Schuhgeschäft Louis Lewinski
The merchant Louis Lewinski (1869-1943) moved to Wismar in the early 1930s, where he lived at Altwismarstraße 12 (today no. 17) and opened a shoe shop at Dankwartstraße 14 [1]. After his son Arthur had been arrested in June 1938, he himself was arrested in the November pogrom of 1938, fled to the Netherlands afterwards and was deported in 1943 via Westerbork to Sobibor and murdered [1][2].
The merchant and his shop
Louis Lewinski married Berta Pagel (1856-1922) in Berlin on 29 August 1893, and a daughter, Johanna, was born in 1894 and a son, Arthur, in 1896 [1]. At the beginning of the 20th century the family moved to Rostock, where a first entry in the address book dates from 1912, and Berta Lewinski died in Rostock in 1928 [1]. In the early 1930s Louis Lewinski moved to Wismar, lived at Altwismarstraße 12 (today no. 17) and opened a shoe shop at Dankwartstraße 14 [1]. After the divorce of Arthur's marriage in the mid-1930s the son moved in with him in Wismar [1]. Nothing is known about the size, the trading name or the customers of the shop, and whether it was damaged in the pogrom night is not documented; likewise it is not known what became of the shop at Dankwartstraße 14, whether closure, sale or takeover.
1938: arrests and flight
In June 1938 the Gestapo arrested Arthur Lewinski as a "work-shy Jew", although according to the entry anti-Nazi remarks are also said to have played a part. He was first held in the Wismar prison and then in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, where he stayed until February 1939, returned to Wismar after his release and soon fled to the Netherlands [1]. During the November pogrom of 1938 Louis Lewinski was arrested too, like other Jews of Wismar, and held for about a week in the penitentiary of Neustrelitz-Strelitz, fled to the Netherlands after his release and lived there in Amsterdam with the family of his daughter Johanna Pories, who had also fled [1]. The Stolperstein inscription, by contrast, gives 1940 as the year of the flight [2], whereas according to the Stadtarchiv it is said to have taken place soon after the release in 1938 [1].
Murder
After the German invasion of the Netherlands Louis Lewinski was arrested on 9 March 1943 and taken to the Westerbork transit camp. On 23 March 1943 the Gestapo deported him with about 1,250 other people to the Sobibor extermination camp, where he was murdered [1], whereas the Stolperstein inscription gives 26 March 1943 as the date of death [2]. His daughter Johanna Pories was taken from Westerbork to Auschwitz and died there on 11 February 1944 [1]. Arthur Lewinski survived, married a second time and died in Amsterdam on 29 May 1958 [1]. A Stolperstein for Louis Lewinski lies in front of Altwismarstraße 17, laid on 10 August 2013 [2]. A second stone in front of Altwismarstraße 17 bears the name Arthur Lewinski but gives different life data (born 1867, 1939 Eisenach, 1942 Theresienstadt, died 24 January 1943) from those of the son Arthur (1896-1958) [1][2], so that it is not attributed to the son here.