Lina Fendler née Koppelmann

Lina Koppelmann was born on 18 March 1897 in the small Russian border town Kibartai (today Kybartai, Lithuania). The region, which was 84 percent Jewish-inhabited in 1870, became an important rail traffic hub when the line connecting Moscow and Königsberg in East Prussia was built. In 1897 Kibartai still had 533 Jewish residents, who made up 45 percent of the population. The town was an important centre of East Jewish culture. Lina Koppelmann moved to Berlin, probably before the outbreak of World War One, and married a house owner, M. Fendler, who was stateless like her. Their sons Alfred and Harry were born in 1924 and 1926 respectively. In 1927 the family moved to an apartment at Bahn Strasse 42/42a (today Crelle Strasse 42) in Schöneberg. Lina Fendler’s husband co-owned the apartment building together with Markus Gester, a merchant who had emigrated from Galicia. In 1937/38 Lina Fendler’s husband died. From 1939 until the building was “Aryanised” in 1942, Lina Fendler was entered in the Land Register as its second owner.

On 26 October 1942, Lina Fendler was deported on the 22nd “transport to the East” from Moabit goods station (today Putlitzbrücke) to the Riga ghetto. Of the 800 people on the transport, 204 were employees of the Jewish Community. All of them were shot dead shortly after their arrival on 29 October in the woods outside Riga. The Fendlers’ sons Alfred and Harry were deported to Auschwitz on 19 February 1943, after which there is no more trace of them.

At the request of a relative, death certificates were issued for Alfred and Harry and their mother in 1950/51.