Barasch Brothers Department Store (Wroclaw)

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Feniks Department Store (2012)
Original facade design (1905)
Floor plan (1905)

The Barasch Brothers (now Feniks ) department store in Breslau , Großer Ring 31–32, was built from 1902 to 1904 according to plans by Georg Schneider on behalf of the Barasch family, a Jewish merchant , and opened on October 4, 1904. The building was reopened in 1965 as "Spółdzielczy Dom Handlowy Feniks" and is a listed building .

description

architecture

The department store was “one of the most modern and largest” department stores in Wroclaw and with its “exposed” location on the Ring and its “lavish” interior design also “one of the most famous” commercial buildings in the city center.

The interior design with brown glass and ceramic elements was based on plans by Julius Koblinsky . In the southern part of the interior, at the beginning of the construction, there was a hall surrounded by stairs, and a winter garden near the east entrance of the building .

In 1929, the four-storey building, covering around 1600 m², with a total front length of around 120 meters was changed: the Art Nouveau facade facing the market square was simplified; in particular the windows above the main entrance have been redesigned. A large glass globe that had been on the roof at the corner of Ulica Szewska / Kurzy Targ and was damaged by a lightning strike was removed in the course of this redesign.

history

The brothers Artur and Georg Barasch, together with Hermann Broder, Sylfriede Tietz, Gertrud Tietz, Karl Lange and Kurt Steinberg (er), were joint owners of the office building and the property at Ring 31/32; Rear market 1; Shoe bridge 75/76. According to the Reich Citizenship Law passed in 1935, all owners were considered Jews.

As part of the Aryanization , the Jewish owners sold their shares in the department store and warehouse for a total of 517,028.47 Reichsmarks on October 19, 1936 to the merchants and former employees of the Karstadt group Heinrich Münstermann from Göttingen and Gustav Haedecke from Stettin . According to the balance sheet of October 30, 1936, the estimated value was over 1,200,000 Reichsmarks. Münstermann and Haedecke each took over half of the shares. After the transfer of ownership on November 2, 1936, the department store was called "Münstermann & Haedecke, Das Kaufhaus am Ring Breslau GmbH".

Little by little, Münstermann and Haedecke also acquired 90% of the business property, which was valued at 1,500,000 Reichsmarks and had belonged to the Jewish owners as a community. The former owners were able to leave the country with the exception of Artur Barasch and Kurt Steinberg (er). When the shareholders emigrated, they were expatriated, with their assets and claims on the buyers going to the Reich. After the Jewish assets had been transferred to the Reich, the buyers wanted to set off the remaining purchase debt for the property with allegedly overpaid amounts. The regional finance office agreed to this request in April 1943, so that Münstermann and Haedecke only had to pay a total of 112,547.12 Reichsmarks. As a result, Münstermann and Haedecke acquired the department store in 1936 for less than half of the estimated value.

" Through the transfer of assets to the Reich through the emigration and deportation of the former Jewish owners, both the Reich benefited from the remaining purchase debt still to be paid by the buyer and the merchants Münstermann and Haedecke, who succeeded in obtaining another price reduction ."

- Ramona Bräu

In the final phase of the Second World War, the department store was badly damaged; Repairs began in 1945 and on August 7, 1946, the ground floor of the house was restored to its original purpose. In 1961 the entire building was renovated and modernized. In 1965 it reopened as "Spółdzielczy Dom Handlowy Feniks"; The business is still operated under this name. The operators were able to acquire it from public ownership in 1995. Another renovation is taking place.

literature

  • Krystyna Kirschke, Paweł Kirschke: Sto lat domu handlowego "Feniks". (Barasch brothers department store) . “Społem” Powszechna Spółdzielnia Spożywców Feniks, Wrocław 2004, ISBN 8-39213860-0 .
  • Willy Cohn: No right, nowhere. Diary of the fall of Wroclaw Jewry 1933–1941. Böhlau, Vienna et al. 2007², ISBN 978-3-412-32905-1 , p. 566 (note 1).

Web links

Commons : Warenhaus Gebrüder Barasch  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Społem PSS Feniks

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The floor plan of the building published in 1905 (cf. illustrations) is signed with “Georg Schneider, Architect”. Occasionally - without a clear indication of the source - a Georg Ernst Schütte is also named as the author : Review (PDF; 43 kB) of Krystyna Kirschke's work Fasady wrocławskich obiektów komercyjnych z lat 1890–1930. Struktura - kolorystyka - Dekoracja (Facades of Wrocław commercial buildings from 1890–1930. Structure - coloring - decoration), Oficyna Wydawnicza Politechniki Wrocławskiej, Wrocław 2005.
  2. ^ Barasch Brothers department store . In: Der Profanbau , 1st year 1905, pp. 129–135.
  3. ↑ List of monuments of the Lower Silesian Voivodeship ( Memento of November 7, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 2.1 MB).
  4. ↑ a b c d Ramona Bräu: "Aryanization" in Breslau. The “de-Jewification” of a German city and its discovery in the Polish memory discourse . VDM Verlag Dr. Müller, Saarbrücken 2008, ISBN 978-3-8364-5958-7 , p. 41. ( online )
  5. ↑ http://enjoywroclaw.wordpress.com/2010/11/16/the-prewar-department-stores/
  6. ^ Klaus Klöppel: Breslau. Lower Silesia and its millennial capital. Trescher 2010³, ISBN 978-3-89794-158-8 , p. 47. (According to Klöppel, the glass globe mentioned in the text has only been missing since the end of the Second World War.)
  7. ↑ Ramona Bräu: "Aryanization" in Breslau. The “de-Jewification” of a German city and its discovery in the Polish memory discourse . VDM Verlag Dr. Müller, Saarbrücken 2008, ISBN 978-3-8364-5958-7 , cf. P. 41. ( online )
  8. ↑ Ramona Bräu: "Aryanization" in Breslau. The “de-Jewification” of a German city and its discovery in the Polish memory discourse . VDM Verlag Dr. Müller, Saarbrücken 2008, ISBN 978-3-8364-5958-7 , cf. P. 42. ( online )
  9. ↑ Ramona Bräu: "Aryanization" in Breslau. The "de-Jewification" of a German city and its discovery in the Polish memory discourse. Master's thesis, Friedrich Schiller University Jena 1981, pp. 40–42. ( online as a PDF document with 1.3 MB)
  10. ↑ a b c Ramona Bräu: "Aryanization" in Breslau. The “de-Jewification” of a German city and its discovery in the Polish memory discourse . VDM Verlag Dr. Müller, Saarbrücken 2008, ISBN 978-3-8364-5958-7 , p. 43. ( online )
  11. ↑ History of the house on openbuildings.com

Coordinates: 51 ° 6 ′ 34 ″  N , 17 ° 2 ′ 0.1 ″  E