The Sichel Family
Samuel Sichel was the oldest Jewish citizen of Hammelburg in the Nazi time. At the age of 87 he was expelled from Hammelburg where he lived since 1876. Samuel Sichel died on January 18, 1939 in Würzburg. Two daughters of Samuel, a granddaughter and two great-grandsons were murdered in the Holocaust.
Samuel Sichel was born in Veitshöchheim nearby Würzburg on June 6, 1851. His father was Daniel Sichel. He was a weaver. His mother was "Blümchen" Babette Sichel, nee Nussbaum. She was born in 1819 in Hammelburg. Samuels mother was the youngest daughter of Manes and Marianne Nussbaum.
When Samuel was 25 years old, he moved to Hammelburg. There he bought a house in the Kissingerstraße 13 (old Number 238). Samuel Sichel was a master baker. On June 8, 1876 he started a baking business in Hammelburg. In his store he sold all kind of flours and cereals. In 1889 he built a big store-house for cereals in Hammelburg.
In 1876 Samuel married Sophie Hommel. She was born in Gersfeld. Samuel and Sophie had four daughters: Rosa, Meta, Fanny and Blanka. Three daughters settled down with their husbands in Hammelburg: Rosa Stern (Marktplatz 8), Fanny Baumann and Blanka Samuel (Kissinger Straße 8). At the age of 31 Samuel Sichel became chairmann of the Jewish community of Hammelburg. From 1882 to 1897 he held this important office.
 |
Kissinger Straße 8 in Hammelburg
The house of Blanka Samuel and Fanny Baumann till 1939 |
In 1916 the husband of Fanny - Berthold Baumann - died in the First World War. Fanny remained behind as widow woman with her little daughter Franziska, born in 1913. In 1918 Samuel´s wife, Sophie, the grandmother of Franziska passed away. In 1920 the husband of Blanka, Willi Samuel from Bad Königshofen, continued the business and store-house of his wife´s father in Hammelburg.
When the Nazi dictatorship broke out, the old and blind Samuel and the families of his daughters were persecuted. In 1936 Blanka and Willi Samuel sold the business and store-house in Hammelburg and escaped with their two sons Kurt (Arnold) and Gerhard to Brooklyn, New York. Since September 1935 Kurt visited a Jewish school in Burgpreppach because in Hammelburg Jewish pupils were degraded and humiliated by Nazi teachers and boys of the HJ.
 |
Reference: Stadtarchiv Hammelburg, Karl Stöckner, Fundmaterialien |
 |
Arnold Samuels (on the left), Holocaust survivor and grandson of Samuel Sichel, in 2013. He visits Hammelburg since many years. Arnold Samuels lives in Ocean Shores, WA in the U. S. Photo: Mainpost, Roland Pleier 
The grave of Samuel Sichel in Würzburg in the New Jewish Cemetery |
