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Cattle dealer Carl Posner was born in Gelsenkirchen on 27th June, 1890. His wife Ella, née Stessmann, came from Medebach, where she was born on 8th September, 1901. Their daughter Lotte was born in Gelsenkirchen on 26th February, 1930.
Fig.1: Tombstone of Carl Posner's parents at the Jewish cemetery in Gelsenkirchen-Ueckendorf
Carl was one of the sons of Benjamin Posner who hailed from Norden, a town in Northern Germany, where he was born on 1st September, 1864. Benjamin Posner also worked as a cattle dealer and evidently he and his family moved to Gelsenkirchen in 1916. He died in Gelsenkirchen on 2nd March, 1940 and was burried at the Jewish graveyard in Gelsenkirchen-Ueckendorf. Benjamin's wife was a née Mendel hailing from Linnich (district Jülich) where she was born on 1st June, 1860. She died before her husband on 12th September, 1933 and her funeral also took place at the Jewish cemetery in Gelsenkirchen-Ueckendorf.
Fig.2: tombstone of Curt Posner at the Jewish graveyard in Gelsenkirchen-Bulmke, Wanner Straße
Besides Carl and a child that had died early Benjamin and Sophie Posner had another son called Curt who was born on 16th March, 1894. Curt died on 5th December, 1917. The tomb inscription says : „died of the aftermaths of injuries sustained in the war“. Moreover, the couple had a daughter named Carola, her path of life and/or ordeal is presently unknown.
The Posner family lived in a flat in Arminstraße 1 until end of September 1939 when persecution authorities forced them to move into one of the so-called „Judenhäuser“ in Ringstraße 54. People were forcibly accommodated there and had to stay there under degrading living conditions in extremely confined quarters until their displacement.
Fig.3: marginal notes of the registration office Gelsenkirchen on the birth certificate of Carl Posner:
the NS state-mandated forename „Israel“is hereby cancelled.
Carl Posner and his family was displaced from Gelsenkirchen to the ghetto of Riga on 27th January, 1942. According to reports given by survivors Carl Posner was presumably murdered in February/March 1942 during one of the „Aktionen“ (purging selections).During these selections in only these two month nearly 3,000 prisoners, predominantly children under 14 years of age together with their mothers and prisoners over 45 years were declared as „unfit for work“ (which was the ultimate death sentence) in the cc Jungfernhof as well as in the ghetto of Riga.
Under the pretense of taking these people to Dünamünde to a fish factory where working conditions would be easier for them, these poor souls selected by SS for execution were transported to the already excavated mass graves in the forest of Bikernieki (Riga high forest)in order to shoot them there. Ella and Lotte Posner were transported from Riga to the concentration camp Stutthof and were murdered there in December 1944. As per decree of the district court of Gelsenkirchen (Amtsgericht) family Posner was pronounced death on 17th January, 1953, official determination date of death: 31st December, 1945.
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CARL POSNER
