Blauwstraat 13

Felix Wertheimer (57) lived in Blauwstraat for at least a year.
He was born in Hardheim on April 9, 1886. His father was widely praised as a teacher there in the Jewish community. Felix also worked as a teacher, obtained his PhD and taught language. At the end of the First World War he was awarded the Iron Cross.
At the end of December 1937 he fled Nazi Germany and settled in The Hague. Because foreign refugees had to leave the coastal region from September 1940, he moved on April 1, 1941 to Blauwstraat 13 in Gouda.
Felix's Jewish Council card states that as of May 1, 1942, he worked as a religion teacher and youth leader and was barred from his position. It is also reported that he was "doctor of phil., An intellectual person, teacher, good public speaker" and that his health was "good."
Felix lived in the Blauwstraat with potato farmer Gerrit van Veen. On an old postcard you can see the potato trade on the right. As a child in the 1950s, Cees de Wit lived across the street on the Turfmarkt. He remembers Blauwstraat as a street full of tradesmen: from a cheese merchant, milk merchant and electrician to a funeral director. As a five-year-old boy, he fell into the water of the Turfmarkt and was fished out of the water just in time by potato farmer Van Veen.
It is not clear exactly how long Felix lived in Blauwstraat during the war. The house card of the address states 21 July 1943 as the depreciation date for him, but by that time almost all Jews had already been expelled from Gouda. His Jewish Council map does not show Blauwstraat as his residential address, but (crossed out) the Oosthaven 31 and Amsterdam, Nw. Prinsengr. 114. At 114 Nieuwe Prinsengracht, his half-brother, window cleaner Isaak (Issi 45), who was twelve years younger, lived with his wife Ruth (30) and their children Heinz (8) and Marion (10).
On May 27, 1943, Felix was probably detained from the Amsterdam address in Westerbork. Immediately upon arrival in Sobibor, he was murdered on 2 July 1943. His brother Issi, sister-in-law Ruth and their young children Heinz and Marion were murdered in Auschwitz. Four Stolpersteine in Hamburg remind of them.
An old martial photo shows the five Wertheimer brothers who fought in WWI. Top right Felix, bottom center Issi and bottom right his youngest brother Willi. Only the last survived. Willi emigrated to the US in 1938 with his wife and daughter. Later he wrote about, among other things, the lost Jewish life in Hardheim. He died in New York in 1982.
A Stolperstein in front of Blauwstraat 13 now reminds us of Felix Wertheimer.

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