Herbert Simon Brinitzer

Herbert Simon Brinitzer was born in Katowice on 29 August 1911 as the son of Artur - presumably a ^carpenter1 - and Henriette Brinitzer. His mother was deported from her home in Beuthen to Auschwitz on 12 June 1942 and has since been considered "missing"^.2 Nothing is known about his father's whereabouts; his date of death is recorded in the Federal Archives' Memorial Book for 12 April 1940^.3

It is not known when and how Herbert Brinitzer arrived in Berlin. As the "Stammrolle für Reichsdeutsche Nichtarier an der Universit?t Berlin" from the university archives shows, he was officially enrolled at the Faculty of Medicine at Berlin University until 1 October 1936^.4 His leaving certificate could not be found.

In the 1939 census, he stated that he lived in Beuthen, Upper Silesia, at Bahnhofstra?e ²⁹⁵ - the address at which his parents were also registered according to this census^.6

Herbert Brinitzer's next reference can be found in connection with the "Jewish retraining and deployment camp on Grüner Weg in Paderborn", which existed from 1939 to 1943. This camp was founded at the end of June 1939 as a so-called ^Hachsharah kibbutz7 . In a contract between the "Reich Association of German Jews" and the city of Paderborn, the property on Grüner Weg was "made available free of charge so that young Jews could be trained in 'physical, mainly agricultural and horticultural labour in preparation for their emigration' as part of Jewish self-help"^.8 The Hachsharah kibbutz was under the control of the German national association of Hechaluz, as a "direction of German Jewish youth towards Palestine"^.9

Herbert Brinitzer, like many thousands of other Jews, apparently tried to emigrate to Palestine. This difficult ^task10 finally became impossible in October 1941, when Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler issued a secret order to stop emigration. Herbert Brinitzer re-registered from the Hachshara kibbutz in Klein-Schnellendorf to the retraining camp in Paderborn on 24 May 1940. His future wife Charlotte ^Seligmann11 also arrived there on 6 January 1941, giving Chemnitz as her previous place of residence^.12

In June 1941, the camp was converted into a labour camp for 100 people, a so-called "deployment camp", by a new contract. The inmates, who had been forced to wear the Yellow Star since September 1941, now had to perform forced labour in the city.

According to an entry in the registry office in Paderborn, Herbert Brinitzer and Charlotte Seligmann married on 9 February 1942^.13 As they were among the older members of the group, they probably formed a separate community from the younger residents who had come to Paderborn as a result of various Hachshara camp closures in 1941/42^.14 They probably even lived in a separate barrack for married couples.

Herbert and his wife Charlotte Brinitzer were deported to the Auschwitz concentration and extermination camp via Bielefeld on 1 March 1943, together with all the residents of the "Einsatzlager" on Grüner Weg. Nothing further is known about Charlotte Brinitzer's fate; she is considered "missing"^.15 Herbert Brinitzer was sent to Auschwitz III, ^{Buna-Monowitz16} and was given the prisoner number 104906. He died in Monowitz on 26 November 1943^.17

We owe a great deal of information to the research of Ron Brinitzer, the great-nephew of Herbert Brinitzer. We would like to thank him for his suggestions. Thanks are also due to the former resident of the "Grüner Weg" camp, Israel L?wenstein, and the historian Dr Naarmann.