Note: This post is primarily a discussion about the fates, where I’ve been able to learn them, of some of my father’s closest friends from his time living in the Free City of Danzig. Knowing that some of these friends were Mennonites provides an opportunity to expand on the discussion begun in Post 121 on the connection of this religious community to the Holocaust, particularly to the notorious concentration camp in nearby Stutthof [today: Sztutowo, Poland].
Related Posts:
POST 3: DR. OTTO BRUCK & TIEGENHOF: THE “SCHLUMMERMUTTER”
POST 3, POSTSCRIPT: DR. OTTO BRUCK & TIEGENHOF: THE “SCHLUMMERMUTTER”
POST 4: DR. OTTO BRUCK & TIEGENHOF: HANS “MOCHUM” WAGNER
POST 4, POSTSCRIPT: OTTO BRUCK & TIEGENHOF: HANS “MOCHUM” WAGNER
POST 5: DR. OTTO BRUCK & TIEGENHOF: “IDSCHI & SUSE”
POST 7: DR. OTTO BRUCK & TIEGENHOF: THE CLUB RUSCHAU
POST 76: MY FATHER’S FRIEND, DR. FRANZ SCHIMANSKI, PRESIDENT OF TIEGENHOF’S “CLUB RUSCHAU”
POST 77: MY FATHER’S FRIEND, DR. HERBERT HOLST, VICE-PRESIDENT OF TIEGENHOF’S “CLUB RUSCHAU”
POST 78: MY FATHER’S FRIEND, KURT LAU, JAILED FOR “INSULTING THE NAZI GOVERNMENT”
POST 121-MY FATHER’S ENCOUNTERS WITH HITLER’S MENNONITE SUPPORTERS
If my father were alive, I’ve no doubt he would characterize the years that he lived and worked in the Free City of Danzig between ~1930 and 1937 as the halcyon days of his life. When he opened his dental practice in the nearby Mennonite farming community of Tiegenhof [today: Nowy Dwór Gdański, Poland] in April 1932, he was only 25 years old. He quickly developed a thriving business and joined various civic, community, and sports organizations in town. He had many friends and acquaintances, and an active social life. Never a practicing Jew, he nevertheless converted from Judaism to Protestantism while living there to “fit in.” Growing up, I remember my father telling me this was also the reason he drank so much during his years living in Tiegenhof.
It’s safe to say that the larger city of Danzig [today: Gdańsk, Poland], where my father apprenticed, while still staunchly conservative was a more cosmopolitan metropolis than Tiegenhof and had a more diverse mix of ethnic and religious groups. While I’ve been able to learn little about the social and religious background of his friends from Danzig, I’m sure they came from a mix of backgrounds including Jewish. By contrast, his closest friends in Tiegenhof were mostly Mennonites.
Given the widespread support for the Nazi Party among Mennonites in the Free City of Danzig that helped them gain a majority of seats (38 out of 72) in the 1933 parliamentary elections, it’s inevitable that my father was quickly “blacklisted” following the National Socialists’ electoral victory. Periodically, I contemplate how disconcerting and upsetting it must have been for my father and many persecuted Jews to suddenly be ignored or worse by Germans who’d only the day before been cordial, if not friendly.
Among my father’s closest friends during his years in the Free City of Danzig were people he commonly referred to as “the Schlummermutter,” “Idschi and Suse” (Figure 1), “Mochum” (Figure 2), and “Gerhard and Ilse.” (Figure 3) I had to work hard to figure out their surnames since my father was typically silent on this matter.
The Schlummermutter (Figure 4), most often mentioned to me growing up, was an enormous woman, weighing over 200kg (~440lbs). She was a revered figure and like a surrogate mother to my father. He never once referred to her by name, only by her sobriquet. Knowing her date of birth from pictures my father had taken on her birthday in 1937, thanks to the help of my friend, “the Wizard of Wolfsburg,” I eventually discovered her real identity, Margaretha “Grete” Gramatzki (1885-1942). Because of her size, she was referred to locally as “Grete dicke,” “fat Grete.” Gramatzki is considered a Mennonite surname. The Schlummermutter ran a boarding house in Tiegenhof, co-owning the building where my father had both an apartment and his dental practice, at Marktstrasse 8. (Figure 5)
The Schlummermutter, born on the 13th of June 1885, died on the 24th of February 1942 at 56, relatively young by today’s standards. In one of my father’s last known photos of her, taken following his departure from Tiegenhof, she appeared to have suffered a stroke, probably not unexpected given her obesity.
Two very close friends of my father, Suse (Figure 6) and Idschi (Figure 7), lived in Tiegenhof in the same apartment building owned by Grete Gramatzki. I discovered from a day planner I found among my father’s surviving papers that they were related, that’s to say, the oldest and youngest sisters in their family. Their surname “Epp” is yet another traditional Mennonite name. I discussed the sisters long-ago in Post 5, so refer readers to that publication for more background.
A 1943 Tiegenhof Address Book lists Ida Epp (Figure 8) as the owner of a “werderkaffeegesch.,” a coffee and tea shop located at street level in the building then owned by the Epp sisters at Adolf Hitler Strasse 8, previously known as Marktstrasse. As I discussed in Post 3, Postscript, a 1930 Tiegenhof Address confirms that one or both Epp sisters were business partners of Grete Gramatzki (Figure 9), rather than simply boarders in the building Grete owned.
As the Red Army was approaching Tiegenhof in 1945, Suse and Idschi fled by ship to Denmark along with thousands of other Germans. They lived there in prison-like conditions, and that’s where Suse (1877-1948) passed away in 1948, at the age of 71. Idschi (1893-1975) eventually went to live in Munich with her nephew, Rupprecht Braun, and died there in 1975.
Given the close friendship my father had with the Epp sisters, he was naturally included in their social circle. One event he attended and took pictures at was hosted by Susie and Idschi’s brother, Gerhard Epp (1884-1959), at his home in Stutthof [today: Sztutowo, Poland]. (Figure 10) Originally a Mercedes dealer in Russia, following the 1917 Russian Revolution, Gerhard moved with his first wife, Margarete Epp, née Klaassen, to Stutthof. There, he founded and operated an engineering workshop, where among other things, he provided electricity for the village and serviced agricultural equipment. (Figures 11a-b)
Let me digress and explain to readers how a recent query from a reader led me to learning more about Gerhard Epp and his connection to the notorious nearby Stutthof concentration camp. I think readers will agree that this is far more interesting than learning about the fates of my father’s friends. The recent query came from a historian researching the background of a Mennonite man named Johannes Reimer, an SS member from 1933 and an SS guard at Stutthof from 1939 to 1944. The researcher is trying to counter a not-so-uncommon narrative by descendants that their German ancestors were “reluctant” SS members and committed no war crimes.
I’ve never previously come across the “Reimer” surname so out of curiosity did an Internet query in combination with “Stutthof.” In the process, I stumbled upon a well-researched article entitled “Mennonites and the Holocaust: From Collaboration to Perpetuation” written by Gerhard Hempel in October 2010 with multiple mentions of Reimer; it’s not clear all references are to Johannes Reimer, though I’m inclined to think most are. The author is or was a professor of history emeritus at Western New England College.
The collaboration of the Mennonites with the Nazis and their often-brutal treatment of inmates as camp guards was previously known to me, and, in fact, I delved into this topic in Post 121, specifically in connection with Gerhard Epp. The reader who contacted me found this earlier post. The reason I’m revisiting the topic of the Mennonites and the Holocaust is that Rempel’s lengthy article mentions Gerhard Epp several times and provides more detail than I previously knew.
Let me begin by telling readers a little about the prison camp at Stutthof. This was a Nazi concentration camp established by Nazi Germany in a secluded, marshy, and wooded area near the village of Stutthof 34km (~21 miles) east of Danzig in the territory of the German-annexed Free City of Danzig. This was the first concentration camp to be constructed outside of Germany. It was established in 1939 by the Waffen-SS (Schutzstaffel), an armed unit of the Nazi Party under the control of Heinrich Himmler. As an early stronghold of the National Socialists, Danzig had a contingent of 6,000 SS stationed within the area as early as 1933. This was expanded following a clandestine visit by Himmler in 1939 with the creation of the so-called “SS Heimwehr Danzig” and the “SS-Wachsturmbann Eimann.” The latter organization was tasked with developing plans for prison camps to accommodate anticipated arrests.
An isolated and secluded spot surrounded by water and swamps close to the village of Stutthof near the East Prussian border was selected. The initial barracks were begun and constructed by Polish inmates from the nearby Danzig prison in August 1939, with the first 200 prisoners arriving by September. The number of barracks was quickly expanded so that by January 1940, the camp held 4,500 prisoners. Eventually, the Stutthof complex included 200 outlying camps, so-called Aussenlager, and external commando units. The camp was under the command of SS Standartenführer Max Pauly.
A brief aside. My Bruck family is related by marriage to the Pauly family. I’m in touch with several Pauly cousins, so I asked one of them how and if we’re related to Max Pauly. He does not know. Suffice it to say that when one discovers odious war criminals with a surname like one’s own, sometimes one prefers not to look too closely into possible connections.
The prisoners at Stutthof included victims from 25 countries, including many Jews. Appalling sanitary conditions prevailed in the camps, with inmates suffering extreme malnutrition, disease, and torture. Many succumbed from the living conditions and the slave-like work; others were summarily executed through various means.
As noted, some of the Stutthof camp guards were Mennonites. It is worth noting that Stutthof was in an area with the highest density of Mennonite residents of any place in the world. Some Mennonite apologists have tried to minimize the role that people of Mennonite heritage played in the atrocities committed at Stutthof, but it has become clearer over time they played a significant role in the number of people killed there. Rempel writes: “Horst Gerlach [EDITOR’S NOTE: a prolific German Mennonite writer] emphatically denies. . .that any gas chambers ever existed at Stutthof, despite ample evidence to the contrary. Furthermore, his optimistic estimate that only 9,000 people were killed at Stutthof is a huge miscalculation—the most recent research concludes that at least 65,000 victims died at Stutthof.” (P. 512)
Regarding one of Stutthof’s auxiliary slave-camps, Rempel notes the following: “The SS owned the factory, and the guard contingent was made up largely of a group of ordinary criminals and rowdies, many of them recruits from ethnic German communities in Croatia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary. But the worst characters were from Germany itself, among them two Mennonites.” (p. 518)
Very briefly, the larger context for the Mennonite participation in the Holocaust stems from the fact that many had earlier joined the counterrevolutionary forces of the former Tsar in Russia. With his defeat, the “Mennonites now found themselves on the losing side of the conflict as enemies of the new communist government.” (Rempel, p. 509) Stalin’s emergence and the period known as the “Great Terror” or the ”Great Purge” brought about a campaign to rid the Soviet Union of the so-called undesirable class. Mennonites were among the first to be targeted in the late 1920s, which led to a fraying of Mennonite communal life. As Rempel notes, “A decade later this trend [“moral and lawless indifference”] blinded many to the inherent evil of the carriers of National Socialism who came to Communist Russia in German uniforms as purported liberators.” (Rempel, p. 511)
Stutthof began as a camp for political opponents of the Nazi regime and socially undesirable minorities. Since the SS organization provided no financial support for expansion of the camp, the local SS command staff was determined to profit from the incarcerated inmates. Initially, land was allotted to grow vegetables and for animal husbandry, allowing the camp to quickly become self-sufficient. However, once it began to engage in local trade it started to generate profits. It became even more profitable when the SS command began to lease out inmates to work in public and private enterprises throughout the region. This resulted in the expansion of subcamps and special command units, all whose economic activities became SS-specific enterprises.
From 1939 until December 1944, Stutthof grew from 1.2 acres to 296 acres. It goes without saying that the establishment of additional subcamps was the result of an increase in the number of inmates. By 1944 Stutthof had become the destination of choice for transport from other camps and for those arrested after the Warsaw uprising. It is estimated that between 110,000 and 120,000 prisoners passed through Stutthof between 1939 and 1945. If the estimate that 65,000 victims died at Stutthof is accurate, clearly more than 50 percent of prisoners who passed through were murdered.
Theoretically Stutthof was a political prison, that’s to say, a forced labor camp for various industries owned by the SS or other government agencies. Holocaust scholars have tended to use “slave labor” and “forced labor” interchangeably, though some make a distinction. Slave labor included Jews working in concentration camps, death camps, and other work camps with the intent by Nazis to work these Jews to death. By contrast, forced laborers included anyone “who was compelled to leave his or her home in order to work for Nazi Germany.” As Rempel notes, however, “In any case, compulsory physical labor. . .was no less deadly than mass murder by gas or poison pellets.” (p. 516)
In June 1944, Stutthof was converted from a slave labor camp to an extermination camp. Outdoor furnaces were constructed to dispose of bodies. The crematoria were justified to eliminate dead bodies, but by 1944 Stutthof was nothing less than a killing center. Proof of this could be found in barracks built to “house” Jewish men and women transferred from eastern camps overrun by the Soviet Army that were merely walls with no internal furnishings. Clearly, arriving inmates were immediately sent to the gas chambers. (Rempel, p. 515-516)
Stutthof was liberated on May 9, 1945, the first camp established outside Germany and the last to be freed. The camp was dissolved on January 25, 1945, and the inmates forced to slog west on a death march that by some accounts resulted in the death of one-third to one-half of the inmates.
I’ve told readers more about Stutthof than I planned but let me move now specifically to a discussion of Gerhard Epp’s connection to Stutthof.
The direct involvement of Mennonites as guards at Stutthof has been well established by Holocaust scholars. What has also become clearer is the extent to which Mennonite farmers and businessmen exploited the inexpensive labor available from Stutthof. The inmates were particularly in demand during the hard work associated with harvest time. They received no salaries, although they appear to have been reasonably well fed and decently housed. The farmers had to pay the camps for use of prison labor, likely at a rate less than the going rate for unskilled labor.
As to Gerhard Epp’s role, Gerhard Rempel remarks the following: “A Mennonite builder, Gerhard Epp, for example, not only leased 300 Jewish slave laborers at Stutthof to build a new factory near the camp but also served as some sort of general contractor to the SS in assuming responsibility for the construction of all buildings on the premises. It is not much of an exaggeration to say that a Mennonite built the barracks for the first concentration camp on non-German soil.”
Epp’s stepson, Hans-Joachim Wiebe (Figures 12-13), whom I once met in Lubeck, Germany, was interviewed by the Mennonite researcher mentioned earlier, Horst Gerlach, to gather information about Gerhard Epp’s industrial machine factory. Quoting: “According to Wiebe, the inmates marched the two kilometers to the building site every morning and back again at night. Meals were delivered to the site from the camp kitchens.” (p. 523)
Gerhard is mentioned yet again: “Gerhard Epp’s machine factory in the village of Stutthof was certainly the largest Mennonite employer of slave labor. Epp had endeared himself to the regime by building a home for Hitler Youth in Tiegenhof. His main factory employed some 500 prisoners from at least 1942 to the end of the war and focused on the production of various kinds of armaments such as small firearms. Epp’s factory, along with others, evacuated machinery and stock supplies to the West to continue producing armaments in a place safe from the advancing Russian Army.” (Rempel, p.525) Today, Epp & Wiebe GmbH continues to be a thriving business in the field of heating and air conditioning in Preetz, Germany.
Rempel’s mention that Gerhard Epp’s armaments-producing machinery was shipped West as the Red Army was approaching is the second case that I’ve come across that this took place. I don’t mean to suggest that the evacuation of industrial equipment from West Prussia was uncommon, quite the contrary. I mention this because the other case involved a good friend of my father, Kurt Lau (Figure 14), who came to purchase the rapeseed oil production factory in Tiegenhof. I’ve come across no evidence or accounts that implicate or connect Kurt Lau to the lease or use of slave labor. In any case, prior to the arrival of the Russian Army, Kurt evacuated his machinery to Hamburg Germany which was eventually reconstructed in Deggendorf, Germany.
Kurt Lau and his wife Käthe were lifelong friends of my father, who he first met in Tiegenhof. They were Protestants but unlike other purported friends never distanced themselves from him after the Nazis came to power. In fact, Post 78 is the story of how Kurt Lau was jailed for three months for “insulting” the Nazis. I became friends with their surviving son, Juergen Peter Lau (1923-2022), who identified many of my father’s friends and acquaintances from his pictures.
One couple who were at one time my father’s excellent friends were Gerhard (1908-1941) and Ilse Hoppe, nee Grabowsky(i) (1907-1941). My father met them in Danzig when he and Gerhard were dental apprentices. Gerhard opened his own dental practice in Neuteich [today: Nowy Staw, Poland], located a mere 13km (~8 miles) SSW from Tiegenhof, but eventually relocated to Danzig. Both tragically died young under gruesome circumstances. I wrote about their deaths in Post 67 (Part I) & Post 67 (Part II). They had a son named Rudi and a daughter named Gisela. With the help of my friend Peter Hanke, I eventually was able to track down Gisela (her brother Rudi committed suicide in 1965). She explained what she knew of her parents’ deaths, and, while tragic, they appear to have been self-inflicted in Ilse’s case and an accident in Gerhard’s instance.
Peter Lau identified another of my father’s very good friends who I knew only as “Mochum,” but whose full name was Hans “Mochum” Wagner (1909-1942). My father’s photo albums include many photos of him, and at one time they were likely extremely close. He was a physical education teacher in the primary school in Tiegenhof.
I located the Wagner family’s “Heimatortskartei (HOK),” literally translated as “hometown index.” Heimatortskartei was set up in post-WWII Germany for the purpose of identifying and locating people in the catastrophic aftermath and destruction of the war. From this I learned Mochum was killed or went missing on February 11, 1942, in Volkhov, Russia [German: Wolchow], 76 miles east of St. Petersberg, formerly Leningrad. He may have died during the Russian offensive launched in January 1942 against the Germans around the Wolchow River. I recorded his story in Post 4 and Post 4, Postscript.
My father was a member of a social and sports club called the “Club Ruschau.” (Figure 15) My father’s pictures enabled the local museum in Nowy Dwor Gdanski to locate one of the surviving structures of this club, now privately owned. I wrote about this in Post 7. My father spent many hours socializing with its members, swimming, playing pool, bowling, ice boating, drinking, and partying. His friends included the club president Dr. Franz Schimanski (?-1940) (Figure 16), the vice president Dr. Herbert Holst (1894-?) (Figure 17), as well as Herbert Kloss and Kastret Romanowski (Figure 18), and likely other club members.
Franz Schimanski is often pictured holding a cane. Records indicate he was wounded during WWI. He was a lawyer and notary by profession. He died in 1940 according to his HOK card. The surname Schimanski is a Germanized form of the Polish surname Szymanski, suggesting the family had a Polish cultural heritage.
Herbert Holst was a high school teacher who, according to Peter Lau’s wife, taught in the Langfuhr district of Danzig after leaving Tiegenhof. His fate is unknown, and I’ve learned little about him.
Herbert Kloss’ destiny is similarly unknown to me. “Kloss” or “Kloß” is a common enough surname that without an HOK card for him or his family, it is difficult to determine his fate. He appears to have been about the same age as my father so was likely drafted into the German army. If this in fact happened, he could easily have died in battle.
Similarly, I’ve learned nothing about Kastret Romanowski. Using names of members found in the index to the “Tiegenhofer Nachrichten,” an annual monograph once published for former Tiegenhof residents and/or their descendants, I wrote a letter to a woman listed named Clara Romanowski; her connection was through marriage so she could offer no clues as to Kastret’s fate. Romanowski appears to be another surname of Polish origin.
As I mentioned at the outset, my father’s circle of friends and acquaintances in Tiegenhof and Danzig was extensive. I’ve chosen to highlight a few of his best mates. My father’s photo albums include pictures of other good friends, but unfortunately there are no captions to help with their identifications.
As I touched on earlier, I often ponder how his relationship with non-Jewish friends and acquaintances devolved once the Nazis applied pressure on them to sunder their social connections and business associationswith people of Jewish heritage. I can only imagine this was initially shocking to my father until he realized how personally at risk he was.
REFERENCE
Rempel, G. Mennonites and the Holocaust: From Collaboration to Perpetuation. The Mennonite Quarterly Review, 84 (October 2010), 507-550. https://www.goshen.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/75/2016/06/Oct10Rempel.pdf