The Rosenberg textile store in Ratzeburg's Domstraße (today no. 8) grew out of a "cloth, manufactured goods and linen shop" founded in November 1872 by Levi David Rosenberg from Krakow am See [1]. After the founder's death in 1897 his widow Fanny ran the business until 1911, then the son Willy [1]. After the November pogrom of 1938 the store was forcibly closed, and house and plot were later regarded as "forfeited to the Reich". Willy and Martha Rosenberg were deported via Lübeck to Riga in December 1941. The son Walter survived, received the plot back on 1 March 1954 and reopened the store on 1 December 1954 [1].
Ratzeburg and its link to Mecklenburg
Most of Ratzeburg lay in the Duchy of Lauenburg, which had been in personal union with Prussia since 1865 and became a Prussian district in 1876 [3]. Only the cathedral precinct (Domhof) belonged, as part of the Principality of Ratzeburg, to Mecklenburg from 1648 and to Mecklenburg-Strelitz from 1701, and only the Greater Hamburg Act of 1937 made it part of the municipality [3]. It is not known, however, whether the house at Domstraße 8 lay in the Strelitz part of the town.
Foundation and family
Levi David (L. D.) Rosenberg came from Krakow am See and had previously been a shop assistant with the merchant Bentheim [2]. In November 1872 he founded the "cloth, manufactured goods and linen shop" in Domstraße, which at that time bore the no. 136 and is today no. 8 [1][2]. August Samuel Bentheim, his former employer, had received his letter of protection as a dealer in manufactured goods in 1849 and was elected town councillor in 1871 and senator in 1876 to 1879.
After Levi David Rosenberg died in 1897 his wife Fanny ran the business until her own death in 1911 [1]. The son Willy, born in 1875, then took the business over and had it thoroughly rebuilt in 1912 [1]. Willy's wife Martha, the daughter of a textile merchant from Norden in East Frisia, opened a ladies' hat shop alongside the store [1]. The couple had two sons, namely Walter (born 1914) and Herbert [1]. Walter trained as a textile merchant in Parchim and returned to Ratzeburg in January 1933 [1]. Willy's sister Jenny Salomon, née Rosenberg (born 7 February 1874 in Ratzeburg), was married to a merchant in Ribnitz [1].
Timeline 1933 to 1954
| Date | Event | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 1 April 1933 | The boycott actions also hit the Rosenberg store; nothing is known about the course of events in Ratzeburg | [1] |
| November 1938 | After the pogrom the store is forcibly closed; Walter Rosenberg is arrested and held in "protective custody" at Sachsenhausen | [1] |
| July 1941 | Plan to fit out the cellar as a public air-raid shelter | [1] |
| 2 August 1941 | Mayor Stelter asks Willy Rosenberg whether he will sell the plot to the town | [1] |
| 23 October 1941 | Official ban on emigration | [1] |
| 2 December 1941 | The mayor approaches the state tax office (Landesfinanzamt) Schleswig-Holstein about acquiring the plot | [1] |
| 4 to 6 December 1941 | Willy and Martha Rosenberg are taken to Lübeck and from there deported to Riga | [1] |
| about January 1942 | The house inventory is auctioned | [1] |
| 1946 to 1954 | Negotiations on compensation or return to Walter Rosenberg | [1] |
| 1 March 1954 | The plot is returned | [1] |
| 1 December 1954 | The store reopens | [1] |
Closure, sale attempts and seizure
After the pogrom of November 1938 the store was forcibly closed [1]. On 2 August 1941 Mayor Stelter asked Willy Rosenberg, then 65, whether he would sell his plot to the town because the building was needed to create housing. According to the recorded wording, Rosenberg replied that he had sold the plot with shop fittings to his former employees by handshake and that they would take it over once he had emigrated [1]. Nothing came of the emigration plans, however, since an emigration ban had applied since 23 October 1941 [1].
On 2 December 1941, knowing that deportation was imminent, the mayor wrote to the Landesfinanzamt Schleswig-Holstein that "the Jew Willy Israel Rosenberg, until now resident in Ratzeburg" would be "evacuated" on 4 December, that his plot at Domstraße 8 would then "presumably have passed into the ownership of the Reich", and that the town had "a considerable interest" in acquiring it [1]. The lecture states that the town tried to acquire the plot, while an acquisition by the town or by the former employees is not reported [1]. What actually became of the house in the years 1938 to 1941, in which it was allegedly sold by handshake to former employees, is not clarified.
A month after the deportation the inventory was auctioned, and house and plot were regarded as "forfeited to the Reich" [1]. Until the end of the war the house served for the old-clothes collection of the district economic office, as quarters of a teacher-training institute and as an emergency location of the Kiel Institute for the World Economy [1].
The fate of the family
Willy and Martha Rosenberg were taken to Lübeck on 4 December 1941 and two days later deported to Riga with about 130 other Jews from Schleswig-Holstein, where according to the city archivist they probably died on 26 March 1942 in a large shooting action [1]. The earlier account by the same author by contrast gives only the deportation to Riga on 4 December 1941 [2], so that the accounts of the deportation (Lübeck on 4 December and Riga on 6 December 1941 according to Lopau 2026) differ.
According to Lopau the younger son Herbert Rosenberg had already died in October 1941 in the Yugoslav camp of Zasavica. He had tried to reach Palestine via the Balkans and belonged to the Kladovo transport [1]. That transport of 822 people had left Vienna on 25 November 1939, and its men were shot on 12 and 13 October 1941 on the Sava near Zasavica by Wehrmacht units on the order of General Franz Böhme [4]. That Herbert Rosenberg was part of this transport is, however, attested only by Lopau [1].
Willy's sister Jenny Salomon was deported to Theresienstadt on 11 November 1942 and died there on 3 April 1944 [1].
Walter Rosenberg survived. He was arrested in the November pogrom of 1938, held in "protective custody" at Sachsenhausen and released on condition that he leave Germany. In 1938 he enrolled for "Hachschara" training at Gut Winkel near Berlin, and in September 1939 he set out from there on an "odyssey" to Palestine, where he found work as a baker [1].
After 1945: return and reopening
After the war the house first served as a refugee camp and, after repairs, as a café, grocery shop, tax adviser's office and residential building [1]. From 1946 negotiations on compensation or return to Walter Rosenberg, the only survivor of the family, were under way [1]. He lived in Ratzeburg again from 1953. The plot was returned on 1 March 1954, and on 1 December 1954 he reopened his parents' store [1]. According to Lopau (1996) the store remained in business for many decades [2], the end of the business not being dated.
Remembrance
A school project course of the Lauenburgische Gelehrtenschule had a brass plaque for Martha and Willy Rosenberg set into the pavement in front of the house in Domstraße in 2005, which follows the model of the Stolpersteine. The pupils had first contacted the artist Gunter Demnig but chose their own form because of the long lead time [1].