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Sophie Mehrgut * 1880

Woldsenweg 8 (Hamburg-Nord, Eppendorf)

1941 Lodz
ermordet 12.05.1942

further stumbling stones in Woldsenweg 8:
Kurt Georg Mehrgut, Wolf Willy Mehrgut

Sophie Mehrgut, born on 18.4.1880 in Hamburg, deported to "Litzmannstadt"/Lodz ghetto on 25.10.1941 and murdered on 12.5.1942

Woldsenweg 8

Sophie Mehrgut left hardly any traces in Hamburg. All we know about her life can be found in a file from the Welfare Office, because in early 1932 the single woman had to apply for welfare support. Sophie Mehrgut was single and, before she became unemployed, had worked as a companion or housekeeper. Now her unemployment benefits had run out, and she was without health insurance. As the file notes, her siblings could not support her financially.

Sophie was the fourth daughter of "Lotteriecollecteur" (lottery ticket seller) Samuel (Sally) Mehrgut (born Feb. 7, 1852 in Ronshausen, Hesse) and seamstress Ester, called Elise (born Feb. 4, 1844 in Grohnde). In 1875 the oldest child, Flora, was born, in 1877 Selma and in 1878 Zerline. Shortly after Zerline's birth, the parents had married, Elise having been divorced from her first husband Marcus Hecht as early as 1873. A son, Wolf Willy, was born on September 3, 1883.

Sally had probably established a furniture manufacturing business in parallel with his lottery business, because Wolf Willy's birth entry listed "furniture manufacturer" as his occupation. The Hamburg address book listed the entry "Möbel und Decoration" (Furniture and Decoration) as of 1887. The family's company and home were located on Paulstraße.

In January 1885, Elise Mehrgut died at the age of only 40, leaving her husband with five small children. Six months later, he had found a new wife, the 31-year-old Scheintje (Jeanette) Mindus from Jengum in East Frisia. More children were born: Rudolf on June 20, 1886, Bertha on August 5, 1888, and finally Mary on Nov: 22, 1890.
Bertha died already in 1889, only nine months old. Zerline, "single, and without trade," was living with her parents when she died in 1899 at age 21. The other siblings were all married and had children in 1932, when Sophie applied for welfare. Sophie's father Samuel Mehrgut had died in 1913, her stepmother Scheintje in 1931. They are buried in the Jewish Cemetery in Ohlsdorf, as are Elise, Zerline and Rudolf.

About Sophie, the application said: "Formerly a housekeeper, goes regularly to stamp. She is very willing to work, but will have difficulty finding a job because of her advanced age. Good impression ... Lives very cramped in a small room, but has convenience of central heating ... Allegedly she often eats with acquaintances and the sisters. U.(nterstützung/support) of 9 RM (Reichsmark) is still necessary."

Sophie Mehrgut seems to have found employment again after all. She worked as a caregiver in various private households, and as before, she lived with her employers in their apartments. In 1938, however, she again became unemployed. By that time, many Jewish families had fled, and those that remained could not afford private care.

In 1938, Sophie lived in the Jewish Girls Home at Innocentiastraße 21. In April 1939, she moved into a residential home of the Oppenheimer`s Stiftung at Kielortallee 22 and lived in a room "at Dambitsch`s" for 3 Reichsmark per month. There, in October 1941, she received the deportation order to the "Litzmannstadt" ghetto, where she perished seven months later.

It could not be proven that Sophie Mehrgut ever lived in Woldsenweg, where a Stolperstein commemorates her. However, since she probably never had her own apartment, the stone is to remain next to the Stolpersteine for her brother and nephew.

The fate of the other family members:
Sophie's sister Flora lived with her husband Leiser Süsskind in the Jewish Home for the Aged on Sedan Street. Both were later deported to Theresienstadt and perished there (see www.stolpersteine-hamburg.de).

Selma, who had married the merchant Hugo Ehrenberg, was able to escape to the USA with her husband in 1934. She died in Manhattan in 1942.

Wolf Willy Mehrgut had sought refuge in the Netherlands in 1937. He was imprisoned in the Westerbork camp in 1943 and deported to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in January 1944, where he died on February 25, 1945. His wife Gertrud, née Badt, and their two daughters Lola and Felicitas escaped to England. Their son Kurt Georg was deported from the Netherlands to the Austrian concentration camp Mauthausen in June 1941 and murdered in September 1941.

Rudolf Mehrgut lived in Hamburg, but was ill, completely impoverished and dependent on welfare support. In the 1920s, he had continued his father's furniture factory together with his half-brother Wolf Willy. His wife Alice, née Cohen, and his daughter Ruth arrived in England in February 1939 with service visas; their son Heinz Sigurd reached England with a Kindertransport. Rudolf died in December 1941 in the retirement and nursing home of the Jewish community of Hamburg at Grünestraße 5 in Altona. The nurse Max Lefebre (see www.stolpersteine-hamburg.de) reported his death.

Sophie's half-sister Mary had married the merchant Bernhard Goslar in 1911. A year later, daughter Ruth was born. The Goslar family moved to Frankfurt am Main in 1933 and fled from there to France. All three were interned in the Gurs camp. Mary suffered through more camps before she was able to go into hiding and survived in a hiding place. She died in the United States in 1963. Her husband was deported to Majdanek concentration camp in occupied Poland in March 1943 via the French transit camp Drancy. Daughter Ruth was murdered in Auschwitz in 1942.

Translation by Beate Meyer
Stand: February 2022
© Sabine Brunotte

Quellen: 1; 5; StaH 351-11_19491; StaH 351-11_43255; StaH 351-11_12893; StaH 332-5_2590; StaH 332-5_1904; StaH 332-5_ 1932; StaH 332-5_1977; StaH 332-5_2046; StaH 332-5_169;
StaH 332-5_ 2676; StaH 332-5_2117; StaH 332-5_ 2167; StaH 332-5_253; StaH 332- 5_2221;
StaH 332-5_444; StaH 332-5_8016; StaH 332-5_980; StaH 332-5_2904; StaH 332-5_5426;
www.ancestry.de, Passagierlisten "SS Ile de France" 19.9.1934, eingesehen am 27.10.2017; Hamburger Adressbücher 1883 bis 1887, 1938, online eingesehen unter http://agora.sub.uni-hamburg.de/subhh-adress/digbib/start am 29.10.2017; Schriftliche Auskunft Mémorial de la Shoah Paris vom 28.9.2017.
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