Gerhards Johanna – Gedenkbuch

Gerhards, Johanna

geb. Behr

Geburtsdatum:: 06.07.1884
Geburtsort:: Krefeld

Beruf:: Gastwirtin, Hausfrau

Wohnorte:: Wilhelm-Tell-Straße 24

Todesdatum:: nach 1941
Todesort:: Ghetto Minsk

Johanna Behr wurde am 6. Juli 1884 in Krefeld geboren. Ihre jüdischen Eltern Julius Behr und Bertha Alexander hatten 1850 in Krefeld geheiratet. Johanna, auch Anna genannt, hatte noch mindestens eine Schwester: Pauline Rosenboom, geborene Behr, die 1881 in Krefeld zur Welt gekommen war. Vermutlich hatten die beiden auch einen Bruder, Bernhard Behr (geboren am 13. September 1874 in Krefeld).

Johanna Gerhards war mit dem evangelischen Carl Gerhards verheiratet. Er stammte aus Wuppertal-Barmen, wo er 1874 geboren worden war. Ihr Mann, dessen Berufsbezeichnung auf der Sterbeurkunde mit „Reisender“ angegeben wurde, starb am 5. Juli 1939 in einem Karlsruher Krankenhaus.

Knapp drei Monate später, am 6. Oktober 1939, zog Johanna Gerhards aus Essen kommend als Witwe in die Wilhelm-Tell Straße 24 nach Düsseldorf. In der Sterbeurkunde ihres Mannes wurde handschriftlich am 10. Oktober 1941 vermerkt, dass Carl Gerhards mit Johanna Gerhards, geborene Behr, verheiratet war. Zunächst war dort vermerkt worden, dass er geschieden sei.

Am 10. November 1941 wurde Johanna Gerhards ins Ghetto von Minsk deportiert. Sie hat nicht überlebt.

Autorin: Hildegard Jakobs, Mahn- und Gedenkstätte Düsseldorf

Quellenangaben

Johanna Gerhards Name auf der Deportationsliste ins Ghetto Minsk (Arolsen Archives)

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Introduction

Presented by the City of Düsseldorf, this digital memorial book commemorates the Jews who were murdered during the Nazi. The City’s Memorial and Education Centre has been researching victims’ life stories since its foundation in 1987, collecting biographical data, documents, letters and photographs. Using databases whose origins can be traced back to the 1990s, together with the collated information to be found in the archival collection, almost 3,000 individuals have been identified who were persecuted and murdered because they were Jews, or “non-Aryan” Christians.

Biographical research into the above necessitated searches – of both national and international archives – for a variety of documents such as register office certificates, registration indexes, address books and exit papers. Perpetrator resources, too, were searched, for example Gestapo files, files relating to communal matters, and tax and administrative district files. Numerous interviews with survivors and members of victims‘ families provided insights into family life, routine and otherwise, as well as of the personality of the deceased.

The cohort of those who were murdered is heterogeneous. Old and young, men and women, the young and the elderly, people from modest backgrounds or those who had built a secure living for themselves; people who, after 1933, had fled to the European continent but who were then “reeled in” by the German occupation; people whose death or murder came about in a variety of circumstances. Some died of starvation, disease or forced labour in the ghettos and concentration camps to which they had been deported, others were murdered in extermination camps. And there were also those who, out of despair, committed suicide or were murdered before the outbreak of war whilst still at home, for example during the 1938 November Pogrom and in other violent events.

The relationship to Judaism of many of those who died was very individual. The breadth and depth of the spectrum was such that they ranged from the deeply pious and orthodox to those of a more liberal or conservative persuasion and, at the other end of the scale, to atheists. All were persecuted as “Jews” by reason of their ancestry, whether they were baptised Christians, having previously been Jews, or had become Jews only in the course of Nazi “investigations”, despite never having had a Jewish identity. Nazi ideology decreed that the decisive factor was not individual identity but “ancestry”, “blood relationship” and “racial hygiene”. Despite all their differences, what all these people had in common was that they came from Düsseldorf, had been born there or had lived there for many years.

Scientific research can access genealogical connections by availing itself of the online compilation of names, dates and biographies; but in addition, by creating connections with their own personal research, survivors and their descendants the world over can also search for their murdered families.

The work on an online memorial book is never done. The intention is to add more dates and names. Of course the Düsseldorf Memorial and Education Centre is grateful for any leads, additions and corrections which contribute to the overall picture.

Düsseldorf, May 2022

Hildegard Jakobs
Academic Project Leader
and Deputy Director

Dr. Bastian Fleermann
Director