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Hermine Leib
© Privatbesitz

Hermine Leib (née Kahn) * 1887

Claudiusstieg 6 (Wandsbek, Marienthal)

HIER WOHNTE
HERMINE LEIB
GEB. KAHN
JG. 1887
DEPORTIERT 1941
LODZ
???

further stumbling stones in Claudiusstieg 6:
Hedwig Pohl, Julius Pohl

Hermine Leib, née Kahn, born 28 Apr. 1887, deported 25 Oct. 1941 to Lodz

Claudiusstieg 6 (Klopstockstraße 6)

Hermine Leib was one of the few persons who was deported from an address in Wandsbek. She was not a native of Wandsbek, and had only lived there for a short time. She was among the small group of unmarried or widowed women who had moved to Hamburg from small towns in the mid-1930s. Some of them may have had (distant) relatives here, but most of them saw the city as a chance to escape anti-Semitic persecution and to improve their situation, be it with better job opportunities or the support of the Jewish Community.

Hermine Leib was born on 28 April 1887 in Grevenmacher in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg to Isaak Kahn, a well-to-do Jewish cattle dealer and property owner, and his wife Julie, née Loeb. Her maternal grandmother owned a grocery store. The family was originally from Germany.

Hermine Kahn attended secondary school, left Luxembourg and trained as a milliner. She worked for many years at the Fleischhacker hat shop in Bremen, which made and sold hats. She worked as a milliner and sales clerk.

She worked until she married in 1912. Her husband, Gottfried Leib, owned a dressmakers in (Wuppertal-)Barmen at Dickmannstraße 25. The couple had three children between 1912 and 1919: Irene in 1912, Helmut in 1914, and Günther in 1919. Gottfried Leib served in the First World War. Hermine tried to run the store on her own while he was away, but was not successful. When she was widowed in 1921 – Gottfried died as a result of a wound he had received in the war – she returned to the Fleischhacker hat shop, first as a sales clerk, and later as a cashier. In the meantime she had improved her office skills. Since she had a secondary education and was fluent in French, she changed jobs and began working as a foreign-language secretary for the Leonhard Tietz company. She remained there for many years, until she had to have a major operation in 1932. By the time she had recovered, the Nazi regime had come to power. Because of her Jewish heritage, she could not find an adequate job. She began selling butter, eggs, and other foodstuffs, primarily to Jewish customers, until she could no longer make a profit and had to give it up.

Her three children emigrated to Palestine in 1935 and 1936. Hermine intended to follow once they had become settled there. When it became clear that a return to Luxembourg was unfeasible, she turned to relatives in Hamburg, who agreed to take her in. She had to sell everything in her nicely-furnished 4-room apartment at Dickmannstraße 25 at dumping prices. She was able to store some of her valuable items with the synagogue, and hoped to be able to retrieve them later. The items were unfortunately lost in the November Pogrom in 1938.

She moved in, with only a few personal belongings, with her relative Jakob Loeb at Dillstraße 1 in the Grindel Quarter. She joined the German-Israelitic Community, and became a member of the conservative New Dammtor Synagogue congregation on 18 February 1936. Her income was so small that she was generally not required to pay religious community taxes. From mid-May 1941 onwards, she was earning only 40 Reichsmarks by working at a home for the elderly.

While she was in Hamburg, she exchanged letters regularly through the Red Cross with her daughter Irene. The brief notes indicate that she had to move constantly, and that she changed jobs often. In June 1936 she was working as a housekeeper at Rabenstraße 15. After that she worked for Dr. Bukschnewski at Grönigerstraße 6 II. From 1 July 1939 until September 1941 she worked at the Jewish Nursing Home at Schäferkampsallee 29, where she also lived until May 1941. On 17 May 1941 she boarded with the Herz family at Hochallee 123, from where she could walk to work. This was necessary, as Jews were no longer allowed to use public transportation.

On 3 September 1941 she moved to Wandsbek. It is not known why she moved to the building at Klopstockstraße 6. It is possible that she had a connection to the Wandsbek Jewish Community through her relative Leopold Leib, who had already emigrated. It is more likely, however, that the Jewish Welfare Agency had placed her there, in order to help the Pohl family. The unmarried daughter Hedwig had to care for the household and her elderly parents, Prof. Dr. Julius Pohl, who was lame, and his wife Hedwig, who was bed-ridden (see biography: Hedwig Pohl, Julius Pohl). The Pohls were Catholic, but the Nuremberg Laws classified them as Jewish, and they were required to join the Jewish Religious Association and pay religious community taxes. The daughter Hedwig was in desperate need of help, which was provided by Hermine Leib.

But she couldn’t remain there for long. After about seven weeks she received her deportation orders. On 25 October 1941, she and about 1000 others boarded a train for the Lodz Ghetto, where they arrived the next day. She was registered there on 27 October. She was 54 years old. More transports arrived, and the ghetto was soon overfull, with about 150,000 residents. Beginning in January 1942, the residents of the ghetto were successively sent to the Chelmno and Auschwitz Extermination Camps. Where and when Hermine Leib died is uncertain. Her date of death was later declared as 8 May 1945.

I was able to find Hermine Leib’s youngest son in Israel through the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial. His daughter provided the photo that accompanies this biography.


Translator: Amy Lee
Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

Stand: March 2017
© Astrid Louven

Quellen: 1; 2 sig. 32/1 und R 1942/13; StaHH 522-1 Jüdische Gemeinden 992 l; AfW 240887; 4; 8; www.jewishgen.org Lodz Ghetto List, Lodz Ghetto Deportations and Statistics; Astrid Louven, Juden, S. 134; 176; Korrespondenz mit Schlomo und Ronit Leib, Juli/August 2007.
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