Emil Wolffenstein

In 2024, two books that had previously belonged to Emil Wolffenstein could be returned. The books were stamped "Gertrud Hessel Berlin Genthinerstr. 43" and "Siegfried Hessel Berlin Genthinerstr. 43".

The address given on both stamps, and the presumed relationship of Gertrud and Siegfried Hessel due to their identical surnames, made it possible to clearly identify both persons through entries in address books and birth, marriage and death registers.

Siegfried Hessel was born around 1846 in Schwerin an der Warthe (Polish: Skwierzyna) as the son of Aron Hessel and Amalie Hessel, née Krakau. He was a merchant, ran a grain trading business with Carl Landshoff and lived in Berlin since at least 1873, where in 1875 he married Recha Landshoff, also from Schwerin an der Warthe, a cousin of his business partner.

Gertrud Alice Hessel was born on November 10, 1876 as the couple's first and, as far as can be ascertained, only child. By 1910 at the latest, Siegfried Hessel had retired from the grain business, which later went by the name of Siegfried Hessel & Co. He was a private pensioner and worked as a commercial judge in Berlin. He died in Berlin on March 20, 1918. Gertrud Hessel married the lawyer Dr. Emil Wolffenstein the following year. The couple lived in Berlin Grunewald, Douglasstr. 30 (1921), later in Charlottenburg at Giesebrechtstr. 6 (1927). Gertrud Wolffenstein died in 1930 at the age of only 53. The couple had no children.

Emil Wolffenstein was born on October 17, 1875 in Dömitz (Mecklenburg) as the son of Wolff and Frieda Wolffenstein. He had two sisters, Else, born in 1873, and Minna, born in 1877. Emil Wolffenstein obtained his doctorate in Leipzig and passed his assessor's examination in Berlin, where he lived from at least 1908, initially working as a lawyer at the district court and later as an attorney and notary. He was stripped of his notary's office in July 1933. He continued to work as an attorney until he was banned from the profession in 1938. After the death of Gertrud, he moved to Kurfürstenstrasse 43, where he lived with his younger sister Minna. On January 13, 1942, Emil and Minna Wolffenstein were deported from Berlin to the Riga Ghetto and murdered. An exact date of death could not be determined.

Emil Wolffenstein's declaration of assets dated September 7, 1941 lists two bookcases, among other things, without specifying the contents. The furnishings of their apartment at Kurfürstenstr. 43 were handed over to the Berlin Municipal Pawnshop for the purpose of being sold. This suggests that the books were added to the Berlin City Library's collection when the books of the deportees were purchased in 1943.

Else Wolffenstein was married to the merchant Siegmund Gumpert. Their children Julius, Thea and Charlotte "Jutta" Gumpert had already emigrated to the United States and Mandatory Palestine before 1933. Else Wolffenstein was also able to emigrate to the United States in 1937, where she lived until her death in 1955. Her husband Siegmund Gumpert died in Rehovot in 1946.

It is unclear how the two volumes entered the holdings of the Berlin City Library and it was not possible to trace them. Both books were taken from unprocessed depot stock. It is assumed that they were part of the ~40,000 looted books that the Berlin City Library acquired from the Municipal Pawnshop in 1943, however this cannot be verified.