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Julie Jonas (née Oppenheimer) * 1895

Walderseestraße 48 (Altona, Othmarschen)

gedemütigt / entrechtet
Flucht in den Tod 06.03.1939

further stumbling stones in Walderseestraße 48:
Dr. Julius Jonas

Julie Jonas, née Oppenheimer, born 3 Nov. 1895, suicide 6 Mar. 1939
Dr. Julius Jonas, born 15 Dec. 1874, disenfranchised, suicide 4 Mar. 1939

Walderseestraße 48

When the National Socialists came to power in 1933, they launched a propaganda campaign against the "Jewish takeover” of the judicial system and legal measures to ostracize and persecute Jewish judges and lawyers. Between the end of 1938 – the complete employment ban on Jewish lawyers – and 1943, seven of Hamburg’s Jewish lawyers died, two of whom were driven to suicide: Walter Samuel who lost his law practice at Neuen Wall in Hamburg and ended his life in 1943 and Julius Jonas who committed suicide with his wife Julie Jonas on 4 Mar. 1939.

Julius Jonas was born on 15 Dec. 1874 in Itzehoe, Schleswig-Holstein, as the son of the Hamburg merchant Adolph Wolf Jonas and his wife Jennie, née Horwitz. He studied law at different German universities and after completing his degree was a trainee lawyer with Judicial Council Felix Waldstein in Altona, where he had lived since Mar. 1898.

He had three children from his first marriage to Käthe Jonas, née Wachtel, born in 1884 to the factory owner Samuel Wachtel and his wife Selma, née Sonnersberg: his daughter Annemarie, born on 20 May 1909, and his sons Walter, born on 26 Dec. 1910, and Jens Peter (Johanan), born 26 Jan. 1914. According to the Altona address book, the family lived from 1912 in a house at Walderseestraße 48 which Julius Jonas had had built in the exclusive Altona suburb of Othmarschen along the Elbe.

It is not known whether Käthe Jonas died or the couple divorced.

On 27 Mar. 1920, Julius Jonas married a second time: Julie Oppenheimer, born on 3 Nov. 1895 in Hamburg, the daughter of the merchant Moritz Oppenheimer and his wife Olga, née Hess. Julius Jonas had two daughters with his wife who was more than twenty years his junior: Elisabeth, born on 13 Apr. 1921, and Margarethe, born on 7 Aug. 1922. The family home remained the house at Walderseestraße 48.

Dr. Julius Jonas’ professional career was initially quite promising. From 1902 he was licensed to practice law at the Altona District and State Court. At first he had a law practice at Fischermarkt 26/27 and from 1913 a joint practice with Theodor Wohlfahrt, then he headed a law firm in partnership with Caspar Höft at Königstraße 120 in Altona. Later he founded the "Law Firm Dr. Julius Jonas, Hoeft and Bachmann" at Königstraße 145. He also served in an honorary capacity on the board of the German Bar Association.


The lawyer Otto Siems, who worked with him at the law firm from 1925 to 1934, declared in 1964 in redress of wrongs proceedings that "Dr. Jonas was a highly regarded and very well respected defense lawyer, especially by the courts. Julius Jonas reserved all of the extensive defense cases in the law firm for himself. Otto Siems and occasionally Walter Bachmann, who was a partner in the firm from 1928 to 1932, took over the civil law cases. Julius Jonas, a licensed notary public since Dec. 1919, also had income from his notary’s office. His law firm also had an office manager, an office clerk, one apprentice and three typists.

Shortly after the National Socialists took power on 28 Mar. 1933, the NSDAP, in an appeal written by Adolf Hitler himself, called on all party offices "to immediately organize action committees to carry out the practical, systematic boycott of Jewish shops, Jewish goods, Jewish doctors and Jewish lawyers.” On 1 Apr. 1933, the first public boycott was held. From that time onward, Julius Jonas too suffered financial losses.

The Prussian Minister of Justice, Hanns Kerrl, ordered on 31 Mar. all Jewish judges to submit applications for leave and that only a number of Jewish judges corresponding to the proportion of Jews in the general population should be allowed to appear in court. In Altona, only Julius Jonas and Rudolf Warburg were permitted to appear in court; this was how the District Court President applied the rule to the Jewish lawyers.

Two months after taking power, on 7 Apr. 1933, the National Socialists passed a law on admission to the bar which allowed the licenses of "non-Aryan” lawyers to be revoked. Roughly a third of Jewish lawyers were barred from practicing their profession. Initially exceptions were made for so-called old lawyers who were licensed prior to Aug. 1914 and lawyers who had fought in World War I or whose fathers or sons had fallen in that war. The Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service (Gesetzes zur Wiederherstellung des Berufsbeamtentums) from 7 Apr. made it possible to discharge "non-Aryan” civil servants from public service. On 8 June 1933, Jonas’ notary license was revoked, causing him to lose income from his notary office.

From 1936 he no longer practiced law in the shared office and instead worked alone.

Due to the Greater Hamburg Law of Apr. 1937, he was admitted as a lawyer to the Hamburg District Court. As a member of the board of the Altona Synagogue Community, he represented the Altona Community as proxy in the merger of the Jewish Communities of Hamburg, Harburg and Wandsbek which was to be concluded by 1 Jan. 1938. At that time his wealth and income were still relatively good.

Step by step the Jewish lawyers were disenfranchised and persecuted, until they were completely barred from their profession. From 30 Nov. 1938, Jews were no longer allowed to work as lawyers. Julius Jonas was barred from the legal profession. Only for the month of Dec. 1938 was he temporarily admitted as a "consultant” (Konsulent), as the Jewish legal consultants were called who were only allowed to work for "non-Aryans”. That same year he suffered a nervous breakdown and had to retire to Badenweiler for a stay at a mental hospital. It must have been bitter for the couple that their house keeper and long-time governess of their children, Elli Sewalski, was forced to leave their service because she was no longer allowed to work for a Jewish household.

During their final years, the couple was painfully worried about the well being of their children. In the meantime all of their children had emigrated abroad. Both sons from his first marriage, Walter and Jens Peter Jonas, had emigrated early on. Walter, who had last lived in the vicinity of Leipzig, immigrated to England in Apr. 1933.

Jens Peter had attended the Bertha Lyceum from 1920 to 1923, before moving on to the Wahnschaff Secondary School in Hamburg until he completed his "one year” in 1929. In 1933 he lost a job with the Jewish import-export business Bume and Reif in Hamburg’s Mönckebergstraße, after completing a three-year apprenticeship with them, because the company was no longer able to exist due to National-Socialist persecution. In preparation for his emigration, he took up agricultural training with a Jewish farmer in Mecklenburg. But this too he had to break off in 1934: The farmer was forbidden to employ Jews. Jens Peter Jonas continued his agricultural training at a plant nursery in Rissen. In the summer of 1934, the twenty-year-old immigrated to Palestine where he henceforth lived on a Kibbutz.

Their daughter Elisabeth, from the marriage between Julius and Julie Jonas, attended elementary school on Hirtenweg in Flottbek from 1926 to 1930 and then continued on to the Bertha Lyceum in Othmarschen. She actually wanted to attend the lyceum on Allee and afterwards study medicine at Hamburg University, in accordance with her father’s wishes. However in 1935 she had to leave the lyceum due to personal hostility from the teacher Udo Angelstein and was sent to the Ria Wirth School, a private high school on Mittelweg. After she received her "one year”, she left school in 1936. Upon her father’s request, she attended a higher trade school in Switzerland for one year. Back in Hamburg she took part in a training course at the Swedish Institute for physiotherapy. The seventeen-year-old obtained an exit permit in Nov. 1938 for the Kindertransport to London organized by the Jewish aid organizations. She later immigrated to the USA.

Margarethe, the youngest daughter of Julius and Julie Jonas, attended elementary school in Altona-Othmarschen from 1928 to 1931 and the nearby Bertha Lyceum from 1931 to 1936. She too was forced to leave the lyceum and change to the girls’ school of the German-Israelite Community, then to a secondary school in Hamburg. Ultimately she attended the Talmud Tora School from Mar. to Oct. 1938. On 1 Dec. 1938, she also immigrated to England. Both daughters were denied a high school diploma. Margarethe trained as a nurse in England. In Dec. 1938, Julius Jonas had to apply retroactively for a "clearance certificate” as proof for the foreign currency office that she did not owe any taxes or contributions.

In Mar. 1939, Annemarie, Julius Jonas’ eldest daughter from his first marriage now married with the name Wiesner, emigrated with her husband and child from Berlin to Peru. The month before, Julius Jonas had applied to the foreign currency office for permission to pay 923.50 Reich Marks (RM) to ship their belongings.

Mr. and Mrs. Jonas remained behind in Hamburg. In Jan. 1939 Julius Jonas became the representative for the Rosenstern couple in Amsterdam whose assets had been seized by the Gestapo. He also pursued the release of income for two older relatives.

Originally, Julius and Julie Jonas had also planned to emigrate. They had already filled out the foreign currency office’s emigrant questionnaire at the regional tax office. Hamburg-Altona’s tax office pointed out in a letter from 3 Jan. 1939 that in the event of his "fleeing abroad”, Julius Jonas would have to pay the high sum of nearly 39,000 RM "Reich flight tax” (Reichsfluchtsteuer). According to a statement of their assets, the Jonas couple owned the property on Walderseestraße, a balance and securities with Warburg & Co Kommanditgesellschaft, a balance at the Altona Vereinsbank, as well as gold and items of silver. Since 2 Jan. 1939, the authority of the regional tax office had placed Julius Jonas’ assets under a "security order”. He was no longer able to freely dispose of his property, bank accounts, securities or mortgage. He was allowed to withdraw 2,500 RM on a monthly basis for living expenses, part of which he had to use to pay high taxes and contributions.

The consultant and administrator Hugo Möller later determined: "The deceased were in the midst of emigrating, had paid the Jewish tax and Reich flight tax, part of their belongings had already been removed for transport, others stored away, in short, they had made all necessary preparations for emigrating.” The "clearance certificate” (Unbedenklichkeitsbescheinigung), which was absolutely essential for their departure, had been issued on 25 Feb. 1939. Their house at Walderseestraße 48 was up for sale, and there was a potential buyer.

Yet on 4 Mar. 1939, one day before the planned notarization of the sale of the house, Dr. Julius and Julie Jonas chose to die. Their housekeeper Anna Walluttis and their cleaner Gertrud Wrangel found the couple early in the morning unconscious in their bedroom.

An officer of the 52nd Criminal Commission, Crime Inspector Bahrenfeld, drew up a report the same day: "On 4 Mar. at 9:45 a.m. the 93rd Police Station in Hamburg-Groß-Flottbek notified the local office by telephone that the lawyer Dr. Julius Jonas, residing at Walderseestr. 48 in Hamburg-Othmarschen, committed suicide today using Veronal.
I immediately went to the scene of the crime and determined the following: […] The couple lay undressed in their beds and were still breathing. Their housekeeper Walluttis gave me 5 empty packets that had contained Veronal tablets and had been found on the couple’s nightstand by their maid. At the same time, I was also given a suicide note from the Jonases to their children who were staying with the Rosenbaum Family in London […]. […] The couple was taken by the fire department’s ambulance to the Israelite Hospital in Hamburg. The doctor sent by that same hospital, Dr. Borgzehe [whose correct name was probably Paul Borgzinner], declared that they were in critical condition. Dr. Borgzehe was called in by the housekeeper by telephone.”

Dr. Julius Jonas died that same evening at 8:30 p.m. at the hospital of the German-Israelite Community at Eckernförderstraße 4 (today Simon von Utrecht Straße). His wife died there two days later on 6 Mar. at 5:35 p.m.

Their cleaning woman Gertrud Wrangel was questioned and declared. "The couple had often expressed suicidal thoughts to me. Mrs. Jonas wept frequently and was generally quite depressed. […] The couple had saved up the Veronal tablets. They had been lying for some time on their nightstand.”

A copy of the suicide note to Elisabeth and Margarethe was added to the police file for cases of unnatural death:
"My beloved children,
Our nerves are completely frayed, and Daddy and I can’t go on. I know that we are making you terribly unhappy, but we have no future. You should know that the decision to make you so horrendously unhappy makes it terribly, terribly difficult for us, but you will and must try to become good and hardworking people in our memory. You cannot imagine how much we love you to our last breath and how much we have suffered from being apart from you. This letter is also for Walter. He should continue to be good to you. I think only of you, even though I am causing you this awful pain. God willing, you will overcome it. Your Mommy. Greetings to Jens Peter and Annemarie."

Their former "nanny” Elli Junge, née Sewalski, travelled to London to inform the daughters of their parents’ death. Their youngest daughter Margarethe was 18 years old when her parents were driven to suicide.
The couple was buried at the Jewish Cemetery Bornkampsweg in Bahrenfeld.


Translator: Suzanne von Engelhardt
Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

Stand: April 2018
© Birgit Gewehr

Quellen: 1; 2 (R 1938/3677 Dr. Julius Jonas, F1196 Jonas, Julius); 4; 5; 8; AB Altona, StaH 351-11 Amt für Wiedergutmachung, 44541 (Melanid, Elizabeth, geb. Jonas), 40108 (Jonas, Johanan), 36178 (Jonas, Walter Adolf), 2379 (Erbengemeinschaft Jonas, Dr. Julius), 45191 (Kahn, Margaret, geb. Jonas) und 25487 (Oppenheimer, Erich); StaH 314-5 Polizeibehörde – Unnatürliche Sterbefälle, 1939/464; StaH 332-5 Standesämter, 8658 (Eintrag Nr. 227) und 3326 (Eintrag Nr. 213); Morisse, Ausgrenzung, Bd. 1, S. 148.
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