On 30 December 1938 Cornelius von Berenberg-Gossler describes the funeral service for his business partner, who died in a psychiatric hospital1Staatsarchiv Hamburg, 622-1/9 Familie Berenberg, submitted in 1992, Tagebuch v. Cornelius Berenberg-Gossler 1938. This document has been translated from German.
Diary of Baron Cornelius von Berenberg-Gossler, Hamburg, entry for 30 December 1938
Breakfast in a café. At home before dinner. Guests come for dinner: Overbeck, Miss Willink and her brother Joachim, an Englishman named Gregory, who lives in their home, Miss Scharlach, Johannes Amsinck Jr., Albert Münchmeyer, Ferdinand Schlüter Jr, and Nadia Specht, who is staying the night with us. There is dancing and drinking of punch, much merriment, the guests stay until around 2:30 a.m. Thaw. At midday in the crematorium in Ohlsdorf, funeral service for Percy Hamberg,2Percy Hamberg (1883–1938), banker; from 1921 partner in the L. Behrens & Sons banking house; during the November pogroms he was in a sanatorium in Fürstenberg, from which he was deported against medical advice to the Strelitz penal institution. The diary indicates that Percy Hamberg died in a psychiatric hospital. who died as a result of the Nazis’ brutalities. On the Jewish side, everyone endlessly sad; the rabbi read out the eulogy. Everyone under great pressure, low attendance, Hermann Willink among the few present.