Josephy & Ahrens was a grain and agricultural-produce firm with its headquarters in Parchim and a branch in Sternberg. According to the literature the Parchim parent house was founded on 1 September 1816 by Isaac (Itzig) Josephy [9][10][14]. In 1882 his grandson Gustav Josephy (later Josephi) and Friedrich Ahrens took over the business [9][10][14], while the Sternberg branch existed from 1885 to 1907 [1][2][14]. In the National Socialist period the Parchim firm was "Aryanized" and taken over by the firm K. F. Müller & Co. [14]. Gustav Josephi died in Theresienstadt in 1943 [12][13][14].
The parent house in Parchim
The main business in Parchim was founded on 1 September 1816 by Isaac (Itzig) Josephy as a trading company for agricultural products in the Langestraße [9][10][14]. In 1854 he handed it to his son Hermann (Hirsch) Josephy, who in the same year bought the burnt-down plot Langestraße 15 and in 1855 built the business house with the main warehouse there [10][14]. The Parchim trade directory of 1862, however, lists Herm. Josephy as "Getreide-, Woll- u. Eisenhdl." (grain, wool and iron trade) in the Lindenstraße [8][14], and the Claims Conference list gives Lindenstraße 15 [11], so that the address of the parent house is handed down differently. In the 1880s the firm bought agricultural produce from numerous large landowners of the region. It traded mainly in grain, rapeseed, pulses, seeds, sheep's fescue, flax and wool, fertilizer and fats, and in agricultural machinery, whereby the grain trade reached from Holstein via Hanover to central Germany [14].
In 1882 Hermann Josephy handed the business to his eldest son Gustav and to Friedrich Ahrens, so that the firm was now called Josephy & Ahrens [9][10][14]. Ahrens, a merchant from Grevesmühlen, married Gustav's sister Auguste Josephy on 29 April 1884. Since the manuscript of the Parchim museum already calls him a son-in-law in 1882, he is likely to have joined the firm as her fiancé [10][14]. The business was run by Gustav Josephy, who was a town councillor, board member of the municipal savings bank and chairman of the trade association in Parchim [9][13][14]. On 30 September 1905 Gustav Josephy was renamed "Josephi", and on 16 October 1905 the firm was re-entered in the Parchim commercial register as "Josephi & Ahrens" [10][14].
The branch in Sternberg
On 15 August 1885 Friedrich Ahrens declared in Sternberg that he had set up a grain business under the firm name Josephy & Ahrens on the former David property, whereby the family kept its residence in Parchim until the move [1]. On 31 October 1885 the firm was entered as an open trading partnership, with Gustav Josephy in Parchim and Friedrich Ahrens in Sternberg as owners, and separation of property between the spouses Ahrens was noted [2][14]. By 11 August 1891 at the latest the firm was the owner of the plot "Bei der Kornmühle 102" (later 176) [3][14], which lay in the south of the old town between the Pastiner and Kütiner gates (hereditary corn-mill farmstead) [3][14]. On 7 July 1902 the mortgage deed for a repaid claim of the Vereinsbank Grevesmühlen of 6,000 marks was handed over to Ahrens [4][14].
According to the Sternberg volume the firm also acquired a water mill at Borkow and the business of the Sternberg Kommerzienrat Davidson David [10][14]. The only evidence of employees is the worker Martha Schmidt, who worked for the firm from 1 May to 3 October 1905 [5][14]. The firm appears in 1891 in the member list of the German Agricultural Society (Gau Mecklenburg-Schwerin, -Strelitz), although the list gives no location [6][14]. Heidrun Peter writes that in autumn one saw carts in Sternberg bringing grain to the grain dealers Julius Löwenthal and Josephy & Ahrens [7][14]. The Sternberg volume gives reasons for the branch only as conjecture, for the Parchim business was said to have been too small for two managers, and Sternberg already had an infrastructure for the grain trade [14].
Friedrich Ahrens (born 1858 in Grevesmühlen) and his wife Auguste (born 1864 in Parchim) lived in Sternberg, where their four children were also born between 1886 and 1897. Both were baptised descendants of formerly Jewish families [14]. After 1900 the family moved to Rostock [14].
Separation in 1903 and the end of the Sternberg firm
In 1903 Gustav Josephi left the Sternberg partnership, and in return Ahrens left the Parchim partnership in the same year [2][10][14]. The Sternberg partnership was dissolved by the order of 9 July 1903, and Ahrens remained sole owner [2][14]. The Sternberg volume names Ahrens's takeover of a sawmill in Wesenberg on 1 July 1903 as the probable reason [10][14]. The Sternberg firm continued under the old name at first, was re-entered as "Friedrich M. Ahrens" on 2 August 1906 and struck off on 5 October 1907, whereby Ahrens concentrated on the Wesenberg business (see Böttcher & Ahrens) [2][14].
Parchim after 1903 and in the National Socialist period
The Parchim business continued. Ernst Hermann Josephi, son of Ahrens's former business partner, worked there as authorised signatory from 1910 and became a partner in 1921 [9][10][14]. The Sternberg volume states that with the rise of National Socialism this business, too, was "Aryanized" and taken over by the firm K. F. Müller & Co. [14]. The sources available, however, do not give a year or details of this "Aryanization", so that the year has not been documented so far. The Claims Conference lists the firm "Josephi & Ahrens KG - agricultural products, Gustav/Friedrich" in Parchim under no. 29723 [11].
The fate of Gustav Josephi
According to the Sternberg volume Gustav Josephi moved to Berlin to escape the persecution, was deported from Berlin to Theresienstadt on 18 March 1943 with transport I/90 and died there on 18 April 1943, officially of a kidney infection [14]. The Holocaust.cz database lists Gustav Josephi, born 21 September 1857, on transport I/90 of 18 March 1943 from Berlin and records "murdered in Terezín" [12]. The Wikipedia list of Stolpersteine in Parchim differs and gives 17 March 1943 as the date of deportation and 24 March 1943 as the date of death, according to which Josephi left Parchim in 1935 to move to Wiesbaden and was imprisoned in November 1938 [13]. A Stolperstein for him was laid on 6 February 2016 at Putlitzer Straße 43 in Parchim [13]. The sources thus differ on the dates of Gustav Josephi's deportation and death and on his place of residence (Berlin or Wiesbaden), which remain open for the time being [12][13][14].
Branches and part firms
- Josephy (Josephi) & Ahrens KG (Zweigstelle Sternberg) (Sternberg)