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Rosa Meyer (née Winsen) * 1880

Rumpffsweg 39 (Hamburg-Mitte, Hamm)

1941 Riga
ermordet

further stumbling stones in Rumpffsweg 39:
Alfred Meyer, Wilhelm Nathansohn

Alfred Meyer, born 18 April 1883 Eickel, arrested in Fuhlsbüttel 14 May 1937, then Oslebshausen prison, deported to Auschwitz concentration camp 14 January 1943, death there 13 February 1943
Rosa Meyer, nee Winsen, born 16 March 1880 Hamburg, deported 6 December 1941 to Riga-Jungfernhof

Rumpffsweg 39

On 21 October 1911, in the registry office Altona II in Ottensen, the merchant Alfred Meyer, born in Eickel, then in the district of Gelsenkirchen, married Rosa Winsen, born 16 March 1880 in Hamburg.
Alfred Meyer's father, the merchant Moritz Meyer, had already died in Eickel, the widowed mother Henriette, née Blum, had moved to Hamburg, like her son Alfred and apparently other children.

Rosa's parents were still alive; her father, Ferdinand Winsen, acted as best man. Together with his wife Bertha, née Stern, he ran the Hamburg Engros camp at Bahrenfelderstraße 42/44 in Altona, where the family, to which Walther, born on 26 Nov 1893, still belonged, also lived. Further details about Rosa and Walther Winsen's education are not known.

Alfred Meyer had completed a commercial apprenticeship after attending elementary school. It is not known what prompted him to travel to Cape Mount in Liberia in May 1904 on the Woermann Line's steamer "Gretchen Bohlen". His first job in Hamburg shows no connection to a job in West Africa: in 1907 he joined the Alsberg clothing company as an employee.

The next episode also bears witness to the eventful life of Alfred Meyer and his family of origin: In July 1909, Alfred Meyer's younger sister Josephine from Dortmund came "visitingly", as the certificate states, to Hamburg to marry the merchant Karl Joseph, who lived in Düsseldorf. One of her best man was the Jewish merchant Sally Heckscher.

Josephine and Karl Joseph moved back to their region, where their son Albert was born in Sterkrade on 17 June 1910.

In 1912, one year after his marriage, Albert Meyer moved from the Alsberg company to the cleaning and ladies' fashion shop Hammerschlag in Altona, Schulterblatt 145. In December of the same year, their son Helmuth Moritz Meyer (born 28.12.1912) was born. He remained the only child.

In 1914 Alfred Meyer acquired the Hermann Hammerschlag company as owner and had it entered in the commercial register. While he was responsible for the commercial side of things, the management of the studio was in the hands of his wife Rosa, who - like her mother - worked in her husband's company. A housekeeper took care of the child and the household.

Rosa Meyer's grandmother Bertha Winsen, née Frank, born 21 Aug 1831 in Pattensen, died on 15 June 1916 at the age of 84 in her apartment Beim Schlump 13. She was buried at the Jewish cemetery in Bahrenfeld.

In May 1919 Alfred Meyer received a passport with a one-year validity for the country. In it he is described as being of medium stature with dark hair, brown eyes and an oval face. No special characteristics were mentioned. He had to change his career, because there were differences with Hermann Hammerschlag, who had opened a special house for plaster in the Neuer Wall 52/54 and wanted to see his name used exclusively for this. This was opposed by the entry in the commercial register, and Alfred Meyer founded three hat shops in Hamburg in addition to the shop at Schulterblatt. They withstood the inflation. In 1924 Alfred Meyer acquired a passport again, and in 1925 he appointed an authorised signatory.

Ferdinand Winsen died in April 1920 and was buried at the Jewish cemetery in Bahrenfeld, like his mother-in-law Bertha, née Frank. His son Walther continued the business with his mother Bertha, née Stern, in the Bahrenfelder Straße.

Helmuth Moritz Meyer was enrolled in the elementary school Von der Tannstraße in Eimsbüttel in 1919, from where he changed to the Oberrealschule Eimsbüttel on Kaiser-Friedrich-Ufer. When the parents realized that their business did not leave them enough time for him, they sent him to a rural school in Holzminden. There he finished school in 1931 and began a commercial apprenticeship in his parents' business.

Alfred Meyer had become a member of the Jewish Community in Hamburg in 1922 with his family. In 1925 he joined the Jewish Community in Altona and moved to Othmarschen in Klein Flottbeker Weg 89.

After the world economic crisis the company was threatened with bankruptcy. In order to avert it, settlement proceedings were initiated in 1931, but were soon cancelled. After the procuration of the authorized signatory had expired, bankruptcy proceedings were opened in 1932 for the entire assets of the company. It took five years until it was concluded and the company expired in 1937.

After the bankruptcy in 1932 Alfred and Rosa Meyer, together with Max Schwandt as personally liable partner, founded the "House of Hats" as a limited liability company with a share capital of 20,000 RM, of which Rosa Meyer contributed half. Alfred Meyer became managing director, Rosa Meyer the director. In 1934, a total of 26 commercial clerks and eight blue-collar workers were employed in all businesses. In 1935 the total turnover was 532,000 RM.

Alfred and Rosa Meyer initially lived in good conditions. They returned to Hamburg from Altona and lived at Werderstrasse 67 in Harvestehude, moved from there to Bogenstrasse 15 in Eimsbüttel and, with resources continuing to dwindle, to Rumpffsweg 39 in Hamburg-Hamm. Their son Helmuth had his own apartment, Eichenstraße 66 in Eimsbüttel (not Eichenallee, as noted on the 1934 tax card of the Jewish Community). Afterwards, he moved to Berlin in March 1936.

Bertha Winsen, Rosa Meyer's mother, died on 12 June 1934. She still had lived at Bahrenfelder Strasse 42/44 until her death. Her son Walther had married a non-Jewish woman and had already left the Altona Jewish community on December 31, 1930.

Until 1937 Alfred and Rosa Meyer had made it through the NS-era. Their son Helmuth Moritz had fled to France for fear of possible arrest, their nephew Walther emigrated to South Africa. On 18 November 1937 Alfred Meyer was arrested and remanded in custody. He was accused of "racial defilement in two cases", which was punished with a prison sentence of 7 years plus loss of honour. The verdict of the Hamburg Regional Court was pronounced on 25 November 1938, and he was transferred to the Bremen-Oslebshausen prison on 2 December 1938.

The firm was dissolved in February 1938 and deleted from the commercial register in August 1939 after liquidation.

At Rosa Meyer’s flat in Rumpffsweg her mother-in-law Henriette and her sisters-in-law Emma Rosenbaum and Josephine Joseph gathered. Emma was the oldest and widowed. She managed to emigrate to South America. Henriette Meyer died on 19 August 1940, 31 years after her husband, at the age of 87. She was buried at the Jewish Cemetery on the Ihlandkoppel in Ohlsdorf. Josephine Joseph, Alfred Meyer's younger sister, also widowed, moved back to Krefeld.

Rosa Meyer no longer had any income and lived from 1940 onwards on welfare benefits. She had to give up her apartment and was accommodated by the Jewish community in the Martin Brunn-Stift, Frickestraße 24, which now served as the "Judenhaus". From 19 September 1941 she wore the "Judenstern". Ten weeks later she received the order to "evacuate" on 4 December 1941. The ghettos in the East were overcrowded, which is why the train that was supposed to go to Minsk did not leave Hamburg until 6 December 1941 and went to Riga.

At Skirotava station the deportees had to leave the train and walk to the former Jungfernhof estate on the Düna river, where they were given very makeshift accommodation for the winter.

Josephine Joseph also arrived at Jungfernhof with the transport from Düsseldorf on 11 December 1941, if she survived the journey. Perhaps the sisters-in-law saw each other again. Nothing is known about their further fate.

Alfred Meyer was transferred to Auschwitz on 14 January 1943, on the basis of the decree issued by Police Chief Himmler on 17 September 1942, to make German prisons, penitentiaries and concentration camps "free of Jews", which was his death sentence. The date of his death is 13 Febr. 1943.

Helmuth Moritz Meyer, who had gone to France, returned to Germany in 1956. He had lived illegally in France for a time, then passed through several camps and finally remained in hiding until the end of the German occupation.

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

Stand: August 2020
© Hildegard Thevs

Quellen: 1; 4; 5 digital; 6; 8; 9; Hamburger Adressbücher; StaHH Personenstandsregister; 213-13, Rückerstattung 17044, 20947; 242-1 II_21695 / Fotoarchiv 741-4, A 258; 332-8, Passprotokolle, A 24 Band 189/6293; 351-11 Amt für Wiedergutmachung, 38197; 373-7 I, VIII A 1 Band 155, Passagierlisten; 424-111, D c 1720 HR Altona; 522-1, Jüdische Gemeinden, 992 e 2 Deportationslisten Band 3; Jüdische Stätten in Hamburg. Hrsg. vom Institut für die Geschichte der deutschen Juden und der Landeszentrale für politische Bildung. Hamburg 1995, Nr. 73.
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