The tobacco and cigar shop of the merchant Gustav Perl in the town of Schwerin was one of the businesses owned by Jews that National Socialists wrecked in the November pogrom of 1938 [1][2]. Perl was arrested on 9 November 1938 and taken to the Neustrelitz prison, was forced to sell his business in December 1938 and tried to emigrate with the help of the pastor Karl Kleinschmidt, but survived in Schwerin [1][2].
The merchant and his shop
Gustav Perl was born in Berlin on 8 August 1877 [1][2] and ran a tobacco business in Schwerin as a merchant [1][2]. According to the list of Jews who lived in Schwerin, on which the database of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) is based, the shop was at Wismarsche Straße 50 and Perl lived at Alexandrinenstraße 3, the marital status being given as married to an "Aryan" wife [2]. The 2012 list of the Claims Conference also has, under number 111029, a tobacco shop Gustav Perl at Wismarsche Straße 50 [3], while the Stolpersteine list calls the business a "cigar shop" [1].
November pogrom, forced sale and survival
On 9 November 1938 Perl was arrested and taken to Neustrelitz, and his shop was wrecked [2]. In the Neustrelitz prison, according to the Stolpersteine list, he was forced in December 1938 to sell his business [1], and the USHMM list records the same event as "December 1938: sale of the business" [2]. Who took over the business and at what price is, however, not shown by the sources seen. Both sources report that Perl afterwards tried to emigrate with the help of the pastor Karl Kleinschmidt [1][2]. He did not emigrate, however, but survived and died in Schwerin on 18 January 1946 [1][2]. Karl Kleinschmidt had been cathedral preacher in Schwerin since 1935 and in March 1939 protested, together with his fellow pastor Aurel von Jüchen, in a letter against the exclusion of baptised Jews from the church [4]. That Kleinschmidt helped Perl is stated by the Stolpersteine list [1] and the USHMM database [2], but nothing further is known about the kind of help.
Remembrance
A Stolperstein for Gustav Perl lies at Alexandrinenstraße 3 with the inscription "Humiliated / Disenfranchised / Survived with help"; it was laid there on 8 March 2014 [1].