People

Feitel, called Jacob, Kupferstein was born in Dabrowa (Dombrowa) in Galicia in 1846. At the time, the town belonged to Austria-Hungary. It had a large and diverse Jewish community which had been established the 17th century. However, the difficult social conditions caused many of the poorer Jews from Galicia to seek their fortune abroad.

Jacob Kupferstein and his wife Rosa (Rosalie), née Lichtig, had been living in Germany since the 1870s. Their first place of residence was Hanover, where their children Antonie and Adolf were born. They then moved to Uelzen (south of Lüneburg), where Jacob worked as a "produce dealer and servants" agent". Shortly after the turn of the century, Jacob Kupferstein handed over the Uelzen business to his daughter Antonie and his son-in-law Max Lerner and moved to Bremen, then very soon on to Lüneburg with his wife.

Jacob Kupferstein was first mentioned as a member of the Lüneburg Jewish community in 1901. As far as is known, the Kupfersteins were the very first Jews from Eastern Europe to settle in Lüneburg. Many other families followed them in the years to come. Like the Kupfersteins, a striking number came from the small Galician town of Dąbrowa (Dombrowa): for example Hirsch Lengel, Adolf Abraham Klein, Jakob Jassy and Hirsch Sturm with their families.

Jacob and Rosa Kupferstein initially lived briefly in various places in the western part of the old town. Around 19109, they moved to Lünertorstraße 4 (corner of Am Werder) and settled down there. For many years, Jacob Kupferstein ran what soon became a well-known shop for produce, old goods, coal and colonial goods. The house was still known in Lüneburg as the "Kupferstein House" long after the Second World War.  From 1905, Jacob worked together with his son Adolf Kupferstein.

Jacob Kupferstein"s wife Rosa died in 1913 and was buried in the Jewish cemetery in Lüneburg. Jacob remarried shortly afterwards; his second wife was Hulda Nelke, who had previously lived in Delligsen in the Holzminden district (she may also have been widowed). In the 1920s, the Lüneburg address books mention that she traded in "antique and luxury goods" at Lünertorstraße 4.

Jacob Kupferstein presumably also continued to run his business there. He died in Bremen in 1930, one year after his second wife Hulda, née Nelke. Both were buried in Lüneburg"s Jewish cemetery.

Sources and info:

Erich Woehlkens, Lisa Kuhlmann, Beate L. Weiland: Beiträge zur Geschichte der Juden in Uelzen und Nordostniedersachsen. Hrsg. für die Stadt Uelzen von Ralf Busch, Oldenburg 1996, p. 610

Dietrich Banse (Hrsg.): Gedemütigt - vertrieben - ermordet. Uelzener Bürgerinnen und Bürger jüdischen Glaubens zwischen 1933 und 1942, pp. 100-105

Jewish Community of Dabrowa Tarnowska, Poland / Dombrowa, Galicia (Website mentions Kupferstein family name)

“Dombrowa Tarnowska” - Encyclopedia of Jewish Communities in Poland, Volume III

Name variants: Feitel Jakob