Search for Names, Places and Biographies

Erica Levy (née Bos) * 1892

Heider Straße 23 (Hamburg-Nord, Hoheluft-Ost)

HIER WOHNTE
ERICA LEVY
GEB. BOS
JG. 1892
DEPORTIERT 1941
RIGA
ERMORDET

further stumbling stones in Heider Straße 23:
Louis Samuel Levy

Erica Levy, née Bos, born 12/25/1892 in Veendam/Holland, deported to Riga on 12/6/1941 and murdered there on 03/26/1942
Louis Samuel Levy, born 04/17/1875 in Kiel, deported to Riga on 12/6/1941 and murdered there on 03/26/1942

Heider Strasse 23

Both husband and wife came from Jewish families, Louis Samuel Levy, the son of Isaac and Bertha Levy, from Kiel; Erica Levy came from the town of Veendam in Groningen province of the Netherlands, her parents were Jonathan Bos and Henriette Bos, née Oljenick.

Louis Samuel Levy was a salesman by trade and had set up his own business, specializing in textiles. This job suited him well, as he liked to travel and see the world, and, one day, he came to Groningen, where he met Erica Bos, a clerk.

They were married on June 25th, 1913; he was 38 years old, she 21.

In Hamburg, where Louis Samuel had lived in the Hoheluft district up to then, everything was prepared for the new phase in the couple’s life: already in July, the newlyweds moved into the apartment in Heider Strasse 23, third floor, 3 ½ rooms.

Many good years in Heider Strasse followed; in May, 1914, their daughter Ilse was born. Ilse was pure joy for her parents; she was successful at school and had many talents, of which playing the piano was possible her foremost. Ilse studied so systematically and successfully with renowned Hamburg piano teachers that the idea of making a profession out of her passion arose. However, she first finished junior high school at the school in Curschmannstrasse at Easter, 1931.

Louis Samuel Levy himself had also made progress in his profession. Erica, the trained office clerk, totally devoted herself to running the household, educating her daughter and hosting convivial evenings; neighbors later agreed in their accounts of how pleasant the receptions, and especially the musical evenings at the Levys’ "very elegant” (neighbor Mrs. Kruse) home had been, featuring friends playing various instruments and – of course – Ilse at the piano.

The peaceful times abruptly ended when the Nazis came to power.

Ilse, fortunately, had been able to serve her apprenticeship as an accountant with the renowned clothing store Gebrüder Robinsohn on Neuer Wall, and in 1934, to get a job at the bank Hugo Mainz und Co., but that ended in 1938 when the bank was forced to close; the company was still able and noble enough to pay her a settlement of 2,500 RM (which in 1938 was not yet automatically confiscated by the Nazi finance office). Ilse now prepared her flight with highest priority and was able to emigrate to London within the year, where she survived the holocaust.

After 1933, her father had lost the companies he represented as well as his customers one by one as it was no longer politically correct to do business with Jews. 1934 was such a poor year that the Jewish Community waived his culture tax. Erica succeeded in getting a job in a lottery store, but lost it in 1938 because she was Jewish. And, pursuant to the decree of December 1st, 1938, Louis Samuel Levy was forbidden to do any kind of self-reliant business. He was thus without a job without any hope of improvement. The Jewish Community tried to help the best it could and gave Erica Levy a job where she could make a little money.

The Levys had lived in peace with their next-door neighbors for 27 years – until the Housing Office evicted them from their home on October of 1940 and quartered them at apartment no. 11 in Frickestrasse 24. The "apartment” consisted of a single room. Frickestrasse 24 was a "Jews’ house” according to Nazi terminology.

Samuel and Erica Levy were deported to Riga on December 6th, 1941. Some sources name March 26th, 1942 as the date of their murder. Louis Samuel would then have been 66 years old, Erica 49 years.

Erica’s brother Jacob Bos, his wife Hertha and their daughter Renate also fell victim to the Nazi mass murder: the family was interned at the Dutch camp in Westerbork on September 9th, 1942, transported to Auschwitz two days later and murdered immediately after arrival. Renate Bos was 2 years and 7 months of age.


Translated by Peter Hubschmid
Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

Stand: March 2017
© Johannes Grossmann

Quellen: 1; 4; 5; 8; AfW 050514 Ilse Smith; StaH 332-8 Meldewesen, A 51/1 (Louis Samuel Levy, Erica Levy).
Zur Nummerierung häufig genutzter Quellen siehe Link "Recherche und Quellen".