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Sophie Hirsch (née Lehmann) * 1859

Königsreihe 32 (Wandsbek, Wandsbek)

HIER WOHNTE
SOPHIE HIRSCH
GEB. LEHMANN
JG. 1859
DEPORTIERT 1943
THERESIENSTADT
TOT 19.12.1943

further stumbling stones in Königsreihe 32:
Hanna Meyberg, Erna Fratje Michelsohn, Oskar Ludwig Michelsohn, Hanna Stiefel

Sophie Hirsch, née Lehmann, born 28 Dec. 1859, deported 24 Feb. 1943 to Theresienstadt, died there 19 Dec. 1943
Erna Fratje Michelsohn, née Hirsch, born 9 June 1882, 1942–1943 imprisoned at Fuhlsbüttel concentration camp, deported 12 Feb. 1943 to Auschwitz
Oskar Ludwig Michelsohn, born 13 July 1904, 1942–1943 imprisoned at Fuhlsbüttel concentration camp, deported 12 Feb. 1943 to Auschwitz

Königsreihe 32 (Langereihe 58)

When Sophie Lehmann was born in Ahrensburg in 1859, her parents had not yet overcome a difficult phase of their lives they were in. Petitions to the authorities and insubordination had thus far only led to partial success, yet ultimately advanced the legal equality of the entire Jewish population in the Duchy Holstein. What had happened?

Roughly one and a half years prior to Sophie’s birth, her father, the Ahrenburger protected Jew Lehmann Hirsch Lehmann, had applied to the Royal Government in Copenhagen for permission to establish himself as a house-to-house salesman at his place of residence. He wanted to start a family. Yet his request was rejected in July 1858. Despite the ban on establishing a business, he pursued his plans to wed. Furthermore, he ignored an order which stated that the children of Jews permitted to stay were only allowed to marry each other, no one from outside. His future wife did not come from Ahrensburg but from Hamburg. The Ahrensburg legal adviser who was responsible for enforcing legal decrees attempted to prevent the marriage. He threatened not to register Lehmann’s future wife. On the contrary, should she not voluntarily leave the region, she could expect to be "removed by the police". Yet Lehmann Hirsch Lehmann had, in the meantime, presented them with a fait accompli: On 18 October 1858, he was already in Wandsbek, the responsible rabbinate district where his wedding to Friederike, née Lazarus, took place. However the affair was not yet settled. While the young couple was indeed able to obtain postponement and remain in Ahrensburg, at the end of the year it became clear that the authorities apparently were not willing to set a precedence which all the other young Jewish men in Ahrensburg of marrying age could follow.

In the winter of 1858/59, the "Ahrensburg case" achieved wide-ranging impact. While Lehmann Hirsch Lehmann personally submitted petitions to the Royal Ministry, the board of the Jewish Community of Ahrensburg appealed to the assembly of estates to revoke both prohibitions. The petition was on the agenda of the plenary session on 3 Mar. 1859. A decision was not taken, however in the end the Danish government and assembly of estates could no longer ignore the precarious situation of the Jews in Holstein. Four years later, the Jews of the Duchies of Schleswig and Holstein achieved legal equality.

Meanwhile, Lehmann Hirsch Lehmann had appealed to the Danish King because his wife was expecting her first child. Now the authorities too will have noticed that the young couple’s situation was untenable, also regarding additional children. In Jan. 1860, about one month after Sophie Hirsch’ birth, her parents received permission to stay in Ahrensburg, under the condition, however, that they live in their parents’ household and not run their own business. The young couple and their children – four more daughters followed – would have had to have lived in the (grand-)parents’ household, and the father – at least officially – could not have earned a living with his own business. These limitations were then removed through the emancipation law of 1863 which gave Jews civil rights.

Lehmann Hirsch Lehmann was a successful grain merchant and achieved prosperity. Thus, the Lehmanns’ wedding and the birth of their oldest daughter Sophie helped a little to expedite the protracted fight for the equality of the Jews.

In her early twenties, Sophie Lehmann left Ahrensburg and headed to Wandsbek where she married Naphtali Hirsch, the son of an established family who was born in 1851. His parents Hannchen and Michael Hirsch had lived since the 1850s at Langereihe 71, and meanwhile had moved into their own house at number 58 or 58a. His father was a butcher, his son worked in the same occupation.

In 1882 Sophie Hirsch had her daughter Erna, and in 1894 her son Ernst, who fell serving in the war in Belgium on 17 July 1917 at the age of 23. His ashes were later returned in an urn and laid to rest at the cemetery on Jenfelder Straße in May 1924. The grave no longer exists.

Naphtali Hirsch was active in the Jewish Community of Wandsbek as secretary and treasurer. In the address book from 1913, he is registered as "independent gentleman", meaning he had already retired. He died in 1919 and was also buried at the Jenfelder Straße Cemetary.

The main residence of the Hirsch Family remained at Langereihe 58, now belonging to Sophie Hirsch who occupied the ground floor. She was wealthy and paid religious tax in Wandsbek until 1937. After the Wandsbek Community was dissolved, she made contribution payments to the Jewish Religious Organization in Hamburg until 1942, contributions which rose noticeably in 1941 and 1942 because the Jewish Community hardly had any gainfully employed members and therefore had to tax their wealthier contributors ever higher to just be able to fulfill a minimum of duties for the community.

In the meantime, the Gestapo had begun deporting Hamburg’s Jews, including Sophie Hirsch’s younger sister Charlotte Salomon (born 1862). She was deported to Minsk on 18 Nov. 1941, although she had long since reached the age for deportation to Theresienstadt and at 79 years of age even surpassed the qualifying age.

After her daughter Erna and her grandson Oskar Michelsohn were arrested by the Gestapo, Sophie Hirsch lived several more months alone on Langenreihe until she moved to the Jewish Stiftshaus at Beneckestraße 6 in the Grindelviertel neighborhood on 15 Sept. 1942.

Twelve days after Erna and Oskar Michelsohn were deported from the Fuhlsbüttel concentration camp to Auschwitz, Sophie Hirsch also left Hamburg. She was forced to board the train to Theresienstadt on 24 Feb. 1943 where she arrived two days later and was registered. She spent about ten months there until she died on 19 Dec. 1943, shortly before her 84th birthday. The grave reserved for her at the Jenfelder Straße Cemetery remained unused.

The course of Sophie Hirsch’ life reflects the rise and obliteration of German Jewry. While her parents still had to fight for their rights of residence and freedom of professional practice, the next generation was able to participate and attain affluence. As equal citizens, however, many also lost relatives in the First World War, including Sophie Hirsch who lost her son Ernst. At the end of her days, she again was subjected to special legislation as a Jew – more barbaric than ever before – which brought death to her and her fellow believers and fellow sufferers.

In 1903, Sophie Hirsch’s daughter Erna Fratje married the merchant Moses Moritz Michelsohn, born in 1871 in Bauska (today territory of Latvia). He followed his father to Hamburg, the wholesaler Sawel Urel (Samuel) Michelsohn, born in 1840, who had become a successful businessman there.

Erna and Moritz Michelsohn wed in Hamburg, the religious ceremony took place three days later in Wandsbek. The young couple lived in Harvestehude at Isestraße 45 III. They had two sons: Oskar born 13 July 1904 and Werner born 28 July 1907.

Moritz Michelsohn had joined his father’s company. He traded footwear products made of rubber, and he managed gradually to increase his range of goods. In 1920 the company S.&M. Michelsohn, Rubber Shoes was located on the first floor of Merkurhof, at Kaiser-Wilhelm-Straße 89/91 in Hamburg’s Neustadt. According to the 1928 address book, the company’s range of goods included "rubber shoes and sport shoes, fashion and utilitarian footwear, athletic footwear, linen shoes, sandals, camelhair shoes, slippers".

Their youngest son was registered as a sales representative at Von-Essen-Straße 5.
Moritz Michelsohn died in 1930, his son Werner in 1931.

Their son Oskar Michelsohn also worked as a sales representative. For the time being he remained registered at Isestraße, while his mother initially returned to her mother in the family house in Wandsbek after the deaths in the family during the mid 1930s yet lived with her son in Eimsbüttel at Schlankreye 67 III.

In April 1939, both of them fell under the scrutiny of the Hamburg Foreign Currency Office. Oskar Michelsohn was summoned to a "meeting" there on 14 June 1939 where he had to disclose his financial circumstances. After that the authority of the regional finance director ordered the immediate safeguarding of his assets, meaning they froze them. They had to deposit their securities in a frozen account. Only the income from the assets was at their disposal. The standard reason was given: "Mr. Oskar Israel Michaelsohn is a Jew. We expect he will emigrate in the near future. After the experiences we have had recently with emigrating Jews, it is necessary that the assets be disposed of subject to authorization. An appeal to the Reich Ministry of Economics (Reichs-Wirtschaftsminister), Berlin, is pending." An appeal, however, led to no suspension.

As always in such cases, numerous agencies, administrative bodies, including the Hamburg Gestapo, and the bank holding the account (in this instance the Dresdner Bank) were informed about the proceeding. While the property owner had to have every withdrawal approved, the state was allowed to directly debit the account for taxes and public duties such as the "compensation payment" (Sühneleistung). The Jewish Religious Organization was also allowed to make direct claims for contributions and special allowances.

At the end of Sept. 1939, Oskar Michelsohn moved to Hamburg-Wandsbek, to the house of his grandmother where his mother was also again living.

Oskar Michelsohn complied with the requirements of the finance authority on time. He applied for 175 RM as his monthly allowance for living expenses, which he was granted, and he added: "I only have interest income. I don’t intend to spend the capital amount." In Oct. 1939, he was forbidden to receive any form of cash payment apart from the specified allowance. In 1940 the asset freeze appeared to be eased, especially regarding the costs for potential immigration – only that that was hardly possible anymore due to the outbreak of war.

After the Foreign Currency Office had safeguarded the son’s assets, it then concentrated on those of his mother and froze them as well. Erna Michelsohn was forced to set up a security account at the Dresdner Bank. Her authorized allowance was 300 RM per month for rent of 60 RM, including incidental costs and living expenses for herself and an unmarried domestic worker by the name of König.

There is little indication of how hard pressed grandmother, mother and son lived the next two years on Langenreihe. Only a former neighbor remembered, on the occasion of the Stolperstein being laid, that Oskar Michelsohn left the house with his briefcase which he carried in front of his chest to cover up the yellow "Jewish star" sewn to his clothing.

Erna and Oskar Michelsohn belonged to the Jewish Religious Organization. Noted on their membership cards was the comment "8 Nov. 1941 resettlement" and then crossed out again. Perhaps mother and son were to be assigned to that deportation and were then deferred.

In July 1942 the Gestapo arrested the two and interrogated them at their headquarters, the Stadthaus. Files revealing the reason for their imprisonment no longer exist since the Gestapo destroyed them shortly before the end of the war. Only the time of their so-called protective imprisonment is documented. Afterward, the Michelsohns were deported from the Stadthaus to the Fuhlsbüttel concentration camp on 21 July 1942, where they remained imprisoned until 12 Feb. 1943. In accordance with the order that Jewish prisoners were to be transferred to the Auschwitz extermination camp, mother and son, ages 60 and 38, were deported there. Their assets were promptly seized by the German Reich.

The fate of Erna and Oskar Michelsohn once again demonstrates how the Foreign Currency Office in collusion with monetary institutions and the Gestapo financially paralyzed Jews so that emigration plans could not be considered at all (or too late). While the property owners were being deported, the authorities robbed them of their remaining wealth.

Translator: Suzanne von Engelhardt

Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

Stand: October 2016
© Astrid Louven

Quellen: 1; 4; 7; 8; 2 R 1940/301, R 1939/2728; StaHH JG 956, ebd. 992 p; StaHH 331-1 II Polizeibehörde II, Abl. vom 18.09.84, Band 3, Auskunft von Ulf Bollmann, E-Mail vom 16.8.2007; Grundbuchakte Wandsbek Bd. 93, Bl. 1691; AB Wandsbek 1852, AB Wandsbek 1864, AB Wandsbek 1872; AB 1883, AB 1897 IV, AB 1913 VI; AB 1920 VI; AB 1928 I; AB 1937 II; 1942 IV; Grundbuchakte W9 Bd. 28, Bl. 149; Familienstammbaum Itzig Michelsohn, übersandt von Ralph Michelson, E-Mail vom 13.8.2007; Auskunft von Frau Ruland am 4.5.2007; Naphtali Bar-Giora Bamberger, Memorbuch Bd. 2, S. 90; Astrid Louven, Juden, S. 34, 208f.; Martina Moede, Fall, in: Geschichte, S. 176–182.
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