Margarete Baer (née. Raczinski)

Bloch, Chajim: Hersch Ostropoler : Ein jüdischer Till-Eulenspiegel des 18. Jahrhunderts : Seine Geschichten und Streiche. Berlin [u.a.]: Harz, 1921

Bloch, Chajim: Hersch Ostropoler : Ein jüdischer Till-Eulenspiegel des 18. Jahrhunderts : Seine Geschichten und Streiche. Berlin [u.a.]: Harz, 1921

"Gespendet März 1940 Margarete Baer Berlin Prenzlauer Allee 8." ("donated March 1940 Margarete Baer Berlin Prenzlauer Allee 8.")

"Gespendet März 1940 Margarete Baer Berlin Prenzlauer Allee 8." ("donated March 1940 Margarete Baer Berlin Prenzlauer Allee 8.")

 

Margarete Raczinski was born on 25 September 1881 in Gilgenburg, East Prussia (now Dąbrówno, Poland) to David (1838–1911) and Olga Raczinski née Katz (1850–1927). 
Margarete had six siblings: Heinrich (1874–1918), Julius (1876–1950), Luise (1878–1943), Anna (1880–1942), Emma (1884–????) and Paula Raczinski (1887–????), all of whom were also born in Gilgenburg, East Prussia.

The Raczinski family was persecuted as Jewish in Nazi-Germany.

On 25 January 1906, Margarete Raczinski married the merchant Siegismund Salomon (1879–1942), whom she divorced on 23 December 1909.

About six months later, on 16 June 1910, she married Karl Goldstein (1881-1939), also a merchant. He died on 4 May 1939 at the age of 58 in the Jewish Hospital in Berlin.

On 18 March 1940, Margarete married the shoemaker Abraham Baer (1868-1942).

Margarete and Abraham Baer were deported on 1 November 1941 with the ‘4. Osttransport’ ("4th transport to the east") to the Litzmannstadt (Lodz) ghetto and from there to the Kulmhof (Chelmno) extermination camp on 9 May 1942, where they were murdered.

According to the available sources, Margarete Raczinski did not have children.

Margarete's brother Heinrich Raczinski married Anna Agathe Hedwig Besener (1877–1954) on 11 December 1909. He was killed in action near Damascus during the First World War on 20 September 1918 and buried together with four other soldiers in the German military cemetery in Nazareth (now Israel).

Julius Raczinski, Margarete's brother had a son, Rolf Raczinski (1915–1971), with Margarethe Wittrin (1895–after 1961) in 1915. He subsequently married her on 30 September 1916. In 1919, their second son, Heinz Günther Raczinski (1919–1947), was born. The couple and both sons survived the Shoah.
Heinz Günther Raczinski died from carbon monoxide poisoning in 1947 in his flat in Berlin-Weißensee. At the time of his death, he was unmarried and had no children.

Margarete's sister Luise Raczinski married the merchant/later composer and conductor Valentin ‘Falk’ Pinner on 21 March 1902. He was also known by the stage name ‘Harry Waldau’. In 1906, the Pinner couple had a son who was stillborn or died shortly after birth; he was not given a first name. Valentin Pinner was deported to the Auschwitz concentration camp on 2 March 1943 and Luise Pinner on 4 March 1943, where they were murdered that same month. A ‘Stolperstein’ was laid for Valentin Pinner on 17 May 2017 at their former address Xanthener Straße 6 in Berlin.

Anna Raczinski, Margarete's sister, married the authorised signatory Albert Delbanco on 24 March 1904. Between 1939 and 1942, the couple attempted to emigrate from Germany to the United States. Faced with imminent deportation, the Delbanco couple committed suicide on 30 September 1942. They were buried in the Jewish Cemetery in Weißensee. Anna and Albert Delbanco's will, dated 26 May 1942, does not mention any children.

Margarete's sister Emma Raczinski married the merchant Georg Jechil Laser (1882–1945) on 25 March 1909. He died of a heart attack in his apartment in Berlin on 9 May 1945 (this was reported to the registry office by a colleague of his). According to statements made by relatives in the reparations files on Anna and Albert Delbanco, Emma Laser and her son Egon Laser immigrated to Cape Town, South Africa, at an unknown date and thus survived the Shoah. No further information on their lives was found.

Paula Raczinski, Margarete's youngest sister, married film director Botho Karl Ludwig Deike (1887–1951) on 14 June 1911. Later that same year, the couple immigrated to the United States via Liverpool, England, and Quebec, Canada. They changed their names to Botho Deike Johnson and Paula Deike Johnson. On 21 September 1941, Botho remarried. Paula's fate after 1911 is unclear.

Of the seven Raczinski siblings, there is only definitive proof of Julius Raczinski having survived the Shoah. Heinrich Raczinski died in 1918 during the First World War. Emma Laser and Paula Deike emigrated, but their subsequent fate is unclear. Luise Pinner, Anna Delbanco and Margarete Baer herself were victims of the Shoah.

We do not yet have any further information about possible heirs of Margarete Raczinski.

The provenance characteristics and objects identified for Margarete Raczinski are listed here in the Cooperative Provenance Database Looted Cultural Assets.

If you have any information that could be helpful in the restitution process, please get in touch.

Text & research: Johanna Steinhaeuser

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