Herrenkonfektion Cohn
In the town of Wismar Isidor Cohn and Johanna Cohn ran a shop at Krämerstraße 21 from 1885 and another at Bohrstraße 1, where they sold shoes, men's and boys' clothing and articles for seamen [1][2]. The men's clothing shop Cohn was among the shops in front of which SA men stood on 1 April 1933 [5]. In 1937 Isidor Cohn let the business house to a merchant from Cuxhaven and left him the shop fittings, and at the end of 1939 the house passed to Carl Manthey [1][2], while Langusch, by contrast, names an expropriation in 1943 [3]. The couple was driven out to Berlin in 1937/38 and in 1942 deported via Theresienstadt to Treblinka and murdered [1][2][6].
The business
Isidor and Johanna Cohn lived in Wismar from 1885 to 1938, where from 1885 they ran a shop at Krämerstraße 21 and another at Bohrstraße 1, in which they sold shoes, men's and boys' clothing and articles for seamen. In 1887 they bought a house of 140 square metres with rear building, stable and yard [1][2]. The museum portal of the Stiftung Mecklenburg shows an advertisement of the business in the "Mecklenburger Tagesblatt" of 28 February 1925 and photographs of the shop at Bohrstraße 1 from the Stadtarchiv Wismar [2]. Their son Walter Cohn, who was born in 1891, studied medicine, passed the state examination in Leipzig in 1916 and became a neurologist. He died in 1927 aged 36 of stomach cancer [1][2].
1933 to 1937
At the "Jewish boycott" of 1 April 1933 SA men stood with placards in front of shops owned by Jews in Wismar, among them the men's clothing shop Cohn at Bohrstraße 1 [5]. According to Steffen Langusch the merchant Isidor Cohn let his house on 1 November 1937 to a merchant originally from Cuxhaven [3]. The Stadtarchiv biography names him Ernst Langhoff and adds that Isidor Cohn also left him the shop fittings [1][2]. Whether the letting and the transfer of the fittings were voluntary or made under pressure is, however, not known.
Expulsion and deportation
According to the Stolperstein inscription Isidor and Johanna Cohn moved to Berlin involuntarily in 1937 [6], while the biographies of the City of Wismar speak of the expulsion in 1938 [1][2]. Langusch writes, after a letter of the Finanzamt Wismar, that Isidor Cohn lived in Berlin afterwards and later, presumably in 1942, "moved to Theresienstadt" [3]. In mid-1942 both were deported to the Theresienstadt ghetto, a transport list attached to a letter of the Berlin Gestapo to the Oberfinanzpräsident of 14 July 1942 listing them as nos. 58 and 59 [2]. In September 1942 they were taken from there to the Treblinka extermination camp, where Isidor Cohn was murdered on 22 September 1942. At almost 90 he was one of the oldest Jews murdered in Treblinka, and Johanna Cohn was killed in Treblinka the same day [1][2].
The house after 1937
According to the Stadtarchiv short biography the house passed into the ownership of Carl Manthey at the end of 1939 [1][2], while Langusch, by contrast, speaks of an expropriation of Isidor Cohn's property carried out in 1943 [3]. Whether and when house and fittings were sold or transferred (1937, 1939 or 1943) is therefore not documented by files, since the statements differ. The sources say nothing on the fate of the shop at Krämerstraße 21. Hans G. Hoch remembers that the shops of Cohn and Löwenthal were demolished in 1938 [4], but Langusch and Schmidt name only the shops Löwenthal, Lindor and Blass for the pogrom night [3][5], and the Stadtarchiv biography of the Blass family likewise names only their shop [1]. Whether the shop was damaged in the pogrom night of 1938 is therefore unresolved, the more so as according to these sources the couple already lived in Berlin in 1938. Stolpersteine for Isidor and Johanna Cohn were laid in front of Bohrstraße 1 on 24 May 2022 [2][6].