Max Martin and Erna had to do forced labour in Berlin. Erna was deployed at Siemens. I know this because of a search that Erna’s cousin, Kurt Herrmann, filed in Yad Vashem in 2012. Kurt Herrmann researched the history of his murdered family members intensively until the end of his life. As a U.S. Army soldier, he travelled to Nordhausen and Theresienstadt as early as 1945 to pick up their trail. His cousin Erna was a machine worker at Siemens-Schuckert-Werke-AG in Berlin. The company premises still exist today: on Nonnendammallee in Siemensstadt. In the Siemens company archive, in which about 70% of the fate of Jewish forced laborers is still preserved in personnel index cards and several complete personnel files, there is, unfortunately, nothing left about Erna and Max Martin Baruch. Dr. Frank Wittendorfer, the current head of the archive, reports:
“To the best of our knowledge, Jewish employees were employed in almost all production areas in Berlin-Siemensstadt, but not in heavy and large mechanical engineering (generators, railway drives, etc.). On the basis of the personnel documents received, Jewish employees were mainly employed in the following factories: Kabelwerk (…) in Gartenfeld, Kleinbauwerk (…) in Siemensstadt (production of installation material for electrical systems and small devices) Elmowerk of Siemens- Schuckertwerke AG in Siemensstadt (production of electric motors), “Wernerwerk” of Siemens & Halske AG in Siemensstadt (production of all kinds of telecommunications equipment).“ [1]
Even though we may no longer know exactly which area Erna had to work in, the living conditions in the Siemens factories can be reconstructed quite well. The historian Wolf Gruner has written a standard work on the forced labour of German Jews, i.e. on the “Closed Work Deployment” – as the Nazis euphemistically called it. He quotes from an internal instruction from Siemens-Schuckert Berlin.
- “1. Jews must be collected by the doorman before their work begins, taken to their changing room by the plant security and handed over to the foreman of the work gang.
- Jews may only move around the site under supervision. They may never be alone within the plant. The work is carried out by them in closed groups, which must be under the direction of an Aryan member of the following.
- The Jews are also to be escorted by the plant security to the exit of the works property closed again after their work has been completed.“ [2]
As already mentioned, Siemens had a clear interest in acquiring female forced labourers from the remaining Jewish population in Germany.
“All Jewish women were tested for their ability to work both physically and aptly.“
This is what another Siemens internal paper says. The historian Gruner states this served the goal of attracting as many suitable German Jewish women as possible to the armaments factory.
“With this in-house test procedure, Siemens AG Berlin achieved that less than 10 percent of the Jews proved unsuitable in terms of production logic. The selected forced labourers were only employed in certain companies, such as the Wernerwerk or the Kabelwerk, where their workplaces in the large halls were separated by high walls that obstructed the view. Their working hours differed from those of ‘Aryan’ workers, and they had to be guided into and out of the factory as a single unit.'”[3]
The weekly working hours in Berlin amounted to 55 hours for women forced to work. The Viennese historian Carola Sachse has dealt specifically with the treatment of women forced to work and comes to the conclusion that the disadvantages and injustices were not only racist but also gender-specific. It is true that both sexes suffered from dangerous working conditions such as toxic fumes. Quite “legally”, because–
“General health and safety regulations (…) both for Jewish men and for Jewish women were limited and later abolished completely.”
So writes Carola Sachse. But:
“Special protection regulations for women were first gradually abolished for German Jewish forced labourers, then for “Eastern workers” and other “foreign women”. Compliance with the remaining regulations was hardly monitored; after all, they no longer applied to concentration camp prisoners at all.”
Several Jewish forced labourers reported that in Berlin they observed that male “Aryan” work colleagues were indeed willing to help and occasionally showed solidarity. The “ethnic German women”, however, foremen and anteroom ladies, attracted their attention particularly negatively. Siemens forced labourer Gerda B, for example, tells us about this:
“Although the work in the smaller assembly hall adjacent to the factory building was relatively clean and could be done while seated, Gerda B. described the usual relationships between female forced labourers and female “Aryan” foremen there as intolerable and characterized the latter as “aggressive,” “harassing,” and “wicked. On the other hand, the Jewish women, who were used on the heavy and outdated lathes, which were usually reserved for men, and their “Aryan” foremen, all had the best understanding, mutual solidarity and an “erotically charged” atmosphere.“[4]
And Erna Baruch? Which machines did she work on? I don’t know. What did she tell her new Jewish husband after work, on the small balcony on the ground floor of 20 Gervinusstrasse? Guesses. What did she cook, down there in her kitchen, in that time of food rationing after the beginning of war? I don’t know. What did Max and Erna do when the sirens reported air raids?
There were two air-raid shelters in the “Judenhaus” Gervinusstrasse – one Aryan and one Jewish. The Jewish homeowner, architect and civil servant of the Jewish community and his son, who performed forced labour as a bricklayer, had been able to ensure this. The war also contributed to the constant deterioration of the situation of the last Jews of Berlin. The possession of a bicycle, for example, was now forbidden to them. How did Erna Baruch get to work at Siemens and Schuckert in Nonnendammallee? Could she, like “Volksdeutsche”, still take the S-Bahn to the factory? There is an indication that she was allowed to do this– like some “privileged” forced labourers in the armaments industry. The information is hidden in the Brandenburg State Archives. There are two small index cards for Erna and Max Baruch. They show that the Chief Finance President of Berlin Brandenburg demanded money back from the Deutsche Reichsbahn long after the violent deaths of Erna and Max. The state had apparently paid several months for the monthly tickets of the two forced labourers. But they had paid too much. A dead person can no longer travel by S-Bahn. And that is why the Reichsbahn was no longer allowed to demand money for monthly tickets from passengers who had long since been deported. In May, in the case of Max and Erna Baruch, the Reichsbahn reimbursed the Ministry of Finance 14.10 marks each. Similarily, the Ministry of Finance recovered the money for overpaid electricity and gas bills. “Logically“ people that have been transported to the east could not cook at home or switch on the reading light.[5]
- [1] Mail from Dr. Frank Wittendorfer to the author from 20.06.2018
- [2] Gruner, Wolf: The Closed Work Deployment of German Jews. Zur Zwangsarbeit als Element der Verfolgung 1938-1943. Metropol Verlag Berlin, 1997 Series Documents, Texts, Materials Published by the Zentrum für Antisemitismusforschung der Technischen Universität Berlin. Volume 20 . S. 209
- [3] Gruner, Wolf: The Closed Labor Deployment of German Jews. Zur Zwangsarbeit als Element der Verfolgung 1938-1943. Metropol Verlag Berlin, 1997 Series Documents, Texts, Materials Published by the Zentrum für Antisemitismusforschung der Technischen Universität Berlin. Volume 20.) p. 140 f
- [4] From the “Schikanepromenade” to forced labor Field Report The Work Mission of Berlin Jews 1938-1943 and the Memories of the Economist Elisabeth Freund Carola Sachse/Ulrike Baureithel – “Der Freitag” 12.09.2003
- [5] Two index cards Max Baruch and Erna Baruch, divorced TwelkemeyerRep 36 A Chief Finance President Berlin Brandenburg (II), index and list of assets, Brandenburg State Main Archive
