the USA during the NS time. Together with his niece Elsa Bock, neé
Grab, Manfred helped in the restitution process for the reimbursement of the
estates and financial circumstances of the persecuted and murdered relatives.
During the time of the Nazi regime, Adolf Laupheimer lived in Laupheim. He was
later one of the inhabitants of the Jewish home for senior citizens, located in
the former rabbinate building. On August 19, 1942, Adolf Laupheimer was deported
to Theresienstadt. Only a few weeks later, on September 29, 1942, he was
transported to Treblinka where he was murdered.
Frieda Laupheimer
Little is known about Frieda Laupheimer. Her one year older sister Pauline died
only a few months before Frieda was born. Frieda Laupheimer probably helped her
parents with the housework chores and lived until the forced resettlement to the
Wendelinsgrube ath her parent’s house. From the barrack camp in the
Wendelinsgrube Frieda and her four siblings were deported firstly to
Theresienstadt and later, on September 16, 1942, to Treblinka where they were
murdered.
Emma Laupheimer
Nothing is known about Emma Laupheimer’s childhood and adolescence. Chronicler
August Schenzinger mentions her in his diary entry from July 20, 1914:
" Michael Laupheimer’s house, that was built in 1724 with the house numbers
23-28 under the authority of the Welden, today raises as a new four-storey
building as a masterpiece of the Judenberg, even though that the effort to
place the house right had failed. The most honorable for the daughter Emma
is that she bears the costs for it."
By the age of 40, Emma Laupheimer was able to finance the construction
measures of the parental home. Up to that time, all the houses at the
Judenberg had the same simple form. With the gable addition the house fitted
better into the row of houses at the Kapellenstraße.
It appears from the correspondence and the juridical proceeding of the
post-war period that Emma Laupheimer was registered as the homeowner. Emma
worked as a merchant and was therefore the only daughter with a higher
qualified training.
Temporary she also lived outside of Laupheim, probably in Ludwigsburg, where
her older sister Regina lived. Emma returned to Laupheim on November 11,
1939. She was deported from the camp in the Wendelinsgrube in Laupheim to
Theresienstadt. Later, on September 26, 1942, she was deported to Treblinka
and murdered there.
The house of the Laupheimer family before the renovation.
Lina Richter, née Laupheimer
Lina Laupheimer was married to the merchant Otto Richter from Hannover where
she probably lived until her husband’s death in 1939. She returned in the
same year as a widow to Laupheim. However, her return has been registered as
an influx from Ludwigsburg which may be linked with the two sisters of Lina
who had lived there.
Lina Richter also had to live in the barrack camp in the Wendelinsgrube. A
document from 1941 records the official permission for Emma to attend a trip
to Ulm. However, the reason for this trip and the exact destination are not
known. The difficult surrounding circumstances during the ride on this
winter day have to be taken into consideration.
The need for a written permission for such a short journey and the strict
conditions already indicate the oppressing surrounding circumstances for the
Jewish population at that time. Just a short time before Lina Richter went
to Ulm, the first members of Laupheim’s Jewish community were deported from
the same railway station. Maybe she accompanied her Jewish housemates to the
railway station.
Lina Richter was like the other Jewish citizens forced to wear the yellow
star at her jacket that would mark her as a Jewish woman and differentiate
her from the other passengers. Before the darkness fell she had to be back
at Wendelinsgrube.
Official permission to travel for Lina Richter of December 9, 1941.
Lina Richter was deported together with the remaining Jewish people and with
the last deportation from Laupheim on August 19, 1942. This time she left
Laupheim forever with a train that would lead her into certain death. She
was first deported to the collection camp at Stuttgart’s Killesberg from
where she was braught to Theresienstadt. Lina Richter died on November 21,
1943 due to the inhuman conditions in the military barracks that were used
as a concentration camp.
Mina Spengler, née Laupheimer
Mina Laupheimer is the only of the siblings that can be seen on a preserved
class photo of the Jewish elementary school.
She married on May 27, 1919 Adolf Spengler from Bad Cannstatt. Mina probably
also moved to Bad Canstatt as she was no longer registered in Laupheim since
then.
To build an own home, Adolf Spengler received a loan from Mina’s sister Lina
Richter. The house was later the matter of the restitution procedure for the
parental home in Laupheim. Adolf Spengler himself participated from Bad
Cannstatt in the negotiations in the post-war period. What happened to him
during the time of the Nazi regime is unknown. It is possible that he was
not of Jewish origin. As Adolf Spengler was listed as Mina’s legal
heir, who was not documented as a
victim of the National Socialists, it can be assumed that Mina had died
before the persecution and extermination of the Jewish community, making her
the only one out of the eight siblings who had not died due to the arbitrary
measures of the National Socialists.
Sigmund Laupheimer
Sigmund Laupheimer had the byname Marum as a reminiscence of his grandfather
Marum Marx Laupheimer. Like his grandfather, Sigmund continued the family
tradition of the Jewish butcher business.
Sigmund Laupheimer mostly worked in the slaughterhouse. According to the
reports, he delivered meat and meat products to shops in Laupheim and to the
surrounding villages.
With the renovation of the parental house Sigmund had a shop to sell his
products next to his sister’s shoe shop. This is confirmed by the
advertisement in the local newspaper “Laupheimer Verkündiger” from July, 17
1924. In the advertisement Sigmund describes himself as master butcher. As
there is no house number mentioned in this advertisement, it can be assumed
that his butcher shop was well known among the locals.
(“Laupheimer Verkündiger” of July 17, 1924)
Although that Sigmund was a Jewish butcher, his butcher shop was open on
Saturdays, the Jewish Shabbat. It is assumed that this has become a general
practice in the 1920s.
During the First World War, Sigmund Laupheimer was drafted to military
service from August 1915 to November 1918. He was probably stationed in Ulm.
In December 1936 the National Socialist authorities accused Sigmund’s
butcher shop and other Jewish butchers of working with fraudulent methods.
As these accusations were published in the local and National Socialist
newspaper of Ulm “Der Stürmer” accompanied by other Anti-Semitic polemics,
the veracity of the accusations can and should be questioned. However, the
following condemnation demonstrated the danger in which the Jewish people
and especially the Jewish traders were in.
Two years later, in the pogrom night from November 9 to 10, 1938, Sigmund
Laupheimer and 16 other Jewish men from Laupheim were arrested and brought
to the concentration camp Dachau for “protective custody”. Sigmund received
the prisoner number 22519. While the other men were allowed to return to
Laupheim after some weeks, Sigmund Laupheimer had to stay.
December 9, 1938 is documented as his date of death. According to the
records, he was struck dead in the sub-camp Prittlsbach by the German camp
garrison. Sigmund was one of the firs victims of direct physical violence by
the National Socialists from Laupheim.
Sara Laupheimer, née Stern
Sara Laupheimer, born in Oberdorf on June 19, 1851, was the aunt of the
siblings Laupheimer. She was the second wife of the butcher Simon Max
Laupheimer, who had already died in 1904 and is buried at the Jewish
cemetery (N 18/6) in Laupheim.
Sara Laupheimer lived as a widow until her death on March 17, 1933. She is
buried at the Jewish cemetery in the burial plot S 27/10.
Sara Laupheier and her husband had a son, Jakob, who was born on August 2,
1890 in Laupheim. During the First World War, Jakob was drafted into the
military as aeronaut and worked with the zeppelins that were used in the
war. The gigantic but slow zeppelins were soon replaced by smaller and more
flexible aircrafts. For his merits in the fighting near Arras and the
Champagne in France he was awarded with the Iron Cross of the second class.
Jakob Laupheimer was married. After the First World War he probably left
Laupheim. Nothing but his date of death is known about his further life.
Jakob Laupheimer died on March 3, 1965 in Berlin-Schöneberg. Where and how
he survived the Nazi dictatorship is unknown.
