Elly Ringel’s whereabouts were tracked by the Charlottenburg finance office
Elly Ringel citation in the Herbert Birett database
To find out more about the Elly Ringel database listing, we click on the link behind the database title. Revoked German Citizenship and Property Seizures 1933-1945
Beginning in 1933, the German Government revoked German citizenship for tens of thousands of German Jews as well as persons seen as political opponents, e.g. communists. This affected not only persons resident in Germany, but also persons who had left Germany and were resident in other countries. It took similar action against persons resident in parts of Czechoslovakia which had been annexed. Less well known was the revocation of business licenses or even seizure of firms which had been owned by Jews or political opponents. These public actions, totaling nearly 90,000 names of persons and firms, mixed together, were regularly published in the Reichsanzeiger, the German equivalent of the Federal Registry.
In 1985 a compilation of the citizenship revocations was published in book form by K.G. Saur, Die Ausbürgerung deutscher Staatsangehoriger 1933-1945. (The Expatriation of German Citizens, 1933-1945). However, persons resident outside Germany as well as firms whose names/assets had been seized were not included. The nature/location of property/assets which had been seized was not identified.
The complete compilation, i.e. all names of individuals, companies and organizations, was prepared by Herbert Birett, a German researcher. The spreadsheet from his original work can be found [here].
So this researcher Herbert Birett compiled a spreadsheet of 90,000 notices of citizenship revocation and property seizure published in the official newspaper of the German Reich. I followed the link to view Birett's original spreadsheet and searched through it to find the Elly Ringel record. Birett's full data is displayed in the image, and we find additional information here that did not make it into the JewishGen indexed version.
Number 1 is the source and it is identified by a source ID number. Number 3 reads "grounds for pursuit (persecution)" and is designated on all 90,00 records as either U or J. I don't know the meaning of the designations. Elly is listed as U.
Some of the numbered fields are not shown in my snapshot. That's because they were blank in the Birett spreadsheet. Next we see Elly's full name and maiden name, her gender, birthplace and birthdate. At number 9 we see the anomaly about Basel that needs investigation. Number 13 says she is a widow. The labels in 18 and 19 means simply Column D and E. Number 18 has a date of October 10, 1938 and a number, 4222, whose meaning eludes me. Number 19 gives the what seems to be the source of the information in the report. It is the Finanz Amt - Berlin Charlottenburg East. That is the finance office in the section of Berlin where the Ringels resided.
The date is interesting. It is possibly the date of publication, or it could be a last known date of residence. Either way, it may move our understanding of their departure date to weeks later than we have earlier believed. We will very likely learn more on this when we examine the Landesarchiv Ringel file scans. For now, it is a revelation that Elly's whereabouts were closely watched by the government tax office, and that her citizenship was officially revoked after her flight for nonpayment of taxes.
Now one more matter. Why did this record show up for the first time online just in the last few weeks. Read on.
