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Marcus und Henriette Nathan
© Privat

Henriette Nathan (née Levy) * 1877

Grindelberg 66 (Eimsbüttel, Harvestehude)

1942 Auschwitz
HIER WOHNTE
HENRIETTE NATHAN
GEB. LEVY
JG. 1877
DEPORTIERT 1942
AUSCHWITZ

further stumbling stones in Grindelberg 66:
Marcus Nathan

Marcus Nathan, born on 19 Feb. 1877 in Hamburg, deported on 11 July 1942 to Auschwitz, murdered
Henriette Nathan, née Levy, born on 10 Oct. 1877 in Hamburg, deported to Auschwitz on 11 July 1942, murdered

Grindelberg 66 (instead of no longer existent Klosterallee 29)

In the 1970s, Waldemar Nathan wrote about the origins of the Nathan family: "The family comes from Rendsburg, on the Elster River in Holstein, and can be traced back there to the seventeenth century. Most of the ancestors were craftsmen and peasant. Many family members settled in Denmark, others moved to the north German Hanseatic cities.”

Marcus Nathan was born in Hamburg in 1877 as the fifth child of the Rendsburg-born master tailor Gerson Nathan (1839–1913) and his Hamburg wife Recha Nathan, née Joseph (1840–1903). The parents had married in 1864 in Hamburg; Gerson Nathan acquired Rendsburg civic rights in 1862 and Hamburg civic rights in 1887. Before Marcus Nathan, four siblings had already been born in Hamburg: Joseph (on 17 Aug. 1867), Helene (on 1 Dec. 1870, see Stolpersteine in Hamburg-Hohenfelde and www.stolpersteine-hamburg.de), Neumann (on 11 Nov. 1871), and Julius (on 25 Sept. 1873). The father’s business and the family’s apartment were located in Hamburg-Neustadt at Grossneumarkt 45 (in 1867), Alter Steinweg 34 (1867–1877), and Wexstrasse 28 (1878–1882). On Wexstrasse, the new development of which was not completed until 1876, the apartment and store were on the ground floor of the house belonging to the lawyer F. H. Wex. In the following years, Gerson Nathan lived as the main tenant with his family at Zeughausmarkt 26 (1893–1896) and Hütten 48 (1896–1902). After the death of Recha Nathan, he temporarily (from Dec. 1903 to June 1905) relocated to Heinrich-Barth-Strasse 3, moving in with his daughter Helene Nathan, who had married Henry Herz (born in 1870 in Hamburg) in 1895. Later, he lived with the parents of his daughter-in-law, Marcus and Recha Levy, at Wexstrasse 24 (1906–1907), Feldstrasse 49 (1907–1911), and at Pilatuspool 15 (1911–1913).

Henriette Nathan, née Levy, was born in 1877 as the daughter of lithographer Marcus Levy (born on 4 July 1841 in Hamburg) and his wife Engelina, née Heymann (born on 11 May 1843 in Norden). She was the oldest of five siblings, succeeded by Ewa (born on 1 Mar. 1879), Ivan (born on 11 Nov. 1880), Clara (born on 19 Mar. 1882), and Selma (born on 20 Feb. 1884), all of whom were natives of Hamburg. Her father had acquired Hamburg civic rights in 1899 and died in 1909. Henriette Nathan inherited a diamond necklace from her mother, which she had reworked by a goldsmith in about 1930 in keeping with contemporary tastes.

After his marriage in 1899 with Ida Herzberg (1873–1946), the brother Julius Nathan (1873–1933) lived as a merchant in Stettin (today Szczecin in Poland), where he owned a hat store and where his son Waldemar (in 1900) and his daughter Elise "Lisie” (in 1905) were born as well; later, the family resided in Bremen. Julius Nathan served as a soldier in the First World War and his son, too, volunteered to join the imperial army in 1917 after graduating from high school. Starting in 1919, Julius Nathan lived again in Hamburg. He joined the Hamburg German-Israelitic Community in 1923; the major holidays were observed in the family. In the very end, Julius Nathan lived at Mundsburgerdamm 28. He died on 5 Oct. 1933 and he was buried in the Hamburg-Ohlsdorf Jewish Cemetery. His wife emigrated to Palestine in 1935 to join her son.

Neumann Nathan (1871–1932), the second oldest of the four brothers, married Helene Gumpel in 1897, and the married couple had a daughter named Lilly (born in 1900). Neumann worked as a merchant, acquired Hamburg civic rights in 1901, and founded Robert Neben & Co., a watch and gold articles business, in 1903 (changed to men’s fashions before 1914). After his divorce, he married a second time in 1918. This marriage produced the children Beate Recha (born in 1920) and Hans Gerd (born in 1922). Neumann Nathan moved to Hannover in about 1929, where he died in 1932. Hans Gerd Nathan emigrated to Sweden.

In 1905, Marcus Nathan and Henriette Levy married in Hamburg; four years later, Marcus Nathan acquired Hamburg civic rights and thus the right to vote in the Hanseatic city. Already before 1913, he was a member of the German-Israelitic Community and the religiously conservative religious organization of the "Synagogue Association” ("Synagogenverband”). The apartment featured, among other things, a Hanukkah menorah and three cases containing Passover tableware. In 1915, son Gerhard Ernst Nathan was born. The family lived in Hamburg-Neustadt at Mühlenstrasse 38 (1906–1918) and at Neuer Steinweg 98 (1919–1926). After 20 years in Hamburg-Neustadt, they moved into a newly built apartment owned by the Grundstücksgesellschaft Elbe mbH, a real estate company, in the Eimsbüttel District, at Bundesstrasse 80 on the second floor (1927–1935) – right next to the new school building of Emilie-Wüstenfeld-Schule für Mädchen, a girls’ school opened in 1923. The move certainly increased the living comfort and pointed to the family’s increased affluence. The dining room was furnished with a large oak table, a credenza with a glass top, a glass cabinet, a grandfather clock with Westminster gong and tea trolley; an oil painting hung on the wall and two Persian carpets covered the floor. In the smoking room, there was a large oak desk with table clock, a leather armchair and a leather sofa, a newspaper rack, a silver cigar box with a silver-rimmed crystal ashtray, and a chess set, an oak bookcase containing some 300 books and a built-in bar at the center, and an etching by Max Liebermann adorned the wall. The book collection included a Haggadah from the seventeenth century, a richly illustrated book from which the family read and sang on Passover evening. The corridor featured etchings of Hamburg milieus and an oak chest featuring a top frame and pieces of pewter.

After three years of Nazi rule, the family moved to Klosterallee 29 (1936–1939) in the Harvestehude quarter, but the reasons for the move are unknown. Following the abolition of tenant protection for Jews in the German Reich on 30 Apr. 1939, frequently changing subtenancies followed, such as starting in Feb. 1940 at Husumer Strasse 10/Hoheluft-Ost with the merchant Louis Braunschweiger (born on 13 July 1877 in Altona), who had been unemployed since 1938, and his wife Jenny, née Dörnberg (born on 30 Dec. 1876 in Vacha). Four months later, the Nathans moved to Isestrasse 65, residing with Willy J. Josias (born in 1886 in Friedrichstadt) and his wife Rosa Josias, née Josias (born in 1888 also in Friedrichstadt). Half a year after that, they lived as subtenants with the commercial agent Leo Nachum (born on 7 July 1875 in Hamburg) and his wife Eva at Beim Andreasbrunnen 3 in Eppendorf. Subsequently, they resided in the Rotherbaum quarter at Schlüterstrasse 63 on the third floor with Martin Seligmann. Finally, the Nathan couple had to move into a room of the "Jews’ house” ("Judenhaus”) at Rutschbahn 25a, house no. 2, (Rotherbaum), which belonged to the "Minkel Salomon David Kalker-Stiftung für Freiwohnungen,” a charitable foundation providing low-rent or rent-free apartments. This building complex comprised four houses with six apartments of three rooms each; a total of 32 main tenants resided there. Marcus and Henriette Nathan "lived (...) on Rutschbahn in rather cramped conditions and (...) on top of that, with other families in one apartment,” declared their former tax consultant Dora Seidel in 1964 to the Restitution Office (Amt für Wiedergutmachung) in Hamburg. Moreover, their former landlord Martin Seligmann (born in 1872 in Segeberg) was accommodated at Rutschbahn 25 as well.

Marcus Nathan operated his own pay-by-installments business, "Marcus Nathan Möbel- u. Warenkredithaus” at Mühlenstrasse 38 (the street now exists in shortened form as Gerstäckerstrasse, very close to St. Michael’s Church). In 1918, he took over from his brother Neumann Nathan the Robert Neben & Co. men’s fashion company at Kaiser-Wilhelm-Strasse 115 (on the raised ground floor) in Neustadt-Nord. In 1926, after Neumann Nathan had handed over his N. Nathan & Co. watch and gold wholesale operation to his nephew Manfred Herz (born on 25 Nov. 1897 in Hamburg, see Stolpersteine in Hamburg-Eilbek and www.stolpersteine-hamburg.de), he participated in 1927 with 10,000 RM (reichsmark) as a limited partner in the Robert Neben & Co. Company, which had meanwhile been converted into a KG (limited partnership). Henriette Nathan also worked full-time as an authorized signatory in the pay-by-installments business for men’s textiles and shoes, where seven to eight employees worked – a housemaid assisted her with the household. With the business, Marcus achieved a monthly income of around 1,500 RM and thus enabled his wife and son to enjoy a high standard of living. On his fiftieth birthday, Marcus Nathan received from his siblings a Schaffhausen brand golden hunter-case pocket watch. Dora Seidel, the above-mentioned accountant and tax consultant, told the Restitution Office, "For my part, I almost always only negotiated with her, less often with the husband, who by then was already at an advanced age. I had the impression that the wife was the soul of the business.”

However, the anti-Jewish laws of the Nazi rulers gradually deprived Marcus and Henriette Nathan of their economic basis. The boycott of Jewish businesses initiated by the state in Apr. 1933 was followed by further obstructions and harassment, the November Pogrom of 1938 ("Reichskristallnacht,” on 9/10 Nov.1938), and finally by the "Ordinance on the Elimination of the Jews from German Economic Life” ("Verordnung zur Ausschaltung der Juden aus dem deutschen Wirtschaftsleben”) dated 12 Nov. 1938, which led to the liquidation of the company on 1 Jan. 1939. In order to ensure at least a correct winding down of the business, Marcus Nathan concluded a notarial agreement with his tax consultant Dora Seidel on 22 Nov. 1938, according to which she was to take over the company with the aim of dissolving it. The reason for the early liquidation was the illness of the company owner. The trigger for this agreement was probably the riots during the pogrom on 9 and 10 Nov. 1938. The contract also documented the values of the company, such as 22,000 RM in goods on hand and 37,000 RM in receivables, as well as debts exceeding 32,000 RM. With this agreement, Marcus Nathan tried to secure the capital assets of his company.

Five weeks later, Marcus Nathan discovered that the unscrupulous Nazi regime was not only concerned with the closure of the company, but also with the withdrawal of the funds tied up in the company. Despite an existing notarial agreement, the Nazi party appointed Kurt Schwartz as "trustee” on 28 Dec. 1938, who was to wind up the firm and make the payments to the owner. On 3 Jan. 1939, Kurt Schwartz sold the stock on hand as well as the furniture and equipment for 14,500 RM to Max Webers, since 1920 owner of the pay-by-installments business of the same name, with business premises at Kaiser-Wilhelm-Strasse 47 (second floor) since 1928 and in the former business premises of Neben & Co since 1939. Thus, Max Webers (died in 1946) was more a profiteer than an "Aryanizer,” especially since the Neben & Co. company was officially deleted from the company register on 28 Apr. 1941. A lawsuit in the 1960s resulted in Max Webers’ widow having to pay 8,000 DM (deutschmarks, as much as RM 40,000) for the underestimated purchase price.

Already at the time of the notarial agreement, Marcus Nathan had been forced to deposit 18,000 RM in "capital flight tax” ("Kapitalfluchtsteuer”) with the responsible tax office. After the forced closure of the business on 1 Jan. 1939, Henriette and he lived off their savings. The Nazi state also enriched itself by silver and jewelry items of the Nathan family, who had to surrender them to public "purchasing points” ("Ankaufsstellen”) at very low prices in 1939 (loss amounting to 14,500 RM, corresponding to 2,900 DM). The couple also had to sell their furniture piece by piece (loss amounting to 26,000 RM = 5,200 DM) after moving into smaller apartments and finally, into one room in the "Jews’ house” ("Judenhaus”) at Rutschbahn 25a, as described above. In addition, the bank account was blocked by order of the Chief Finance Administrator (Oberfinanzpräsident) and systematically plundered by means of a "levy on Jewish assets” ("Judenvermögensabgabe;” loss amounting to 20,000 RM) as well as other anti-Jewish financial penalties. With the Eleventh Ordinance to the Reich Citizenship Law (11. Verordnung zum Reichsbürgergesetz) dated 25 Nov. 1941, the last capital assets of the checking and securities accounts were finally confiscated on 10 July 1942.

As of 19 Sept. 1941, Marcus and Henriette Nathan were forced to wear a yellow "Jews’ star” ("Judenstern”); systematic deportations from the German Reich began at the end of Oct. 1941.

The Nathan couple, both 65 years old by then, should have been deported to the "ghetto for the elderly” ("Altersgetto”) in Theresienstadt, but instead they received the deportation order for 11 July 1942 to the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp in occupied Poland. One can assume that they were murdered with gas shortly after their arrival. There are no longer any documents about this transport, of which no survivors are known. In 1951, the Hamburg District Court (Amtsgericht) declared Marcus and Henriette Nathan dead "as of the end of 1945.”

After finishing the Jewish secondary school in Hamburg (1921–1931), son Gerhard Nathan had completed a commercial apprenticeship at the long-established Meyer Adolph Nathan textile wholesale company (owned by Ernest S. Fränckel and Hans Wiener) at Alter Wall 72/74 (from Apr. 1931 to May 1933) in order to take over his father’s business later. He then worked as a trainee at the Wolf & Schlachter women’s clothing company in Berlin (from May 1933 to Nov.1933) and the Fritz Cohen Tuchfabrik AG weaving mill in Mönchengladbach (from Dec. 1933 to Apr. 1934).

Due to the Nazi dictatorship, by then well established, and the increasing anti-Jewish discrimination, his father advised him to study engineering as a basis for later emigration. After a preparatory internship at the Eumoco AG mechanical engineering company in Leverkusen (from July 1934 to June 1936), Gerhard Nathan was able to begin his studies on 16 Oct. 1936 at the Vereinigte Technische Staatslehranstalten für Maschinen- u. Bergmaschinenwesen (a college specialized in mechanical engineering and mining machinery) in Cologne, despite considerable difficulties. He lived in Cologne as a subtenant with Jewish families at Utrechtstrasse 6 and later at Maastrichterstrasse 42. Just prior to his final examination, he was expelled from school on 10 Nov. 1938, one day after the November Pogrom. In the file of the college, the reason provided was, "had to give up studies, being a non-Aryan.”

While Gerhard Nathan continued his efforts toward gaining admission to the exam and received the support of some instructors (including Dr. Eck, among others), he consistently pushed forward with his emigration to Palestine. His cousin Waldemar Nathan (born 1900 in Stettin, today Szczecin in Poland) had already emigrated there via Trieste in Sept. 1933. Waldemar Nathan had received his doctorate in Kiel and most recently worked as a physician at the Frankfurt/Main University Hospital. After one to two years working in a kibbutz, he opened a medical practice in Rehovot. Rehovot was also home to friends of him, such as Kurt Mendel (son of the Hamburg Senator of Economics Max Mendel), Ludwig Oppenheimer (son of the sociologist Franz Oppenheimer), Hans (Chanan) Oppenheimer (cousin of Ludwig Oppenheimer), and Kurt Hiller. In Feb. 1939, Gerhard Nathan left with most of the remaining parental money and two "lift vans,” moving containers, for Palestine, where he worked in a kibbutz (from Mar. 1939 to Dec. 1942) and then self-employed as a consulting engineer in Rehovot and Tel Aviv (from 1943 to 1954). In Jan. 1945, he married Anna Zollmann in Palestine (born on 3 Aug. 1914 in Kiel). She had emigrated to Palestine in Sept. 1936 after one-year preparatory agricultural training in Yugoslavia and worked in a kibbutz. The married couple had a daughter. In 1954 Gerhard (Gershon) Nathan died of kidney failure despite multiple operations at the age of 39.

In Oct. 2006, Stolpersteine were laid for Marcus and Henriette Nathan at Grindelberg 66. Since Klosterallee 29 had been eliminated by the construction of the Grindel skyscrapers (1946–1956), the street name and numbering newly created there was chosen for the laying of the Stolperstein.

For Marcus Nathan’s sister Helene Herz, née Nathan (born on 1 Dec. 1870 in Hamburg), a Stolperstein was laid at Kuhmühle 6 (Hohenfelde). A Stolperstein in Eilbek at Wandsbeker Chaussee 62 commemorates Manfred Herz.

For Marcus Nathan’s niece Lilly Nathan (born on 11 July 1900 in Hamburg), who died on 1 May 1943 in the Theresienstadt Ghetto, a Stolperstein was laid at Hochallee 128.

For the married couple Louis and Jenny Braunschweiger, with whom Marcus and Henriette Nathan resided for four months and who were deported to the Minsk Ghetto on 8 Nov. 1941, Stolpersteine are located at Husumer Strasse 10. Henriette Nathan’s sister Selma Levy was also deported to Minsk on this transport; her date of death is unknown.

Translator: Erwin Fink
Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

© Björn Eggert

Quellen: StaH 213-13 Wiedergutmachungsamt beim Landgericht Hamburg 8098, 8099 (Hypothek), 8100 (Wertpapiere), 8101 (Wohnungseinrichtung), 8102 (Edelmetall), 8140; StaH 332-3 (Zivilstandsaufsicht 1866-1875), A Nr. 35 (4230/1867, Geburt Joseph Nathan); StaH 332-3 (Zivilstandsaufsicht 1866–1875), A Nr. 119 (6687/1871, Geburt Neumann Nathan); StaH 332-5 (Standesämter), 2562 u. 1493/1876 (Heiratsregister 1876, Marcus Levy u. Engelina Heymann); StaH 332-5 (Standesämter), 521 u. 1862/1903 (Sterberegister 1903, Recha Nathan geb. Joseph); StaH 332-5 (Standesämter), 3043 u. 755/ 1905 (Heiratsregister 1905, Marcus Nathan u. Henriette Levy); StaH 332-5 (Standesämter), 687 u. 19/1913 (Sterberegister 1913, Gerson Nathan); StaH 332-5 (Standesämter), 1009 u. 368/1933 (Sterberegister 1933, Julius Nathan); StaH 332-7 (Staatsangehörigkeitsaufsicht), A I e 40 Bd. 14 (Bürgerregister I-P 1899-1905), Neumann Nathan (25.1.1901, Nr. S 717); StaH 332-7 (Staatsangehörigkeitsaufsicht), A I e 40 Bd. 17 (Bürgerregister I–P 1906-1910), Marcus Nathan (7.4.1909, Nr. J II 403); StaH 332-8 (Alte Einwohnermeldekartei 1892–1925), K 6656 (Gerson Nathan), K 6508 (Marcus Levy); StaH 351-11 (Amt für Wiedergutmachung), 3292 (Marcus Nathan); StaH 351-11 (AfW), 40602 (Gerhard Nathan); StaH 522-1 (Jüdische Gemeinden), 992b (Kultussteuerkartei der Deutsch-Israelitischen Gemeinde Hamburg), Marcus Nathan, Neumann Nathan; Landesamt für Bürger- u. Ordnungsfragen (Labo Berlin), Entschädigungsakte 313705 (Anna Nathan, geb. Zollmann); Yad Vashem, Gedenkblatt (Marcus Nathan mit Foto, Henriette Nathan mit Foto); Handelskammer Hamburg, Handelsregisterinformationen (Robert Neben & Co., HR A 8112; Meyer Adolph Nathan, HR A 6854); Ohlfest/Lilienthal (Hrsg.): Hamburger Börsenfirmen, 1926, S. 738 (Meyer Adolph Nathan), S. 738 (N. Nathan & Co., Inhaber Manfred Herz), S. 740 (Robert Neben & Co.); Ohlfest/Lilienthal (Hrsg.): Hamburger Börsenfirmen, 1935, S. 605 (Robert Neben & Co.); Adressbuch Hamburg 1867–1870, 1877, 1878, 1880, 1882, 1895, 1899, 1900, 1903, 1906, 1907, 1915, 1918–1920, 1922, 1925–1927, 1929, 1932, 1935–1937; Telefonbuch Hamburg 1914 (Marcus Nathan, Robert Neben & Co.); Adressbuch Berlin 1932 (Wolf & Schlachter); Cordes: Stolpersteine, S. 142f.; Hipp: Freie und Hansestadt, S. 199 (Wexstraße); Koser/Brunotte (Hrsg.): Stolpersteine Hamburg-Eppendorf, S. 119–121 (Braunschweiger); Mosel: Wegweiser Rotherbaum, Heft 3, Hamburg 1989, S. 73–76 (Rutschbahn 25a); Steinhäuser: Stolpersteine Hamburg-Hohenfelde, S.136–140 (Helene Herz geb. Nathan); genealogische Recherchen von Jürgen Sielemann zu Gerson Nathan und dessen Kindern (Privatbesitz); Aufzeichnungen von Waldemar Nathan zu Julius u. Ida Nathan, 1970er-Jahre (Privatbesitz); Gespräch mit Michael K. Nathan (Hamburg), Mai 2016.