By Hans Wilhelm Saure
Heinz “Heini” Holl won over his guests with cabbage roulade and cordiality. Details of his horrible experiences during the Nazi era can now be found in files.
His cabbage rolls were legendary and made celebrity innkeeper Heinz Holl († 77) known far beyond the city limits of Berlin. Among the guests of his restaurant in Charlottenburg’s Damaschkestraße were celebrities such as US actor Sylvester Stallone (76), Robert de Niro (79), Federal President Richard von Weizsäcker († 94) and Prince Albert of Monaco (65).
Heinz, called “Heini”, Holl was only 1.68 meters tall, but a giant when it came to good humor and warmth. But the happy celebrity host also had a sad side.
Few of the guests knew that Heinz Holl had to live in hiding during the Nazi era and was imprisoned in a concentration camp. His brother Herbert, who was three years his senior, was murdered in Auschwitz.
BZ was now able to view files from the Berlin Compensation Authority and the Arolsen Archives, which document Holl’s persecution during the Nazi dictatorship. On August 11, 1944, he was deported to the Theresienstadt concentration camp with the so-called 109th elderly transport.
The transport list of the so-called 109th transport of the elderly on August 11, 1944 to the Theresienstadt concentration camp. The name of Heinz Holl, to which the Nazis added the suffix Israel, is eleventh on the list Photo: Arolsen Archives
“Other times,” said Heinz Holl when someone asked him “before”. He found it difficult to talk about Nazi horror
“Heini” Holl not only entertained stars and starlets, but also acted in over 40 films in supporting roles or as a dancer.
First he lived in Prenzlauer Berg again, then moved to West Berlin. The document is part of Holl’s file in the Berlin Compensation Authority Photo: Compensation Authority Berlin
In 1958 he opened his famous restaurant near Kudamm and managed it until his death in 1994.
In October 1945, Heinz Holl received a “Victim of Fascism” ID card from the Berlin magistrate. Photo: Compensation Authority Berlin
Heini Holl grew up in Prenzlauer Berg. “After I left school, I was employed as a messenger and apprentice at the Telefunken company. In 1933 I was dismissed from this company because I am a half-breed of the Jewish faith. From then on I had to do forced labor,” he wrote to the compensation authorities in 1951. From September 1941 he had to wear a yellow star on his clothes, and to his great pain even old friends no longer spoke to him.
Richard von Weizsäcker († 94) was one of the regular guests at Heinz Holl (left) Photo: Ullstein picture
On February 27, 1943, Heinz Holl was arrested while doing forced labor in Treptow. At the request of his non-Jewish father, who was also a member of the NSDAP, he was released again. The later celebrity landlord went into hiding, lived illegally and without food stamps with a friend and in various hiding places in Prenzlauer Berg. “On July 19, 1944, I was arrested on the street by the Gestapo and taken to the assembly camp in Berlin Schulstrasse,” Holl said after the war.
A letter from the Berlin Gestapo about the confiscation of the assets of the Jews who were deported from the Anhalter Bahnhof to the Theresienstadt concentration camp with the 109th transport of the elderly, including Heinz Holl Photo: Arolsen Archives
He was deported to the Theresienstadt concentration camp, had to live under inhumane conditions in the Wulkow subcamp (Brandenburg) and had to do hard labor – with hours of roll call in the freezing cold and beatings by SS henchmen. In early 1945 he survived a 14-day deportation in a cattle car, during which many of his fellow prisoners died of exhaustion, hunger, thirst and the catastrophic hygienic conditions.
The cheerful demeanor of the restaurateur – it served to suppress his horrible experiences that kept him from sleeping at night. And he also tried to suppress the question of what had become of the many Nazi henchmen. The celebrity host, who liked to greet his guests personally, explained according to the file: “You don’t know who you’re shaking hands with.”