David Jelski

David Jelski was born on January 5, 1872 as the fourth of six children of Isaak Jelski (1845-1930) and Ida Jelski, née Kremer (Krämer) in Neustadt, now Wejherowo, Poland.                                                                                                                     Isaak Jelski was a cantor and shochet (kosher butcher) in Danzig, at the Breitgasse Synagogue, a congregation of German Jews, until its dissolution in 1883. He then served at the orthodox synagogue in Mattenboden until his retirement.                No information is available about David Jelski’s mother Ida.                                                                                               David’s older siblings were Dr. Julius Jelski (1867-1953), a rabbi at the Jewish Reform Congregation in Berlin; Julius’s twin sister, the singing teacher Martha Jelski (1867- 1943); and the Sanitätsrat and pediatrician Dr. Bernhard Jelski (1870-1943). Martha and Bernhard lived primarily in Danzig.                                                                                                                     When David was five years old, his sister Franziska (1877-1932) was born. Fourteen years later, David Jelski was 18 years old, the ‘surprise baby,’ Erich Gotthold (1891-1895) arrived, but died at age three. David’s sister Franziska’s first marriage was to the rabbi Dr. Israel Jelski-Goldin, who worked in Lodz.                                                                                                   No information is available about David Jelski's school years and higher education. According to a ‘Supplementary Card’ in the census of May 17 1938, he did not receive a university or technical college degree.                                                          His brothers Julius and Bernhard received their high school diplomas at the Städtisches Gymnasium in Danzig.                 The first professional information on David Jelski can be found in the Berlin address book of 1907 and his 1908 marriage certificate, where his occupation is listed as cashier. Through the address books, his professional advancement can be traced until his retirement from the Jewish community in 1932.                                                                                                   In addition to Danzig, Berlin became the center for the life of the large Jelski family. David Jelski moved to Berlin, Melanchthonstraße 1, at the end of 1906 or beginning of 1907. This address was also listed at the time of his marriage to his wife Klara in early January 1908. After an interruption between 1916 and 1919, this address was again listed from 1920 to 1940, when Klara died. Their apartment was on the third floor.                                                                                              From 1916 to 1922, David was registered as the administrator and office manager of the Jewish Community Center at Oranienburger Strasse 28/29. He must have retired in 1934, since he was listed in address books after that as either a ‘retired’ or ‘off duty’ office manager. He was often registered at his residence by the name, David Fritz or Fritz Jelski.

David Jelski was not the only one to choose Berlin as the centre of his life after Gdansk. From 1889 onwards, Berlin became the central place of life for the large Jelski family.

The 22-year-old eldest brother Julius was enrolled to study philosophy at the Friedrich- Wilhelms-Universität, today’s Humboldt Universität, from 1889 to 1900, and with him his 20-year-old brother Bernhard Jelski to study medicine.

David Jelski's sisters Martha and Franziska also spent long periods of time in Berlin for educational purposes.

Both were students at the Stern’sches Konservatorium.

His brother Bernhard's future wife, the Berlin-born violinist Margarethe Baginsky (1874-1942), was also enrolled there from 1889 to 1892.

In at least one academic year, 1889-90, at the same time as Julius and Bernhard, the 22-year-old Martha Jelski and the then 15-year-old Margarethe Baginsky were at the conservatoire at the same time.

Later, documented for 1924-/25, Bernhard and Margarethe Jelski’s daughter, David’s niece Irene Jelski, studied singing at Stern’sches Konservatorium.

She was David Jelski's niece.

Since July 1897, David’s oldest brother, Dr. Julius Jelski, had already been working in Berlin as a preacher/rabbi at the Jewish Reform Congregation at Johannisstraße 16 after studying here at the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität and the Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums, among other places.

Between 1904 and 1913, David’s parents Isaak and Ida Jelski also lived near Berlin, at Doberaner Straße 4 in Schmargendorf, in the Teltow district. In 1904, a retired cantor ‘Isaac Jelski’ is listed in the registry of Jewish community members in Berlin.

On January 9 1908, David Jelski and the divorced dressmaker Klara Liesbeth Charlotte Tautenhahn (1873-1940) were married in Berlin. David Jelski was 36 years old; Klara Tautenhahn was 35. Klara, from a Berlin Protestant family, converted to the Jewish faith before the marriage.

David Jelski worked for the Jewish Community of Berlin for at least 25 years.

First documented from 1907 as a cashier in the Bureau for Renting Synagogue Places, then, in 1913 as an administrative officer and head of the main office, and from 1914 to 1932 as head of the tax office.

On December 21, 1930, David’s niece Irene, now an opera singer, reported David’s father Isaak’s death in Danzig-Langfuhr at the age of almost 86. Isaak had been preceded in death by his wife Ida.

Then, ten years after the death of his parents, David Jelski suffered the loss of his wife Klara, who died of natural causes on February 16, 1940, at the age of 67, in Rudolf-Virchow Hospital. David Jelski announced the funeral on 18 February, the burial took place three days later, on 21 February at the Jewish Cemetery Berlin Weißensee.

Two and a half years later, on 3 September 1942, the Gestapo forced David Jelski, along with so many of his elderly fellow sufferers, to sign the ‘Home Purchase Contract H’ with the Jewish Reich Association, to which his last remaining bank assets were transferred. The signature of the representatives of the Reich Association was dated September 16, with the transfer confirmed on September 24.

By this point, David Jelski was no longer in Berlin. On September 7 1942, he had been forced to leave his last Berlin address – listed as Klopstockstraße 45 ptr./b. Alexander – and report to the collection camp at Große Hamburger Str. 26. From there he was transported on the 58th Elder Transport to Theresienstadt. Eight months later, on May 9, 1943, the cremation of 71-year-old David Jelski in the Theresienstadt Crematorium was recorded.

Already on January 26, 1943, a little over a month after her arrival in Theresienstadt on Transport XXIII/2 from Danzig, the death and cremation of 75-year-old Martha Jelski, his sister, was recorded. Her brother David Jelski was listed on her death certificate as the next of kin. David's address in Theresienstadt was recorded as Q 704, Martha's as Q 311, room 4.

The fate of David’s older brother, Danzig pediatrician Dr Bernhard Jelski, and his wife, violinist and violin teacher Margarethe Jelski-Baginsky, was recorded later by their surviving son-in-law, Dr. Yosef Rakover, in the memorial list at the Yad Vashem Memorial. Both had been murdered in the Treblinka extermination camp in 1942.

Bernhard and Margarethe’s daughter, the opera singer Irene (b. 1903), Irene’s husband, the lawyer Dr. Max Sandelowski (b. 1893) and their young son Michael (b. 1936) had been expatriated from Germany in 1940 and would later be classified as ‘missing’ in Lithuania. 

Bernhard and Margarete’s daughter Sigrid (1909-1942) died while in hiding with her 4-year-old son. Sigrid’s husband, Dr. Yosef Rakover, was able to survive, and joined the partisan group around Dr. Yehezkel Atlas as a doctor. 

David’s eldest brother, Julius Jelski and his wife Marta, née Klemperer (1874-1954), survived by fleeing to their daughter Lilli (1909-2007) in Uruguay. Julius and Marta’s sons Walter (1903-1958) and Wilhelm (1912-1994) were also able to flee and survive.

Their descendants carry on the memory of the Jelski family from Gdansk.

Ó Dorothea Thünken-Klemperer