The Rubensohn family had been living in Beverungen, where there was a large Jewish community, since the 18th century. Herz gen. Hermann Rubensohn (1837-1919) had married Rosa Herrlich (1838-1931) from Kassel and became a particularly successful businessman. In Beverungen, he ran a lucrative trade in bran and other animal feed and increasingly also Indian jute and jute products such as feed sacks. His eldest son Emil was born in his home town on March 12, 1866. As his daughter writes, he came to Kassel in the arms of the nanny when his parents settled there in 1868. Emil had brothers Ernst (1873-1951) and Otto (1867-1964) and sister Julie (1864-1966).

 

The family continued the trading business in Kassel, but also founded the "Casseler Jutespinnerei H. Rubensohn" in Rothenditmold in 1882, an industrial company that proved to be very successful and employed 800 people by 1913. Hermann Rubensohn also worked as a commercial judge.

 

As the eldest son, Emil Rubensohn was traditionally expected to take over his father's trading business and, after completing his secondary school education, received the appropriate training: first at a jute company in Hamburg and then at a London company that traded in bran. His daughter writes that he repeatedly referred to this stay abroad as a highlight of his life. He returned to Kassel in 1888, first completed his military service as a one-year volunteer and then joined his father's company, which made him a partner in 1893. This was probably also the prerequisite for starting his own family. In 1894, Ernst Rubensohn married Toni Hammerschlag, born on May 25, 1873, daughter of Sally Hammerschlag, who had made a modest fortune in the Cape Colony. The couple had three daughters, Gertrud (*24.9.1895), Hedwig (*16.6.1897) and Elisabeth (*23.8.1900).

 

The parents' progressive attitude is demonstrated by the fact that they gave their daughters a secondary school education, which was unusual for the time, as it was only with the Prussian school reform of 1908 that girls were able to take their school-leaving exams and go to university. Gertrud and Elisabeth attended the first school in Kassel that made this possible: the Realgymnasiale Studienanstalt (now the Heinrich-Schütz-Schule). Gertrud passed her school-leaving examination there in 1915 - the same year in which Elisabeth died at a young age.

 

In 1900, Hermann and his son Emil gave up the animal feed trading business, apparently because they no longer saw sufficient future prospects in this branch of the economy. While his father retired as a rentier, Emil Rubensohn founded his own company, the steam wool laundry "Emil Rubensohn & Co." in Bettenhausen, which was still independent at the time, on the site of the former Walkemühle on the Losse and Lossemühlgraben. He bought the buildings of the Walkemühle and the site at Stiftstraße 39 (now Dormannweg), where the family also lived, in 1905.

 

The company developed well, but ran into great difficulties during the First World War due to the shortage of raw materials, which could never be completely resolved in times of economic crisis. Emil Rubensohn felt that continuing to operate the wool laundry and wool trade was too risky. In 1926, he sold the property to Adolf Krämer, who set up a paint and varnish factory there. After the sale, he retired and the couple moved to Kölnische Strasse 51, where Rosa Rubensohn, who had been widowed since 1919, lived in the house belonging to the family.

 

As his daughter Gertrud writes, the businessman was now able to devote himself to what his real goals in life were: "social service and philosophy". His daughter characterizes him as a born philosopher and teacher, who pursued lifelong self-study (especially at night) and gained the guiding principle for his life from his engagement with ethics and philosophy. It was in this spirit that he raised and taught his daughters. In this sense, he was also active in the community, including

- in the Bettenhausen citizens' association (at times as chairman),

- as a representative of Bettenhausen in the "Großer Bürgerverein Cassel",

- in the Israelites' board of directors (until emigration),

- in the Society of Humanity (as chairman until its demise under National Socialism),

- on the board of trustees of the Goldschmidt School Foundation (for Jewish orphans)

- in the local chapter of the Kant Society, which he co-founded. Association for philosophical questions.

 

According to Gertrud Hallo, her father always had time to take a stand against anti-Semitism. She characterizes her mother as a pretty, witty, artistically talented and skilled woman who supported her husband in overcoming the manifold crises, including emigration. Together, the parents instilled a sense of cultural values in their daughters.

 

Although Emil Rubensohn was no longer active as an independent entrepreneur, he still held positions at the jute spinning mill managed by his brother Ernst, in which he - like other family members - owned shares. Under National Socialism, this company came under increasing economic and political pressure, which the owners were finally forced to give in to in 1938 and sell it to business associates. Emil Rubensohn wrote in a letter in 1946: "On the day that we both, my brother and I, had to resign from our positions and we and other members of our family had to sell the shares, we acted under the threat of the government office, which was responsible for the distribution of raw jute, threatening us. We could not and could not allow the jute spinning mill to be deprived of its supply of raw materials, i.e. to be condemned to 'death by starvation' in the literal sense of the word, because the two Jewish directors remained in office." (quoted from Kottke, p. 238)

 

Toni and Emil Rubensohn were able to escape at the end of August 1939, just a few days before the start of the war, first to England and then to the USA. In their case, too, this involved the loss of almost all of their assets, which were confiscated and subjected to compulsory levies, including the payment of the "Jewish property levy" of RM 40,250 and the payment of the "Reich flight tax" of RM 32,778. In the compensation proceedings after the war, Emil Rubensohn put the total loss at RM 179,000. Accordingly, the couple lived in modest circumstances in Newark in the USA, the better part of the time in a home for elderly refugees. Emil Rubensohn, who had lost his valuable and beloved library and could not afford new books, took over responsibility for the institution's book collection. The "Emil Rubensohn Library of Newark House" was dedicated to him and commemorates him. He died on October 23, 1956, his wife on November 11, 1958.

 

The daughter, Dr. Gertrud Hallo, moved into her parents' house with her children in 1933 after her husband Dr. Rudolf Hallo died. They moved on to Frankfurt in 1936, then to England in 1939 and then to the USA. Their daughter Hedwig had married the lawyer Dr. Rudolf Stahl from Bad Nauheim in 1925. Her family also managed to emigrate to the USA in 1937.

Emil Rubensohn's brother Ernst and his wife Emmy made an adventurous escape to Shanghai in 1940, from where they were only allowed to enter the USA in 1947.

Otto Rubensohn, the world-renowned archaeologist, left Germany at the last minute in 1939 and died at an advanced age in Switzerland in 1964. Emil Rubensohn's sister Julie had married Dr. Julius Grunewald, a doctor from Kaldenkirchen, in 1888, who died in 1929. The widow was able to emigrate to Columbus (Ohio) in July 1938 and died in 1966 at the age of 101.

 

Wolfgang Matthäus, June 2024

 

Quellen und Literatur

 

StadtA Kassel

Meldeunterlagen A 33.3 / 2

HStAM

Best. 270 2082 (Klage von E. Rubensohn gegen das Land Hessen) | Best. 401 35 V 212 (Wollwäscherei Rubensohn

HHStAW

Best. 518 69683 (Entschädigungsakte E. Rubensohn)

 

Adressbücher Kassel

Artikel „Stahl, Rudolph“, in: Handbuch der deutschsprachigen Emigration nach 1933–1945

Jüdische Kindheit und Jugend am Niederrhein. Die autobiographischen Aufzeichnungen des Dr. med. Julius Grunewald (1860-1929) aus Kaldenkirchen. Erster Teil, ausgewählt, eingeleitet und kommentiert von Leo Peters. (Heimatbuch des Kreises Viersen 2009 60. Folge)

Beate Kleinert / Wolfgang Prinz, Namen und Schicksale der Juden Kassel 1933-1945, Kassel 1986

Horst Kottke, Die endgültige Verdrängung der Juden aus der Kasseler Wirtschaft im Jahr 1938, in: Volksgemeinschaft und Volksfeinde. Kassel 1933-1945, Bd. 2: Studien, hg. von Wilhelm Frenz, Jörg Kammler und Dietfrid Krause-Vilmar, Fuldabrück 1987, S. 223-254

Fritz Osterkämper, Die Beverunger Familie Rubensohn und ein kurzzeitiger Ableger in Höxter

Bernd Schaeffer, Wolle waschen mit Fuldawasser (Erinnerungen im Netz)

 

Alois Schwarzmüller, Garmisch und seine jüdischen Bürger 1933-1945

 

Helmut Thiele, Die jüdischen Einwohner zu Kassel (MS)

 

Fotos und Aufzeichnungen aus Familienbesitz (zur Verfügung gestellt von Jaqueline Hallo)