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Bella Spanier inmitten ihrer Schülerinnen
© Arthur Riegel

Bella Spanier * 1884

Rosenallee 11 Schule (Hamburg-Mitte, Hammerbrook)

1941 Lodz
1942 Chelmno
ermordet

further stumbling stones in Rosenallee 11 Schule:
Recha Lübke

Recha Lübke, born on 6 Mar. 1880 in Altona, deported on 19 July 1942 to Theresienstadt and on 9 Oct. 1944 to Auschwitz
Bella Spanier, born on 25 Feb. 1884 in Burg-Lesum, deported on 25 Oct. 1941 to Lodz and on 10 May 1942 to Chelmno

Recha Lübke and Bella Spanier taught for many years at the eight-grade elementary school (Volksschule) at Rosenallee 11, before they were dismissed based on the "Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service” ("Gesetz zur Wiederherstellung des Berufsbeamtentums”) dated 7 Apr. 1933 – Recha Lübke after 34, Bella Spanier after 27 years of professional life. Both had received their training at the female teacher training college in Altona. Recha Lübke began her teaching career on 1 Apr. 1899, at the age of 19, starting her service in the Hamburg school system two and a half years later, on 15 Oct. 1901. Bella Spanier began her working life at the age of 22, on 15 June 1906, working in Hamburg from the outset. Both belonged to professional associations, Recha Lübke to the "Association of Hamburg Female Elementary Teachers” ("Verein Hamburger Volksschullehrerinnen”), Bella Spanier to the "Society of Friends of the Patriotic School and Education System” ("Gesellschaft der Freunde des Vaterländischen Schul- und Erziehungswesens”). Recha Lübke also got greatly involved in the Hamburg German-Israelitic Community in an honorary capacity. She lived at Isestrasse 21 in Eppendorf, Bella Spanier at Tegettoffstrasse 9.

When the deportations of Jews began, Bella Spanier had not yet reached the age of 60 and she was thus considered young enough for the alleged "development work in the East” ("Aufbauarbeit im Osten”), as the deportations were called in the veiling terminology of the day. She was part of the first transport, departing for Lodz on 25 Oct. 1941. On 10 May 1942, she was deported further from there to the Chelmno extermination camp, which meant her murder using automotive exhaust fumes.

Due to her older age, Recha Lübke’s deportation took place on 19 July 1942 to the so-called "ghetto for the elderly” ("Altersgetto”) in Theresienstadt. She lived there for another two years, before being deported to Auschwitz on 9 Oct. 1944 in the course of the gradual evacuation of the ghetto. After that, any traces of her life disappear.


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

© Hildegard Thevs

Quellen: Lehrerverzeichnisse.

Bella Spanier, born on 25 Feb. 1884 in Lesum (today a district of Bremen), deported in 25 Oct. 1941 to Lodz, deported on 10 May 1942 to Chelmno and murdered

Tegetthoffstrasse 9 / Rosenallee 11 (school), Klostertor

Bella Spanier was born in Lesum in 1884. Today Burg-Lesum is a district of Bremen, but until the territorial reform on 1 Nov. 1939, it was Prussian. Bella’s parents were the Jewish merchant Jacob Spanier and his wife Caroline, née Neumark. Jacob Spanier, the son of the merchant Ruben Spanier from Hamburg and his wife Karoline, née Fränckel, passed away in Hamburg in 1916.

Bella had an older sister by the name of Rebecca, who was born in Burgdamm (also under the jurisdiction of the Lesum registry office) in 1881. Probably the Spanier family moved to Hamburg when the girls were still children. Bella Spanier became a teacher and taught for many years at the eight-grade girls’ elementary school (Volksschule) at Rosenallee 11. She had received her training at the teachers’ college in Altona and started her professional career in Hamburg in June 1906, at the age of 22. She was a Social Democrat, member of the "Society of Friends of the Patriotic School and Education System” ("Gesellschaft der Freunde des Vaterländischen Schul- und Erziehungswesens”), and an adherent of progressive teaching methods (Reformpädagogik). Very popular with her students, she enjoyed going with her classes to the Moorwerder "urban colony” on Bunthäuser Spitze, which exists as an open-air school to this day. Bella Spanier was short and petite. She wore her dark hair in a bob with a center parting. After 27 years of professional life, she was dismissed based on the "Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service” ("Gesetz zur Wiederherstellung des Berufsbeamtentums”) dated 7 Apr. 1933, since she was Jewish and a member of the German Social Democratic Party (SPD). A letter by the Hamburg Staatsamt (the regional seat of government) to the Gestapo dated 6 May 1934 read, "The Spanier woman was dismissed on 22 July 1933 because she does not guarantee championing the national state without reservations.”

Bella Spanier lived at Tegetthoffstrasse 9 on the fourth floor. One floor below resided her parents. The fourth floor also accommodated Miss T. and M. Hubert, with whom Bella Spanier may have shared an apartment. In the early 1930s – probably after her dismissal from the school service – she moved with her widowed mother to Bismarckstrasse 6, where they stayed with Bella’s sister Rebecca, who in Feb. 1911 had married the merchant Iwan Selke in Hamburg. Iwan Selke was born in Hamburg in 1876. He owned an exporting company. Bella’s and Rebecca’s mother Caroline passed away in Aug. 1937. Her gravestone is located in the Jewish Cemetery in Langenfelde.

We do not know how Bella Spanier fared between 1933 and Oct. 1941, when she received the deportation order. She had to set out on the first Hamburg deportation to Lodz, where she was committed to quarters at Richterstrasse 9/11 (today Tokarska). The apartment consisted of two rooms at the most, which accommodated ten additional persons. There was not even running water in the house. She lived there together with the Hamburg teacher Else Rauch, for whom a Stolperstein was laid at Grindelallee 152 and who is commemorated by Else-Rauch-Platz, a square in Eimsbüttel. Betty Holstein and her sister Ellen Kämpfer (see corresponding entries) resided their as well. All four of them were murdered in the Chelmno extermination camp on 10 May 1942.

Her sister Rebecca and brother-in-law Iwan Selke were deported shortly after Bella Spanier, on 6 Dec. 1941, to Riga.


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

Stand: January 2019
© Susanne Lohmeyer

Quellen: 1; Standesamt Bremen-Nord, Geburtseintrag 32/1884 und 55/1881; StaH 131-10 Senatskanzlei – Personalabteilung I, 1933 Ja 13 c; StaH 332-5 Standesämter, 8677 + 94/1911; StaH 332-5, 8148 + 385/1937; StaH 522-1 Jüdische Gemeinden, 992 e 2, Band 1 (Deportationslisten); HAB II 1926; HAB II und IV, 1912, 1919; Deportationsliste Litzmannstadt, Gedenkstätte Lodz Radegast; Ursel Hochmuth und Peter de Lorent (Hrsg.), Schule unterm Hakenkreuz, S. 316; Arthur Riegel, Else Rauch, S. 36f., S.131.
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