Margarete Schoenlank

In 2021, a book from the library of Margarete Schoenlank could be returned.

The access route of the volume to the holdings of the Central and Regional Library is unclear and could not be retraced. The object was found in unprocessed stock of the Berlin City Library.

Despite extensive research, the identity of the former owner of the book described above could not be determined unequivocally. However, the two possible previous owners were closely related, making a solution in the sense of the Washington Principles possible nonetheless.

Margarete Johanna Maria Mohr was born in Pinneberg on 1 September 1899. On 13 August 1922 she married the merchant Hans Schoenlank in Barmstedt. He was born in Sondershausen on 13 August 1897, as the second child of Moritz Schoenlank and Bernhardine Silberberg. His older sister was Margarete Schoenlank, who was also born in Sondershausen on 8 April 1894.

Hans and Margarete lived in Berlin from at least 1924, where they had two children together; Bernhard Klaus Johannes was born on 6 April 1924, and Ruth Mirjam on 18 March 1927.

All of the people mentioned above were persecuted as Jewish in Nazi Germany. The couple Hans and Margarete Schoenlank and their children were able to emigrate to the United States in 1936 after escaping Germany via the Netherlands and France. They thus survived the Holocaust.

Hans' sister Margarete Schoenlank also lived in Berlin. In the 1939 census, she is registered at Düringerzeile 19 in Zehlendorf. She was deported from Berlin to the Riga Ghetto on 19 January 1942 and murdered there. An exact date of death is not known.

A signature comparison between the signature of Margarete Schoenlank, née Mohr, with the signature in the book shows a resemblance, but is not conclusive; a signature of Hans' sister Margarete could not be obtained.

Since the book was found in unprocessed stock of the Berlin City Library, there is a very high probability that it was part of the purchase of ~40,000 books of deported Berlin Jews that the library made in 1943. However, both above mentioned persons with the name Margarete Schoenlank were Berliners at the possible time of withdrawal.