Bruno Pohle

Location 
Bismarckstraße 108
District
Charlottenburg
Stone was laid
21 April 2016
Born
16 September 1895 in Schwerin an der Warthe / Skwierzyna
Deportation
on 26 October 1942 to Riga
Murdered
29 October 1942 in Riga
Bruno Pohle was born on 16 September 1895 in Schwerin / Warthe into a Jewish family. His parents Adolf and Lina moved to Berlin 1900/1901. The family's first address was a newly built apartment house on Pariser Straße. After moving several times during the following years, the family settled down in Flensburger Straße in 1914.

Like his father, Bruno became a merchant. Towards the end of his professional life, the father was registered manager of Ostelbische Spritwerke; he died in 1928. Bruno founded a car dealership in 1932 at Bismarckstraße 108; among others he sold BMWs. BMW had begun producing automobiles just a few years before, in 1929, initially under license from Austin Seven. Shortly afterwards Bruno moved into an apartment above the business premises; he also put up his mother. Years later, Lina moved to a retirement home; possibly that is where Bruno met his future wife Meta.

Bruno's car dealership was expropriated in 1939. As he continued to reside in the apartment at Bismarckstraße 108, he had to witness how his business was now operated by others. In the following years Bruno worked as a cook at the Jewish Religious Association in Berlin. According to his own records, he was paid no salary for this work, but he was provided with food and received laundry services and travel expenses. On the deportation list - as with most other deportees – it was noted that he was without a profession.

Bruno and Meta married in 1942. They remained without any children. On October 8, 1942 Bruno and Meta were forced to move to the Philippistraße 8. In their confiscated apartment they left behind distinguished furnishings and equipment, indicating a rather affluent setting. High Court Attorney Hauke listed the usable inventory on April 12, 1943, including a wing chair and a fireplace clock, an oil painting in a gold frame, handmade pillows, hat boxes and "several suitcases of different sizes". He estimated the value at 3.480 Reichsmarks; for his estimate he deducted 73,10 RM.

On October 20, 1942, an "Aktion" against the Jewish community workers was carried out by the Gestapo at the Jewish Religious Association in Berlin; the aim was to reduce the number of the 1,580 employees of the Jewish Community of Berlin by a third at one go. The 533 employees and 328 relatives identified in this “Aktion” were designated for deportation on the 22nd “Osttransport”. On October 26, 1942 Bruno and Meta were deported to Riga on a freight train together with 798 other deportees. Those who survived the three-day journey despite the cold and hunger were shot dead on the day of their arrival in a forest near Riga and buried in mass graves.
Mother Lina Pohle, who was at the hospital on Artilleriestraße at that time, wrote in a letter on December 2, 1942 that her daughter-in-law had kept some of her clothes which she now needed; however, the latter was “prevented” from bringing these items “because of sudden emigration". She asked for her clothes to be released. This is the last known trace of this branch of the Pohle family. Lina apparently escaped deportation only because of her frailty; more than 15,000 Jews from Berlin were deported to Theresienstadt on 123 so-called "age transports".