Yom HaShoah 2020 (Holocaust Remembrance Day) – Holocaust records

On a school trip in April 1990 to West Germany, I visited the museum and memorial park on the site of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.  There are various official memorials, but also there are individual gravestones dotted about amongst the heather, these are representative rather than marking a specific grave and have been mainly placed there by surviving family members.  When I was there the gravestones were mainly in Hebrew script, but I saw one lone black marble gravestone, written in German that I could understand.   It said:

I have always remembered this gravestone.  The more famous one located at Bergen-Belsen is that of Anne Frank which I do not recall seeing at all.  I wondered who paid to have this black marble headstone set up there in the middle of the heather, which child, grandchild and sibling of those named? And who were they all? Where did they come from?  I made an assumption that they were probably German or Austrian as German was the language used for the inscription. Were they Jewish? Or a different minority? Of course, for many, many of the victims of the Holocaust there was no family left to mourn, memorialise or remember them.  How could I find out more about them?  How can one trace a relative who was caught up in the Holocaust?

Record locations

Yad Vashem, an organisation founded in 1953 to document the memory of the Holocaust and the history of the Jewish people during the Holocaust, now housed in the World Holocaust Remembrance Center is a good place to start. Additionally, after the release of Schindler’s List in 1993, Steven Spielberg set up the Shoah Foundation to record and preserve the testimony of Holocaust survivors and to record the names and lives of those who did not survive.  It is now possible to look at records on line at here, including searching the Visual History Archive (although you must visit the Institute in person to watch the video testimonies). Since 2006 the home of the Shoah Foundation has been the University of Southern California and the Institute encompasses both the Institute for Visual History and Education and the Center for Advanced Genocide Research.  Records can also be found at The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and at the Arolsen Archives.  Photographs of both Bergen-Belsen as it was and as it is now can be found here and individual memorial plaques and representative gravestones can be searched for on this site, including Anne Frank’s and the one to the Steinbach/Schopper family. In addition, both Ancestry and MyHeritage (subscription required) have some records from Concentration camps.

What can you find?

I have used a combination of the records above to see if I can trace information on any members of the Steinbach family.  Caveat: The name Steinbach is not in itself an uncommon one and there are families who were classified in Nazi Germany as German, Jewish or Roma with this surname.  I have included information here that is not specific to the Steinbach family of the gravestone as an illustration of the sort of records that can be found. 

Looking in the Central Database of Shoah victims’ Names at the Yad Vashem website for Albert, Antonie, Heini and Willi Steinbach and Rosalie Schopper, it was not possible to identify them. (search facility accessed 15/4/2020)

Amongst others there are:

• Willi Steinbach born 1912 from Dresden, Germany who was transported 20-21 January 1942 to Riga, Latvia, listed as missing.
• Heinrich Lion Steinbach born 1915 from Bucharest, Romania and murdered there. The information is a page of testimony from a survivor.

In the Arolsen Archives, a search for the same names brought up results in the AJDC (American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee) Berlin Card File.  This was compiled after the war from Deportation lists. (Reference: Arolsen Archive: 1.2.1 DE ITS)

There is a Rosalie Schopper, born 21^st August 1880 in Wolz, (Item Code: 11257014)

• Rosalie Schopper,
• Date of Birth: 21.8.80,
• Place of Birth: Wolz
• Last known address: Berlin, Freienwelderstr. 26

There is an Antonie Steinbach born 21^st Jul 1892 in Schönwalde. (Item Code: 11259608)

• Antonie Steinbach,
• Date of Birth: 21.7.92
• Place of Birth: Schönwalde
• Last known address: Berlin
• Reference to card of Julius Steinbach which lists other family members as Antonie, Karl and Frieda

There is an Albert Steinbach born 9^th March 1894 in Basdahl. (Item Code: 11259607)

• Albert Steinbach
• Date of Birth: 9.3.94
• Place of Birth: Basdahl
• Last known address: Berlin C, Tunnelstr. 15

The Arolsen Archives also holds other records and Antonia and Willy Steinbach appear in the Personal Files – Concentration Camp Mauthausen (file no. 1137) Reference: Arolsen Archive: 1.1.26.4 Item Code: 1880397

• Willy Steinbach
• Born 8^th September 1941

The Holocaust Survivors and Victims database on the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum website includes a record set called the Registry of Names of the Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp Prisoners which it is possible to search. (Accessed 15/04/2020)

This database includes the following entries:

• Rosalie Schopper (female)
• Death place Bergen-Belsen

• Artur Heini Steinbach
• Born 11 Sept 1934
• Date of death 1945
• Death Place Bergen-Belsen

• Antonie Steinbach
• Born 7 May 1899
• Date of Death 1945
• Death Place Bergen-Belsen

• Willi Steinbach
• Born 8 Sept 1941
• Death Place Bergen-Belsen
• Date of Liberation 15 April 1945
• Place of Liberation Bergen-Belsen
• Date of Death 18 April 1945

Willi aged 3 ½ years, lived to see the liberation of Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, dying 3 days later, a sad reminder that even though liberation had come, the dying continued.

So, who survived to set up the gravestone?  Looking back at the document from Mauthausen for Antonia Steinbach, the address given was Tummelstr.15 [sic], Berlin Strahlau, (which corresponds with the address for Albert in the AJDC Berlin Card File above), she is a housewife with 5 children. The reason for her being there is given as DR – AZR = Deutsches Reich – Asozialer/Reichsbehörde, (Antisocial person/family sent there by National authority – German) she was sent to Mauthausen by the Kriminal Polizei in Berlin and her religion was “ev.” Evangelische = Protestant.  

Alfred and Gertrud are listed on the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum website in the Registry of Names of the Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp Prisoners but with no dates of death, which may indicate that they survived and of course there is a possible 5^th child whose name is not listed so far.  It is not possible to determine whether Rosalie Schopper of Berlin is connected to this family, without further research in birth, marriage and death records in Germany and due to very strict privacy laws in Germany, it is difficult to access records after 1920.

My Heritage has a collection of Auschwitz Death certificates 1941-1943, on searching this database a record for Albert Steinbach, born 9 March 1894, died in Auschwitz on 5 August 1943 and Heinrich Steinbach born 1940 also from Berlin Strahlau, were located.

Other types of documents

Whilst looking for documents on the family I came across various documents which are not relevant to this family, but which show the sort of records which can be found.

Looking at Wilhelm Steinbach, the Arolsen Archives has a Tracing request for Wilhelm Steinbach born 19 February 1925 from Eindhoven, The Netherlands. The collection of 4 documents includes amongst other things the name and address of the person enquiring. Reference: Arolsen Archive: 6.3.1.1/S Item Code: 6311099146

In the My Heritage records for Auschwitz, Antonie Steinbach born 21^st Jul 1892 in Schönwalde appears as having been murdered in Auschwitz in 1943.

So who arranged for this memorial stone?

In conclusion, it appears that either Alfred or Gertrud Steinbach survived Bergen-Belsen and set up the gravestone to their lost family members.

Albert (father) and one child may have been murdered at Auschwitz in 1943 and the remaining members of the family were at Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria in 1944 and then in Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp where they died or were liberated in 1945.

“Survival is a privilege which entails obligations. I am forever asking myself what I can do for those who have not survived.” – Simon Wiesenthal