Death certificate for Selma Stiefel Zwienicki, who was killed by the Nazis during the Kristallnacht pogrom in Bremen, Germany. The Nazi seal is on the lower left-hand corner.

Photograph | Digitized | Photograph Number: 89496

Overview

Caption: Death certificate for Selma Stiefel Zwienicki, who was killed by the Nazis during the Kristallnacht pogrom in Bremen, Germany. The Nazi seal is on the lower left-hand corner.

Selma Stiefel was born in Hamburg on June 8, 1882. She married Josef Zwienicki who came to Leipzig, Germany in 1913 from his native Ukraine.
Date: 1938 November 10
Locale: Bremen, [Hannover] Germany
Photo Credit: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Jacob G. Wiener

Photo Source: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Copyright: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Provenance: Jacob G. Wiener

Biography: Jacob Wiener (born Gerd Zwienicki) is the son of Selma Stiefel and Josef Zwienicki. He was born in 1917 in Bremen, where his family owned a bicycle shop. Gerd had three siblings: a brother Benno (b. 1918), a sister Liesel (b. 1921), and a brother Alfred (b. 1925). Gerd left home in 1936 to study at the Breuer yeshiva in Frankfurt. A year later he began his studies at the Wuerzburg Jewish teachers seminary. On the night of Kristallnacht the students of the rabbinical seminary, including Gerd, were arrested and placed in protective custody, where they remained for eight days. Meanwhile, Gerd's family was facing tragedy in Bremen. His father was sufficiently aware of the threat posed by the Nazis that he fled from his home during the pogrom. However, he did not anticipate what they might do to his family in his absence. That night when members of the SA came looking for him at his home and failed to find him, they shot and killed his wife and arrested his son, Benno, who was then sent to Sachsenhausen. Following Benno's release, the family departed for Canada, leaving Germany on May 31, 1939.